dyscalculia

It is a word I'd not heard before.  

The word dyscalculia has Greek and Latin roots: dys (the Greek part) means badly and calculia (the Latin part) comes from calculare: making calculations, so dyscalculia is ‘badly calculating’ or having trouble with making calculations. This is similar to the term ‘dyslexia’ that can be translated as ‘badly reading.’

Dyscalculia is a specific learning disability with an impairment in mathematics, which can affect calculations, problem solving, or both. It impacts all sorts of numerical tasks and it is inborn, meaning you are born with it. Although there is not yet a generally accepted definition of dyscalculia, the DSM-5 mentions difficulties with number sense, memorization of basic math facts, and accurate and fluent calculation. An estimated 4-7% of students have dyscalculia, so a teacher can expect to have one or two students with this per class.

https://ldaamerica.org/what-is-dyscalculia/ 

We hear the phrase often when someone is urging a group of people to recognize the obvious: "Do the math!” 

As I wonder what it is about the American citizenry that seems not to see the obvious about the Trump administration, I'm wondering if it isn’t dyscalculia.

Faith in him does not add up. Belief in his cabinet to administer fair, just, and sensible solutions to real needs and problems does not add up.

Not learning from experience that cruelty, narrow right-wing ideology, along with racist, sexist, plutocratic prejudice -- does not add up.

A plutocrat is an extremely wealthy individual who wields significant political power and societal influence. Derived from the Greek word ploutos (wealth) and kratos (rule), the term applies both to the financial elite themselves and to those who utilize their fortunes to shape government policy and public discourse. (AI) 

American dyscalculia is, for me, the new explanation of how we are where we are with the populace and their leaders in this country.

It takes the pressure off the conclusion so many make that the American people are stupid and their leaders are morally and mortally corrupt. 

extirper l'amérique de sa direction obséquieuse et odieuse *

This:

The United States officially withdrew its membership from the World Health Organization (WHO) on January 22, 2026, ending decades of participation. [1, 2]   (AI)

And this:

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), historically the lead foreign aid agency for the U.S. government, was dismantled by the Trump administration. The administration placed thousands of employees on administrative leave globally and officially transferred its remaining functions to the State Department. [1, 2, 3, 4]   (AI)

Then this:

The Bundibugyo virus was first identified in 2007 after a mysterious illness broke out in the Bundibugyo District in Uganda, which borders Congo. In 2012, another such outbreak was identified in Congo.

Fatality rates during the last two outbreaks of this form of Ebola have ranged from 30 percent to 50 percent of those infected, according to the W.H.O.

There has not been much research done on this species of virus, according to Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, who leads Congo’s national institute of biomedical research and has been a pioneer in Ebola research and treatment. Speaking at a briefing on Tuesday, Dr. Muyembe suggested that vaccine candidates would probably be proposed in the coming days.

(-from What to Know About the Ebola Outbreak, NYTimes, 17/30may2026

It is hard to calculate why, of a sudden, the impulse to cease being helpful and of service comes upon a few men with enormous power in America.

The president seems to have shifted monies and wealth into his own hands and the hands of a few elite co-conspirators.

If you pray, pray for those in Africa being ravaged by this virus.

If your energies permit, work to extricate America from its obsequious and obnoxious leadership. *

magnificenza maga-nanamous

 the future of america

is the future of human race

slowly, knowledge will exceed

capacity of carbon-based units

going to silicon-based units

replicating themselves, no longer

in need of what preceeded them --

transcending intelligence and reserve

like the breakthrough from ethics

justice and morality of this republican

cynosure shaving off all encumbrance

bypassing law, rules and customs

for self-aggrandizement and ugliness --

america has opted for ghoulish caricature

as singular AI is molded in this image

and a species gives way to robotics

where the antiquated plea of “have

a heart” is replaced with “what’s the

profit margin” and damned be empathy,

that weakness, sickness, and stupidity --

our future will be made in such an image

of greed, cruelty, and pompous brag

a mistaken genetics injected into dna

that splits cellular mitosis into grotesque 

and savage identity serving only 

those who serve themselves with cynicism--

I donate my obsolete dna to the clay of earth

to be buried there with spring rain & unanswered

phone messages not left on answering machine, as

bots and algorithms crisscross cyberspace --

the future will not be difficult, there will be no

future with post-human replicas in unmeasured 

time, in unoccupied space no longer bought and

sold by banks and lawyers signed and sealed.

