Hello, modelers. Let's look at a slightly more advanced model, this time a two-dimensional cellular automata. You may recall in our one-dimensional model, we had a single square or grid space, i.e., our cell, and that cell had neighbors immediately to its right and immediately to its left. But that long row or string of neighbors basically only worked in one direction or one dimension to the right and to the left. Well, now we're going to make the model a bit more complex by considering neighbors that are below and above our cell. And if we want to make it even more complex, we can also consider the neighbors in each of the diagonal directions, up and to the right, up and to the left, down and to the left, and down and to the right. In a model like this, however, we won't be able to represent successive states by laying a row of cells on top of another row of cells, but instead we'll have to represent successive states by creating entirely new grids. For example, the grid here on the left might represent our initial conditions, whereas the grid on the right will represent our conditions after one iteration or after one application of the rules. So now that we've established what an agent is, let's go ahead and establish what the states for the agent might be. For this model, there will be two states. It'll once again be a binary model with two states. And the first state we will describe, we will go ahead and call the filled-in state of a box as being on. And to indicate the off state, we'll put a little dot in the middle of the box to help distinguish it from being an empty unknown grid, but it'll basically be an empty box or off. Now that we've established our possible states, each cell will need to be assigned a state for the beginning of the simulation. So we'll have to give each state a condition of being either on or off, and these will represent the initial conditions for my entire system. We'll keep the initial conditions relatively simple here. Now in this model, each cell has eight possible neighbors, plus itself, to be concerned about. So that would be two, with two states, the ninth power for nine possible things that have different states, which is 512 possibilities of different states for each cell to look at. And if we were going to come up with possible rules for all of those 512 combinations, that would be two to the 512, which very quickly becomes a very big number, 1.34 times 10 to the 154th power. Yeah, we're not going to look at that particular version of this model. Instead, we're going to consider a more simplified rule set, where instead of considering all the possible combinations of every single neighbor, we're instead going to look at a count of how many neighbors each cell has that are either on or off, and not really caring about which ones are on or which ones are off. For example, in this particular case for the cell in the middle, you'll notice that it has two neighbors that are currently in the on position filled in, and it has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 neighbors that are off, and then it also has its own state to be concerned about, whether that state is on or off. Because we are counting neighbors, though, we are also going to have to be careful and think about how we're going to handle cells that are on the boundary. For example, let's consider this green cell right here. It's up against the boundary. It doesn't appear to have any neighbors on the left-hand side, although it does have neighbors above and below and to the right. So how are we going to handle its count of neighbors? Well, we could just ignore the fact that it has no neighbors on the left, or we could also do as we did before and assume that it does have neighbors, but that those neighbors are on the opposite side of the grid, that the sides of the grid, for example, this left-hand side, is attached to the right-hand side of the grid. In this case, this would have a neighbor immediately to the left, which is on the far right side of the grid, but if you want to go up and to the left, you end up with the one that's up above that, and if you go down and to the left, you go to the right-hand side of the grid, then grab the neighbor that is there. This gets to be even a bit more complex when you consider the grid boxes that are in the corners. For example, let's look at this grid box highlighting in yellow in the upper left-hand side. Well, it has three neighbors that are immediately visible on the grid. However, where are its remaining five neighbors? Well, if we go directly up off the top of the screen, that should lead us up off the bottom of the screen. If we consider the top and the bottom connected to each other, the neighbor that's above it is actually the neighbor on the far bottom of the screen. The neighbor that is up and to the right ends up being to the right, but down at the bottom of the screen. The neighbor that is immediately left, if we remember, left is attached to the right side of the screen, so that's the one on the far right, and the neighbor that is down and to the left ends up being way over in the right hand of the screen, but still down. And the last one we need here is what about the neighbor that's up and to the left, up off the corner of the screen? Well, that will be the neighbor that's all the way down in the lower right side of the screen. And that's how we can connect these, if we would like every single one of ourselves to have a full group of eight neighbors. This set of boundary conditions are what we call toroidal boundary conditions. T-O-R-O-I-D-A-L. Why are they called toroidal? Well, it's because the shape that's made is called a torus. A torus being basically a fancy name for the shape of a donut. Well, how exactly do you get a torus from this? Well, think about it this way.  If you attach those two edges together, you end up with a long, thin roll. Well, that's attached to the sides, but what if you then have to attach the top to the bottom? Well, if you do that, you have to take this loop here and attach it around to the bottom. In order to do that, you're going to have to pull and stretch, and doing so, you'll eventually create something that looks a little bit like a donut. Now, if you're trying to do it with a piece of paper that can't stretch very well, it's going to not really look that much like a donut. But ultimately, the only way you can create that sort of shape in three dimensions, to take the two-dimensional shape and make it attached on both top and bottom, and right to left, is to create it in this three-dimensional shape of a torus. So now we've defined what our agent is. It's a cell that has eight neighbors. We've defined the states for our agent, either on or off, and that it cares about the states of its neighbors. We've talked about our boundary conditions, that we're going to have these toroidal boundary conditions, where the right side is attached to the left side, and the top is attached to the bottom. And we've also established a set of initial conditions with some of our cells being initially on, and some of our cells being initially off. What we haven't yet established is a set of rules for how to go from our initial condition to the next state. What are the rules that we are going to apply to iterate to watch how this cellular automata changes? Well, it turns out this particular model and the rule we are going to use have been studied pretty extensively and given a title called the Game of Life. We'll talk about why it's called the Game of Life in a little while, but let's go ahead and take a look at the rules for the Game of Life. First of all, it's researched extensively and given a name by somebody by the name of Conway. There's a link there that we will use in a little bit to go and observe this game. But here's the rules. Our agents, individual grid boxes in two dimensions with eight neighbors, and here the neighbors are given north, northeast, east, southeast sort of map directions. Boxes on the edge of the grid can be considered to have fewer neighbors or be neighbors with boxes on the opposite side. We're deciding to use the toroidal boundary conditions with boxes on the opposite side. Two binary states, on or off, one or zero, or full or empty. Our initial conditions is initial grid of boxes, like we've drawn. And there are lots of possible initial conditions that we can perhaps look at in a little bit.  Maybe we can create some patterns or we can randomly distribute things. Okay? And what is an iteration? Well, the iteration is redrawing the entire grid with all the new states, and you can either redraw it in the same space or erase everything and redraw it in the same space, or you can redraw it in another place so that you can see the progression. We are actually going to try, in our first example, to redraw this in another space. So now let's look at Conway's rules. The rules for the game of life. Say the state of a new box is determined from the current box and it's eight neighbors. So in other words, if I'm in a certain place, my next state will be determined from my current state as well as the state of all my neighbors around me. If I live, that means that I was a full cell. I was on or full at the beginning, and I remain full. And that only happens if a certain number of my neighbors are also full. In other words, if I have exactly two neighbors or exactly three neighbors, it means I am happy and comfortable and I live. I'm a full cell that remains full. If I die, that means I'm a full or an on cell that becomes empty. And that happens if a certain number of my neighbors are full. Either if I have zero or only one neighbor, you can consider me dying of loneliness. If I have four, five, six, seven or eight neighbors, you can consider that as me dying of overpopulation or crowding. To be born, that's a condition where an empty cell becomes full, going from empty to becoming full. And that happens if a certain number of neighbors are full, exactly three neighbors, three and only three neighbors. Otherwise, there's also a condition of just remaining empty. That's the fourth situation where empty stays empty. And that occurs when I don't have exactly three full neighbors. There's also a condition where old cells can change color to identify them. That happens in the computer model that we'll see in a little bit. So let's record the rules here, shall we? If we are in an on state and we want to stay on, that's called living. If we're in an on state and we need to turn off, we're going to call that dying. If we're in off state and we need to turn on, we're going to call that being born. And the last state is an off state staying off. And that doesn't really have an official title in Conway's model. So I'll just put some parentheses here. Maybe we can call that stasis or stays. And so to recall the rules, we lived when we had exactly two or three neighbors, a number of neighbors. We died when we didn't have two or three neighbors, if we had zero or one, or if we had four or more. I'll put four plus here for four or more. If we were going to be born, that happened when we had exactly three and off, staying in our same condition as when we didn't have three, when we had some number besides three. So there's the rule set for Conway's game of life. So let's go ahead and see if we can apply the game of life to our grade up above. I'm going to start with this living cell that's in the upper left hand, not quite in the very corner there, but in the upper left hand, and I'm going to go ahead and dot it out over here. We want to figure out what the status of this cell is going to be as we move from the initial conditions on the left, the initial conditions here on the left to the first iteration here on the right. So let's look at this. If I look first, I see that I have a living cell or a cell that is full, which means I'm either going to live or die, and I do not need to worry about the rules for being born or staying, but either I'm going to live or die. So now I need to count my number of live neighbors. In this case, there is one live neighbor to the south, and one live neighbor to the southeast, in which case I am going to live. So I'm going to take that grid, and I'm going to fill it in. So in the next iteration, it will be live. And I'm going to look at the next grid, the one immediately to the right of that. In this case, I have a grid that is not alive, so it is empty. It's off to start with. And so I'm going to use the rules to determine whether I am born or whether I stay put. And to do that again, I count the number of live neighbors I have. One, two, three, four. Well, I have four live neighbors, and four live neighbors mean that I'm not born. Nothing special happens, so I stay empty, effectively. I'm going to continue to apply that same process. Let me move to the right