Dr Robert N. Winter

Today I passed a building. In a suburban environment this shouldn't even rank as noticeable, let alone the start of an article. But what struck me was how dull and quotidian it was. As though it had been stuck onto the landscape by a draftsman in need of a decent ruler.

Walking on, I recalled the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable.

Musing on how the building I passed was the very antithesis of the Gothic, I found myself recalling some of the majestic architecture of the past: a Gothic Reprieve from the mundane of the modern.

A potted history

The term 'gothic' was originally a term of disdain. As ever, all that is now 'old' once was a new invention. The style developed and flourished between about 1140 and 1520 and was, at the time, considered the antithesis of everything for which the Renaissance stood. Contemporaries decried the Gothic as superstitious, violent, disordered. The very symbol of what was misnamed the 'dark ages.' Though unconnected to the peoples from the benighted north, who sacked Rome in 410 AD, the allusion to barbarianism stuck.

Perhaps the most interesting element about Gothic architecture is the prolific way in which its makers and innovators spawned new modes. To sample but a handful, there was early, flamboyant, geometric and perpendicular. Some of the finer examples of which are to be found in Paris, Salamanca, Lincoln and Gloucestershire:

Looking at the images above, it requires little imagination to apprehend why Coleridge saw infinity in the architecture. But behind the infinite is the notion of the sacred eternal. Perhaps this is because few examples of Gothic architecture have survived which are not churches. An example of use conferring meaning. Perhaps it is because the nineteenth-century religious revival was closely allied to the accompanying Gothic revival, in which the unconsecrated (town halls, hospitals and railway stations) were made to feel like sacred structures. In the industrial age, God was seen to be in the products of industrialism: enlightened technology.

This is a notion our age has been equally quick to adopt, as the digital realm has become the new temple for many. Perhaps you have noticed a Gothic revival of our times in digital form – the infinity of the world wide web, the sacred eternal of digital rights and the enlightened technology which facilitates this sacred infinite.

Good night and good luck.

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Cover image credit: 'The cloisters at Gloucester Cathedral' by Christopher JT Cherrington – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72728269

Early Gothic as Soissons Cathedral, France by Jean-Pol Grandmont – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28626796

Geometric Gothic at Lincoln Cathedral, England by Tilman2007 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35516448

Flamboyant Gothic at Salamanca Cathedral, Spain by xiquinhosilva from Cacau – 68532-Salamanca, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84175525

Perpendicular Gothic at Gloucester, England by Diliff – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34005236

Sainte-Chapelle, Paris by Xin Sy – Paris 2019, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77352735

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This post is day 071 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com.

There is an experiment, well known to psychologists and anyone with an MBA, called a 'selective attention test.' The basics of the test, originally run by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, are that you watch a video clip of some people passing a basketball and you have to count how many times the players wearing white pass the basketball.

https://invidio.us/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

During the test, a person dressed in a gorilla suit makes an appearance, walking directly across the frame, beats their chest and then exits the scene. Approximately half the people who watch this video fail to spot the gorilla the first time. In a sense, this experiment is emblematic of how we often go through life, failing to spot the gorilla because we are so busy trying to count the passes.

Moving beyond the lab, it is too easy to focus on the negatives with which news channels bombard our senses on a daily basis. For me, this can become frankly as depressing as, to quote Blackadder:

getting an arrow through the neck and discovering there's a gas bill tied to it.

So on this day, I take a moment to dwell on some of the better things to be happening in this thing we call life.

The Mars 2020 rover will join the Curiosity rover on the Red Planet. https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8567/two-rovers-to-roll-on-mars-again-curiosity-and-mars-2020/

Gary Larson, Beloved Cartoonist of ‘The Far Side’ Publishes First New Comics in 25 Years. https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff

Researchers from the UK and Switzerland have discovered a mathematical model to prevent AI from making unethical decisions. Possibly preventing the rise of SkyNET. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.200462

Not that this necessarily balances out all the harm and doom that is going on in the world, but it is important to celebrate the wins as well as commiserating the losses. What wins are you celebrating today?

Good night and good luck.

