Lascaux 8 - addressing the Google company (triangle of language)

My entire Magdalenian experiment was performed in the Usenet forum of sci.lang, every step documented there. Now my current Magdalenian thread has been flagged for abuse. I don’t know why and by whom (although I suspect some people). What can I do? I address Google and compile a few of those messages to an open letter.

(triangle of language)

Google company, why cast a net if not hoping for fish? why maintain a scientific forum if not hoping for ideas? From me you get ideas, plenty original ideas, for example my triangle of human word language whose corners are

life with needs and wishes

mathematics as logic of building and maintaining

based on the equation a = a

art as human measure in a technical world

based on Goethe's world formula and ever turning key

all is equal, all unequal ...

I see language in a basic sense as intelligence of life – working together, coordinated by language (on all levels) we achieve more with the same effort, or the same with less effort. Intelligence and energy are correlated in some deep way I still can't really fathom (a hunch of mine from 1963). But maybe one day a reader will find a link between language as intelligence of life and life's negentropy?

Richard Feynman said it makes no sense if a thousand people tackle the same problem using the same box of tools – at least someone should try a different way. Paleo-linguists proceed backward in time. I make an educated guess about a remote past, guided by cave art and rock art and mobile art, and then proceed forward in time, developing and applying a different box of tools.

(cycle of ten years)

Google company, you hide my thread because it was flagged for abuse. The timing was perfect. I just completed a working cycle of ten years

early 2005 Lascaux calendar

late 2014 Chauvet calendar

late 2004 language and biology

early 2015 biology and religion

Now there is a solid body of Magdalenian for others to go on. I enjoy the (relative) quiet in my chambre séparée. Which reminds me of an earlier advice I gave you, concerning the Usenet of the future as a free open university with lecture hall, discussion room, black board, publishing corner (all virtual, of course). How about making a first step in this direction? You might replace the line '... flagged for abuse' by 'chambre séparée' or 'Magdalenian corner'.

For the time being no more ideas, inspiration and advice for sci.lang, no more turbocharching, energizing and immunoglobulin.

The drag of sci.lang are never ending meta-discussions larded with ad hominems and peppered with invectives. People escape to meta-levels, drop verdicts from above, judge in the name of the truth they own, can't focus on a topic, in earlier years led killrating campaigns and now they have the possibility of flagging my thread for abuse.

They have that, I have ideas.

(professional moron)

Google company, nine years ago you hired. I applied as professional moron. I can test a device or a program like a moron but observe professionally what happens and then draw conclusions. You thanked for my application but told me that for the time being you don't need someone of my abilities. I related the story to a programmer. He confirmed me: professional morons are exactly what the IT branch needs. Computer guys can't really test a program or device. They know too much. You want an average moron for that purpose. Remember what I said about art as human measure in a technical world.

I do the job anyway, giving you my advice for free. Innovative people just love to use the intelligence they are given – intuition and analytical powers well balanced.

When you introduced rating in early 2006 I told you that this will invite killrating campaigns. And so it happened, right from the beginning. The same happened to at least one member of another scientific group who wrote quiet and sensible messages. By and by I learned that the massive killrating campaign against me was led mainly by my second longtime online stalker of a multiple web identity. One of his many aliases confessed that he was my only killrater, so he was responsible for the campaign, over 6,000 kills while the poster mentioned above got more than 7,000 ... Now there is a possibility of flagging a thread for abuse. I wonder whether a single person can flag a thread several times using a variety of online identities?

(evaluating the place of computers)

Let me say a word about computers in the light of my triangle whose corners are life with needs and wishes, mathematics as logic of building and maintaining based on the formula a = a , and art as human measure in a technical world based on Goethe's formula all is equal, all unequal ...

Computers are located near the mathematical corner. They don't live, have no needs and wishes, don't care whether they are on or off, assembled or dissembled. They can neither duplicate the mind nor cover all of language. However, they increase our language skills and expand our mental abilities.

For the near future I imagine hybrid computers combining the classical number crunchers with neural nets no longer simulated but using elements inspired by synapses (in the making) and quantum computers allowing multiple states and perhaps entanglement.

Such hybrid computers will expand the place computers occupy in the above triangle, a fractal pattern still centered near the mathematical corner but flaring out, in sort of a fog with filaments, approaching but not reaching the other corners.

My forte is hermeneutics. I have or develop a feeling for the complexity of a problem and then look out for patterns of matching complexities among the potential solutions. Hybrid computers of the above kind will boost our hermeneutic skills that are basic in all our thinking, without ever duplicating the mind or reproducing all of language. Life will remain precious, needs and wishes partially irrational (see the next chapter).

On tv I heard that some Google people are dreaming of eternal life. How should that work? by implementing one's mind into a machine? Sorry, this will remain a dream, as you can see from the above. On the other hand one sometimes must imagine the impossible in order to achieve the possible.

In my opinion it is best to walk safely on the ground and sometimes look up to the stars. I consider my triangle a map of reality. Although a rudimentary map of only three corner posts it generates the complexity I see in language and the mind. Moreover, it can be used for orientation in our enterprises. You may mark your position within the triangle (near the mathematical corner) and install counterweights for a balance (life floor and art floor) that uphold their positions (real life and real art).

(depending on each other)

Language is basically the means of getting help, support and understanding from those we depend upon in one way or another. All of language is motivated by needs and wishes, every speaking situation embedded in them, also a seeming counter-example I was given recently

The state of New York has 62 counties.

In describing the world we are never entirely objective. We select a few aspects, leaving out many others, and render them in our own way. Then we make our description of a situation credible by inserting facts nobody can deny, and if we do that skillfully enough we guide our listener toward the conclusion we have in mind, so that he or she will be inclined to help us, 'help' in the widest sense of the word, and if only by agreeing on our opinion or by understanding our position. The above statement can be seen as part of such a context. Here it serves my argumentation motivated by my wish to be taken seriously and have my thread rehabilitated.

If the above statement appears in a geography or history schoolbook the wish involved is a good education for our children.

And if it appears in a traveller's guide it helps a destination manage tourism by giving out information, a publisher sell books by handing over the information in a pleasing form, and the reader get an idea of the region he or she may visit.

We have to consider the entire speaking situation when asking about the needs and wishes motivating a speaking sample.

Recently it has been calculated that someone living in a modern society depends all in all in all on a million people. That is where language comes from. We depend on others. We need their help, support and understanding.

(evaluating the place of sci.lang)

Let me now evaluate the place of sci.lang in the triangle of language (whose corners are life and mathematics and art, as explained previously).

The members of sci.lang (men only) deny that needs and wishes motivate language. They see language as a rational construct. Needs and wishes belong to psychology and are as off-topic in sci.lang as biology. My insisting makes me a fool, a crank, not entirely stupid but probably autistic, a crackpot, and my thread - work of a year, full of original ideas I share freely, trying to make the difficult simple for interested readers - has finally been flagged for abuse. The dogma of language being rational is defended emotionally, motivated by a need to feel independent and a wish to appear autonomous (probably a male imperative).

In sci.lang mathematical logic (a = a) prevails over the logic of art (equal unequal) and impairs the understanding of symbols in early writing. Polyphem in Homer's Odyssey is a formidable one-eyed giant milking sheep and goats in his cave – a giant but not a man, Much Famous resembles more a wooded mountain top than a man who eats bread: Polyphem is the Homeric symbol of Troy, his one eye the acropolis overlooking the river plain, his body downtown Troy VIIa providing protected shelter for 5,000 to 10,000 people, his cave the Trojan harbor on the Besik bay, and his sheep and goats foreign ships asked for high fees and tributes ... Helen of the white arms, beautiful Helen abducted by a Trojan prince, cause of the Trojan war, is the Homeric symbol of – tin, by then the most precious material, her white arms are tin ingots, and her glittering long robes she makes herself the glittering tin ore cassitterite; her husband xanthos Menelaos is the Homeric symbol of copper, the color xanthos covering all hues of copper ore, yellow brown red; and their daughter lovely Hermione who resembles golden Aphrodite is the Homeric symbol of bronze, alloy of copper and tin, of a golden shine when freshly cast. Now there is no tin in Greece, the Mycenaean tin came from Central Asia and was bound to pass along the Dardanelles where the Trojans laid hands on the precious cargo, abducting Helen, as it were ...

Denying the role of needs and wishes in language and ignoring symbols makes the forum of sci.lang occupy about the same place in the triangle of language as computers do. One may say the members of sci.lang try to stand the Turing test from the other side: by cutting off the features of language that go beyond computer logic.