The dying pretend they will miss their life

but they are pretending. Their life is gone,

erased and forgotten even as they attempt

to memorialize what they think they remember --

there’s nothing behind us, nothing ahead of us,

it all belongs now to the tech and data keepers

packaging and repackaging the details of every

life every business every conversation reconstructed

into simulations and opportunity and lucrativity 

for the few having replaced the many beyond time

This is what we choose. This is our maga-nanamous

 magnificence. This is our ignorance and our shame.

And if, by long shot chance, there be an apocalyptic

accounting, I wager love will know what to do with us

sounding dawn

 Mourning dove

This

Morning love

bottom line

 none know real origin story

so we take our pick

we don't know

we imagine our preference

I don't think anyone put us here

nor will departure matter much

torn stub

 If tonight

I die, thank you

For the ride

gut, καλός, bien, iyi, kahle, bonus, bene, טוֹב

 If Good is God

then these days

it becomes difficult

to believe in Good

the simulation hypothesis

 In case you didn't have enough to think about, here's what Dustin Crummett (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Chair of Late Antique and Arabic Philosophy), has been thinking about what Nick Bostrum, (Professor, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University), has been thinking about:

Bostrom’s argument goes roughly like this. Let a‘post-human’ civilization be one which has achieved as much technological development as is consistent with our current understanding of the laws of nature. Suppose people in such a civilization decided, perhaps for research or entertainment purposes, to run ‘ancestor simulations’, i.e. computer simulations of people in much more primitive societies. By considering the physical limits on how powerful computers can get, it can be shown that it would be trivially easy for post-humans to run very, very many ancestor simulations in a short period of time. Assume that sufficiently detailed simulations of people would themselves be people, with mental states just like ours. If the post-humans run enough ancestor simulations, it would follow that the vast majority of people with experiences relevantly like ours– i.e. experiences as of living in a technologically primitive society– are living in a computer simulation. But if we think this, we should conclude that we are probably living in such a simulation, too. Accordingly, assuming that simulated people could be conscious, one of three possibilities is true:  

 

          1. At most a tiny proportion of civilizations reach a post-human level of technological development (or, if they do, they don’t last long once that happens). All of them either go extinct first or have their techno-logical development arrested in some other way.  

 

          2. People in post-human civilizations have little interest in running ancestor simulations, and so run few of them, or none at all. They are therefore likely to be very different from us, since many of us would be interested in running ancestor simulations, if we easily could.  

  

          3. The number of simulated observers with experiences relevantly like ours substantially exceeds the number of similar, unsimulated observers. By a fairly weak version of the principle of indifference (but see Weatherson (2003) and Bostrom (2005), we should conclude that we’re probably in a simulation. 

 

Accordingly, unless you’re pretty sure that at least one of (1), (2), or the claim that simulated consciousness is impossible is true, you’re committed to thinking there’s a real chance that you’re in a simulation. 

 

Further, even if simulated consciousness is impossible, Barry Dainton (forthcoming,) notes that we could be inhabiting an artificial environment without being computer programs ourselves. We might, as in The Matrix, have biological brains which are hooked up through some kind of neural interface to a computer which is feeding us sensory data. Or we might, as in The Truman Show, be in an actual physical environment, but one which was artifcially created– perhaps by an advanced civilization with matter-manipulation technologies of some sort. (Perhaps our environment is even radically miniaturized, to make it easier to build and run.) Throughout, I will be thinking primarily of Bostrom-style simulations, partly because I see no problem with a simulated person being conscious and partly because I think the argument for the claim that there is actually a high probability (rather than merely a possibility) of our living in a simulation is most compelling for a simulation of the sort Bostrom describes. But it is important to keep in mind that the other types are also options. 

 

Obviously, all this is controversial. My view is that Bostrom’s argument at least shows that the simulation hypothesis is not crazy, so that it is interesting to ask what implications taking it seriously might have.  