again. Again, another empty cell. Now I have one, two neighbors this time. I only have two neighbors that are live, but that is not the right number to have me be born. So once again, I'm going to stay dead. Now I move one more space to the right, and now I'm up against the boundary. Now I have to pay attention to the boundary rules. If I remember correctly in the boundary, I'm going to look up here. I'm going to look over to the right, and I'm going to look down into the right, and I will see that there are no neighbors there that are live. There's only one neighbor that's important. This is the live neighbor up to the left, and that's not enough to allow me to be born. So therefore, I'm going to stay dead. And let's repeat that same process for the last grid box in the row, the one way over here on the left. I'll make it red so it's a little bit easier to see. That grid box, how many neighbors does it have? Well, if you said two, you're correct. Only the two to the right and below, because there are none on the other side. We would have to look over here on the other side of these three, but there aren't any live boxes there, because I have exactly two neighbors. Similarly, that cell does not come to life. So now we've calculated one row in the new iteration, but we would like to figure out what all 25 of those boxes do. So take a moment, take some time, and see if you can calculate a few of these. I'll pause the recording, calculate as many as you would like, I'll do the same, and then we can check our answers. How did you do? Well, notice there's been a bit of a population boom here. Three of our cells that were originally there survived because they had enough neighbors, as did one of the cells down near the bottom. However, a couple of cells passed away from loneliness, but there were some conditions that were just perfect for the creation of some new cells, and now we have four new cells, the population has grown. So in our first iteration, our population, or our number of population being the number of full cells or the cells that are on, is now bigger. What do you suppose will happen in the next iteration? Well, there might be some conditions for additional cells to grow, but you'll also notice that some of the cells that are already there are going to be crowded. For example, this cell here now has one, two, three, four neighbors, which means it's overcrowded, and it will not survive through the next iteration. That cell will be empty in the next iteration. So for interested in studying that, we would need to create a new box and repeat the process. However, the purpose of having computers is to have them do repetitive tasks for us. If you ever find yourself doing something over and over and over again, well, it might be easier to have that automated. That's the idea of cellular automata. So our next step, we're going to go look at a version of Conway's Game of Life that is available on the internet. The web link is visible here, and will be provided to you. However, I will also show you momentarily how you can find it. So while there are multiple versions of the Game of Life available on the web, we are going to look at a particular one that's at a website called www.shodor.org. If you go to the site there, it will bring up, there's a little search box there, and you can search in that search box and then it will bring up a couple of options. The one you're looking for is the first one, Interactivate Life. What you should see when you first start up this program is a grid with lots of small dots on it. And what you will recognize is each of those, if you look closely, are small, square grid spaces. Well, we had a much different size grid when we were working with it before. Let's change some of our settings here so that we can investigate this a little more closely to start with. So to do so, you're going to want to click the little box that says Game Setup, and then if you can read it, you're going to want to change the world size. Game Setup, change the world size. Now let's go ahead and configure this into a 10 by 10 grid and apply your changes. When you do so now, which you should see, the grid will be blank, you can click Randomize, and you will see that it will fill some of the grids with red and the others will remain black.  And you should see that this is a grid that's 10 units across by 10 units up and down. If you once again click on the Game Setup and look at Change Rules, you will see the rules of the game, which could potentially be changed, but here's how they're listed there. You can sort of see that you can either live or die when you have zero, one, two, three, four, and so on, a number of neighbors, and our rules here are the standard rules of you live when you have two neighbors or three neighbors and die in all other cases. And then we can also use a checkbox to indicate which conditions under which an empty cell becomes a live cell, or in other words, whether something is born in that particular spot. We do not want to modify the rules at the moment, so go ahead and ignore those changes in return. Now, one of the things that you can do here is you can add any cells at any time, and notice nothing's actually happening because we're not running or we do not have the... we're not actually applying the rules at the moment to this particular grid. So we're going to ask you to clear the grid to start with.  Well, you should already know by the rules what's going to happen to this single block.  It's step. When you do so, the block goes away. Well, try this. Let's put two blocks in place. What do you think is going to happen with those two blocks? Well, if you look at the block in the top, it's going to do what? It only has one neighbor, so it's going to die of loneliness. What about the block at the bottom? It only has one neighbor. It's going to die of loneliness. Let's hit step, and now I have nothing on the screen again. What happens if I hit step again? Step, step, step. Well, none of them are spontaneously born once they're gone, but do you remember what this condition is called? That we're each step. Looks just like the step before it. That would be what we would call steady state. Our state remains the same, no matter what. Let's try another setup. Let's put three of these little cells next to each other. Now think about this. What's going to happen here? What's going to happen in this kid's situation? Think what's going to happen when you hit step? See if you can figure it out. Let's go ahead and see what happens when I hit step. That makes sense. This upper right-hand corner had exactly three neighbors, which is the condition for being born, and now I have four of these live units. What's going to happen next? Predict, and when you're ready, we'll hit step. Nothing much happened. Step. Nothing happened. Step. It looks like I'm maintaining the same state each time. Oops, we meant something happened there. Some of them turned a lighter shade of blue, and then when I hit the next one, the next one turned that shade of blue. This is an option to the game of life. It's just to give you an idea that there is some level of change there, that after each cell has been around for a long time, it'll change a slightly darker color to give us an indication of which cells may be older than other cells. If you click step multiple times, eventually it'll turn more of a shade of purple, and eventually it'll turn entirely blue. Those are to indicate our older cells. However, if we ignore that color change, what we can see is that we have also reached a condition of steady state, and this is a stable quote-unquote population that once we reach this box of four, we end up with a box of four that stays around forever. Let's try something else here. Hit clear. And let's go ahead and put three of them in a row like this. If you need to hit pause and think about what you think will happen when we do a step with this population. All right, let's take a look. Step. Notice it changed our configuration a little bit. What if I hit step again? Step. Step. Step. Step. It seems like I'm falling into a bit of a pattern here. Oops, there's that one in the middle. The one in the middle is not changing. It seems to be getting older, but the ones on the sides are. I'm going to go ahead and hit start. What start does is it's going to run each iteration and do them over and over and over again. And what we can see is this seems to go blinking back and forth between the vertical orientation and the horizontal orientation with each step. Let's talk about some of the patterns that we're beginning to see. So we saw a steady state pattern where we had this square. And we saw a pattern that went back and forth in a cycle. We're going to call that a cyclic pattern, C-Y-C-L-I-C, a cyclic pattern. And that pattern has a period, a period being the length of time from when it goes from one state to another state and then returns to itself. In this case, the cyclic pattern has a period of two. One step, two steps, and I'm back where I came from where I started. One step, two steps, and I'm back where I started. So the pattern down here is a steady state pattern, basically cyclic with a period of one, what we call that steady state. And up here, we have a pattern that's cyclic with a period of two. So what other patterns are there? What else can you find? What happens if I build something like this? What do you think is going to happen? This looks like it's getting old. Turning blue must be that I've discovered another steady state pattern. What happens if I just add a single block to that population? Does that change something? Looks like it does. Well, it changes for a little bit and then it appears to achieve steady state. If you remember, the term for that is called transient behavior. For those few steps, if I can return it to when we were in this state, the few steps where it was changing, there's a changing step, there's a changing step or it changed, but now we noticed after that it's the same. Well, once it's achieved the point where it's reached steady state, it's no longer transient. But that time in between, when it's trying to, when it's changing until it reaches some sort of transient, let's see what happens if we do this. Uh-oh, now we have something that's changing pretty substantially. And when it gets big enough, it starts reaching the boundaries and then the boundaries start interacting with each other. And let me go ahead and hit start and see what sort of happens. Oh, eventually it reached steady state that all the other things died out and we reached a steady state. Meanwhile, all those other changes were again what we call transient behavior. So what patterns do we see? Steady state patterns, something that stays the same all the time. Go patterns with a certain period of two. Well, what would a period of three be? A period of three would be something that starts, then goes into another condition, then a third condition, and then back to the first one. We'll have to look and see if we can find something like that. Growing, well, the pattern we had there toward the end started was small and it got bigger and bigger and bigger, but eventually it collapsed and it went into steady state. Now that had a lot to do with the fact that we had our boundary conditions, but if we had a bigger screen, perhaps it would have kept growing. It did look like it was getting bigger with each step until it reached the boundaries. Let's take a look at a really interesting one and probably one of the ones that leads to this idea of the game of life. Here's a particularly interesting pattern. Feel free to recreate it if you would like. So let's take a look at what happens when we do a single iteration or a step with this pattern. Okay, so with chain, let's do another step. Changed again. It looks a little familiar. Here's a third step and here's a fourth step. Now, if you look carefully, you'll notice that this fourth step looked pretty much like the first step we started with. However, it's located in another location. Watch what I do again. I'm going to go through four steps and look at this pattern, look at it carefully and then we'll look in four steps. Let's see if we can see it again. One, two, three, four. And there's the same pattern, but this time this pattern has moved. In some ways, this pattern is almost cyclic with a period of four because it took us four steps to repeat what it looks like. However, it also shifted in its location. It's no longer in the same place. Now watch what happens when I hit start. Notice my little pattern looks like a little moving creature. This pattern is actually known as a glider in the game of life and it's one of the ideas that gives the game of life its name, that with this simple set of rules we're creating something that appears to be moving.


