This piece of parchment is a fake... It was found in Leonisko da Vinci archives —between a Telstra bill and a hamburger wrapper... Though the parchment is fake, the words are true Leonardo, mirror like. 

 

Back then, Leonardo was trying to make sense as to why Mohammed forbade his followers to drink alcohol... It could be quite simple — a little bit of alcohol in one's blood and one starts telling the truth: in vino veritas... 

In vino veritas is a Latin phrase that means "in wine there is truth."

The expression, together with its counterpart in Greek, "Ἐν οἴνῳ ἀλήθεια" (En oinōi alētheia), is found in Erasmus' Adagia, I.vii.17. Pliny the Elder's Naturalis historia contains an early allusion to the phrase. The Greek expression is traced back to a poem by Alcaeus.

Herodotus asserts, and it is likely enough, that if the Persians decided something while drunk, they made a rule to reconsider it when sober. Authors from Herodotus onwards, however, have dared to add that if the Persians made a decision while sober, they made a rule to reconsider it when they were drunk (Histories, book 1, section 133).

The Roman historian Tacitus described how the Germanic peoples always drank while holding councils, as they believed nobody could lie effectively when drunk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vino_veritas

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Beyond this simple "truth", too much alcohol can make the spirit go nasty and make the blood boil. We know too well what can happen when consumption of alcohol goes beyond a point. There are bouncers at pubs to control entry and to eject the pissed clientele. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-25/imperial-hotel-in-erskineville-for...) Drunkenness, of course has different settings for various people, due to factors such as heredity, gender, age and ethnicity. 

A few scientific studies tell us where things can go wrong relatively. Such studies are never 100 per cent definite as they work on statistics, but they can determine for example that on average "Asiatics" have a lower threshold tolerance to alcohol than Europeans. A greater proportion of young women can get more intoxicated than young men, while drinking less. But after the age of 50, most men will suffer from alcohol abuse at the same rate than women. 

This is where moderation comes in. I am a moderately heavy drinker... This is possibly due to having to deal with psychopathic ningnongs in government or due to an old European tradition of starting drinking a small amount of snaps as a toddler, to help sleep. Good genes also help. But this does not mean I won't fall to problems related to organ degradation, such as the slow destruction of my liver, by alcohol abuse. 

But then many things can degrade one's liver, including fatty fast food and the bullets of a maniac non-drinker high on religious intoxication (see appendix at the end) and various places where religion is taught like fascism — though, for this westerner, this is less likely than being run over by a bus. 

"A man once drunk with wine or strong drink rather resembleth a brute than a Christian man..." (Philip Stubbes —1555-1610, possibly in "anatomy of abuses" 1583)

When Christ told his disciples that the wine was his blood, it is most likely that the disciples had not drunk enough of it yet to recognise the change of brew, or had more than enough to recognise the switch or just enough to tell the truth which did not make sense... Drinking blood is not everyone's cup of tea. So one needs imagination and faith to believe that the vino which is still vino, Sunday after Sunday, is the blood of Christ. 

Changing water into wine is a bit more enticing but still not a credible feat. A miracle?... A miracle that will help you get more drunk at a function, delivering a better wine that the one the host served before? Goodness, it's likely to start a strong argument between providores... Pull the other leg. Christ, was he an alcoholic or a drug pusher?

And the wine used in the Eucharist is far from being a good shiraz. It's more like a feeble sweet rosé... In some poor countries where transport is limited, some Catholic priests use fermented banana juice... But this is another story. 

Here, Gus Leonisky made up a real fake page from Leonardo's Codex for which Bill Gates paid about US$31 million in 1994. Since then the Codex has been exhibited around the world, in public museums. 

Thank you Mr Gates. 

Compared to Michelangelo, Da Vinci output was small, but he had issues... Despite his thirst for "scientific" investigative knowledge, Da Vinci still could be wrong on a lot of things but he dreamt big and drew mad machines. 

These days we have access to madder machines that can multiply our output while making us lazy. Some of these machines can measure things with high precision and send rocket-stuff pass a big round rock with frozen nitrogen poles, a pseudosphere we called Pluto, that was not known in Leonardo's time — about 4 billion kilometres from our own blue planet... Amazing.