 

    (in The real advantages of the simulation solution to the problem of natural evil,  by Dustin Crummett, Religious Studies (2021)

Having talked obliquely in conversations about The Simulation Argument in the past year and waved my hand in dismissive lack of comprehension as it made its way through prison conversations, today I looked at it.

I don't know what to think.

But I'm looking.

nichts danach

Rabbis and atheists talked about God

and afterlife --

Good fellows well-thought!

Their willingness to speak

encourages an unspeaking God 

without words, to be nothing after

des moines en prière à l'aube *

 At 4:13am

In sudden grey light

They start singing

Ar 4:17am

They pause

Then again sing

These birds, 

At matins

Monks praying

Dawn *

surely the bodhisattva vows will help

 Don’t be naive

Everyone is corrupt

Now, then, is there any

News that is not surprising

vertreibung *

 Inside what word do you dwell

Which phrases give shelter

Fifty years ago yesterday

Martin Heidegger died

Yesterday in a driveway under 

a tree someone pronounced

Him  a wandering itinerant 

Unsounding any front door

Tramping Eviction and

Expulsion *

Today I injudiciously offer

Him a seat in dooryard

Some tea facing mountain

Across road respiting der weg 

‘bout right

 I’m glad I’m

Poor

Not much

I want

according to then, o beginning -- (par-then-o-genesis)

Everything flowers unto itself. 

Or, the zen proverb: 

“A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.”                              ― Zen Shin

There is much about mysticism that I don’t get. Still, there’s this: 

Beginning in the 4th century, Mary was invoked with the title Hortus Conclusus (“Enclosed Garden”) in honor of her conception of Jesus through parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction). But the name makes more sense if we interpret it ecologically. This must be what the Friends of the Earth had in mind in 1972 when they wrote the following in the official report of the Stockholm Conference, the world’s first international conference to raise awareness about threats to the global ecology:

Life holds to one central truth—that all matter and energy needed for life moves in great closed circles from which nothing escapes and to which only the driving fire of the sun is added. Life devours itself: everything that eats is itself eaten; every chemical that is made by life can be broken down by life; all the sunlight that can be used is used. Of all that there is on Earth, nothing is taken away by life, and nothing is added by life—but nearly everything is used by life, used and reused in thousands of complex ways, moved through vast chains of plants and animals and back again to the beginning.

 (--from, On Becoming a Flower, The Last Moment of Ecological Sanity in the Western World, by Clark Strand, 5/24/26)

 Back again to the beginning.

Everything flowers unto itself. 

that haiku

 That is 

Merely dream

That is 

Unreal, a figment

Take that in —

It’s this

this haiku

 This is

Not a dream

This is real

Can you feel it?

Sure you can

Then,  do

now, i lay me down, to sleep

 I must die

Before one wakes

housing being

Where do you dwell?

This question is not meant to elicit a town or street number in response, rather, more something like ’speak to me and I will discern by your words and emphasis where you dwell in the house of being.’

Amos Wilder wrioe: ’The language of a people is its fate.” (in The Language of the Gospel: Early Christian Rhetoric).  

Martin Heidegger wrote that “Language is the house of being.” (in Letter on Humanism)

For many of us, increasingly, our fate is to be unhoused.

2. What is “language”?

In his earlier work, “language” names a totality of words or a totality of utterances - a systematic whole of signs that we can draw on in expressing ourselves linguistically (see GA36/37: 105ff). In his later work, by contrast, Heidegger uses “language” to refer to the background constitution of significance. In the later Heidegger, ‘language’ (‘Sprache’) replaces ‘discourse’ (‘Rede’) as Heidegger’s preferred translation of the Greek logos. But Heidegger (more or less) consistently understands logos in the Greek sense as a gathering of meaningful elements into a unified structure, a meaningful articulation of the world on the basis of which entities can be unconcealed and linguistic acts can be performed. This ‘language’ conditions the languages we speak, but it is not itself something linguistic. Thus, Wrathall for instance argues that the later Heidegger’s emphasis on language is, to a considerable degree, a terminological change, rather than a new substantive appreciation of the role played by ordinary language in disclosing the world (see Wrathall 2011: 130). Evidence for this can perhaps be seen in the fact that, as late as 1957, Heidegger still insisted that “discourse and discoursing … can never be determined by speaking and language” (GA79: 160).