(rules for better discussions)

My rules for a scientific group

The Usenet is a great facility. You can profit more

if you observe some basic rules.

Questions, observations and ideas are welcome.

No sincere question is stupid.

However, brace yourself for a cold wind.

Only scientific arguments count,

and the better ones win.

Apart from proven mathematical theorems there is

no scientific truth. All we have are more or less

provisional hypotheses and theories.

If you propose a new idea or hypothesis or even theory,

begin with a claim you consider most valid, a single one,

don't bamboozle the reader with a dozen claims at once.

If you disagree, focus on a claim you find most silly,

give an accurate summary in your own words, and only then

pluck it apart. You can be harsh if you find it necessary,

but avoid getting personal.

Invectives and ad hominems are no scientific arguments

and can't replace them.

Stand topic, focus, argue on the scientific level,

don't escape to meta-levels. Never ending meta-discussions

are a drag.

Claiming to know better is not enough,

show that you actually do.

Complaining alone won't help,

offer something better.

How, when and where did I behave against my rules? or violate another rule? Why was my thread flagged for abuse?

(World Economy Forum)

A fairly young man from the MIT Boston moderated a panel discussion at the World Economy Forum Davos in the Swiss Alps (where a day before the CEOs of Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Vodaphone gathered for another panel) and announced that in ten years most cars will drive automatically and all airplanes will fly automatically and machines will take over most of our tasks, except maybe novel writing – but who needs that many novels?

I mentioned mathematical logic (a = a) and the logic of art (equal unequal). Now the logic of art is also the logic of life and nature. In the late 1970s I predicted that the ‘zoo’ of elementary particles won’t be completed, for those particles have to satisfy the equation e = e = e … that considers the equal but ignores the unequal. The wider logic of equal unequal is present in symbols, analogies and metaphors that allow us to find and formulate our place in the world and later on lead to scientific and technological approaches.

Recently I proposed an alternative Turing test: machines will really take over when people hang computer graphics in their bedrooms. I know nobody who does that. In their office, maybe, but not in the room where they rest and sleep in the night and wake up in the morning.

Also the technological marvels of the future will have to be integrated into life and nature and be given a human measure, task of art, beyond machines. A work of art is to life what a mathematical formula is to technology.

By the way, I saw the WEF panels on tv. Bill and Melanie Gates presented a Stephen Hawkins video. The physicist in his wheelchair holds an encouraging address made audible via his talking computer: use your time, and consider that we all live on the same globe.

In earlier years he believed that physics will come to an end. Meanwhile he sees that it will go on. My word. And so will the co-evolution of technology and art, based on different logics of the same importance, neither one taken over by the other.

(quarry of ideas)

Google company, your awesome search engine relies on the work of an Italian mathematician. Ideas can grow powerful, but they begin small, and their authors are often in a weak position. Einstein was lucky to have Planck for a peer. Success was not even granted for the epitome of a genius. Professors at Berlin who hated relativity theory founded a society against Jewish nonsense in the sciences. And the American discoverer of neuroplasticity, now all the rage, was mobbed out of his lab and career. How many ideas and discoveries are lost because their authors were silenced?

When I am hindered from working I focus on the obstacles and obstaclers.

What is the use of archiving terabytes of chatting with a spray of textbook morsels? The online dictionaries from which someone occasionally quotes in order to gain a shadow of legitimation to exert power in sci.lang are already online.

My work is a quarry of ideas, marble of many colors.

Why was my thread flagged for abuse, and how did it happen? I assume that there is an algorithm evaluating complaints. Are you sure that it works properly? If there were an infallible algorithm discerning ideas from nonsense via certain patterns and the reaction of the public, such a marvel of artificial intelligence could take over the sciences, posing and answering questions automatically. But this can't be. Scientific progress at the forefront requires creativity based on the principle of equal unequal that goes beyond computer logic.

Also your search algorithm is a result of human creativity, and yields the best results when used creatively. Machines can enhance but not replace the creative mind. Not even the most sophisticated algorithms can emulate creativity that makes life and work pleasing at every scale. Also you, Google company, hire people, and deliberately stimulate their creativity. I shall believe in the strong claim of AI when a CEO takes his hat and hands his office over to an algorithm ...

Valid ideas are easily recognized in hindsight, not always in the present or looking forward in time, especially not by envious members of a scientific forum who compensate for their lack in ideas by playing power games.

(asking for modest privileges)

Google company, the Usenet allows a new form of publishing by developing ideas on a daily basis. Wonderful, progress comparable to printing that paved the way for the Renaissance and the modern sciences. I thanked you several times for maintaining the archive, and de facto by leading an experiment of ten years that was now ended by the flagging of my current Magdalenian thread for abuse and hiding it for the visitors of sci.lang.

Over the past years I told you several times that sci.lang and other scientific groups can only be improved when those who offer new and original ideas are rewarded by modest privileges instead of being punished – in former years by killrating campaigns, now by being flagged for abuse.

Edus don't publish new and original ideas of their own in sci.lang or another scientific group, the Usenet not being prestigious enough for them. Also, the previous interfaces to sci.lang mentioned several thousand members but the view count of the current one shows that there are perhaps a dozen active members in sci.lang only. Why should an edu write a careful and well composed message for such a tiny audience, and for the sole reward of being mocked and mobbed, flagged and flogged?

Moreover, ideas can be stolen. Happened to me. From the summer of 1974 onward I interpreted Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting as an allegory of seeing, and her smile as a beautiful optical illusion evoked by a firm and patient look into her eyes (especially her left eye in the center of the circle of her head). In October 2000 I posted a brief summary of my explanation and interpretation in sci.archaeology under the title of Mona Lisa smiling. It was kept in the archive of deja, and appeared for a long time at the top of queries for 'Mona Lisa'. Next year, 2001, the Harvard neurologist Margaret Livingston published a book wherein she gives the same explanation of the smile. I didn't see her book, but read about it, and then, a couple of years ago, I saw an interview with Margaret Livingston in a tv documentary by one Rudj Bergmann (or so) wherein she repeats my deja explanation almost verbatim. I contacted Rudj Bergman (or so). He replied that I should be pleased to have my explanation confirmed ... Share ideas, have them skimmed and stolen.

(Mona Lisa 1/4 field of vision)

In 1974/75 I attended the official art school at Zürich. My teacher liked discussing with me, and gave me free hand to do what I wanted. I was interested in perception and the field of vision. Look out for a clear and strong contrast of small elements (klar, star, feingliedrig) and focus on it as long as you can - not easy at all! Your mobile attention pulls you away, ever more powerfully, trying to make your glance explore other interesting contrasts in the vicinity and then farther away from the one you focus on. I willed myself to stay, with all mental power I could muster, and by and by succeeded in doing so, and then began drawing what I saw. Funny, my drawings were always too clear – because I drew what I knew and not what I saw. By and by I improved my skills and began to see what I saw from the eyes: a center of clear vision, a tiny spot comparable to sun and moon in the sky, surrounded by less and less clear (more and more verschwommen) areas where shadows merged with shadows, and, to a lesser degree, lights with lights, instead of objects I saw a realm of shadows leading their own life, so to say - but when I released my glance it quickly took in the wide field and all the most interesting contrasts and the objects were restored immediately, and looked so firm and stable as never before.

And then it happened that I saw a fairly large reproduction of the Mona Lisa, and noticed that she smiled when I looked into her eyes, especially in her left eye (in the center of the circle of her head), but when I tried to surprise her smiling and looked down on her mouth the smile was gone. When I looked back into her eye, and did so firmly and patiently, seeing her mouth unclear (verschwommen), the smile reappeared, and when I smiled myself, she showed me her loving smile ...

(Mona Lisa 2/4 an optical illusion)

Mona Lisa shows her beautiful smile when we look into her eyes, firmly and patiently, especially in her left eye, in the picture on the right side, in the middle of the circle of her head. When we do that we can't see her mouth clearly anymore, we don't even see the corners of her mouth, only shadows, merging shadows of the corners of the mouth and the cheeks, but we know they are there somewhere in the dance of shadows, and so we locate them where we assume them to be, however, a little to the side and above the actual corners of the mouth, which turns the line of her mouth into an arc and makes her smile. But if we look down from the eyes to her mouth again, hoping to surprise her smiling, the smile is gone - because we can discern the corners of the mouth from the shadows, we see her mouth again, and she smiles hardly. Look up again and her smile returns, and if you smile yourself she will show you her most beautiful smile, her loving smile ...