But the mechanics of what alcohol did to the mind of people was quite well known then. Probably, since Noah got pissed and fell on his face after the big flood. 

We know that some animals also indulge in the fermented juice and they like it. Then they wake up the next morning with the worst of hangovers. There are some viral videos of drunken giraffes, elephants and monkeys, being pissed beyond cognition. 
Having had no luck in chasing the original page where this text appears, Gus suspects Leonardo would have written it back to front as displayed at the top. Here is the text away from the layout:

IL  VINO DI MAOMETTO
Il vino, il divino succo dell'uva, fu versato un giorno in una magnifica coppa d'oro sulla tavola di Maometto. Oh che onore! pensò il vino. Che gloria per me trovarmi sulla tavola di Maometto! Ma subito fu assalito da un pensiero contrario e disse a se stesso: Ma che onore e che gloria! Di che cosa mi rallegro! Non è vero niente. Che faccio qui?
Sto per morire, ecco; sto per lasciare la mia bella casa, questa magnifica coppa d'oro per entrare nelle brutte e fetide caverne del corpo umano.
E quando sarò laggiù, il mio succo soave e profumato si trasformerà in brutta e fetida orina! Come se questo malanno non bastasse - continuò il vino - io andrò a finire in un pozzo nero, e lì dovrò restare a lungo insieme all'altra materia puzzolente uscita dall'intestino. Oh cielo, gridò allora disperato, chiedo giustizia, chiedo vendetta di tanto danno! Non è giusto che continui questo spregio alla mia natura! Giove, padre Giove, supplicò, se questa terra produce le uve più belle e più buone del mondo, fa che non siano più trasformate in vino!
Giove lo udì e decise di esaudire la sua preghiera.
Infatti, quando Maometto ebbe bevuto dalla coppa d'ora, Giove gli fece andare alla testa tutti i vapori del vino, ubriacandolo.
In preda all'ebbrezza Maometto si comportò da pazzo, commettendo un errore dopo l'altro; e quando finalmente ritornò in sé fece una legge che vietava a tutti i suoi sudditi di bere il vino.
Da allora la vite coi suoi dolci frutti visse felice e tranquilla.

This of course translate as:
Wine, the divine juice of the grape, finding itself in a golden and richly wrought cup, on the table of Mahomet, was puffed up with pride at so much honour; when suddenly it was struck by a contrary reflection, saying to itself: "What am I about, that I should rejoice, and not perceive that I am now near to my death and shall leave my golden abode in this cup to enter into the foul and fetid caverns of the human body, and to be transmuted from a fragrant and delicious liquor into a foul and base one. 
Nay, and as though so much evil as this were not enough, I must for a long time lie in hideous receptacles, together with other fetid and corrupt matter, cast out from human intestines." And it cried to Heaven, imploring vengeance for so much insult, and that an end might henceforth be put to such contempt; and that, since that country produced the finest and best grapes in the whole world, at least they should not be turned into wine. 
Then Jove made that wine drunk by Mahomet to rise in spirit to his brain; and that in so deleterious a manner that it made him mad, and gave birth to so many follies that when he had recovered himself, he made a law that no Asiatic should drink wine, and henceforth the vine and its fruit were left free. 
As soon as wine has entered the stomach it begins to ferment and swell; then the spirit of that man begins to abandon his body, rising as it were skywards, and the brain finds itself parting from the body. 
Then it begins to degrade him, and make him rave like a madman, and then he does irreparable evil, killing his friends. 
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Philip Stubbes again:
"The drunkard, in his drunkenness, killeth his friend, revileth his lover, discloseth secrets, and regardeth no man... "

We do not have to travel far in our universe, to see that these traits are not exclusive to the drunken man. Religious man is as vile as Mister Pisspot. At least Mister Pisspot is often unable to aim a gun straight or even stand up on his own two feet. Mister Religious man can become far more vicious than a soon snoring Boozeman... For example, the religion driving ISIL is vicious. But it is the same that has driven the Saudis for a long time and it is also related to that that saw Europe in flame in the middle ages. It is the same that saw the chosen people wandering through the deserts and fighting others under "orders from god". Religion is more vile than drunkenness.

