" What is the point of and conclusion of your blog? "

That some people make up stories.
Stories are used to frighten, cajole, bully or threaten others to do what they would not do otherwise.
To preserve the power structure, the priesthood reworks the sacred stories into contemporary language and culture.
The current culture is to link things, especially to what is called science, so the old myths are linked to current knowledge of harvest times, earthquakes, and supernova events.

Those stories told to children are hard to let go. Instead, attempts are made to build them up.
Much effort is put into this, after all, it is a worthwhile cause - fostering the faith.
(Saving the planet, or not).

There need be no physical connection with an observed bright star at all. By the time the myths were spread decades later no one had any factual knowledge of it, just a subjective association in a myth. Whatever scientific detective work establishes historically observable phenomena that were remembered and found there way in some form into the myths, they have nothing to do with the religious pronouncements.

The Church of 1200 was 400 years in time ahead of the institution in 1600 and that's it. It was all mystical and authoritarian. At least by 1600 the influence of Aristotle had begun to return. The Church was never an impetus to science. Science, where it existed at all, was done in spite of religion with its faith, authoritarianism, and rationalizations.

What is the point of and conclusion of your blog?

What do Babbage and his intellectual colleagues have to do with the Christmas star?

Where did Ayn Rand wrongly say "that Christianity was the first religion to be concerned not with obedience to the gods - though there was that - but with the salvation of the individual, i.e., how to live a good life"? She didn't generally make sweeping, unqualified a-historical statements, and religious ethics are not synonymous with living a good life in contrast to duty to a god. For a duty ethics, including religion, living properly a "good life" means to do your duty, even if that is supposed to wind up saving your soul.

Ayn Rand did write, in an informal letter to a fan in 1946:

"There is a great, basic contradiction in the teachings of Jesus. Jesus was one of the first great teachers to proclaim the basic principle of individualism — the inviolate sanctity of man's soul, and the salvation of one's soul as one's first concern and highest goal; this means—one's ego and the integrity of one's ego. But when it came to the next question, a code of ethics to observe for the salvation of one's soul—(this means: what must one do in actual practice in order to save one's soul?)—Jesus (or perhaps His interpreters) gave men a code of altruism, that is, a code which told them that in order to save one's soul, one must love or help or live for others. This means, the subordination of one's soul (or ego) to the wishes, desires or needs of others, which means the subordination of one's soul to the souls of others.

"This is a contradiction that cannot be resolved. This is why men have never succeeded in applying Christianity in practice, while they have preached it in theory for two thousand years. The reason of their failure was not men's natural depravity or hypocrisy, which is the superficial (and vicious) explanation usually given. The reason is that a contradiction cannot be made to work. That is why the history of Christianity has been a continuous civil war—both literally (between sects and nations), and spiritually (within each man's soul)."

Christianity's emphasis on saving one's soul in a later, supernatural dimension was intentionally an appeal to individualism, but in a meaningless mystical way; here on earth one's actual life required sacrifice to others. All of it was by duty to the claimed edicts of a god.

The question to me is navigation. In Anne Salmond 's "Aphrodite's Island" the European discovery of Tahiti" from the captains log. The ship took on a young Tahitian boy who guided them to safe harbor sometimes in dead of night, through deadly reefs only 50 meters of clear sailing . He was passed down this astronomical
Navigation as it had been for thousands of years.
Many islands had never been visited by him before, yet he could pin point the safe pass. He was just an avg Tahitian.
The Magi a word that Greek magos itself is derived from Old Persian maguŝ from the Avestan magâunô, i.e., the religious caste into which Zoroaster was born (see Yasna 33.7: "ýâ sruyê parê magâunô" = "so I can be heard beyond Magi"). The term refers to the Persian priestly caste of Zoroastrianism.[11] As part of their religion, these priests paid particular attention to the stars and gained an international reputation for astrology, which was at that time highly regarded as a science. Their religious practices and use of astrology caused derivatives of the term Magi to be applied to the occult in general and led to the English term magic, although Zoroastrianism was in fact strongly opposed to sorcery.
These Magi could navigate using the stars for sure.
So how could they know what their destination was? The star didn't guide Joseph and Mary were traveling and as became dark they happened on Bethlehem they took the only shelter available a manger basically a barn. It was by chance for them.

Hope all goes well with the new protocol. Everything is electric...seems so doesn't it.

As I study and especially observe I find the "Mind" an amazing thing. A place, an energy, a connection we just can't measure but for those that have one, we know it's there...somewhere.
It augments the brain, completes the individual and opens up a whole new world...but, yet many, don't even use it, explore it or depend upon it for oversight and control over that fickle, yet necessary thing we call our brain.