Repeating the experiment for days and weeks, as I did in 1974, you may notice that her smile changes, and even answers your glance in some mysterious way. Leonardo said a painting should be like a mirror and show what is before the glass pane. In the very special mirror of this painting we see our own feelings reflected and don't really recognize them as our own projections, instead we believe the woman before us can see into the depths of our soul, and over this new feeling her smile changes again and become a smile we expect from someone who can see right into our very soul. And if we smile, pleased of being recognized, she gives us her most beautiful loving smile.

(Mona Lisa 3/4 a theory of perception)

A) We see what we look at with open eyes.

B) We see clearly what we cover with our glance, a tiny spot comparable in size to the moon and the sun in the sky; everything else we see unclearly (verschwommen), and the more so the farther away something is from the spot we cover with our glance. Leonardo speaks of strong central rays of vision, surrounded by weak and lying ones – debole e bugiarde –, in seven passages of his notes (all of them grotesquely mistranslated because not understood).

C) We see what we know (Goethe). We complete the visual fragments in our mind, using every knowledge we have, from the deep inborn knowledge to the wide variety of learned knowledge to the spurious knowledge of the current surroundings kept alive and à jour by always moving our glance. If we fix our glance in the way described in the first part (my experiments from 1974) we can see what the eyes really show us, a strange realm of shadows with a couple of lights.

D) We really see what we cover with our mobile attention, everything else remains in the background of perception. (This has recently been proved by an experiment at the University of Chicago. Observers of a ball game were asked to count the touch downs, and did not notice a man wearing a gorilla suit ambling among the players, all they saw was the ball.) The mobile attention can contract itself to a tiny spot of the highest attention, or it can expand to a wide field of specifically low attention, exploring the field of vision for interesting contrasts, even expand to several senses and been absorbed by the immobile vigilant attention – and suddenly return, for example when a draught slams a door. The full moon close to the horizon appears way bigger than a camera would show it, whereas the same moon appears small when high up in the sky, for we feel safe when we look toward the horizon, but sort of dizzy when we look up high into the sky, not safe enough to focus our mobile attention and enlarge the shining disc. A cow in the spring, suddenly jumping, can appear close for the fraction of a second – enlarged by the mobile attention she attracts, but we know that cows can't blow up their size in an instant, and so our mind translates a big size into sudden and very short timed nearness. Glance and mobile attention are engaged in sort of a dance, either we direct our glance to a certain object and the mobile attention follows, taking it up and enlarging it for our easy perception, or the mobile attention gathers and contracts around an interesting spot of the vision field and calls the glance for clear vision.

E) Although we see only a tiny spot of our vision field clearly, we have the impression that we see everything clearly, in an effortless way - we just open the eyes and see the world, comparable to the way a camera takes pictures. This feeling testifies to the marvelous economy of biology. From the eyes we get just a tiny clear spot, but we move our eyes, our glance, taking up all interesting parts of our current vision field, keeping our short-lived knowledge of all the details alive for a short while, renewing it all the time, what disappears from the current surroundings also disappears from our short-lived knowledge of the current surroundings, what appears in it is taken up, and so we always know where we are and what goes on around us. Yet when we fix our glance in the way of my experiment from 1974, always looking at the same clear and strong contrast of small elements (klar, stark, feingliederig) our short-lived memory, no longer kept alive and à jour, fails composing the usual image of the world.

F) Also feelings influence the way we see the world. When we are in love it may shine, appearing fresh, of a wet glance, or in pastel colors, yet gray when we suffer from a heart ache. We take up with our senses what corresponds to our mood, and compose the image of the world from the elements we pick up in a given situation.

All the above laws contribute to the beautiful smile of the Mona Lisa, from which I infer that Leonardo knew them. Why did he omit her eyebrows? In order to make her eyes the most vivid contrasts, irresistible for our mobile attention that will call for the glance to meet her eyes and render them clearly but her mouth unclearly and set in motion the game of her smile ...

(Mona Lisa 4/4 an allegory of seeing)

Mona Lisa looks at us while we look at her, our glances are meeting, her mind appears active while her hands rest – she sees and is seen and personifies seeing. Her upper body forms a circle (radius one unit), her head a smaller circle (diameter one unit) around her left eye, and if we look firmly and patiently in her left eye we are rewarded by her smile. Her eyes mark the upper center of the painting while the brightest light appears on her bosom, just above the earthen-colored hem of her blouse, evoking the sun rising above the horizon. The woman appears in the window of a balcony, a window being to the house what the eyes are to the body (the window of the balcony was originally framed by a pair of columns that enhanced the impression of a window, artificial pupil in the shape of a square; original format of the painting 4 by 3 units, the unit given by a human measure, width of the head of Mona Lisa on the height of the small indentation of her veil near the height of her eyes, window sill on the left side dividing the picture height into 2 plus 3 parts or 1.6 plus 2.4 units). Mona Lisa in her eye-chamber occupies what Leonardo praised as ‘natural point’ in the eye lens wherein all rays of the seen world are meeting before spreading again and being received by the retina. We may say that Mona Lisa personifies the ‘natural point’ while the painting materializes the world view of Leonardo – there is nature, wide and hazy, primordial, there is life in form of a woman, and there are human made things, a bridge in the distance, a house with a balcony framed by a pair of columns, a seat, a cloth and a veil, and the three realms of nature and life and human made things are in harmony. The human made things lift us above many necessities of animal life, and accordingly the house hovers above the landscape, as if it were a balloon. Consider the landscape. There are two perspectives. On one side of the woman we see at a lake (almost from the front), on the other side on a lake (from above). The pair of contradicting perspectives has been considered a symptom of schizophrenia, but no, the complementary perspectives are a lucid way of saying that our mind operates with contrasts: we can’t understand all of the world in terms of one single system, there is always a contrary observation and theory, the pair of equal unequal in the logic of nature and life and art.

(L.H.O.O.Q.)

Marcel Duchamp made an irreverent joke by adding moustache and goatee to a reproduction of the Mona Lisa, and the letters L.H.O.O.Q that read ‘elle a chaud au cul’ in French. However, the real joke is that the seeming iconoclasm is actually the first accurate interpretation of the Mona Lisa as an allegory of seeing. Read the letters in English and you get LOOK ! The very fine ends of the moustache point exactly to the centers of the pupils above, the eyes being the organs of seeing, while the goatee points to the resting hands, their inactivity allowing eyes and mind real observation and contemplation, actual seeing. Marcel Duchamp developed a language of many symbols, among them warmth meaning liveliness and air spirit. When we read the five letters in a spirited way, by adding air, the same word in French and English, we get ‘elle a chaud occulaire” that can be translated as follows: Mona Lisa appears lively via her eyes …

My interpretations of Renaissance paintings, modern art, early art and finally cave art guided my Magdalenian experiment, now deprived of air in sci.lang.

(techno-logic)

As a young man I read a book on the logic of quantum physics, understood hardly anything but was fascinated by a footnote saying the basic equation of mathematics q = q has not yet been investigated. Well, I understood that, and made it my concern.

In my seminal year 1974/75 (summer to summer) it began dawning on me that the equation a = a (I changed the letter) is about reliability and stability required for our technological enterprises (later I would say for the purpose of building and maintaining) and allows interpretations of simple equations via technical situations

b = b = b = b = b = b ... and b = b

if the bricks (b) have the same form and size (b = b = b ...) the building

of the wall will succeed, and if the bricks (b) maintain their shape

and consistency (b = b) and neither crack in the summer heat nor soak

and crumble in the rain the wall will stand for a long time

8 = 2 + 1 + 5 = 8

we want to dismantle a machine (8) in order to clean and repair

the parts (2, 1, 5) and then assemble them again to the well

functioning machine we had before (8)

1 = 0.999...

the door (0.999...) should fit into the frame (1) or else it is stuck,

or there is a draught

10 = 3 + 0.999... + 6 = 6 + 0.999... + 3 = 10

we want to open the door (0.999...) in the wall (10) and pass

to the other side of the wall and close the door again

What would a mechanic do if nut and bolt won't fit, and if his metal were as unstable as water?

Mathematics deals with ideal objects that are identical (1 = 1 = 1) and remain unchanged (1 = 1) and thus automatically finds a way into the sciences and then into technology - the once most irritating so-called imaginary number i was applied in electromagnetism that made radio, tv, computer and Internet and other miracles of the modern world possible.