It's been a question that's been going through Raven's heads for a long time now. Really especially ever since that Titans playoff loss. The Ravens went into that game with Mark Ingram not being healthy. He was banged up still dealing with his calf injury. And he was back but he wasn't back. And the next best running back that they had on the team was Gus Edwards. Now Gus Edwards was in his second year but he had already proven he can carry the load. Just a few weeks prior he did just that when Mark Ingram didn't play against the Pittsburgh Steelers. So in the Titans game and the playoff game you just came from breaking Russian records that had been in the league for over 50, 60 maybe 100 years and they decided you know what instead of using Gus Edwards as our feature back and he has been our feature back before in the past even though we got a banged up Mark Ingram you know what let's let's just pass the ball. Let's become a passing team all of a sudden let's completely go away from our game. Gus sat there. Gus even got a couple of carries in the game and he did good. He even got like an 18 to 20 yard carry. Then after that nothing. Never saw him in the game again. Never saw him get another snap again. So then you look at this year the year that Gus Edwards is having is it's been a good year it's been a productive year but at the same time he's not been he's not given a chance to produce. Let's look at his numbers from this year. Alright in the Cleveland game he had four carries for 17 yards that's 4.2 yards a carry. That's solid that's solid but he only got four carries what can you do with that? You don't get a chance to get into a rhythm and I know the Ravens are running back by committee they don't have one guy where he's the feature back even though Mark Ingram is the he's the starter and whatnot and he's out there more than the other guys so I guess he is the feature back but it's a different he's a different type of number one running back for the Ravens than like an Ezekiel Elliott for the Cowboys or something like that. But anyway against the Texans 10 carries for 73 yards 7.3 yards per carry. So look at that against the Texans and the thing with him against the Texans a lot of those runs came at the end of the game when the Ravens had to run out the clock so what made it worse was that the Texans knew the Ravens were running the ball and they knew they had to stop the Ravens from running the ball in order to try to come back and win but they still couldn't stop. Let's move on so last night against the Kansas City Chiefs four carries for 39 yards four carries for 39 yards he averaged 9.8 yards a carry 9.8 yards a carry so this season he has 18 carries for 129 yards and he averages 7.2 yards per carry but for some reason the Ravens they they choose to be cold to Gus Edwards they even cold it in the water that's in these bottles and that's the coldest water and I I'm just like wow but I mean to help cheer you up you can hit up their website that's in the description so again you can get your coldest bottle and you know what maybe that maybe when you get the coldest water bottle it might not even be as cold as the Ravens are to Gus Edwards it might not be that's certainly still use the cold engraving vise to get the 10% off and also get into their weekly giveaways and all that too but it seems like the Ravens they give away Gus opportunities more more than they do giveaways on their website but check that out it's in the description right at the top but I'm just really I'm puzzled I'm confused and I want what does Gus have to do what does he have to do to get more of an opportunity what does he have to do to get more consistency if you just look at his numbers I know numbers don't tell the whole story but with Gus Edwards numbers they tell a lot of the story if you look at his numbers his rookie year 137 carries 718 yards average 5.2 yards a carry and that's when Gus Edwards was a lot bigger next year 2019 last season had 133 carries 711 yards average 5.3 yards a carry it's a backup now it's a backup running back you're not the starter and again this year right now 18 carries for 129 yards average and 7.2 yards a carry and it's it's like what was what's gotta give what what has Gus Edwards done to this coaching staff to where this guy just they don't include him they exclude him out of all out of all of their plans and what makes it worse and what makes it even more frustrating is that he's been so successful he's been successful as a runner and this is this is not a new issue this is something that we've been talking about for a long time but it just it showed his ugly head even more in the loss last night because he was doing so well when he got the ball he was doing really good when he got the ball but they just decided you know what Gus Edwards running game no well that's out the window and the thing the thing about it too is that it doesn't just happen when they panic it's happening when they don't panic as well it just happens a lot but when they panic is certainly it just gets worse it gets worse so I'm just I'm not understanding what's going on and like I said before I of course I would love for Gus to stay on this team forever love Gus Edwards love what he brings to the table you never hear this guy complain at all he has every right to complain but you never hear him complain but what I said last night in the stream is that I feel like with Gus Edwards if if you're not gonna use him man if you're not gonna use Gus Edwards trade him trade him as frustrating as that would be trade him let somebody else use Gus Edwards because somebody else will use him but trade him if you're just gonna have him sitting around especially when he got he's showing you like hey I'm working I can be a part of this game plan and the game plan that includes me it works we get positive yards trade them trade them it's like y'all saving them for a special occasion or something it like what is it my God night just said that he feels like the Ravens they just trying to keep Gus Edwards value damn and it's like yeah you could understand that because he expects them to get rid of Mark Ingham next year and try to retain Gus but and they can't do that because they could next year he would be a restricted free agent so they could place a free agent tender on and he was they'll be super cheap he'll be super cheap and Gus him being an unrestricted free agent him coming into the Ravens and coming into the league as an unrestricted free agent it's worked against them big-time money wise man because he certainly could have cashed out but I mean and he's eligible I believe he's eligible to get a contract extension now where they could like give him a big raise but no they ain't they ain't thinking about that right now I honestly don't even expect them to do that I would love for them to keep Gus Edwards but like I've said this plenty of times before I just feel like it's going to be another Hayden Hurst situation and you can understand why Hayden Hurst remember he's first round draft pick supposed to be the starter got hurt Mark Andrews he end up getting in then Lamar end up getting in Lamar Mark Andrews they had that connection then they took off Hayden Hurst was sort of the third guy he was like the odd man now with the tight ends and he was just like no I'm not getting enough opportunity I want to get out of here and say there's nothing against the team it was no bad blood with the Ravens anything like that but you just want more opportunity you can completely understand them Gus Edwards wants to start a couple years ago but Mark Ingham comes in understandably Mark Ingham veteran guy veteran presence all that cool Mark Ingham comes in produces running back by committee but Gus Edwards knows we know like a lot of I see I see so many comments every single day Gus should be the starter Gus should be the starter start Gus run Gus more I see him every day I know y'all see him too but for some reason Ravens they don't see it they don't see it and I'm I just don't know what it is I don't know what it is that's going to make them see like hey Gus is that guy is his music that offensive to where they feel like you know what that guy we don't like his song so we're not going to run I don't know what it is because there's like there's nothing that you can tell me that would make it make sense nothing there's nothing you can tell me that it make it make sense to why they don't use Gus Edwards more I just I don't understand it what like what what is it going to take what is it going to take he deserves much more opportunity than he's getting and I and I'm not just saying that because I'm not saying that just as a fan but just as what would be best for the team Gus Edwards deserves far more opportunity than this but he just simply isn't getting it and I don't know why I I don't know why is puzzling man it is one of the most confusing situations for the ravens right now it was confusing in the playoff game it's been confusing throughout this season and it's just confused like why why is it why especially in the game against the chiefs especially in that game now I don't know if Mark Ingram if he just had it has a having a rough start right now or I don't know if he's actually just lost lost a little bit of a step because he doesn't look as juiced as he did last year he doesn't look as just that he doesn't have as much burst as he did last year and again it could be just because it's been a slow start and maybe he got to get in the groove of things maybe it's the lack of the off season but Gus is there he's ready he's waiting for I don't know man I just it's something that's just strange it's strange and nothing about it is it makes any kind of sense whatsoever but I'm trying to figure it out because again just looking at the numbers man against the Browns 4.2 yards of carry against the Texans 7.3 yards of carry against the chiefs 9.8 yards of carry and just to put that into perspective let's look at Mark Ingram Mark Ingram against the Cleveland Browns 2.9 yards of carry against the Texans 6.1 yards of carry and against the Chiefs 4.3 yards of carry so Mark Ingram besides that first game but Mark Ingram see the thing with him he's been getting more opportunities 10 carries 9 carries 7 carries now with Gus has been four carries 10 carries four carries so not actually not too far off from Ingram not too far off but still when you see what he's doing numbers wise it's like oh yeah he definitely needs more of a shot so I don't know hopefully Ravens man it's it's it's just week three so they got some time to make adjustments they got plenty of time to make adjustments and let's just hope man let's just hope that they can get this thing right because we know that Gus is I know he's not the only running back on the team of course you got Ingram you got JK Dobbers and like we said earlier we know it's running back by committee but still man like someone's gotta give me something has got to give but anyway appreciate y'all I love y'all team keep it clean and like it seems like the coaches their patience their tolerance with Gus Edwards seems to be I'm out