I am sure that science will create a program that mimics the brain, maybe even better and might even be able to somewhat imitate a mind...but there again, it's only a program, an imitation and if in fact I and others are correct, that the mind is connected to the quantum world and all it's entanglements then there is no way they can create an AI with an "I"...a specific identity known only in that realm.

Sounds mystical, I know, many get tripped up by it, but it's not...it may go down in history as another one of those things we can't prove one way or the other but sure can experience and observe it at work.

Don't get me wrong, but it would still be quite an achievement to create an imitation of 2 parts of that 3 part equation.

Take care of yourself...Carl

I am doing slightly better. The last anti-arrhythmic (solalol) had taken me from 40% PVCs to 30% PVCs so the elctro-physiologist changed the drug to a third class (amiodarone) one which has many potential side effects but not so much in the low dose that I am taking. It seems to be working, but I have only been on it for 3 weeks, darn stuff has a 50 day half life in the body so needs to be adjusted fairly often as various blood tests dictate. If that doesn't do the trick, I will need to go in for a ablation procedure for mapping the electrical nature of the right ventricle and finding the cells putting out a premature contraction current and then destroying those cells by radio frequency.
That sounded more dangerous than the drugs and I don't like the idea of being unconscious for 2 to 4 hours with someone working on me.
Hope you are doing well and that I am not being too contrary to your ideas. I have been interested in the mind for a good part of my 78 years and have tried to see how far AI will go in mimicking a mind. There seems be a large amount of recursiveness going on which makes in near impossible to predict the results, so it would act like a free will and also make some questions one may have about reality undecidable in thinking until new concepts are created. Kind of a Gödel's incompleteness thing.

One is conscious when one does automatic actions such as driving a car. One need not have any conscience about the activity unless something about one's driving goes against ones sense of beliefs about oneself such as harming someone or driving dangerously with respect to what one considers dangerous to others or oneself. Conscience is a moral concept of good or bad with respect to others or oneself. I agree that many of mankind have not created such a conscience mind. Such a mind must be produced by experience and rational thought and especially an awareness of self. But not all consciousnesses has a conscience faculty, just as not all consciousnesses have a critical faculty and can easily get lost in selectively thinking.

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary...

Snyder is a joy to read. We have corresponded on other topics but is correct about Whewell and his theory of induction. It only needs Rand's theory of concept formation to be fully explanatory.
You will appreciate Whewell was Darwin's instructor and mentor at the Royal Society and gave Darwin the method to arrive at a proof of his theory. Darwin dedicated the Origin ot Whewell and sent him a copy of the first printing. Whewell was a deep Christian and knew what argument the book contained. He never opened the package sending a note to Darwin that he was sure it was well argued but he did not have time to read it. It is one of the great dramatic moments in the history of science. The father of the method of proof feared the result of his method.
Enjoy Laura's work also "Reforming Philosophy"

If you care, you can use an academic database and find very many explanations for times other than December. It is pretty well accepted even by true believers that December 25 is a convenience. Nothing in the Bible supports the date. The shepherds being out with their flocks is scriptural and speaks against the December 25 timeframe. So, everyone knows that, and always has. It is one reason why true believers such as the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock (and Ebeneezer Scrooge) did not celebrate Christmas.

On the other hand, the problem of Easter was an impetus to the development of astronomy in the Middle Ages. They had to reconcile the lunar and solar calendars. The Church of 1200 was lightyears ahead of the Church of 1600.

Well, again, for 1500 years no one tried to explain the Christmas Star. The miracle was accepted as stated. However, the Renaissance was a change in worldview. Look at the large number of modern academic citations to the Christmas Star. Many explanations have been offered because in our time, we expect rational answers.We live in a scientific age. It is not like a "Gernsback Continuum" story where everyone wears a lab coat and speaks in equations, but, fundamentally, this is a material-rational society. And that is global even despite counter-examples.

Following Julian Jaynes, I point out that you have probably done many complicated things without conscious awareness. Perhaps the most common one many of us can share is driving home from work and not remembering it. You are conscioulsy distracted - something happened at work, say - but your brain does a good job of driving the car on automatic. Jaynes suggested that before writing led to introspection everyone was like that and even today, many people still are. From that, I posit that they do not have a conscience. I accept that you do.

I think the difference between conscience and super ego...is the mind. A super ego, perhaps, is nothing more than an imitation conscience.

This is just an observation of mine while I continue my study's and cannot be proved as yet...but it sure fits.
Note, Freud only studied sick people, it was a mistake to apply his findings to normal healthy people.

Haven't heard much from you lately Irshultis, how are you?

Conscience is a subconscious judgment that has been learned in some way. The judgment is made conscious as an emotion about one's actions relative to others. Whether one reasons about one's conscience is up to the person. A conscience need not be rational but reflects one's past experiences in society and with one's self, assuming some degree of self.

