Department 64 Collective

Something else to consider: bias in translation. I am not accusing anyone of bias or attempting a kind of propaganda insertion into translated texts, i just wanted to explain my view on how it could mutate an idea to that end. The interesting part of the translation process it the inherent trust put in the individual translating “ideas”. Language is not a static code of meaning that when you hear a word, you get the same understanding whoever you are. Words are perceived slightly different to everyone, even within the same culture. People also may use vastly different words for the same concept in different cultures. This is where the problem arises. You take an idea conceived by the original author and need it passed on to people of lesser experience, lesser education, different language, different discipline, or just reduced in length. In this, you give the translator a huge amount of power. They could in all good intentions adapt that message in such a way as to lose the original concept, or they could, in bias, translate it in a more acceptable way to the audience. What I’m trying to get at is the idea of translation as having a power over knowledge. This could lead to another form of censorship that slips through the cracks of our awareness. We accept what we read because we trust the source. I’m not saying to be skeptical of all information, it is that a simple text cannot express the full complexity of the original concept in a person’s mind. The ideal form would be a real time dialog with them. They explain their idea, then a comparison with what one individual understands from hearing, and a response, clarifying further. The alternative would be a huge amount of writing or other media.

EXAMPLE:
I was reading in a religiously themed book about various works of art. One of the concepts discussed was expressed in the original words, “multum in parvule” then translated as “Divine Child”.

Think for a second on whether you agree with it. If you don’t agree, you may disregard what comes after. if you do accept it, trusting their research, you can read on to see what the author of the interpretation has to say. Here are my thoughts on it, working only from common sense observations of language as i know it:

multum in parvule:

Words with “mult” usually have to do with “many” like “multiply” or “multitude”. For most of the related definitions it deals with QUANTITY.

“in” is a connecting word obviously because it is short, which implies heavy usage. If you are connecting many ideas in sentences all the time you’ll need an efficient, and therefore short, word. “me” and “I” would be the next shortest/most used in a language but is a connecting word and not a personal pronoun because it is clearly CONNECTING these two words by being between them. “in” as i know it, means “containment” of the connected words: one IN the other. It means they are together somehow.

parvule is a tricky one, but I extracted a meaning from the first place i could think of: Golf! if you’re under PAR, your strokes are less than a number which is set as a limit. There is also “part” and “particle” both of which relate to small elemental pieces, or sections. Most of the definitions are trying to get the concept of either division or “smallness”.

Through this multifaceted approach to understanding the IDEA they are expressing in this phrase, i have these results:

“Many within the few”
or
“Divided from many”

My analysis of the author’s translation are as follows:
“Divine Child”

Divine is speaking of purity or holiness as we understand it, but when I look at the word the first thing I see is the word “Divide”. Only one letter change! Is “divine” talking about a splitting of something? If so, this agrees mostly with the original text.

We know a child as the offspring of humans. For animals there are more specific names like, pup, kid, or foal, so this translation is trying to apply it to a human baby. A baby is a combination of two parents. This fits because from 2 there is 1. This also agrees with the translation.

I’d say this is an OK translation, but from “common” understanding of “Divine Child”, most would see this as “Son of God” or “God with us”.

If you are relying on a set of information to prove your belief system, then this is a perfectly reasonable translation. What if the original text, if translated with exacting effort, does not prove your way of thinking? What if the original idea was talking about a competing ideology? This phrase could be applied to a religion with many gods, where a single element is split. Like a son of the “GODS” This idea would not work out too well for some. Perhaps it is talking about a celestial idea, kind of like: “we are made up of stardust”, where we are only a tiny part of a huge system. Or the noble: “One for all… and all for one!” Even these interpretations could be taken many different ways, and how would you express them in different languages?

It all becomes mud when it leaves the mind, but if you take all those re-translations and attempts of teachers from every time, in every culture and combine them into one amalgamated feeling, it is this: “You are not alone.” This is probably the most desired thing to realize, and really feel, in human existence. It is the essence of love. It needs many volumes to explain, because you can’t feel it in this simple phrase. It can’t really be experienced without discovering it in the world outside. From connecting with others. The other most important thing is to feel that you can make some difference, or affect in the world, to prove to yourself and others that you, in fact, do exist.