Rejoice, I am among you, an immortal god, subject no longer to death's blight. I go on tour, honored by all, as is right. Reathed with head ribbons and floored crowns, whenever I arrive at flourishing towns, I am worshipped by both genders and their thousands attending. Welcome everyone to a very special live episode of We Are Being Transformed. Here we explore the liminal spaces and contours of reality, the myriad of ways people interact with their world through the vehicles of ritual, cult, and lore. One of my favorite topics in this myriad of subjects that we discuss is deification, and of course our guest today knows a thing or two about this concept. So without further ado, let's bring on the guest of the hour. We've all been waiting for him to return to YouTube land here as the reigning, defending, undisputed, world heavyweight champion of divination and deification. Dr. M. David Litwa, welcome. Hi, Jason. Great to be here. I love the theme song. Thanks.  Yes, my only claim to fame there is that I have made in pedacletes rhyme, which is not something that you'll see in other translations. Great poetry didn't rhyme, so that's always very interesting to the hexameter. Only the English poetry rhymes. Well, Dr. Litwa, welcome back to the show. Congratulations on your new baby boy. Love all the work you've been doing on Patreon. We've all missed you and we're glad you're back, so welcome. Today we are going to talk about something you know quite a bit about, which is deification and ancient Mediterranean thought. Absolutely, yeah. Take it away. At your service. So tonight, before we begin, I think we need a general overview of deification, so if you could give us however possible it is to give a brief rundown of what it is, just kind of go over what deification entails. Well, without deification in the ancient Mediterranean world, there is no Christianity because there would be no bridge for early Christians to move a peasant Galilean preacher into the divine sphere. It's only in a context in which all sorts of beings, human beings, sometimes animals, are being deified that one has the possibility to make that conceptual bridge. So deification is just that. It's the real ontological movement of a human being to a divinity. A divinity is defined very simply as a being who is deathless instead of mortal, subject to death and disease, and as well as a being who has power. And a lot of the power of divinity is not power, say, to lift rocks, because then you get into the logical problem of can you lift a rock? Do you have the power to make a rock that you can't lift and all those other conundrums? No, power is often conceived as power over the self, and that's why divine heroes or deified heroes, including the Roman emperors, including figures like Heracles and Dionysus and all, you know, Asclepius and Romulus, et cetera, et cetera, by the imperial period get to be depicted as those who are in control over themselves and over their passions, over rage, over greed, over self-hatred, over all the other impulses which plague human life. And desire itself is something that they overcome, and having overcome desire, they attain the peace and stability of the Godhead. Of course, there are many ways to be deified in the ancient world, and depending on who you talk to, if you're talking, you know, to Philo, a Platonic philosopher, he's going to tell you one thing that it's about, you know, becoming bottomless and it's about entering into stability of the existent and the unchanged one and becoming unchangeable and et cetera, et cetera. Others are going to tell you it's about dominating your passions here on earth. It's about bodily immortality, getting a, you know, human body 2.0, living in the heaven, zooming around in the astral sphere, and living the life of a of a dimon or an angel. So it's going to look different depending on who you're talking to. But those two characteristics of attaining deathlessness and superhuman power are the two, in my opinion, the two stable factors in deification. Great answer. Thank you for that. Now everyone, I want to preface this discussion by pointing out that we are pulling most of our figures from a trio of books that Dr. Litt was written. The first one being Desiring Divinity, which deals with Simon of Stumeria, among other self-deifying figures. We're also going to touch upon our glam rock or glam rocker and pedigrees and post-human transformation. And we're also going to look briefly at Paul and his concept of assimilation and deification from the wonderful chapter that almost functions as like a nice summary of his first book, We Are Being Transformed. Of course, I'm talking about the book Becoming Divine. And those are all in the description of this video. So feel free to check those out on Amazon or feel free to join Dr. Litt with Patreon where he will sign the books for you and all that fun stuff. So Dr. Litt, let's get started with Empedocles. So I think it's safe to say Empedocles was basically the Ziggy Stardust of the ancient Greek world.  Mark Boland had nothing on that. So just tell us more a little bit about Empedocles. Yeah. So he's a Sicilian and he lives in Acragas or was born in Acragas and spends a lot of time in the Peloponnes, which is southern Greece. Yes, the ancients thought that he was very flamboyant that in his poetry he talks about wearing, you know, headdresses and robes and of being worshiped as a deity even in his lifetime. Of course, that's him in his poetry. I mean, we really don't know what exactly, how exactly people perceived or honored him. He's probably a Pythagorean and he's very, very early. So, you know, earlier than Plato and the other kind of Socrates and the other kind of well-known philosophers, they're looking back on Empedocles. And Empedocles lives in a time where, you know, much different than our time, where you have, you know, rationality and scientific discourse and then poetry. Empedocles did all his science through poetry and the only works that survive are probably two poems and one of them just called, you know, On Nature. And that's how he engaged in doing science. He wrote Hexameter Poetry, which is the exact same kind of poetry that Homer wrote. And he tells us a bit about himself and then as a being who realized his eternal destiny and his sort of backstory, the backstory of humanity, was that, you know, we are born as human beings, but we are actually higher beings, originally, daemonace, who have fallen into this flesh under a certain kind of regime. And we are undergoing certain kinds of transformations and Empedocles himself had undergone all these transformations and was at the top level of the human hierarchy. As he says, you know, I was a bush and a boy and a girl and a fish in ocean swirl. That's my rhyming translation. And he had gone through all these sorts of transformations and realized who he was and was going to fully announce that gospel, if you will, to other people. And in the end, according to tradition, Empedocles ascended to heaven after vaporizing himself on Mount Etna under cover of night, throwing himself into what is still a live volcano in Sicily. And only one bronze boot survived to testify to his sacrifice. Love that. Love that. He's just a fascinating figure.  You know, you have the cosmic circle and his concept of why souls fall, but eventually he realizes his identity as a pure daemon, purifying himself. And he goes, I like how Empedocles almost like Zostrianos goes on the grand tour after he finds this knowledge out, much like, yeah, he just kind of goes around and he's proclaiming this knowledge to people who seek. It really reminds me of like the closing of Zostrianos. Very, very fascinating. So I know I've asked you this question before, but just for fun. So if you put Plotinus and Empedocles in a warehouse for 48 hours, who would annoy the other first with their constant claims for self-deification? Well, it's definitely Empedocles because Plotinus is not, he's not represented as someone who is openly saying that he's a god. Porphyry, about 30 years after Plotinus does, says that four times Plotinus reached union with the one. And it's really not clear what he meant by that. And it's only in these later stories of Plotinus do we get accounts of his higher nature, like him going into the Egyptian, or the temple of Isis in Rome, and the Egyptian priests screaming that Plotinus' daemon is really a god, which would make Plotinus a daemon. And so when you're, when Plotinus is thinking about deification, he's thinking about it in a certain kind of hierarchy, somewhat similar to Empedocles, that you don't become a fully fledged god. There's a whole hierarchy of beings that you become. And in that hierarchy, you enter into a daemonic phase. And everyone has a daemonic double who is leading and guiding your fate, leading you and helping you to make the decisions in life and et cetera, et cetera. And the Romans thought that this being that you're Ganius existed in your forehead. And for Plotinus, everyone depends on this being, but that being is really yourself, simply at a higher stage. It's simply, you know, two time impressions of your yourself. That's why it truly is your daemonic double. And you are in the process of becoming that double. And when you do, you will in turn essentially look back and help your former self attain that higher reality. And so it is, again, a bit, a bit circular, actually. It's, it's something that, something that you would attain to. And Plotinus is never represented as boasting about any of this. And he never, he never says that he's a daemon.  And in fact, people later made fun of him because he died in one of the late second century play or late third century plagues. And he was, it was a rather miserable kind of death. And, but Epitocles is a different story. Epitocles, regardless of whether you think he, his poetry, you know, has any historical worth, he represented himself as a living daemon who in his next incarnation would graduate out of a human body and would simply no longer be, be human. In terms of the cosmic cycle, you know, it used to be before we had this ever expanding universe, it used to be that people thought that our universe expanded and might contract again. And that's, and then, you know, go on like that for forever. And that's somewhat similar to Epitocles's view where you would have a unification under the power of love, which for him was a divine principle, and then you would have a dissipation or disintegration under the power of a being he called naecos or strife, which again serves as a divine principle. And it's, it's the power of strife that pulls us away from our demonic identity. And it's the power of love or filia that pulls us toward our destiny. And those forces are always battling each other in cycles. Very, very thorough, loved it. Love that answer. Thank you for that. Yeah, people, Plotinus never claimed these things, basically porphyry in his life of Plotinus here. Yeah, he makes these very specific claims that Plotinus attained one with the Godhead. I'm reading actually a very interesting book by Zeke Mazer about Plotinus and Scythian Gnosticism about that. But yeah, just the final word on Epitocles, I found it very interesting because we kind of touched upon this allegory prior in one of our prior videos that hasn't come out yet, honestly, but it'll come out soon. And it was about Cornutus. And yeah, Empedocles really fits into that, that mold of like these philosophers at this period of time using Homeric and Hesiotic hexameter to do philosophy and theology. It's very interesting. I would very much recommend everybody to go check out Empedocles. So we're just going to briefly touch upon Paul. I think everybody's familiar with Paul and, you know, his books or his epistles. But we're just going to get back to him very briefly because I find Paul very interesting in terms of his conception of deification. So as you pointed out, and we are being transformed, the key traits of deity and antiquity are immortality and power. But what I find interesting about Paul is that you mentioned that antiquity, deification was typically communicated as the domain of emperors, kings, people with power. But Paul has a very different conception and assimilation adoption as concepts. I didn't know if you could just talk about Paul quickly. Well, absolutely. Paul is our earliest Christian writer and he's the guy that makes the deity or deification of Jesus, makes sense to most people. His only encounter with Jesus is apparently in an epiphany in which he sees him in a blazing light. And so for Paul, that really is Jesus. He never knew him as a human being. And so that sets the tone for his theology. I would say, yes, your most popular deified people in the ancient world are your emperors.  It was Caesar Augustus.  So the Son of God is Caesar Augustus. But for Paul, it's not that Paul wouldn't describe Jesus as Galilee and peasant either. Paul thinks of Jesus as the true king in the Davidic line and in the seat of David. And so all that imperial discourse of royal deification can still apply to Jesus. And that's why I bring out in, we are being transformed, all of the Jewish and, yeah, Hebrew Bible background for divine kings.  