Religion has the same effect as booze and other drugs. Karl Marx exposed religion as such. The difference is that the drunkard will eventually fall asleep and chunder on himself, while the zealots will resent other people beyond sanity. 

In his writing, Leonardo Da Vinci personified the wine. The wine has its own lovely consciousness and is in full knowledge of its influence on the mind and body of people. Wicked intestines...

Some recent studies have become more precise on understanding the process of "altered consciousness". 

Our new prophets are far more accurate than the old ones. The new prophets rely on sciences. The old ones like Mohammed relied on force and cunning. Chirst relied on advertising the next life and miracling a lot like a show-off.

Considering all this, what we need is a new renaissance... a scientific-based renaissance. Our major problem lies in that the old prophets, now dead, are still influencing traditions and pollute our thoughts. 

Our other problem lies in that many of our politicians are false prophets — many of whom are sociopaths. I often make the mistake of calling them psychopaths. My apology. The difference here is that psychopaths would rarely make it to the height of power. Most born psychos lack the cunning and the intellectualism that is necessary to be a successful sociopath. Old prophets were sociopaths full of their own hubris. They did not have any special knowledge other than to have the ability to dictate others (mostly uneducated idiots) into submission. Sociopaths know when to retreat and can be flexible to changing situations while psychopaths are often dumb on this level. 

The new prophets are more humble. They always question their own findings. They are the scientists and they do not try to impose a lifestyle. But they can predict with more accuracy than ever before the therefore of living and the future of it. Science cannot explain the why of living, because there is no why. There never was a why and our only reason to be alive is just to be. There is no question.

This could appear a bit Nihilistic, but it's more accurate than trying to falsify our existence with religions that at some point will make us turn uber-nasty with a bad righteousness in our underpants. 

This is where we need to find our "renaissances". We should be able to seek peace in whatever format we wish. We should be able to minimise our desire to rob someone else. We should be able to construct a social environment in which equality and civility help drive our intelligence into appreciation of what is and make understand the mechanics that make this little planet tick. We need to elevate our various culture beyond that of aggression, terror and victimisation. 

We need to replace strong beliefs with uncertainty of the why, while investigating the how. 

Science is here to help us, not to tell us what to believe, because there is nothing to tell but a lot to understand. 

But we are lazy. We prefer the quick belief, we illuse in the arcane alchemy rather than study the reality of chemistry. We prefer to pray to the god of the weather rather than understand the process of warming. 

Drugs are a potent way to diminish our inhibition, while often developing our imagination. And do we have inhibitions, prejudices, secret fears, racist thoughts, illusions of grandeur that our leaders in their cunning sociopathy try hard to bring to the surface of our "soul" (I don't believe in soul) in order to give us a political enema. Religions calcify our imagination. And this can be exploited by others, as exposed by some writers:

Literary critics have labeled Michel Houellebecq's novels "vulgar", "pamphlet literature" and "pornography"; he has been accused of obscenity, racism, misogyny and Islamophobia. His works, particularly Atomised, received high praise from the French literary intelligentsia; and though the critical response internationally was generally positive, there were notably poor reviews in The New York Times by Michiko Kakutani and Anthony Quinn, Perry Anderson, as well as mixed reviews from The Wall Street Journal.[12] Meanwhile, without ignoring the book's grotesquerie, Lorin Stein from Salon, now editor of The Paris Review, made a spirited defense:

"Houellebecq may despair of love in a free market, but he takes love more seriously, as an artistic problem and a fact about the world, than most polite novelists would dare to do; when he brings his sweeping indignation to bear on one memory, one moment when things seemed about to turn out all right for his characters, and didn’t, his compassion can blow you away."

Here we have an author whose views are coarse, sewer-like in which we can see the reflected image of whom we are... This is full of analytical self-social damage and of no hope of "renaissance"... Is it possible than we need to really go to the depth of the sewers to reinvent our next social purpose? 

Like most cartoonists and intelligent people, we know what is wrong and what we should not be doing, but we are shy and, though we know, we appear clueless because we may think it is not our role to tell people what to do... We value freedom of thought. So we reserve the role of controlling the mob to the sociopaths. But we'd prefer our sociopaths in charge of the future, to be more benevolent and be more amenable to listening to the prophets of sciences, rather than still promote the old cults of doom.
We need sociopaths with equal vision in both eyes and we need more cynics amongst us to tell them, whenever they get it wrong, that they should leave the top rung and let a fresher mob of sociopaths lead us wherever the lesser evils (I do not believe in evil) are.