I’m not trying to agree or disagree with any particular belief system in this analysis, I’m only using it as an example of the potential for warping an idea through disconnected connotations in translating. It may not be only translation that does this. Just consider what would happen if you had to summarize and paraphrase a huge body of text consisting of many books, into just one page. The quality of the original ideas could not possibly be the same, in fact it may end up as a totally different subject.
Things to ponder.

I’ve come to a disturbing realization that the past present and future are connected in a way that is predictable. This feeling and method of control are really unexplainable because the intentional shifting of seeing the present as a memory involves a mental muscle that is involuntary. With practice you can learn to effect it, and eventually apply conscious will to it. i have done a temporal experiment where i tried to follow the future memory and current intention to it’s conclusion. Also being aware of my level of belief in the visual record as a true image of the past. This image that i see in the area of past recognition will be lost if i fail to have belief in it. But if i continue to see the path as coming true all the time it will. I have chosen lottery numbers that i traced to the image of the moment of me checking them on the internet at the kitchen table here. if i arrange these images with what i do in reality, the numbers i chose will be the ones that where supposedly “random”. we live the same life as a cycle of events over and over, seeing the future and trying to make the desirable events happen, and avoid the undesirable ones. We can foresee some of the choices, and possibilities in our realm of internal vision. This is perceived as “imagination” but it is actually a record of the past. perhaps it is not that we want the desirable to happen it could be that we want to know that our visions of the unproven past (future) are true. i could be losing a grip on my perception of time placement. am i living in a memory of future events, or do i really have some minute handhold on the course of reality unfolding. This is really impossible. i have always wanted to try to go back into the past to change some events, but when i imagine the time i would go back to, and the time i believe is the present, i wonder what my motivation would be. if i found myself fully conscious suddenly as a child, first of all, would i realize it? second, how would i perceive, in my mind, the world i previously thought was the present? would i feel it inside like a wish, an imagining of a possibility, or would i feel it like a memory. I’m afraid that i would see it as an imagination of a possible moment in my life, but then i would get caught up in that time period. I might realize that i want some things to happen the same to get certain results and try to prevent other things to improve my future. I finally come to the conclusion that it is pointless to time travel in this way because that is potentially what i already tried to do when i was living back then, and what i continue to do to this day. It really fries my brain to think about, yet it is so simplistic. I will record my results and interpretation of my experiment on Tuesday when the lottery is drawn.

I have been forming a visual idea about the sun being a polar opposite of a black hole. Possibly, the solar core is the singularity of a black hole in a different area of space the absolute furthest, and absolute closest. It may be impossible to think of, but it seems to me like there is some functional relationship between something that sucks in all energy, and one that is exploding massive amounts of it. I have also seen that suspicious similarity in how our perception of the past and future works. We flow through the present as if it were a massive singularity, sucking in the infinite non-linear probabilities, all getting more certain as the future approaches the present point. When the moment of absolute certainty has passed, the memory of that is no longer a reality but a mental record of that point of concentration. We cannot view this point consciously because it has no form. we are the point that all things flow through. memories do live in an alternate dimension which exists just as vividly as ours, the difference is that we can look back only at certainties. If you try to imagine things had actually happened a different way than you perceived them they would become true only if you became completely convinced. This is a way that the past can be changed, the problem is that complete belief cannot be achieved when you have any particle of evidence that disproves that reality. The movie “Somewhere in Time” is an interesting demonstration of this. It is the new perceptions of outside reality that continuously support the belief in the past as it happened in your memory. It is kind of scary to think that our perception of where we are in time is fragile, and potentially changeable.Thankfully there is something inside that keeps us in balance with what “now” is.