(law of the iron key)

One of our teacher monks at the monastery school I attended as a teenager told us about a forbidden mathematical operation, divisions by zero that make no sense and yield no result. I objected. One divided by zero equals infinite. No, he said. Yes, I insisted. Whereupon he unfastened a fairly big iron key from his belt and knocked it lightly on my head. No harm done, but I was silenced, and wondered. Mathematics, epitome of logic, apparently has a law that can' be sustained by a logic argument but must be implemented by knocking an iron key on my head.

When I began understanding mathematics as logic of reliability and stability required for technology based on the equation a = a I also recognized the other side of logic. An apple is an apple, yet one apple may be small and red and sweet, another big and green and rather sour, and what if the apple is eaten? if a seed falls on fertile ground it can germinate and grow into a tree and produce hundreds of apples ... The ideal objects of the mathematical world are identical (1 = 1 = 1) and remain unchanged whatever happens (1 = 1) while the real objects of the actual world are never absolutely identical and are bound to change – panta rhei said Heraklit, everything flows.

Then I read a formula by Goethe: all is equal, all unequal ..., and was happy to have my notion confirmed

a = a basic formula of mathematics, logic of reliability

and stability (logic of building and maintaining)

all is equal, all unequal ... logic of nature, life, and art

And the iron key of my teacher? marks the gate of mathematics, defending its realm from the infinite that is equal unequal in itself when untamed.

(a rose is a rose is a rose – Gertrude Stein)

1 = 1 = 1 ... and 1 = 1

Each one is the same, identical with every other one, and remains the same one forever, always, under any condition, and everywhere -- by day and night, year in year out, whether the sun shines or whether it rains or snows, in Europe and America, on Earth and Mars, in the Milky Way or a distant galaxy ...

Mathematical logic holds for ideal objects, only partly for real ones and living beings.

a = a

Both are the same letter, but one 'a' stands on the left side and the other 'a' on the right side of the equality sign.

an apple is an apple

One apple can be small, red and sweet, the other big, green and rather sour, and what when it is eaten?

a rose is a rose

Roses are flowers that were and are breeded into a wide variety of sorts.

a rose is a rose is a rose

The famous double formula by Gertrude Stein evokes the unequal in the equal, a white rose, a fine smelling yellow tea rose, a red rose, a budding rose, a blooming rose, a girl named Rose Rosy Rosemary ...

a human being is a human being

We are all equal, basically the same, but also different, of varying features and abilities, complementing each other to a hopefully well functioning society.

an elephant is not a mouse

Mouse and elephant are mammals; all mammals - including ourselves – descended from a mouse-like ancestor with a proboscis, and the hyrax, closest living relative of the elephant, looks like a big mouse.

a snowflake is a snowflake

Seen under a microscope each snowflake forms a hexagonal pattern of an endlessly varied design.

e = e = e = e = e = e ...

Elementary particles in physics must satisfy this equation that ignores the unequal in the equal and made me predict in the late 1970s that the 'zoo' of elementary particles won't be completed since the unequal can't be exhausted by the equal.

The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics

(Galilei)

God may understand all of nature in mathematical terms. We just deciphered the first lines on the first page of a 'book' that has more pages than we can ever count.

(free will or bound will ? broken perspective)

In 1979 followed my interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci's wall painting Ultima Cena or Last Supper in the former refectory of the monastery Santa Maria delle Grazie at Milan. The basic idea is quite simple but of great consequence.

A perfectly symmetrical picture space prolongs the actual room, by then the eating hall of the monks; in the foreground, high above the monks (and now the visitors) a long table, Christ in the middle, two and two groups of three disciples each by his sides, a while ago peacefully enjoying their meal, now stirred up by Christ who just announced that one of them will betray him ...

The equal and equal of symmetry holds a composition together while symmetry breaking or the unequal in the equal makes it lively.

Although the name of the traitor has not been mentioned, the disciples reveal Judas by their questioning, accusing, protesting and menacing looks and gestures. Peter turns toward John and asks him to ask Jesus who the traitor is. In doing so he presses Judas to the table, makes him lean over, and places the back of his knife into the traitor's back – as if he tried to push him out of the picture, but he can't succeed, for the long table holds the traitor back as if it were a barrier.

Also Judas belongs to the fateful bond of the Last Supper. He played a role in a divine plan. Jesus died not because of Judas but for the sins of us all.

Is Judas guilty or not? responsible for what he did or play a role in a divine plan? Do we have a free will or is our will bound to a higher will? or the laws of nature, biology, psychology, sociology, economy, and so on? laws we already know and others that may be discovered in the future? Homer 1 of the Iliad believed in fate. Homer 2 of the Odyssey objected: we can't hold the gods responsible for all we do. The pendulum swings forth and back and forth again. There are solid arguments for one opinion, but sooner or later equally good arguments will be raised for the opposite opinion. If criminals are not responsible then also those who want punishment or ask for revenge. Recent neurological experiments revealed that our fingers can carry out a decision a tiny fraction of a second before we make up our mind – but then, does a CEO know what all the employees are doing at this very moment? Our only option is to consider both aspects or sides or perspectives, although when and even if they contradict each other.

Seen from an ideal vantage point – four and a half meters before Christ, four and a half meters above the floor – the perspectives of the actual room and virtual room are one, yet seen from the floor on which we stand or move the ideal single perspective breaks apart into a pair of perspectives we can never really reconcile, maybe one line, or a couple of lines, but never all of them. The ideal single perspective of divine understanding is reserved for God alone. We humans, with our limited mind, have to consider both equal and unequal.

Remember the two perspectives of the landscape in the Mona Lisa painting.

(a question of trust)

Google company, you propose a new social contract: we give you our data and you give us connection. We make ourselves transparent while your algorithms remain opaque. Other companies guard their secrets too but also need connection. How can they solve that problem? with money? Will there be a new social divide: some can afford privacy while we others don't?

Moreover, your social contract requires trust. Your 'soft moderation' algorithm - as I call the algorithm evaluating complaints – flagged my Magdalenian thread for abuse. Why? I don't get an answer. And still suspect my stalker of nine years and a multiple online identity who led the massive killrating campaign against me. Algorithms can't really discern ideas from nonsense and act as judge, not even when combined with voting. Ask the world population whether Americans had been walking on the moon, and the answer will be No, the Apollo mission was a Hollywood hoax. Machines can do a lot and will achieve still much more, yet the human mind will always reach a higher or a deeper level than algorithms.

Google company, I make my blemished thread shine and sparkle with ideas. My current messages have a double purpose, echo-sounding your 'soft moderation' algorithm, and mentioning some of the preliminary studies that led to my Paleo-linguistic experiment of ten years, every step of which being documented, explained and made transparent in sci.lang.

further chapters

(poles of logic)

Goethe's formula 'all is equal, all unequal ...' was known to artists from time immemorial. It is present in the contrapost of Greek sculpture, and in the plays by Edward de Vere alias William Shakespeare, an alternative 'whetstone of witte' in reference to Robert Recorde's algebra book from 1557 wherein he introduced the equality sign as a long line of parallels

======, bicause noe.2. thynges, are moare equalle.

The logic of equal unequal is natural for the human mind, allowing us to find and formulate our place in the world, inexhaustible by mathematics and computers and algorithms, living in art. I interpreted several paintings in an abstract way: by simply naming symmetries (equal and equal) and symmetry breakings (unequal in the equal). The former hold a composition together, the latter make it lively. The figures or elements are equal and thus confirm each other; they are unequal, and this in such a way that they complement each other (symmetry of love). By and by the meaning of a painting revealed itself. When you look at a picture and notice a basic symmetry, make a list of the equal and equal, then a second list of the unequal in the equal. A good exercise. I made it for myself, and with my pupils when I gave pro bono lessons for two care organizations. It helped them to know that mathematical logic is only one side of logic, not logic per se - not the center of the world but one of the poles.

(evo devo publishing and repetitions)

Every medium offers new possibilities and has its own rules. I take the Usenet personally. It has been invented for my kind who share ideas and develop them online. A term from evolutionary biology comes to mind: evo devo, short for evolution and development. I publish various original ideas of mine, evolving and developing them online. Ideas are genotypes, messages phenotypes, repetitions go along with variations, or mutations in the biological metaphor, allowing for gradual evolution, and then, once in a while, the lucky event of a punctuation of the equilibrium occurs, a new idea is born and takes to the wings ...