You know, it's not a monotheistic text. It proclaims the king to be a Son of God and in Psalm 2 and God in the Psalms. And so, you know, as the representative of Yahweh on earth, the vicar of Yahweh, and that's pretty much how the Romans viewed the emperor as the vicar of Zeus, Jupiter, Optimus, Maximus. So these discourses are able to combine in Paul, and he's able to raise Jesus to the stars based on all this background royal ideology that's not stemming from, you know, Roman Greece. It's stemming from the Hebrew Bible in the form of the Septuagint. But it's the same kind of material. And, yeah, this has always been the most popular form of deification. In fact, it survived in far into Europe, you know, past the Renaissance as the divine right of kings. The kings weren't divine, but they had a kind of divine right. And there was always a kind of halo or aura around them that their person was sacred. And gradually we've lost this, but really only in the past couple hundred years. I mean, when you look at the funeral of Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth, I should say, you realize that this hasn't really totally gone away. I mean, it's still lingers in the air that there's something sacred about her person. Yeah, right. Yeah, even if it even if it's just part of the the pomp and part of the ceremony, there's still vestiges of that. And yeah, that's very interesting to think about. Well said, thank you for that answer. Yeah, I mean, like you said, it's important to stress that Paul is getting his conceptions from the Hebrew Bible, specifically the set its transmission through the Septuagint, which is also something that Philo is using. So, you know, you have Psalm 110, if I recall correctly. Yeah, the Lord said to my Lord. Yeah, the Lord said to my Lord, this would be something to my curiosity. Yeah, exactly. This would be something that if you're listening to it in Greek, you know, your makes total sense, right? And it's just very interesting. And there's also a very interesting thing in Galatians 2 19 through 20, where it really sure sounds like something to me out of Orphism. It's like instead of Dionysus, those in the fold are gathered or grafted onto Christ, it's simulation language, very interesting. So just very interesting how these things are floating together. Well, that that stream of things is is Pauline mysticism. And, you know, that's fallen out of fashion. But, but there it did read a recent article on this by Denise, Kimber Buell, that talked, you know, wanted to revive this concept of Pauline mysticism, which of course goes back to Albert Schweitzer, where, you know, Paul outright identifies with with Jesus. He says, I've been crucified with Christ. Actually, the Greek is co-crucified synastaromai. And so yeah, you you wonder at some points whether Paul really thought there was a difference between him and Jesus. And that really is what being the the vicar of a God is. You know, we call the Pope the vicar of Christ, as well. And what that means is that, yeah, when in certain phases, speaking ex-cathedra, as they say, from the from the papal seat, what the Pope says is what Christ says. I mean, it's it really, it really is that strong. And I think Paul has that idea for himself, which means he's he's undergone some kind of experience where he he ceases or at some point ceased to distinguish himself and Jesus. So if you were to replay the crucifixion, it would be Paul there right there. Right. What does Paul what does Paul really mean when he says to the crucifixion, Christ was crucified before you or is that the Romans I can't remember. But yeah, it's very interesting. All of there seems to be like an indistinguishable point, especially in the Romans language, like where our bodies become Christ bodies, and we become, you know, grafted on to him as very co grown. Yeah. Yes, exactly. It's very, very interesting to think about, you know, just to mull upon. I think it's very shocking to our individualistic 21st century sensibilities. But, you know, that was there.  Very, very interesting. So Dr. Lutwe, one of the things that's very interesting about deification and you touched upon it in your introduction is there are different types of deification. And I think my favorite actually is the concept of self deification. Now in your book Desiring Divinity, which I am a huge fan of, I really see these two books as a part of a kind of like their kind of like Jesus Deus and how the Gospels became history, they're both kind of, they feed into each other. So, but specifically with Desiring Divinity, you focus on a figure you know a thing or two about and that I hear through the grapevine, you are writing a book about Simon of Samaria. So if you could kind of tell us more about Simon. Well, the important thing about Desiring Divinity, and I wish more people would read that book, Oxford has totally turned me off and a lot of other people off by overcharging for that particular book. But it's a very important book, I wish more people would get ahold of it. And what's distinctive about that is I put Jesus and Simon of Samaria on the same plan that they are self deifiers, they use the same techniques. And as I'm thinking specifically of Jesus in the Gospel of John, where it's the only Gospel where he comes out and says things like, you know, I and the Father are one, before Abraham was I am. I'm the way the truth and the life. These are self deifying statements.  No, I mean, these are full blown self deifying statements put right back in the mouth of Jesus, whether he actually said those things is irrelevant. The point is that in the narrative, he is represented as a self deifier. And in that respect, he does look a lot like Simon, who also gets represented as a self deifier, though typically in negative light, I should say, you know, among Christians always in a negative light. But it's very similar to what to, to the, the techniques we see in the Gospel of John.  This is to Scythias. And the staff goes right through Simon's body like smoke.  And Simon shouts, I am, you know, which is very similar to something and brings Scythias, you know, down to the ground. You know, Scythias falls and dies not many days later. And it's very similar to what you find in the Gethsemane scene in John, where, you know, all, you know, a whole legion, well, not sorry, not a whole legion, but a whole Spira, which is a cohort comes to arrest Jesus.  And he shouts, I am, and everybody just falls on the ground. And, you know, it's a, it's a self-defying kind of a thing.  Those kinds of narrative techniques, which we see in both, with both Simon and Jesus, are key. And what's important to remember is that for Simonian Christians, okay, Simon was their hero, right?  And that's how he's depicted by heresiologists. But among those who truly believed in Simon, who truly believed that he was Christ for them, Simon was a hero, just as for the author of John, Jesus is the hero, and they're both self-defying heroes. So this is what I'm trying to bring out. Self-defocation does have this curse in, you know, associated with it. You know, the self-defire can be depicted as a rebel who falls, but the self-defire can also be depicted as a, as a hero who succeeds. Because sometimes, just sometimes, the self-defires actually write that they're a God and nobody believes them until it's too late. Right, like Jesus in the Gospel of John. But yeah, well, amazingly, people do believe that, you know, millions of people, if not billions, do believe that, even though they would, you know, scream to the blue in the face, you know, against Simon and against any other competitor who made very similar claims. It's all about what books you choose to believe and where your intellectual and emotive commitments have been made almost before reading the book. Well said, absolutely. It's very interesting. Just getting back to a point that you made about Jesus in Gospel of John, you know, you're, if we read it from a point of faith or just in the 20th, our culture, you know, of course, Jesus is God because it's been ingrained in us. But if you're reading it as a person in the text, as a character in the text itself, yeah, it sounds crazy to you. It would sound completely crazy to you. You'd be like, what is wrong with this guy? You know, but, you know, we believe it, you know, but, but when Simon says the same thing or Simon in Acts chapter eight, as I pulled up here on the screen, allows them with their acts of magic, with his acts of magic, it's very, it's something that we're told not to really accept and that Simon is in some sense being a villain, which is very interesting. So this is- Well, because for Simon, yeah, or sorry, for Simon, those aren't acts of magic. Those are just miracles. And he's on the same plan as Philip in this account in Acts eight and Jesus as the performer of miracles. And some of Jesus's miracles are harmful.  It's not that everything that Jesus does is beneficial. He walks on water that doesn't benefit anybody but himself. Right. And he, yeah, he kills quite a few children in the Gospel of Thomas. You shall not go on your way if you tap them on the shoulder. Well, which, yeah, that's true. Yeah, we don't like him killing children, but we're okay with him killing up to 6,000 pigs, who are the property of herdsmen, who need those pigs in order to survive. And in the famous example of him casting the legion of demons into the pigs, all those pigs jump off a cliff.  Obviously, I do believe in animal rights. But it's amazing to me that, yeah, Jesus's actions do result in the death and destruction occasionally. And that has to be admitted.  But yes, those are in a sense beneficial miracles for some people, but they're at the same time destructive miracles for others. Right. And it's also very interesting that Jesus, like you said, not only does he harm animals, he's causing economic ruin to these these pig herders. They need us to basically feed their families. But that's another, that's a topic for another show, possibly, probably some deconstruction. You'll never hear a sermon about that. You will never hear a sermon about those pigs.  It's okay. You know, don't worry about anything. Justice for those pigs. Before we move on to another question, I want to, I wanted to talk a little bit about this just really quickly. This is from Brian Copenhaver's Book of Magic, where he takes a lot of really interesting texts and he puts them together within the light of antiquity in terms of how they would be seen like magically. And this is what he says about Acts chapter eight. He says, Simon explicitly said to be doing, explicitly said to be doing magic is an effective rival, but he is a boaster soon overwhelmed by the might of the apostles, though even that, though even then he thinks that their success can be bought. This is a natural mistake since magic and Simon's day was commercial recipes, charms, curses, amulets and talismans and love potions were bought and sold. So very interesting, you know, kind of harkens back to our discussion on magic with Dr. Henry about Christian magic and, you know, it's a commodity that can be bought from these ritual specialists, but that's a topic for another episode. Y'all should go watch. Just, just, yes, watch that, definitely. But just one point there, which I have to respectfully disagree with with Copenhover is that you get sucked into the narrative reality portrayed by the author of Acts, but remember the author of Acts is a probably a dreaded enemy of Simon and the Simonians. So if your dreaded enemy says that you're performing magic, that doesn't mean that you are, right? And this is so important for people to understand because, you know, Simon Magus has become his ossified term and just people accept the portrait of Acts that, okay, he must have been a Magus, but, you know, magic can be good or bad. I mean, you can either be Harry Potter or Voldemort. But the issue here is you don't have to accept that portrait in Acts at all, because we never hear Simon's voice.  