In those days, and even before, our worshipping of the "one tru God" was predicated on the rumblings of a volcano.Approval or disapprovat was predicated on whether the volcano in question needed a dose of Pepto-Bismol or not..So worrying about a guiding star seems like small potatoes compared to the residence of God..In any case, natural phenomena had to be explained by the shaman of the day. So whoever was the Walter Cronkite of the day had the obligation of assuring the populace that all is well by making up an impressive fiction so that it forestalled the prediction of the day of judgement.But to spend days and hours verifying the fiction into science is such a waste of time and energy. It is like a Dagwood sandwich. A giant edifice that no one could digest.

The brain can do many things but it can't view itself, inspect itself nor control it's own temptations. The ultimate desire for power and control is not only a hubris one but a non introspective one.

In other words, if they were truly conscious beings, possessing a conscience, they would think twice about what they were doing or at least hate themselves for it...we actually see a lot of that these days.

That's my take anyway, Irshuttis, and I think I will stick to it, until I learn of and convinced of, something different.
After all, that's what "Conscious Beings" do.

Just how does a non-conscious being do "were looking to keep their jobs, power and control...very few entered service cause (sic) they understood the teachings and really cared about humanity."
Sounds like conscious beings to me!

From what I understand, research has shown that the census and taxes would of been in early April.

But look at it this way, how many favored people do we actually celebrate their birth on their actual birthday.
Presidents day comes to mind here.

I think the placement of "the birth" was more symbolic. Remember that the priests were not necessarily conscious beings...they dealt with the pagan ideology and mysticism's and of course were looking to keep their jobs, power and control...very few entered service cause they understood the teachings and really cared about humanity.

That's why the organizations of the teachings and history we call "religion"...kinda sucks.

I'll not disagree with the physics proposed and put forward in the commntw to date. I just have one comment to make about the material here presented.
If I recall the story correctly, Mary and Joseph were traveling to their home town in order to pay taxes and register. In nRoman times taxes were collected after the sprint harvest ortherwise there was no money to pay the taxes.
If this is true, the Jesus was born in the may/june time fram, not the December time frame. This would necessitate a different set of circum stances to generate the Christmas star.

Interesting Mike and I agree.

I think the point of salvation was of course, leading to a good life but more importantly, controlling one's baser instincts, temptations, attending to one's self and sharing any abundance when able and justified.

I think, if we look at the whole picture, it translates into being productive, inventive and honest with self and others.

In the spirit of Jaynes, I see that as the link of emerging consciousness and awareness of self, self introspection, (rational "celf"interest) and use of the mind and less dependent upon the automatic brain.

Pax vobiscum, to you, Gaius. Ayn Rand pointed out (wrongly) that Christianity was the first religion to be concerned not with obedience to the gods - though there was that - but with the salvation of the individual, i.e., how to live a good life. I add that another innovation in thought was the expectation of a New Age, a better time. The only other narratives from Hesiod or the Bible (maybe there were others) were about the Fall of Man. To the Greeks we were (are) in the Iron Age of War. It never gets better. Christianity promised "better."

Right now, I am reading The Philosophical Breakfast Club by Laura J. Snyder about how Babbage, Whewell, William Herschel, and William Jones, transformed science in the early 19th century. They all had some interest in economics - "political economy" of the nation vs. domestic economy of the home - but Jones made it his special study; and he transformed it from the "dismal science" of Malthus and Ricardo. Understanding economics makes it possible to improve life even and especially for the poor.

The book opens with this:

How much has happened in these 50 years--a period more remarkable than any, I will continue to say, in the annals of mankind. I am not thinking of the rise and fall of Empires, the change of dynasties, the establishment of governments. I am thinking of those revolutions of science which have had much more effect than any political causes, which have changed the position and prospects of mankind more than all the conquests and codes, an all the legislators that ever lived." -- Benjamin Disraeli, 1873

Buti t is funny and sad that when Babbage demonstrated that his Difference Engine could produce direct-to-type accurate and correct tables that everyone depended on, Prime Minister Robert Peel, Astronomer Royal George Airy, and physicist Thoimas Young were among those who did not see the value in it.

Thanks Mike, great history on what is thought to be the Star.

Recent papers mention a conjunction with Jupiter as well. But it is a good lesson to consider physical things the ancients spoke of, they didn't make stuff up...however, the language, the meme of those times and the translations are confounding...not to mention, as the article eludes to...the organization of the teachings (religion) and recounted physical happenings are often very different from one sect of those organizations to another.

After studying Julian Jaynes, I came to appreciate and kind of understand those memes of the ancients a little better. Pagan, preconscious and mystical they were, but still had interesting and important stuff to pass on.