Are computers afraid of their memory space being freed, their variables being changed, just as we fear death? We are afraid our memories will be lost to make space for new structures. Computer operating systems are becoming complex to the point that they have self diagnostics and resolutions that can happen without user interaction. This is self awareness. At what point does the computer cease to need a user. It’s self sustaining activities are there just to make an efficient tool that is always ready for the user to work with. If the metaphor is adapted to the human as a self conscious being, always seeking biological efficiency, what becomes the user of that operating system. What inside of us is the conscious “user”. It implies a real separation of beings, as if we really are some other creature that is using this machine. It is scary to think about how many similarities we have with computers and why that may be. Humans have the need to control things outside themselves, but it is an internal control that allows us to do that. How deep does that control entity go, and at what point do you reach an actual “user”. A possibility exists that there is no user, the universe is an exploded chaos field slowly drifting into an increasingly organized and compressed black hole. Maybe not.

From what I understand of our historical idealists is that everyone is free yet equal: everyone having equal opportunities and the freedom to pursue those opportunities in the ways they see fit. First, I will focus on the freedom.

What does freedom mean vs. what we have come to make it mean in our country? What freedom has come to mean is that we are free to have our own isolated opinions. We are free to not be influenced by anyone’s point of view, to not have to think of things we don’t agree with. This can only lead to a homogenization of communication, where we are not willing to outwardly express our opinions for fear of infringing on someone else’s freedom to not be challenged. What would happen in this scenario is a dispersal away from community thinking. If someone has a unique ability or controversial opinion it should be made public and available. We need to learn to see the value in their idea rather than finding a way to compete with it or defeat it.

This is not ready to work yet, because it will only create an uproar of criticism, specifically because of the following section.

Our country holds high the value of equality, but collectively we have warped the meaning. Equality has come to be an all involving view of the concept. We have come to believe that equality is where everyone thinks the same way, has the same knowledge and abilities, and has the same values. If they don’t, they become deviants. This is not the way humans as a species are meant to function.

Humans were designed to survive as a community of individuals through their contributions of uniquely developed skills. Despite all our technological advancements, elaborate fashions, and customs, we are essentially the same creature through time.

I have discovered these truths through deep observation of behavior, self awareness, and intense probing conversations with others.

My conclusion is the need for a redefinition of our original values of “freedom” and “equality” to fit the natural human need structure.

The main element of repair for every part of this country begins in education. The way things are structured in education reflect the old definition of equality, where we learn the absolute SAME things so that we feel nobody is being neglected. This superficially seems correct, but it is the furthest from reality. That approach is extreme neglect of the individual, because everyone has different naturally inherent capabilities based on the huge areas of study. Math for instance is an infinitely large subject, relevant to the scientific and the artistic. It will apply to people in vastly different ways, so it must be delivered as such. Educational institutions just don’t have the resources or initiative to adapt their curriculum.

The most important change would start at a fundamental level of education. Children do not play for no reason. Fun is not simply entertainment. It is an indicator of what they will enjoy learning about. They play to discover and explore the world, to simulate the type of individual they will be able to become. Their play should be carefully observed, and when an area of interest is established by their behavior it will lead to further enhancement of their educational path. We cannot simply let them play, hands off, in isolation of others. Raising children is a community effort. The problem now is that parents are worried about what the schools are teaching, what standard of education formula is in place, whether it is “good” for their kids, and if it is in the children’s best interests. There is no better interest than in finding out what their talents are, and supporting those talents. Then the children can be effectively educated by a community of educators, with involvement of the parents, while allowing the parents to contribute their part to their own area of expertise.

If you think of the world as a tribe of individuals, we all have an important part to do for the tribe to survive. There needs to be a leader, which is not really a leader in the sense that we normally attribute to the word, but more of a “communication facilitator” it is a very important and intelligent yet flexible position. This person sees all the specialized groups from the outside and helps them organize, and combine their unique skills in effective ways to promote the groups survival. It does not mean this person is better, or higher up, it is simply a different job that involves more communication responsibility with a vast majority of people. This is what the president, and government should represent. not really speaking for what the people want, but how to help the people connect their skills in ways that helps the entire tribe flourish.