No, you never get any of that. So this is all the author of Acts trying to convince you that he is a magic. But that's such a classic term of invective. It's like me coming on the show and, you know, calling, I don't know, Democrats, socialists and Marxists.   And so, yeah, I mean, when you look at Acts 8, the fact is, Simon, if you're looking just at Acts 8, Simon doesn't use any of these techniques commercially. And he never asks for money for his services. The only thing that he does is he gives away money in order to receive the power to transmit the spirit. And it's all simply an assumption brought to Acts that what Simon then wants to do is to market or monetize the spirit, which is incidentally something that epiphanious, who is one of the more irresponsible and non-sober hereseologists says that Simon is planning to do. But all of that is Icegesis, that is, all of that is brought into the text of Acts based upon, you know, readings, traditional readings. It's not in the text of Acts. And so, if you're really being honest with the texts, we have to face those facts. Well said. And great point about the author of Luke Acts, you know, and declamations like the denouncement of witchcraft like against a sophist or a philosopher was very commonplace too. So I can see like somebody with a smattering of Pidea, I'm assuming Luke has a pretty high Pidea using these techniques in Acts to denounce Simon. So well said there. Good point. So we did mention that in Acts, we don't really hear Simon's voice, but there is a text that we do hear Simon's voice. It's called The Great Declaration, which you translated and you have on your Patreon for all of us to read. You translated it from the Greek and you actually have a full, it's from your translation of The Refutation of All Heresies, which is available. I'm not sure if that's in a paperback yet, but hopefully it will be soon. It is in paperback, but if you join the Patreon at a certain tier, that's one of the books you'll get for free. That book, by the way, has almost 900 pages. And so, I mean, if you want to print copy, that's fine. I mean, I encourage you, but I also encourage everybody simply to join that tier on Patreon. I forget what it is. And just get that book for free so that you can download it and have it for your own reference. There's also on my Patreon an interactive reading of The Great Declaration, which as a result of Jason's good services, you have me reading it, and then there's a sort of a visual effects of, you know, during the reading. And it's got, I think people have enjoyed it, so go check that out. Yeah, it's a great video. And I just want to point out that everything we're talking about here, we're just scratching the surface. On Dr. Litt with Patreon, he goes super in-depth into Simon, great declaration acts of Peter, pseudo Clementine. So anything you need in terms of Simon and your need, your Simon fix, go to Patreon, find it there. But getting back to the Great Declaration, Simon is described as the one who stands, or Simon's described as the one who stood stands and will stand. Interestingly, we don't find this exactly, but we find this title used variously in Philo, Numenius, and the letter of Aristates. So what is the significance of saying Simon is the standing one? So this is interesting. And this is another case where most people have yet to really be precise about what's going on, right? Because, and this is why it's so important to really be a sophisticated reader of hereseology and hereseologists, because it's actually the refutator that is the author of the refutation of all heresies who says that Simon self-identifies as the standing one. And that's just not true. When you read the declaration itself, which the refutator excerpts Simon, who is reportedly the speaker, never identifies with the standing one. In fact, does quite the opposite. He says that everyone can be the standing one. If you assimilate to the image of God, you become one and self-identical with the infinite power. And the refutator then, I won't say lies, but twists that by saying that it's actually Simon who is deified himself. And that's just not true. Simon never proclaims himself as the standing one. And that's an indication that the Great Declaration is something early. It's something earlier than Justin, writing about 150, who says that Simon is identifying as the primal God. And it's quite possibly even earlier than Acts, which wants to identify Simon with the Great Power. Now, in terms of the precision of the terminology, the term that people are familiar with is ha-hestos, which is the standing one. But in the Great Declaration, we have this three-fold location, which is hastas, stis, stisaminas, which is the one who stood, stands, and will stand. And it's three phases of what appears to be a Trinitarian Godhead. And so the question is, is ha-hestos, the standing one, the same as this three-fold use, hastas, stisaminas? And that is a question worth considering. That's a wrinkle here that we haven't fully ironed out. But suffice it to say that long before Simonians in Philo and then, as you mentioned, Numenius, well, Numenius would be contemporary with these Simonians. But you have, as a title for God, specifically the atreptos or the unchangeable God, you have ha-hestos. He is the standing one. And it has a kind of Semitic flair, right, that you know, instead of calling God immutable, you call him the standing one. And that is, seems to be like a more bodily or embodied and concrete image. But it's very similar. It just means some, it just means the being who does not and cannot change. And it's Moses who becomes the standing one in Philo based on Deuteronomy 531, where God says to Moses, and you stand here by me. And Father takes this as the great example of God encouraging Moses to enter into his unchangeable Godhead and of becoming immutable or unchangeable in the heavenly sphere, which is then fulfilled at the end of his life. So these thoughts had existed in, like so many other ideas in Christianity, they pre-existed in, and Simonian Christians then picked up on these ideas and claim them for themselves. Well said. Thank you for that answer, Dr. Lutwe. So yeah, it's very interesting because regardless of whether the great declaration is coming directly from Simon or not, certainly his followers believe this, and certainly his followers put him up as part of a Trinitarian model. So I didn't know if you could kind of talk about the Trinitarian model that they saw Simon standing in, so to speak. Yeah, so it appears to be a development of the late second century because we have to get to Irenaeus who's about 180 to 189 for any of this to manifest itself. But what appears to be the case is that you had Simonian Trinitarianism early, where God in three phases is the one who stood stands and will stand. But later on this develops into more explicitly kind of Christian baptismal language, where Simon is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And, you know, we're not exactly sure how this happened, but it's certainly ironic and can be taken as a pushback against the author of Acts. Remember the author of Acts said that Simon probably didn't receive the Spirit. He didn't have the ability to transmit the Spirit. And at the end of the story, we're even confused as to whether he, you know, remains a Christian. And because he's left, you know, crying, and, you know, Peter just leaves him there, or he's left begging for Peter's prayer. And Peter interestingly never, never prays. And then in some versions of the story, the Western text, Simon starts crying and then the story ends. So we don't know his relationship to the Spirit. But later, Simonian said that Simon was Father in Samaria, Son in Judea, and Spirit among the nations. So this is a, what appears to be a kind of modalistic Trinitarian view, where there's one substance of God, and then three avatars. And the first avatar is Jesus in Judea. The second avatar is Simon in Samaria. And the third avatar is Spirit among the nations. And they're all designate the same deity, the primal one, the infinite power, the great power. That's interesting, too, because they're putting Simon as the Father as opposed to, you know, almost like he's, in a way, maybe a superior form of Jesus? Or am I? He's definitely superior. Yeah, there's one upmanship there. Yeah, not a superior being, but a superior revelation. So Jesus gives a certain kind of revelation in Judea at the level of the Son. But Simon gives a superior revelation in Samaria at the level of the Father. So you can see that this is the way that Simonians are getting back at their enemies, Christian enemies.  Yeah, absolutely. It's that one upmanship that's going on and going on at that time. It's very, I don't want to say it's amusing, but you could tell when they're kind of doing it on the nose, like, you know, he's the Father, or he's, you know, like he did this. Yeah, well, you know, Simon did, Jesus did this, well, Simon did that. So very interesting. I wanted to ask if it would be okay to share a selection from your, from your translation of the Acts of Peter, or do you want to keep that on Patreon? If not, I can just kind of like read a little bit. Yeah, if it's just a segment, sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I just want to like point out like how interesting, because we're going to talk about these epic rap battles that Peter and Simon of Samaria have in the Ceddo Clementines and the Acts of Peter. And I found this very, this is very funny. It's very much like a fatty arbuckle, like a fatty arbuckle movie from the 1930s or something, just very interesting. So just going to share this real quick. So Simon is basically flying over all these people and look, all of a sudden Simon was seen on high by all onlookers in the whole city, above all the temples and hills. Peter does this prayer, Simon falls to earth, breaks his femur in three places, and the faithful stoned him. But he's not dead, right? He's still alive. So he's, he's, these people find him and they put him on a stretcher, right? And then he spends a few days and then he dies shortly thereafter, right?  It's very strange. So I wanted to ask. It's a comedy, yeah. But it's also an allusion to, it's also an allusion to X-14, because you remember Apollo stoned and then survives the stoning and goes on to live. And of, and of course, yeah, that's, that's an interesting thing.  But in some versions of the Acts of Peter, they, the Christians, you know, and it's specifically the Christians gather around and stone him while singing a hymn. This act of violence is sacralized.  And he undergoes this triple fracture. And, you know, this is, this is violence. And in other versions of the tale, you know, Peter prays and Simon drops. And then when he hits the ground, it's not that his femur is broken in three places, his whole body explodes. And, you know, they have, they have fun with this, but in a way it's kind of sick and funny at the same time.  Yeah, it's very strange. I was talking to David Brackie about a gospel of Judas and Judas traditions briefly.  They seem to enjoy these. Like, yeah, I just imagined Simon like, and like a looney tune is kind of like full body cast, you know, being carried out after his battle with Peter. So Dr. Litwell, I know we only have a few more minutes. So I'm going to ask you one more question, because I feel she's very important to the simonians. Could you just briefly touch upon Helen's importance to Simon?  