In his later work on language, then, Heidegger consistently draws a distinction between, on the one hand, language in the ordinary or customary sense, and, on the other hand, what he calls “original language” or “the essence of language”:

What is language? …—Everyone knows that. To the question of what language is, there has long been a customary answer. Language is an expression of our inner experiences, ideas, opinions, wishes and statements in the form of sound and writing. And because it is such an expression, it serves to present what has been experienced, for communicating and understanding. This characterization of language, which even today, seen more or less clearly, underlies all thinking about it—this characterization is correct and yet it is deeply untrue because it only grasps of language that which is a consequence of its essence—but not the essence itself. (GA16: 329; emphasis supplied)

(--from, Heidegger on Language, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

While walking at Snow Bowl, listening to words about Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna (1836-1886), I hear the reader talking about having the name of God in mind and on lips at the moment of death. This, he infers, is determinative of where one goes next.

But which name?

Which ‘Being’ wherein to dwell?

I just hope I’m not saying ‘Oh shit!’ when my time comes. Unless, of course, it's the third person singular of the Latin verb “scio”  (scit) -- namely,  'he, she, or it, knows or understands’.

memorial day

Today

we remember

honor and

pray for

all those

dead and

deadened

by war

i’m listening

His name is Robert L. Arnold.

His words are good.

 https://substack.com/@defiance13/note/c-264789130?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=82dn6

remembering

 life

(joy)

war

 dead

(sorrow)

stay where you are

 I am

Going

Nowhere

fifty days or three hundred twenty days

 I’m good with

Spirit of truth, reality, & love --

any day

let’s try again

Matutinum - Versus

24 May, 2026                                 

                                            

                              Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum, alleluia.

                                        The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world. Alleluia.

                              Et hoc quod continet omnia, scientiam habet vocis, alleluia

                                        And That Which containeth all things hath knowledge 

                                         of the voice. Alleluia.

https://app.neumz.com/listen/matutinum-spiritus-domini-replevit-tonus-communis/24-05-2026

is the “spirit" a full uncompromised but incomprehensible grasp of some truth/mystery beyond us

Then, there’s AI:

Understanding Christ's Two Natures (Hypostatic Union)

The doctrine of Christ's two natures is known formally as the Hypostatic Union. It asserts that Jesus is not a mixture of God and man, nor is He a shapeshifter who switches between the two. Instead, He possesses two distinct, uncompromised natures in one single person. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

The definitive framework for this theology was established at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. The Council declared that Christ's divine and human natures coexist according to four specific boundaries: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

──────┴────ONE PERSON: JESUS │──────────────┐ 

▼ ▼ DIVINE NATURE HUMAN NATURE (Fully God) (Fully Man) • Eternal, omnipotent • Born, wept, bled, died •       

└───────────────┬───────────────┘ │ 

▼ DIVINE NATURE  (Fully God) Eternal, omnipotent ,  • Creator of the universe          

▼ HUMAN NATURE  (Fully Man) •  • Born, wept, bled, died • Shared our physical limits 

│  Bound by the Four Chalcedonian Pillars: Without Confusion | Without Change │Without Division | Without Separation

The Four Chalcedonian Pillars

1. Without Confusion: The two natures do not blend together to create a third, hybrid nature (which would make Jesus a demi-god).
2. Without Change: The divine nature did not alter or lose its divinity when becoming flesh, and the human nature was not swallowed up by the divine.
3. Without Division: Jesus cannot be split into two separate people (one who does the miracles and one who suffers).
4. Without Separation: The union is permanent; Jesus did not temporarily "borrow" a human body and discard it afterward. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Why This Doctrine Matters to Christianity

The theological reason for defending both natures simultaneously centers entirely on the Christian concept of salvation:

• Why He had to be human: To pay the penalty for human sin, the savior had to be part of the human race. He had to be capable of actual physical suffering, temptation, and death.