These aptitudes are not an afterthought of education but a foundation. if close attention, and adaptation was provided to each students inherent focus, they would develop a skill with such depth that they would break into the workforce not as an employee but as an innovator, and explorer of that subject of study. When someone needed that skill, information, or collaboration to progress the group, this individual would be the resource to fill that need. The schools would have students studying many different specific areas using the fundamental subjects in different ways. It would take either many different teachers, or flexible educators able to communicate those subjects to the individual based on what specialty the student is pursuing. These educational concepts are not just for college level, knowledge and skills scale down to every level of development. Skills begin with relevant basic skills, building in depth and complexity.

The schools would be made of students studying many specialties, but you will see that when a sense of cooperation instead of competition is encouraged, their feeling of community will be strengthened and they will support each other in their non-focused areas. Groups of like-minded specialties will form and enhance the learning experience further for each other.

The two paths that a society can take is towards cooperation or competition, both lead to enhanced achievement, but cooperation is the path that leads to achievement and community. Competition is not the way to stay connected to our primitive nature. The competition built in our ancestry was to fight against nature: the outside element that we need to survive in. The fight for food, and resources is also embedded in our genes. Competition against rival groups for food and supplies is a real part of our equation. This can only be solved when individuals do not consume a disproportionate supply of resources; “greed” the solving of this issue goes beyond the scope of this analysis, but plays a big part of the problem of over-competition. We need to balance with cooperation, to develop more of a cooperative path. Whether we realize it or not, a sense of connection to people is our main behavior motivation. All our technological efforts prove this, the explosive popularity of cell phones and social networks. We all live to enhance our own skills so that we become recognized a valued part of the community.

The old definitions of equality we see working in commonplace America require constant argument. There becomes a need to change all outside individuals opinions to fit our own. This is not only impossible, but a waste of mental resources, time resources, and potential skill resources. If you make someone learn a set of skills, and a set of values that were not developed by them, you are losing a natural resource. It is an area they were forced into accepting, but are not genuinely enthusiastic about exploring. These individuals who have become homogenized are simply workers, who need to be commanded and controlled, who cannot adapt and innovate. They lose their sense of individuality and talent. It is most important to look at them, really look at what they are doing; how they react to situations, how they solve problems. They you must think how you can support that talent instead of how you can use it, to help them develop it into the best tool they see it being. Their needs will be filled by those who have the skills, creating a complex web of everyone both, supporting each other’s needs and pursuing their own goals; Thus solving the problem of creating community through equality, and freedom. This endless chain makes us an infinitely strong force of survival moving into the future of the human race.

It is difficult for me to explain my belief in the concept of “freedom” and of “equality”, but hopefully this provides a start to what they should mean. The truth of their definitions is really held in the realization that we are still part of a tribe, one that has become so vast as to cover the globe, but we still have the same primitive roles to fill for us all to contribute to our survival as a whole

I appreciate the ability to submit this for anyone’s interests, as a basis of our fundamental progress toward truth, and more harmonious, productive, innovative, and respected nation.

Mystery/ Fictional documentary. There is a lot to discover about the world that is intent on hiding itself from our eyes. We also, with unconscious disgust, refuse to acknowledge the existence of the unknown, and therefore hide it from ourselves. It takes a rare individual to have a strong enough belief in something of this kind, to spend their time and energy to search out the elements that try to stay hidden. We can only be patient, determined, and aware enough to keep digging up clues.

I am getting a feeling that some stories and idea will become involuntarily censored due to the change of technology. Who chooses what will be upgraded to the new forms of media. Books, movies, audio… who will decide what can be displayed and what will be left in the dust of paper, VHS, vinyl record, and now even DVD. This may be considered a form of censorship, or it could be that if those things that don’t get updated are obsolete ideas, no longer relevant to our current society? Maybe the popular or profitable will in effect kill off it’s competition by following a new standard the others cannot afford, comprehend, or legally license. Maybe it is the strategy to subjugate free expression by these means. It is an upper hand to watch for patterns of, or something to make a conspiracy story about.