And I use those very awful terms, because those are the terms that they used. You know, they were not politically correct. They did not refer to Helen as a sex worker. They totally demeaned her in the most vile way. And Justin, in fact, calls her the one who stood on the roof. And because in the ancient world, roofer is a name for a particularly nasty name for a female prostitute. So that's one side of the story. But if you're really interested in the Simonian view of Helen, as I hope that you are, Helen was so important to the simonians as a teacher and as a figure of wisdom that as Celso says, probably in the 170s, that some simonians were called Hellenians. And so they certainly, and they apparently wore that name as a badge of pride. So Helen for the simonians isn't this despised sex worker. I mean, we don't really know who the historical Helen was. Even if we admit that she was a sex worker working on the Phoenician coast, Simon redeems her not as an act of lust, but as an act of compassion, brings her out of that horrible situation in which she was forced to be a sex slave. But the simonians viewed her as a teacher and not just as any teacher, but a symbol, actually not just a symbol, the avatar of wisdom. And they called wisdom not Sophia, but Enea, or Apenia, which means thought, divine thought. And so Simon is the mind, the noose. And Helen is the Enea, which emerges out of the divine mind. And this immediately, you know, reminded the simonians who were good readers of Homer and cultured people of the story of Athena emerging from the head of her father Zeus.  But she is the divine wisdom of her father who is the high god. And so what simonians apparently did was they said that this is a way that Greeks recognize the truth about the world's creation. Because way back at the beginning of time, there was mind, a mind which later became incarnate in Simon. And there was a thought, a primal thought, the protea Enea, as she's called in Justin. And from this first thought came the angels. And the angels then were the archetypes or the architects, rather, of the this world down here. And Enea tragically not out of her, you know, very different from Scythian myth, Enea doesn't fall out of any sort of problem on her own. She's not, you know, trying to overstep. She's not, you know, a braggart. She's not trying to know too much. She falls into flesh because she's attacked, abducted, and raped, in this case by her own angelic children and forced into bodies, reincarnated over the course of human history. Until at long last, she ends up in a brothel on the Phoenician coast from whence her father, not her lover, redeems her. Yeah, it's very, very powerful imagery. Like, I remember when you're doing your Nag Hammadi series on a picture on and you got to the exegesis of the soul. And what really stood out to me about that was that that was something that Simonians could probably read and appreciate on a certain level level about Helen allegorically. Very interesting. Yeah, I encourage everybody to go check out Helen, Simon, understand these characters on their own terms, not on the heresyological terms. It's always important we do that. So Dr. Lutweb, I just have a couple more questions if you have time. Sure. Okay, so, so when I'm reading, I'm reading your great declaration translation. There's this character named Apsethos. I'm not sure if I'm saying that name correctly, the dude who has the parrots. And she's like, yeah, so I don't know if you just like explain what's going on with this guy, because like this guy's always like fascinated me. Well, it's an incredible story. And what's more incredible is that the refutator who tells this story apparently believed it. But there's many versions of the story and in fact, the refutator only tells one version, which is very self serving. But basically, Apsethos trained was from North Africa untrained a bunch of parrots to repeat a certain line, as we see parents, parents who can, you know, repeat lines today. And he had he trained the parrot to say, or the parrots to say, Apsethos is a God, which is, you know, fairly short. Normally we're familiar with parrots, you know, saying maybe one or two words. And this apparently was something like Apsethos, they also something like that, which, you know, is in the realm of possibility. And then, because birds were viewed as messengers of God's and important indivination, Apsethos released all of them into the forest and, and, you know, they flew into the city. So, so seemingly at random people would be walking along the street or walking along, you know, in their garden, and they would hear these parrots repeat Apsethos as a God.  Yeah, it feels like no for me.  And he's the most famous and most successful of all self deifiers. But of course, the refutator will not have that at all. He says that the birds traveled from all for all the way from North Africa to Greece, and that a clever Greek re somehow regathered all the birds. How he does so, we know not how is one of the funny elements. But even more funny, this clever Greek actually retrains the parents to say what must be considered an impossibly long message for parents to say, which is quote, Apsethos locking us up in a cage, taught us to say Apsethos is a God unquote. I mean, I don't know if this is like 10 or, you know, 15 words long, he gets the birds to do this, and then releases them. And then somehow they make it back to North Africa. And everybody goes crazy. And they burn Apsethos alive. So it is humorous. And it's one of the ways that the refutator is like a Captesio, a bit of Valencia, he's trying to make the reader laugh a bit. And again, it's one of those things that it's a violent story. So it's with humorous and sick at the same time. But I guess what's most amusing is that the refutator imagines himself as the clever Greek who's going to re teach Simon's parrots. But in fact, the refutator gets it all wrong because Simon in the Great Declaration never once and I will never, you know, tire repeating this he never once identifies himself with the standing one. Instead, he opens up that reality for all people and does not limit it to himself. Yeah, it's a very striking juxtaposition to read what they want you to see about Simon versus the words of his followers. Very interesting, very, very lots of Tamaeus. And they're actually almost to me if I'm reading it correctly, very strange, very much in line with the metaphysics of the day. Interesting shows that they were very sophisticated in their cosmogeny and metaphysics, very strange. So Dr. Litwab, before we go, I wanted to pause it one more question. I feel this is important because I feel it's been neglected. And if I may say so, and your other appearances about defecation, and it's something that's very integral, not only at the end of desiring divinity, but also a huge point in post-human transformation. And this is the question of we have a lot of concepts of post-humanism today, lots of concepts of going beyond the limits of being a person, a human being, and transcending these things. But as you point out in your books, there is a lesson that we can take away from defecation in the ancient Mediterranean world that we're not necessarily always hearing completely in the modern day. So what lessons can we take away from defecation in the ancient Mediterranean world? Say, for instance, for those who subscribe to a post-human ideology, maybe not taking into consideration the ethical standpoint of the lessons perhaps we can take from antiquity. Yeah, so we're all attracted to the glitz and glitter of defecation and getting superhuman powers, the ability to fly, in the case of Simon, and the ability to heal people or to transmit a divine entity called the Spirit. And that's all well and good. But when philosophers, ancient philosophers, treated the topic of post-human transformation that is actually graduating out of humanity, and Plotinus is a good example of this, he always described it in terms of attaining a certain level of virtue. And virtue has multiple levels. There's civic virtue in which you're a good citizen, and then there's purifying virtue in which you are not just a good human being, but a good post-human being. And that involves certain disciplines where you actually have to discipline yourself and begin really taking this seriously, becoming attentive to yourself and engaging in a process of self-creation, which is a process of gaining virtue, the kinds of virtues which are the same sorts of virtues that you experience as a higher being. And so this involves things like aesthetic practice, you know, disciplining desire, disciplining lust and greed, removing those elements from your life that lead you into terrible passions and uncontrolled emotions, and really becoming something more like Buddha, for lack of a better term, you know, or a bodhisattva. And that's really the emphasis that defecation is by virtue. And that virtue is necessary, and it's not something that you could ever take a pill for, and it's not something that we could, you know, restructure your brain. It's something that always takes effort. And so, you know, if we're talking about attaining post-human transformation without also talking about those steps for virtue, both individual virtue and social virtues, or if we're just talking about, you know, the production of, you know, positive emotions by pills or by, I don't know, computer chips or by maybe just uploading our bodies into silicon platforms, that's really out of step with how ancient philosophers thought about this. It will always take effort.  And that's a commitment that everyone should think more seriously about. Well said. I really like how you put it in the conclusion of post-human transformation. It really is a choice between, we make a choice between being angels or demons when this advent comes, you know. We're talking about a fabulation here maybe at the end of the day. But ultimately, it really is saying something truthful about our condition. And when we transcend it, do we choose to be, in the words of everything, everywhere all at once, do we choose the bagel or do we choose to be kind? So possibly kind of here too. So Dr. Lutwa, this has been amazing as usual.  I wanted to let you plug anything you wanted to plug. You've been very prolific on your Patreon, which I brought up here. You have several different, I think it's the PDF book deal that we were talking about that had, yeah, refutation of all heresies right here. $21 a month. You have several different tiers are all worth it. You can come do Coptic with me and Dr. Lutwa and another student if you want, join here. Lots of really good forward-facing scholarship. I want to commend you on that.  So I want to commend you on that. So anything else you want to plug, feel free. Yeah, not really, Jason. Those who join the Patreon at any level, you'll be able to see for yourself whether you benefit from it. The book deals themselves will more than pay for a month's subscription. Because I think we are being transformed is still somehow over $100 on Amazon. I don't know how. And the refutation of all heresies in paperback is still in like around $80. So just signing up to get those books, you're more than paying off that monthly subscription. Obviously, I hope you'll stay on in the Patreon because there's now so many videos there that it'll take you a good couple months, at least to get through them all. And yeah, really, it's a place to interact and dialogue with me. I don't have infinite time. Certainly don't have infinite power. I'm not the great power. So I can't answer everybody's emails. I can't do all the commenting on YouTube that I would like. So Patreon is that space where I can devote some extra time to people who just have some really interesting questions. So give it a try and see how it goes. Thank you. Well said. Thank you for coming on. Highly recommend it. Basically, I workshopped everything that I have on the show on Dr. Loet was Patreon. Very much like a great place to discuss these things, to get deeper into the learning. He's got a lot of great book reviews. So highly recommend it. Check it out. On egg, I'll fence. I am working on my Coptic. So it's also thanks to Dr. Loet. So Dr. Loet, thank you so much for coming on. We hope to see you again soon. And you have the best of luck and enjoy the rest of your week. Enjoy your day and enjoy the rain, as you were saying when we were talking off camera. And we will see you next time. All right. Take care, Jason. And thanks to everyone for joining us. Yes. Thank you all. I always appreciate you watching. It's very heartwarming. And I hope to see you here Thursday morning for Stephanie Sledge from one of my favorite shows, Rejecting Religion. Joining me to talk to Dr. Justin Sledge from Esoterica about Nephilim, Fallen Angel, Traditions, and the Book of Giants. So until next time, auf Wiedersehen. Thank you very much. Signing off.