Let me explain this with a concrete example.

In school I liked Ancient Greek and was fascinated by the colorful adventures of Odysseus, but what does the epic mean? A quarter of a century later, in the early 1990s, followed my first interpretation of Homer's Odyssey - a historical report rendered in symbols and dream logic. In 1998 I joined the Usenet. One of my concerns was and still is the Odyssey. First I developed my interpretation from the early 1990s, and then, in 2003 (as I recall) the equilibrium was punctuated when I recognized the Homeric family of metals, Helen and Menelaos and their daughter Hermione symbolizing tin and copper and their alloy bronze ... Now the legend of beautiful Helen causing the Trojan war made historical sense: there is no tin in Greece, the Mycenaean tin came from Central Asia and was bound to pass along the Dardanelles where the Trojans laid hands on the precious cargo, abducting Helen, as it were! In early 2005 I started what became my Magdalenian experiment of now ten years that helped me deepen and consolidate my interpretation. A summary is found near the beginning of my current Magdalenian thread (making sense of Homer lascaux6.htm ).

Publishing in a scientific group like sci.lang – evo devo publishing – is quite different from writing a paper or a book. By and by I found (evolved and developed) a specific form for it. Each message should be readable for itself, be connected with the previous ones on the same topic, and offer something new. A real challenge that requires a lot of repetitions, but then, repetitions come with variations or mutations that allow development and evolution, gradual evolution and occasional punctuations of the equilibrium.

(Then there is another form of repetition, my quoting of my previous message or a couple of messages: I saw posts disappear; by quoting mine I give them a better chance to survive, and think that I have a right to do so, because I don't hang around chatting but I work in sci.lang, sharing and developing original ideas of mine.)

Recently one member of sci.lang who considers my repetitions a possible symptom of autism asked me whether the fall of Troy symbolizes the fall of Knossos? or the fall of Ugarit? or the fall of Nineveh? No no no, the fall of Troy was the fall of Troy, symbolized by the blinding of the one-eyed giant Polyphem who resembled more a wooded mountain top than a man who eats bread. His one eye was the acropolis overlooking the river plain and his body was downtown Troy VIIa that provided protected shelter for 5,000 to 10,000 people, from which we can infer that the acropolis of Troy (Hisarlik) was sacked and burned down, perhaps in the summer of 1184 BC. The Odyssey, in my opinion, is a historical report rendered in symbols and dream logic. I said this about a hundred times, but apparently not even that many repetitions were enough.

(various angles)

Georg Cantor undertook a partial taming of the infinite, and in doing so increased the untamable side of the infinite. There are not only two cardinals (alpha-zero of the natural numbers, integers, fractions, rational numbers, and c of the real numbers) but infinitely many ever mightier cardinals, moreover, Paul Cohen found, the continuum hypothesis (c being aleph-one) is both true and false – true (c is aleph-one) with one set of sensible axioms, and false (c between aleph-zero and aleph-one) with another equally sensible set of axioms.

Each partial taming of the infinite means progress in mathematics then in the natural sciences then in technology, however, we won't exhaust the infinite. All we can do is follow Goethe's advice

Willst Du ins Unendliche schreiten

Geh nur im Endlichen nach allen Seiten

My poor translation: if you wish to get an idea of the infinite, just go in all directions of your finite world.

I do that, for example by looking at language from various angles, not only from the side of grammatical constructions (rational) but also from the side of life with needs and wishes (irrational), not only looking backward in time (comparative approach to early language) but starting from cave art and rock art and mobile art of the last Ice Age and proceeding forward in time (Magdalenian approach to early language, inspired by Richard Fester, professor of geology and outsider in linguistics), not only considering sound rules (falsely called sound laws) but also the physiology of speaking.

(simple yet complex)

Information theory knows the Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity while another form of complexity is well required from computer programmers but ignored in theory, the complexity in my formula for understanding early civilization: simple yet complex.

Mathematical logic is only one side of logic, therefore limited, yet a good programmer will circumvent the limitation by cleverly adapting his tools and skills, ultimately working like an artist.

Once I asked a programmer what he is doing? can he tell me in simple words? He replied that his objective is making a program simple, very simple, but high functioning, so that it can be used for many applications. Colleagues of him can write very complicated programs that work very well for a specific application, but often fail when the specifics change, rather frequent in the insurance business, and then they ask him to fix the program, which sometimes is not possible, and then he has to write an entirely new program. It can happen that he works for three weeks on a single program, making it ever simpler, so that in the end there is almost nothing left, and his colleagues wonder: what did you do all these weeks? but his program works miraculously well, and for all applications, not just for a specific one.

Because he goes for a complexity that is (to my knowledge) not valued in computer theory.

more light on the first Indo-European homeland

initiated by a question on the etymology of Eridanus

(Helios, Phaeton, Eridanus)

Phaeton was the son of Helios the sun god, but nobody believed him when he said so, people made fun of his claim, so he wanted to show them, and tricked his father into lending him his chariot and quadriga of sun horses for one day, traveled across the sky, but couldn't handle the fiery horses, brushed the ground, made it burn, rivers return to their sources, and finally fell into the Eridanus where he drowned, to the great grief of his father the sun.

Remember the formula 'simple yet complex'. The Phaeton myth could work on three distinct levels: a) on the level of psychology and moral where the topic is hubris; b) on the level of geography where I propose the region of Samarkand and Tashkent in Central Asia some 6,500 years ago, a place on the Syr Darya; and c) a rivalry with the first Indo-Europeans on the banks of the Amu Darya, centered in the triangle of Termez and Kunduz and Kurgan-T'ube.

The earthly counterpart of Eridanus has been seen as Po, Nile, and Euphrates. Based on my Magdalenian etymology AAR RAA TON Aeridanos Eridanus I propose the Syr Darya, filled with rain in spring, rain provided by the sky god of air AAR and light RAA, water that comes thundering down from the mountains, the sky god making himself heard TON via the rushing water he sends from above, whereupon the river flows into the Aral Sea, from AAR RAA ) or AAR RAA L, the sky god of air AAR and light RAA mirroring himself in that sea has the say ) or L ...

CA BEL IAS named the Magdalenian spring sun horse, sky CA warm BEL healing IAS – healing ailments of a long and harsh winter – and became ABelios AFelios Helios, the Greek sun god with a quadriga of horses. PhAI TON, beautiful and well organized settlement PhAI to make oneself heard TON, would have named a historical ruler somewhere in the region of Samarkand in Central Asia, on the Syr Darya, the king of a beautiful settlement PhAI who bragged or made himself heard TON about his wealth in silver and gold. He would have lived some 6,500 years ago, when the first Indo-Europeans gathered on the banks of the Amu Darya, centered in the triangle of Termez and Kunduz and Kurgan-T'ube, working in mines of the Alai Mountains were copper and tin was associated, their alloy yielding bronze, way more useful than silver and gold.

The river returning to the source may have been the Amu Darya parched before reaching the Aral Sea, and the drowning of Phaeton a flooding of the Syr Darya destroying the beautiful settlement of the historical 'sun king'.

The Phaeton myth would then commemorate a historical rivalry in the early days of the Indo-Europeans.

(Medusa, Perseus, Pegasus)

Medusa had been one of three Gorgon sisters who personified (in my opinion) the Neolithic culture on the shores of the Black Sea, of the Caspian Sea, and – in the case of Medusa – of the Aral Sea.

PIR SAI Perseus, fire PIR life SAI, would have been an early king of Termez who owed his name to an ingenious web of fire signals connecting Termez and Kunduz and Kurgan-T'ube, triangle of the first Indo-European homeland on the Amu Darya. He was also engaged in agriculture and initiated a system of irrigation channels that used up most water of the Amu Darya and was one of the reasons why the river failed reaching the Aral Sea, which was translated into Perseus beheading Medusa.

Out of her blood emerged the winged horse Pegasus, horse of poetry, indicating that the events around the foundation and consolidation of the first Indo-European homeland had been transformed into a treasure of legends and myths. If only we can read them properly. Magdalenian is a help in doing so.

PAC means horse, and AS means upward. AS PAC, upward horse, named small and sturdy pony-like horses that were used for transporting goods upward on hills and mountains, AS PAC Avestan aspa Sanskrit asva 'horse' while emphatic PAC AS AS, horse up up, yielded Pegasos Pegasus.