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This post is day 070 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com. #thoughts

I saw an excellent vlog from Ayishat Akanbi for Double Down News. Ayishat's message is clear, that 'We’re living in a culture of fear and as a result freedom of speech is under threat:'

https://invidio.us/watch?v=aWVemKJH1Gg

https://youtu.be/aWVemKJH1Gg

This video reminded me of the late great Carl Sagan, who was prescient in understanding the need to deal with people who disagree, even attack, us for our beliefs. Though his writing focused on superstitions and pseudosciences, his thinking is largely applicable to all forms of bigotry and ignorance in pursuit of a cause. Crucially, he examined how an individual or community can remain rooted in reason and truth when trying to combat ideologies which seek to destroy them. This is done by beginning from a place of compassionate understanding of the fears which motivate such irrational and dangerous beliefs.

Yet, such high philosophy and noble sentiment is challenging, even impossible. As Sagan notes:

When we are asked to swear in American courts of law — that we will tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” — we are being asked the impossible. It is simply beyond our powers. Our memories are fallible; even scientific truth is merely an approximation; and we are ignorant about nearly all of the Universe…

In shining a light of awareness on our fallibility and ignorance, Sagan apprehended we are not only deeply enamoured to our beliefs, but are all too often defined by them. A reality which binds both us and those who are implacably opposed to our thinking. Yet, even in this impossible task, Sagan observes there is a way to balance our innate feelings of self-righteousness with our need to remain rational creatures:

In the way that skepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness.

Yet in arguing for kindness, Sagan doesn't mean unconditional acceptance, because 'every silent assent will encourage [the individual] next time, and every vigorous dissent will cause him next time to think twice.' This is particularly necessary when that which opposes us is little short of hate speech, even if it dresses itself in righteousness. In such instances, we need to muster the courage to critique, analyse and ultimately confront beliefs which are, at root, nihilistic.

If we offer too much silent assent about [ignorance] — even when it seems to be doing a little good — we abet a general climate in which skepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate. Figuring out a prudent balance takes wisdom.

In such instances, Sagan observed:

The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is in its polarization: Us vs. Them — the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you’re sensible, you’ll listen to us; and if not, you’re beyond redemption. This is unconstructive… Whereas, a compassionate approach that from the beginning acknowledges the human roots of pseudoscience and superstition might be much more widely accepted. If we understand this, then of course we feel the uncertainty and pain of the abductees, or those who dare not leave home without consulting their horoscopes, or those who pin their hopes on crystals from Atlantis.

If we allow fear into our hearts, to still the perturbation it is all too easy to try and ground our fears in ideologies that offer certainty. Sadly, such certainty invariably comes at a price: that of scepticism. Without which, a society will generally lack openness, critical thinking and compassion. In the vast ignorance of a society absent of sceptical enquiry, evil festers and spreads, like the coming of night, and all foul things come forth.

But Sagan envisaged an antidote to the evil:

Both skepticism and wonder are skills that need honing and practice. Their harmonious marriage within the mind of every schoolchild ought to be a principal goal of public education. I’d love to see such a domestic felicity portrayed in the media, television especially: a community of people really working the mix — full of wonder, generously open to every notion, dismissing nothing except for good reason, but at the same time, and as second nature, demanding stringent standards of evidence — and these standards applied with at least as much rigor to what they hold dear as to what they are tempted to reject with impunity.

Good night and good luck.

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This post is day 069 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com.

Thanks to all those who provided feedback on yesterday's musing. The general consensus is that the 'drop' in readership is a result of my posts no longer being syndicated on read write.as. As a short term fix, I have linked my Ghost blog with Write.as to see if the reading statistics tick up again. If so, the experiment will have proved the hypothesis. Or more properly, it will not disprove the hypothesis.

Assuming I have a working assumption, next step is how best to manage this long term. Does it mean using write.as for my article creation platform and leaving it to cross post to Ghost? It also raises questions about cross posting to other platforms such as Medium, Wordpress.com and other communities which are the natural hunting ground of avid readers. Perhaps the solution is to find a way to cross post to a number of key environments? But it would be best to do this automatically as the idea of manually posting to a series of platforms seems unnecessary in this age of automation.

Clearly some research is needed for the most efficient way to manage the process. Have you found a solution to this conundrum? Any suggested reading material or implementations would be appreciated.

Good night and good luck.

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This post is day 067 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com.