The East Coast RepRap Festival is over and my family and I had an amazing time. But sadly, it's the last East Coast RepRap Festival we're ever going to go to. Let's talk about that. My name's Jim and this is The Edge of Tech. So this past weekend, my family and I flew out to Baltimore and then drove into Bel Air, Maryland for the East Coast RepRap Festival, also known as IRF. We really had an amazing time. It was the first time that my little guy had ever been to one of these shows and as far as my wife goes, it's been a few years since she's been to one. And I gotta tell you, it is becoming more and more family friendly every show we go to, which is really cool. The whole show was just absolutely amazing from the vendors to the exhibitors to the different races and it was really enjoyable just pretty much the whole weekend.  Speaking of my little guy, I didn't know how it was going to go. He is three years old and he'd never been to something like this. And if you know three year olds, they don't exactly focus on one thing for a super long period of time. But there was so much for him to see and he absolutely fell in love with the droids. I believe it was the mid-Atlantic droid builders that were there and they had a whole bunch of droids from R2-D2s to BB-Aids to all of the ones I can't name because I don't remember the names. But they were there and they were interactive and while I was setting up my table, he found that booth and fell in love with them. I am talking, it didn't matter where we were the whole weekend, he just wanted to be by those droids. We could go anywhere else and in five minutes, let's go back by the robots. He's three, he's literally the size or smaller than some of these robots are. They are life-sized to him and it just lit up his world. As you can see, he wanted to start a dance party and he did which was super cool and he danced with those droids all weekend. As a parent and as a fan, it's just absolutely awesome that the magic could happen for him like that at a show like this. So I'm so glad you guys came out. Thank you, thank you, thank you because you really did make his weekend and probably his year. He is still talking about how he danced with BB-8 and the R2-D2s that shot the lightsabers out of his head and all the things. So it's just, you made such an impression on him and I can't thank you enough for that. Another amazing thing that happened is that Steve, Ryan and Kim over at Offset Maker Lab came up with just a crazy design for a death racer for me. So I sent them a whole bunch of filament and they said, we'll take care of the rest. But here's the thing, I didn't get to see anything until Saturday morning before the first race. And let me show you exactly how that went. I filmed it on my cell phone when they actually revealed it to me. Let's check it out. What's up guys? I am here at the East Coast RepRap Festival on my phone because I haven't had time to get the cameras out and it is crazy. I'm hoping anyone can hear me what I'm saying. But these guys have something special for me and I want to check it out. Alright, let's see this bad boy. I'm super pumped. I'm ready. Oh jeez. What? This is amazing. Oh my god. There's a bamboo printer. There's me driving. Oh my god. This is so awesome. Oh yes. Hot mails. Hot mails? Gotta have the hot mails on there. Let's see. There you go. This is so awesome. Thank you guys so much. I'm afraid to race this. It's gonna be awesome. Thank you so much. Oh there's a toilet. I didn't even see it. Alright, thank you guys so much. Offset Maker Lab. You guys rock. I'm gonna get some more B-roll with the real camera, but this is amazing guys. Thank you. So as you can see, I was super surprised when this came out from under that table. I had no idea what they were going for, but I never in my wildest dreams thought it would be something like this. This is just everything the channel is from the edge of desk across the top from the computer because that's what I do for my day job as I'm an IT person. From me sitting on a golden toilet or toilet as you should say, to the hairbrush, to the spilled water here with the little Oreos, to the polymaker filament. This was all made from polymaker filament, lots of polymaker filament. And there's little polymaker filament boxes here. To the bamboo lab printer that's in the back here with an opening AMS. So that was pretty awesome. Of course, the edge of tech logo is on the side and the Geary from the Hot Makes show as my weapon of choice will say. Now this was turned more this way for the race, but I should have had it like that to like smack people, you know. Also, you'll notice that this does have the Mecham wheels and it is super crazy to drive. I didn't even drive this until the first race. And for being 100% honest, I was so scared to drive this thing. I did not want to break it. I did not want to break it at all. We can't forget the really cool picture in the back here of John, a tripod's garage and the real San Prentice here on the back of the machine too. With the Hot Makes or Hot Males inside joke there, but they have a Hot Makes and a Hot Males plaque in the back. And that actually covers up where your battery goes and everything plugs in there. These guys just really thought of everything. The whole thing is a desk like I said and it's hydro dipped to look like wood. They went way above and beyond and this thing weighs like probably 10 or 15 pounds. It's so heavy. But needless to say, I did not win any of the races this past weekend because I was too chicken to actually go beat this thing up. I wanted to get it home in one piece. I wanted to drive it more and use it in races coming up, but it was so nice and I didn't want to wreck it. So thank you guys so much at the Offset Maker Lab for putting so much time and effort into this thing. It means so much to me and I can't even express how thankful I am for this. This is pretty cool. Speaking of the death racers, here's some footage while I'm talking. I didn't get a lot of footage of the death races, but it was so much fun. A lot of people came, a lot of people left with broken death racers at the end because there's a battle to the death on Sunday. But it was a lot of fun and every time we go to one of these events, the death racer community, the teams around it, we just grow closer and have more fun with each other and it's just a blast. So if you're ever at one of these events and you want to build one, definitely do it. It is a ton of fun. And this is where I thank today's sponsor, PCBway. They were a big part of the death racers and Sam, Tripod and I really appreciate everything they've done. So if you're looking for a PCB, maybe a custom 3D print in metal for the gears or something like that for your death racer or even some CNC work, look no further than PCBway.com. They can help you finish that project up and get you ready for the next event with the death racers. Thanks PCBway for sponsoring this video and also being a big part of our Murphy event. Another cool thing I participated in was the sponsor Derby Race. I don't have any left in front of me to actually show you physically in this video, but while I'm talking I'll show you some pictures of the amazing model that FixumDude actually came up with me last Wednesday. I had one day to print and we printed them out and went out. The whole thing was so much fun. People just loved them and we took third place overall with one of the racers. So that was a lot of fun and I really appreciate your time, FixumDude, for putting that together like overnight really to make that happen. It was a blast to race as you can see in some of the videos and footage that's going on behind me. And my little guy Tristan just loved watching the cars go down the track and watching them finish. And we had such a blast as a family for that too. So FixumDude, thank you so much for that. I also got to say a huge shout out to Sir Will himself from the bamboo team who came out and pretty much manned my booth the whole weekend hanging out with that A1 Mini. We were the only one in the building to have the A1 Mini and there was just absolute positivity and fandom and people just interested in that machine all weekend. He talked nonstop pretty much Saturday and Sunday about that thing. We showed off prints. We put it into ludicrous mode and we did some really cool stuff there. Sir Will, thank you so much for coming out. It was amazing to meet you in person and thank you for manning the booth. I hope we meet again at another event and bamboo lab, thank you for letting me bring the brand new printer that's not really released yet to the event so people could check it out as well. So after the death racers there was drag racers as well. The top fuel 3D printed drag racers. Scott from the edge of 3D puts that on and it was a blast. The drag racers are so much fun and nobody let me drive theirs at this event so I didn't wreck any this year but I just wanted to show you a little bit of footage while we were talking about that because that's always a fun event. I love the dragsters and the chaos they can cause when they go crazy so it's so much fun. Another thing to check out if you're going to go to one of these events and you don't want to do a death racer. A dragster is a lot less printing and definitely as much fun. So admittedly I didn't have a lot of time to take much footage of the event. I was running around making announcements and doing all sorts of fun stuff. Hanging out with the family and just trying to keep up pretty much for the weekend. But I wanted to show off some really cool stuff so here's a little compilation of some of the cool stuff that I saw at the East Coast RepRap Festival 2023. Let's check it out. There's some really cool stuff there and I hope you guys enjoyed that. Just a quick brief overview of some of the really cool stuff you can see at these events. And the last thing we need to talk about is that the East Coast RepRap Festival will not be coming back next year. That's right, it's done. The East Coast RepRap Festival is over but they are changing and going forward with 3D printopia. So this is kind of a controversial thing a little bit. I think some people are a little upset and some people are happy and I fall in the happy side. I say that because to be fair not a lot of people within the last five years who started printing say in the last five years know what RepRap is. So when you have an East Coast RepRap Festival, you have a Midwest RepRap Festival, you have a Rocky Mountain RepRap Festival. It all is just kind of together and they're all amazing shows. They all have individual features and tons of fun. But the people that don't know what that is usually don't come. I don't feel like it's all inclusive because a lot of people don't know what RepRap is. So with 3D printopia, it's a 3D printing festival. It's everybody's welcome from the RepRap days to the new days. Everything 3D printing. Not just I'm going to make my own printer and have a printer print itself and stuff like that. I'm talking about anybody that does anything with 3D printing is welcome and I really think it's going to reach a wider audience and make the event even bigger. So while we're still going to have the Midwest RepRap Festival and the end of June usually and the Rocky Mountain RepRap Festival in April, 3D printopia will be the new event that's in September, October timeframe and I cannot wait going forward to see how that event goes. So congratulations Chris, Vicki, Nick, the team over there at 3D printopia for an amazing weekend, an amazing time. Thank you guys for having me as the MC. Thank you for being amazing hosts at the event and I wish you the best of luck going forward with 3D printopia where everybody's welcome. Everybody's going to know what it is. 3D printing in a whole. We're all going to come together and just have a blast for a weekend. I hope you have a great week. Thank you guys for sticking around this long in the video and if you haven't seen this one, check that out.