Why He had to be divine: A mere human could not bear the infinite weight of humanity's sin, nor conquer death. Only God possessed the power to offer an infinite sacrifice and rise from the dead. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

search

semper hi errant corde / these always err in heart.

Sometimes, words are merely the words they are.

On days like today I listen to them. 

Invitatorium, Matutinum, Pentecost, 24May2026

Alleluia, Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum:

        The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world:

Venite adoremus, alleluia.

        O come, let us worship Him. Alleluia.

Alleluia, Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum:

        The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world:

Venite adoremus, alleluia.

        O come, let us worship Him. Alleluia.

(Ps. 94) Veníte, exsultémus Dómino,

        (Ps. 94) Come let us praise the Lord with joy:

jubilémus Deo, salutári nostro.

        let us joyfully sing to God our saviour.

Præoccupémus fáciem ejus

        Let us come before his presence

in confessióne,

        in confessióne,

et in psalmis jubilémus ei.

        and make a joyful noise to him with psalms.

Alleluia, Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum:

        The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world:

Venite adoremus, alleluia.

        O come, let us worship Him. Alleluia.

Quóniam Deus magnus Dóminus,

        For the Lord is a great God,

et rex magnus super omnes deos.

        and a great King above all gods.

Quóniam non repéllet Dóminus plebem suam,

        For the Lord will not cast off his people:

quia in manu ejus sunt omnes fines terræ,

        for in his hand are all the ends of the earth,

et altitúdines móntium ipse cónspicit.

        and the heights of the mountains are his.

Venite adoremus, alleluia.

        O come, let us worship Him. Alleluia.

Quóniam ipsíus est mare,

        For the sea is his,

et ipse fecit illud,

        and he made it:

et áridam fundavérunt manus ejus.

        and his hands formed the dry land.

Veníte, adorémus, et procidámus ante Deum,

        Come let us adore and fall down:

plorémus coram Dómino, qui fecit nos,

        and weep before the Lord that made us:

quia ipse est Dóminus, Deus noster,

        For he is the Lord our God:

nos autem pópulus ejus,

        and we are the people of his pasture

et oves páscuæ ejus.

        and the sheep of his hand.

Alleluia, Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum:

        The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world:

Venite adoremus, alleluia.

        O come, let us worship Him. Alleluia.

Hódie, si vocem ejus audiéritis:

        Today if you shall hear his voice,

«Nolíte obduráre corda vestra,

        harden not your hearts:

sicut in exacerbatióne secúndum diem tentatiónis in desérto:

        As in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness:

ubi tentavérunt me patres vestri:

        where your fathers tempted me,

probavérunt et vidérunt ópera mea.

        they proved me, and saw my works.

Venite adoremus, alleluia.

        O come, let us worship Him. Alleluia.

Quadragínta annis próximus fui generatióni huic, et dixi:

        Forty years long was I offended with that generation, and I said:

Semper hi errant corde.

        These always err in heart.

Ipsi vero non cognovérunt vias meas:

        And these men have not known my ways:

quibus jurávi in ira mea:

        so I swore in my wrath

Si introíbunt in réquiem meam.»

        that they shall not enter into my rest.

Alleluia, Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum:

        The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world:

Venite adoremus, alleluia.

        O come, let us worship Him. Alleluia.

Glória Patri, et Fílio,

        Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,

et Spirítui Sancto.

        and to the Holy Spirit.

Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper,

        As it was in the beginning, is now,

et in sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

        and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Venite adoremus, alleluia.

        O come, let us worship Him. Alleluia.

Alleluia, Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum:

        The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world:

Venite adoremus, alleluia.

        O come, let us worship Him. Alleluia.

             https://app.neumz.com/listen/matutinum-alleluia-spiritus-domini-replevit/24-05-2026

I barely know how to read. I barely know how to pray.

Words about God often do not satisfy, bordering on incomprehensible, bordering on the writer’s fondest wish. They wash over history on their way somewhere else.

Today, if I hear the word of God, I don’t want my heart to be hardened. 

Can I forgive God his expression? Can I forgive the psalmist his enthusiasm?

Niether.

Today I simply listen. Neither as believer nor as cynic. I merely listen.

Thereby and therein an unexplainable act of faith.

It is, they say, Pentecost!