On the geographical level, the winged horse personifies the hot summer wind Afghanetz blowing from the Aral Sea along the Amu Darya upward to the Hindu Kush.

(By the way, the horse of the second IE homeland in the Uralic steppes east of the Rha Volga and of the third IE homeland in the Pontic steppes west of the Rha Volga was called by a phonetically similar but semantically different compound, AC PAS, expanse of land with water AC everywhere in a plain PAS – riding this animal you get everywhere PAS in the steppes AC, wherefrom Greek hippos Latin equus, and the name of the Gallo-Roman horse goddess Epona, alter ego of REO Rheia Rhea Rha Rhenus Rhine Rhodanus Rhone, Rhea the mother of Zeus and Poseidon and Hades, while Epona, riding a horse in lady fashion, was accompanied by a bird and a foal and a dog that evoke the emblematic animals of Zeus and Poseidon and Hades, eagle and horse and dog respectively. – Magdalenian leads further while the comparative method still can't locate the IE homeland. According to Mallory and Adams 2006 it had been placed everywhere between the North Pole and the South Pole. And PIE can't discern between AS PAC and AC PAS, turning them into the same root *h1ekwos.)

(aeri danos 'early parched')

Before mentioning a further rival of the first Indo-Europeans I'd like to say another word on Eridanus the heavenly river whose earthly counterpart would have been the Syr Darya. Map that river from the vantage point of the Aral Sea and you have a pretty good match for the constellation. Things get exciting when you know that Acamar, thaeta Eridani, had been the original end of Eridanus, from Achemar 'end of river', and that the circular group of stars in the modern constellation of Fornax ('Chemical Oven', from the middle of the 18th century) originally belonged to Eridanus. We may then draw these parallels: Eridanus and Syr Darya, Acamar and river delta, circular group of stars in Fornax and Aral Sea.

When we look backward in time (perspective of the comparative method) our vision can be blocked by recent constellations, by younger versions of early myths, and by over-formed names. Here, once again, my favorite over-forming. Cossiniacum was a Gallo-Roman settlement on Lake Lucerne in Central Switzerland, Cossini-acum, the acum of one Cossinius. I derive acum from AC for expanse of land with water (consider the many place names ending on -ac and -acq in the Guyenne, Rouffignac, Cognac). The later Alemannic tribes who settled in the region didn't understand the place name, parsed it wrongly, Cossi-niacum, and turned the place into Küssnacht 'Kissing Night' (laughter guaranteed in primary school when that village name comes up in a geography lesson, I still remember my own amusement from more than half a century ago).

I propose AAR RAA TON as origin of Aeridanos Eridanus, the sky god of air AAR and light RAA makes himself heard TON via the rain he sends in spring, rain filling the river bed, glacial waters rushing and thundering down from the high mountains in Central Asia ...

When Phaeton fell into the Eridanus, Zeus cast a thunder bolt, loyal to his grandfather the sky god AAR RAA NOS Ouranos, him of air AAR and light RAA with a mind NOS who would have disapproved of Phaeton's journey across the sky, his own realm that became the realm of Zeus and his eagle, German Aar, König der Lüfte, 'eagle, king of the airs (plural)'.

AAR RAA TON may have become Aeridanos Eridanus via the Greek over-forming aeri danos 'early parched'. If so, this was a good over-forming, because not only the Amu Darya but also the Syr Darya can parch, dry up and disappear before reaching the Aral Sea.

(Centaurs, Lapiths, Chiron)

Myths were told and retold, lifted out of their geographical and historical context, modified and adapted for other places and periods of time. When we find their origin, we can hope to back-translate them from the younger versions. Phaeton's amber tears in Hesiod may then have been fiery tears of liquid gold falling into the glacial waters of the Syr Darya and freezing to gold ingots, thus explaining the rich pockets of gold in that river and region, gold still being mined at Muruntau northwest of Samarkand and Tashkent.

Hesiod locates the Centaurs in Thessaly, but originally, I believe, those horse-men were Afghan miners going for nephrite that was used for making stone axes, for other stones worked into tools and jewelry, for lapis lazuli, and for copper. Imagine trails of them leading their small sturdy horses, united with them in the symbol of the Centaur ... Venturing down from the Hindu Kush into the valley of the Amu Darya they would have encountered the Lapiths, Indo-Europeans gathering in the triangle of Termez and Kunduz and Kurgan-T'ube. Conflicts ensued, but were ended by Chiron the good Centaur, in my opinion an early ruler of Shachr-i-Sochta in Sistan (eastern tip of Iran), a wise man who cared for his people and his miners, providing safety for their hard work and often very long and dangerous trails. Chiron was also remembered as a healer, and was highly esteemed by the Greeks.

We have then the following picture: the first Indo-Europeans gathering on the Amu Darya, settling in the triangle of Termez and Kunduz and Kurgan-T'ube, mining copper associated with the tin ore cassitterite in mines of the Alai Mountains, overcoming their rivals, one of them bragging Phaeton somewhere between Samarkand and Tashkent on the Syr Darya who made his wealth with gold and silver, another of them the Neolithic culture in the river delta of the Amu Darya personified by Medusa, and the third one Afghan miners personified by the Centaurs, a battle with them ended by wise Chiron.

May it be that Afghans taught the Lapiths or first Indo-Europeans how to tame horses?

(Termez and Lapiths)

Magdalenian TYR means overcomer, as verb to overcome in the double sense of rule and give, emphatic Middle Helladic Sseyr (Phaistos Disc, Derk Ohlenroth) Doric Sseus (Wilhelm Larfeld) Homeric Zeus. Possible derivatives of TYR abound in Western Central Asia.

If Termez is an ancient name, the original form could have been TYR MmOS, offspring MmOS of the heavenly overcomer TYR, town of the TYR Sseyr Sseus Zeus people. (Consider also Tiras in the Bible, a son of Japheth who was a son of Noah, Genesis 10:2, Noah from NOS AAR RAA, they who follow the mind NOS of the one of air AAR and light RAA.) And if the Lapiths were the first Indo-Europeans gathering on the Amu Darya, in the triangle of Termez and Kunduz and Kurgan-T'ube, their original name could have been LOP ITA, enveloping hedge or fence or palisade or wall LOP young bull ITA, they who are dwelling in enclosures of the Zeus bull, in towns or fortresses protected by palisades, decorated with bucrania as emblems of the Zeus bull. (Also AAR RAA NOS and the male triad of the Göbekli Tepe had been represented by bucrania. Consider also the Hurri bull and the Serri bull of the Hurrites adopted by the Hittites, AAR RAA Hurri, and TYR Serri analogous to TYR Sseyr.)

ITA CA, young bull ITA sky CA, would have named Ithaca, originally the Peloponnese and especially the Argolis, under the sky of the young Zeus bull, a name surviving in a comparatively small island off the Peloponnese. (ATI CA, mature bull ATI sky CA, would have named Attica as land under the sky of the mature Zeus bull.)

POL LOP, fortified settlement POL enveloping palisade or wall LOP, would again have named the Peloponnese and especially the Argolis, land of the fortified settlements enveloped in palisades (Tiryns, Middle Helladic period of time) then stone walls (Tiryns, Late Helladic period of time).

PAS LOP, everywhere (in a plain) PAS enveloping palisade or wall LOP would account for Penelope, faithful wife of Odysseus, personifying the Argolis, walls everywhere, enveloping the Late Helladic towns, keeping at bay the shameless suitors of Penelope, those who try to take hold of the fertile plain (heritage of Eponymous Tiryns on the Phaistos Disc alias Lord Laertes the gardener in the Homeric lineage Zeus – Arkeisios – Laertes – Odysseus – Telemachos, the latter representing the Peloponnese during the Messenian wars, times of Homer 1 of the Iliad and Homer 2 of the Odyssey).

(Greeks and Hellenes

GRA KOS, decorated cave GRA heavenly vault KOS, would have named mines in the Alai Mountains above the Amu Darya where copper ore and the glittering tin ore cassitterite were and still are associated. Imagine a cave, a mine widening to a chamber, the walls and ceiling glittering in the light of a torch, evoking the starry sky – GRA KOS Graikos Graikoi Greeks Greece ...

KAL LAS, cave KAL mountain LAS, would have named caves or mines in the Alai Mountains – KAL LAS Hellas Hellenoi Hellenes ... The same compound might have named the Alai Mountains as mountains of caves or mines

KAL LAS hAL LAS hAL LAiS AL Ai Alai ??