This is why there should be far more compassion for a Speaker of the House touring wineries in a wine-tasting taxi than for a rabid slanted bitch who cares only for her own entitlements and self-glory at charitable events. I use the word bitch here because the present said Speaker of the House, Bronwyn Bishop, had no qualms in showing up in front of large signs with the word bitch referring to Julia Gillard. Tit for tats. 

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The common features of a psychopath and sociopath lie in their shared diagnosis — antisocial personality disorder. The DSM-5 defines antisocial personality as someone have 3 or more of the following traits:

1. Regularly breaks or flaunts the law
2. Constantly lies and deceives others
3. Is impulsive and doesn’t plan ahead
4. Can be prone to fighting and aggressiveness
5. Has little regard for the safety of others
6. Irresponsible, can’t meet financial obligations
7. Doesn’t feel remorse or guilt

Psychologists call these kinds of childhood behaviors a conduct disorder. Conduct disorders involve four categories of problem behavior:

• Aggression to people and animals
• Destruction of property
• Deceitfulness or theft
• Serious violations of rules

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We all are sociopath with various degree of submissiveness and aggressiveness... The human species thrives on the deceitful characteristic. Our trading relationships are not based on needs, but on the management of various psychopathic wants. 

So, A bit of vino will help round the corners of our ego and make us accept others in conviviality, while awaiting our final breath. Our ego with a little religious opiate will also soften and make us accept the idea of love, compassion and others idiosyncrasies. 

Too much vino or to much religion will turn us into stupid idiots. In the case of religious idiots, we can become far more dangerous sociopaths than just a sad sod:

"...fellow will weepe for kindnes in the midst of his Ale, and kisse you, saying, By God, Captaine, I love thee, I would (If it pleased God) I could not love thee so well as I doo: and then he puts his finger in his eie, and cries..."

Gus Leonisky

Your Local rabid atheist psycho(logist) and visitor of decent wineries.

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The gunman, John Russell Houser, 59, of Phenix City, Ala., who had a history of mental illness, took his own life in the theater here Thursday night, after gunning down the others during a screening of the comedy “Trainwreck,” the police said.

“If you gave me 40 names and 40 pictures of people who might have done that, I wouldn’t have hesitated to point him out,” said Calvin Floyd, the former host of a television talk show in Columbus, Ga., that frequently featured Mr. Houser as a guest in the 1990s.

“I could just sense the anger was there,” Mr. Floyd said in an interview. “Maybe I should have been afraid of him. He had a very hostile personality at times.”

Mr. Houser believed that women should not work outside their homes, and “had a lot of hostility toward abortion clinics,” Mr. Floyd said. He was the sort of person who believed “that all the trouble started when they took Bibles out of school and stopped prayer.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/us/lafayette-theater-shooting-john-houser.html?_r=0

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In a recent issue of Nature, there was a thrilling article by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek on a new way of calculating the slightly different masses of neutrons and protons. The new calculation confirms that neutrons are very slightly heavier than protons — the ratio of their masses being 939.56563 to 938.27231 — a trivial difference, one might think, but if it were otherwise the universe as we know it could never have developed. The ability to calculate this, Dr. Wilczek wrote, “encourages us to predict a future in which nuclear physics reaches the level of precision and versatility that atomic physics has already achieved” — a revolution that, alas, I will never see.

Francis Crick was convinced that “the hard problem” — understanding how the brain gives rise to consciousness — would be solved by 2030. “You will see it,” he often said to my neuroscientist friend Ralph, “and you may, too, Oliver, if you live to my age.” Crick lived to his late 80s, working and thinking about consciousness till the last. Ralph died prematurely, at age 52, and now I am terminally ill, at the age of 82. I have to say that I am not too exercised by “the hard problem” of consciousness — indeed, I do not see it as a problem at all; but I am sad that I will not see the new nuclear physics that Dr. Wilczek envisages, nor a thousand other breakthroughs in the physical and biological sciences.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/opinion/my-periodic-table.html