KAL EN, cave or mine KAL inside EN, would have named Helen as Homeric symbol of tin, while KAL from KAL LAS and KOS from GRA KOS taken together yield KAL KOS chalkos for copper and bronze.

GAR named a fissure in rock, a crevice that may be widened and deepened to a mine. The Alai Mountains belong to Tajikistan and Kirghizia. At the eastern base of the Alai Mountains is a town by the name of Qashqar

GAR KOS kiR giS Kirghizia ??

KOS GAR qaSh qAR Qashqar ??

In Homer's Odyssey we find the lineage Zeus – Arkeisios – Laertes – Odysseus – Telemachos. TYR Sseyr Sseus Zeus may stay for the first Indo-Europeans on the Amu Darya and their sky god. Arkeisios would have led the miner tribes of the Greeks and Hellenes to Thessaly and the Argolis. Lord Laertes the gardener alias Eponymous Tiryns on the Phaistos Disc would have been a ruler of the Middle Helladic period of time. Odysseus would personify the Peloponnese in the time of the Trojan war, and Telemachos would personify the Peloponnese in the times of the Messenian wars, when Homer 1 of the Iliad and Homer 2 of the Odyssey feared that Greece could break apart.

(a lost oral epic from Central Asia?)

AD LAS Atlantis, toward AD mountain LAS, may have been the vision of a primeval world island around the former world mountain in an oral epic from Central Asia, wide plains with rolling hills oriented toward AD the central mountain LAS – on top of the mountain TYR Sseyr Sseus Zeus and his eagle; rivers running down from the mountain and across the fertile plains, flowing into the surrounding ocean, the rivers having been the realm of PAD AD DA Poteidas PAS TON Poseidon, he who walks PAD along rivers that flow toward AD the ocean while coming from DA the world mountain, and everywhere PAS he and his horse came to they made themselves heard TON; and a beautiful cave KAL or hall clad with precious stones and ores inside the mountain, realm of KOD DHAG Hades, hut KOD (among the many derivatives French château 'castle') able DhAG, and his watchdog. The first people were made of chalkos, metal. They were followed by human beings who led a happy life in the fertile plains. However, they began to envy the metal people, and wanted to become equals of the gods. This raised the anger of Zeus who eventually smashed the world mountain and drowned all humans – except for one single pair – in a terrible flood.

The former world mountain was torn apart and became the ranges and peaks we see today, while the beautiful hall inside became the veins and loads of ores and precious stones in today's mountains, and the beautiful cave KAL (another word of many derivatives, among them Greek kallos 'beautiful' and English hall) became a hell for those who labor in mines, and finally Hades turned into the god of the Underworld and of the dead, also this realm guarded by his dog.

A memory of the beautiful hall is kept in book four of Homer's Odyssey, inhabited by metal people, Helen being the Homeric symbol of tin, Menelaos being the Homeric symbol of copper, and their daughter lovely Hermione who resembled golden Aphrodite being the Homeric symbol of bronze, alloy of copper and tin, of a golden shine when freshly cast ...

AC EON NOS, expanse of land with water AC shore EON mind NOS, he who personifies the shore line (both land and water), accounts for Okeanos and English ocean, the ancient god represented as man with the body of a long undulating water serpent.

The deluge may have been inspired by the hypothetical flood that would have drowned the beautiful and well organized settlement of the historical Phaeton somewhere on the Syr Darya, in between Samarkand and Tashkent, and the hubris punished by Zeus could have been his bragging. There would also have been a warning for the first Indo-Europeans. The lost epic would have been a moral tale. And it is not entirely lost. We have fragments left in early Greek mythology.

(rising water)

Spring rain and melting snow make the Amu Darya and Syr Darya and their tributaries rise, causing river tsunamis and mudslides. A flood could have destroyed the beautiful and well organized settlement of the historical PhAI TON Phaeton on the river AAR RAA TON Aeridanos Eridanus then Jaxartes now Syr Darya, magnified to a deluge in the oral epic of AD LAS Atlantis.

A river tsunami combined with an attacking lion named the fierce warrior AChI )EI or AChI LEI Achilleus Achilles from Thessaly, rising water AChI attacking lion )EI or LEI.

AD DA KOS Hindu Kush, toward AD from DA heavenly vault KOS, named the mountain range as origin of many rivers that flow toward AD seas while coming from DA rocky heights under the heavenly vault KOS.

AD DA NAI Athaena Athena, toward AD from DA to find a good place for a camp NAI, was the goddess of towns on a river or a trading route that lead toward AD one place while coming from DA another place, where people found a new home NAI. Athena was a nymph, a Naiad, Greek naiax naiades, from NAI AD DA, personifying sources that were also good places for a camp. Troy, once protected by Athena, was built on a double source, a warm and a cold one. POL LAS, fortified settlement POL mountain LAS, yielded the byname of Athena, Pallas Athena, protecting an acropolis. (POL LAD Palatinus, fortified settlement POL hill LAD, named the hill on which Rome was founded. LAD EN, hill LAD in EN, named the Latin speaking dwellers in the hills of Latium.)

AD DA SAI Odysseus, toward AD from DA life SAI, named the life SAI on a river or a trading route that leads toward AD one place while coming from DA another place, personified by Odysseus. AD DA NAI Athaena Athena once protected Troy but turned into its fierce enemy, urging and helping Odysseus destroy the Much Famous town (Polyphem, Homeric symbol of Troy). How come? Modern bronze contains five per cent of tin, Mycenaean bronze required up to twelve or even fifteen per cent, but there is no tin in Greece. The Mycenaean tin came from Central Asia and was bound to pass the Dardanelles where the Trojans laid hands on the precious cargo – abducting Helen, as it were. The early Trojans had been excellent river pilots and helped foreign sailors navigate their perilous waters. However, in later times they began asking for exorbitant fees and tributes, angered the Achaeans (Homeric term for all Greeks), made their temper rise like a river and caused a metaphorical tsunami via AChI )EI or AChI LEI Achilleus Achilles who attacked with the combined force of a rising river and a lion, and made Odysseus a hater – AD DA *hed odio odysasthai hate –, made all Greeks or Achaeans rise and fight Troy, all warriors of AChI AD DA Ajjawa Achaia, all Achaeans ... The name of Odysseus (who got help from Athena, Homeric symbol of history) is commonly explained as hater. Magdalenian sees deeper. The river rises only when its course is being blocked, in the given example the way of the Mycenaean tin from Central Asia, original home of the Greeks and Hellenes, to their new home in the west.

(a pair of names for the first Indo-European homeland)

My Eridanus messages are a telling example of what I call ‘evo devo ‘publishing’. I went again for my hypothesis concerning the first Indo-European homeland on the Amu Darya centered in the triangle of Termez and Kunduz and Kurgan-T'ube, adding more aspects, and making it simpler at the same time – filled in gaps provide a level ground on which to walk more easily. (Complications often arise because of missing elements. Connections get shorter with more dimensions.)

Goethe said the world is much more complex than we will ever understand, and at the same time much simpler than we will ever comprehend. I work in both directions, making my hypothesis more complex and simpler at once.

Questions answered raise more questions. The full name of Atlantis might have been AD LAS DhAG, toward AD mountain LAS able DhAG, world island oriented toward AD the central world mountain LAS, home of the able ones DhAG – home of TYR Sseyr Sseus Zeus and his eagle on the top, of PAD AD DA Poteidas PAS TON Poseidon and his horse following the rivers, and of KOD DhAG Hades and his dog, lord and guard of the beautiful hall inside the former world mountain.

DhAG also accounts for dag 'mountain' as seat of the able ones.

Inverse GADh meaning good plays a role in the Atlantis story by Plato. Atlas was the first king, in my reading personifying the land oriented toward AD the world mountain LAS. He had a younger twin-brother by the name of Gadeiros while his land was Gadeirikae Gadeira, and the Greek version of Gadeiros was Eumaelos, Eu- meaning good, so the language of Central Asia would have been a late form of Magdalenian, GADh Gad- paralleled by Greek Eu-.

Maybe the triangle of Termez and Kunduz and Kurgan-T'ube was called AD LAS or AD LAS DhAG Atlantis, and the region south of the Aral Sea, mouthing area of the Amu Darya, taken over by the first Indo-Europeans, was called GADh AAR RAA, the good one GADh of air AAR and light RAA, land of AAR RAA ) or AAR RAA L, he of air AAR and light RAA who has the say ) or L ... ?? (Later on we shall see that Gadeira was the region of Bukhara, or from Bukhara to the Aral Sea.)

If so we'd have a pair of names for the first Indo-European homeland, AD LAS DhAG Atlantis for the triangle of Termez and Kunduz and Kurgan-T'ube, and GADh AAR RAA Gadeira for the river delta of the Amu Darya (from Bukhara to the Aral Sea).

Gadeiros and Eumaelos, Bukhara

How can Greek eumaelos 'rich in sheep' and Eumaelos personifiyng a region abundant in sheep go along with GADh AAR RAA CA Gadeirikae, good GADh air AAR light RAA sky CA, land of the good one of air and light in the sky, personified by Gadeiros?

Latin aries 'ram' could well derive from AAR RAA, short for the sky god of air and light, rams having been sacrificed to the sky god of the Göbekli Tepe as suggested by the reliefs on pillar 1 of temple A.

Rain was implored by prayers and the rising smoke of sacrificial fires that were symbolized by snakes heading upward, and falling rain rewarding the prayers and sacrificial fires was represented by snakes heading downward. Pillar A1 shows one snake heading upward and four snakes heading downward on a small face, a web of interlaced serpents heading upward and downward on a wide side, under it a ram, and under the ram, lying horizontally at the base of pillar A1, is a slab the size of a ram, suggesting that rams were sacrificed in rain-imploring rituals and ceremonies.

Sheep abound in the region of Bukhara near Samarkand. If Bukhara is an ancient name, its origin may have been PEC AAR RAA, medium-sized animals PEC air AAR light RAA, Latin pecus for animals like sheep and goats, plural pecora, -ora perhaps a reminder of AAR RAA, animals that were sacrificed to the ancient sky god (residing on mountains, Greek oros). Gadeirikae personified by Gadeiros and Greek Eumaelos could then have been the plain of the Amu Darya north of the mountains, from Bukhara to the Aral Sea, expanding the first Indo-European homeland centered in the triangle of Termez and Kunduz and Kurgan-T'ube, reign of AD LAS Atlas, first king of Atlantis, older twin-brother of Gadeiros Greek Eumaelos.

(revived by rain)

Medea in the Colchis on the eastern shore of the Black Sea might originally have been a shamaness on the Syr Darya imploring rain from AAR RAA NOS, him of air AAR and light RAA with a mind NOS, by cooking a sacrificed ram in her cauldron, together with magic herbs, whereupon the animal, revived and rejuvenated, leapt out of the vessel as a lamb – in my opinion a symbol of the land revived by rain, rain sent by the god who accepted the sacrifice of the ram.

The Golden Fleece may indicate a region on the Syr Darya where gold had been washed out of the river with fleeces. On a Greek vessel the Golden Fleece appears as hide of a ram hanging from the trunk of a tree, guarded by an ascending snake wound around the tree trunk. (Maybe there was a moral. The forbidden tree in the Bible had originally been a Sumerian date palm. Cultivated date palms require plenty of water, symbolized by a serpent in form of a stairway, standing on the ground, reaching the sky, drinking from a cloud. Irrigation started a civilizatory process that also had negative consequences. Agriculture meant more labor than a life of hunting and gathering, and irrigation deposited too much salt on the arable land in Sumer, making the ground less and less fertile, forcing Abraham to leave. And the query for metals, beginning with gold washed out of rivers, opened Pandora's box.)

When the monsoon does not arrive in India, Brahmans invoke Varuna by sitting in cauldrons filled with water, mainly red petals floating on the surface. The Brahmans in cauldrons may elicit Medea's ram that became a lamb again – a symbolic sacrifice accepted by the god who shall release the monsoon, thus revive the land, rejuvenating people and animals. Greek has araen Genitive arnos for lamb, Indo-Iranian varan (a schwa for the second vowel) and Sanskrit uran-. AAR RAA NOS Ouranos araen arnos Varuna varan uran- ...

The ancient sky god named valleys like the Val d'Aran, Arundel, or Val d'Hérens in the Swiss Alps – a valley being a hollow between hills or mountains filled with air and light –, and rivers like the Arnus Arno in Tuscany where Etruscan haruspicini read fate from livers of sacrificed sheep. Magdalenian etymology of haruspex: AAR RAA SPA OC, air AAR light RAA high SPA right eye OC, seeing what the one of air and light high above has in mind ... Latin speculum for mirror would derive from SPA OC, the heavenly height and realm of the one of air and light mirrored in the surface of a pond or lake.

(naming the horse)

CA LAB, sky CA cold LAB, named the winter sun horse (descending horses in the niche at the rear end of the axial gallery in the Lascaux cave, Marie E.P. König), wherefrom gallop, and German Klepper for an old and tired horse.

CA BEL, sky CA warm BEL, named the spring sun horse (lovely ‘Chinese’ horses in the axial gallery of Lascaux, heading from the niche to the rotunda), in a longer form CA BEL IAS, sky CA warm BEL healing IAS, the warm spring sun healing ailments of a long and harsh winter, wherefrom ABelios AFelios Helios, the Greek sun god with a quadriga of horses.

CA BAL, sky CA hot BAL, named the summer sun horse (red mare of the midsummer sun rising above the horizon of the ledge in the glorious rotunda of Lascaux), wherefrom Latin caballus Italian cavallo French cheval Spanish caballo.

Hear them run across the sky

CA LAB CA LAB CA LAB CA LAB …

CA BEL CA BEL CA BEL CA BEL …

CA BAL CA BAL CA BAL CA BAL …

Magdalenian had PAC for a common horse. AS PAC, upward AS horse PAC, named small sturdy pony-like horses used for transporting good up on hills and mountains, Avestan aspa and Sanskrit asva for horse. Emphatic PAC AS AS, horse up up, named the winged horse Pegasos Pegasus, personification of the hot summer wind Afghanetz blowing from the Aral Sea along the Amu Darya up to the Hindu Kush, and became the symbol of poetry, testifying to a treasure of legends and myths around the foundation of the first Indo-European homeland (earliest level of Greek mythology, lost oral epic of Atlantis).

A phonetically similar but semantically different compound named the horse of the second IE homeland in the Uralic steppes east of the Rha Volga and the third IE homeland west of the Rha Volga, AC PAS, expanse of land with water AC everywhere (in a plain) PAS – riding this animal you get everywhere PAS in the steppes AC … AC PAS *h1ekwos hippos equus Epona – the Gallo-Roman horse goddess Epona was an alter ego of REO Rheia Rhea who named rivers like the Rha Volga, Rhodanus Rhone, Rhenus Rhine. Her main sanctuary was Alesia near a source of the river Seine at the base of Mont Réo. She rode a horse in lady fashion, accompanied by a bird and a foal and a dog that evoke the emblematic animals of Zeus and Poseidon (Doric Poteidas) and Hades, eagle and horse and dog respectively. Zeus and Poseidon and Hades were sons of Rhea who was a daughter of Ouranos, Magdalenian AAR RAA NOS.

TYR means overcomer, as verb to overcome in the double sense of rule and give. Inverse RYT meaning spear thrower, archer, accounts for German Ross und Reiter English horse and rider (RYT emphatic Ross analogous to TYR emphatic Sseyr), also for German Ritter ‘knight’, originally a riding archer, Greek rhytaer ‘archer, protector’. (Consider also the sun archer Tir of the Armenian Bronze Age, while Armenian and Araman and Aramaean derive from AAR RAA MAN, they who carry out the will of the one of air AAR and light RAA with their right hand MAN, also accounting for the Val d’Hérémence in the Swiss Alps, next to the Val d’Hérens. The old sky god became the AAR RAA Hurri bull of the night sky and the TYR Serri bull of the day sky with the Hurrites. CA LUN, sky CA full round form LUN, named the bull of the full moon – the proud white bull by the side of the red mare of the midsummer sun in the rotunda of Lascaux – and became a goddess in Greek and Latin, CA LUN Selaenae Selene –later identified with Artemis, an archer – and Luna, while NUL, inverse of LUN, accounts for German Null ‘zero’ and Latin nihil ‘nothing’.) Also TYR named rivers, Douro Durance Thur, and Darya ‘river’ in Amu Darya and Syr Darya. The Vaksh, a tributary to the Amu Darya, might perhaps have been named for PAC SA, horse PAC downward SA, the river swelling in spring and early summer compared to a herd of horses running down a slope?

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