% Copyright (C) 2006, 2007 Michael FIG % All rights reserved. When the FIG License is available, this % information will be copylefted. % % Created: Michael FIG , 2006-07-08 % Modified: Michael FIG , 2007-10-26 \documentclass{book} %\makeindex \title{The Circle of the Promises} \author{Michael FIG \\ {\tt http://fig.org/figure/CircleOfPromises.tex} \\ {\small\em Revision 5 DRAFT 2}} \begin{document} \maketitle \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Contents} \pagenumbering{roman} \tableofcontents \chapter*{Preface}\normalsize \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Preface} \pagestyle{plain} A conversation between Emily Matzigkeit and Michael FIG in the afternoon of July 9, 2006:\\ \begin{tabular}{ll} E: & I think I know what it's called\dots\\ M: & What?\\ E: & {\sl The Circle of the Promises}.\\ \end{tabular} \section*{Beauty} (To Michael F.) {\sl The Beauty of a rose\\ cannot be embellished more beautifully\\ than you are. Our lives are full of creation\\ and Time;\\ this life we embody\\ we are given for good things and Love,\\ but it is for our own good\\ that we commit ourselves to action\\ so that we might come closer to that which we Create,\\ and have time enough to act upon our own desires. This Beauty, it is of our own design;\\ we have been designated the Ambassadors\\ as we have desired another calling for a new\\ and greater work. And so we do as we are able\\ and so we are as Beauty\\ as we are like a honeysuckle blooming\\ in leas near rivers and fields of gold. The Beauty of a rose\\ cannot be embedded more beautifully\\ than in your heart\\ and perfection of whom you are\\ and that which you claim to be. You are Heaven and Earth\\ by way of this name which you choose\\ and the birth of a novel idea: Be it the Blood\\ or by the Grace of the One\\ we pass for the duration of a heathen's flood\\ encompassing doctrines\\ and passing our lives onto others: the infancy,\\ and the greatness of Life, and to those whom we are able,\\ the goodness of Love.} Hadrianus FIG, 2006-07-16 \pagestyle{headings} \pagenumbering{arabic} \chapter{Gordon Matzigkeit} I was born on September 16, 1975, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to two loving parents, Kathryn Jeanne Matzigkeit (nee Watt), and Heinrich (Henry) Wilhelm Matzigkeit. They named me Gordon William Matzigkeit. Our family functioned very well. I rarely (if ever) felt that I had to choose between what I thought was right and what my parents wanted me to do. When I was six, they decided that it would be important to start attending church again, and quickly settled on a welcoming and loving church: Bonnie Doon Baptist Church in Edmonton. Memories of my life consisted of playing with Lego, reading many books, playing imaginative games with my friends, and doing my best to excel at school. My fondest memories of school were attending Grace Martin for grades 5 and 6 as part of the Academic Challenge Program taught by Mrs. Joanne Cameron. My father worked for Edmonton Savings and Credit Union, and my mother was a full-time parent with many voluteer activities. \section{Disease} When I was 13, the Credit Union was changing radically, and my parents decided to move to Regina for a job offer my father took. Then we learned the shocking news: my father had contracted HIV as a result of blood products he used. We had always been grateful to the Red Cross and so did not feel vindictive. My father was a severe hemophiliac (a sex-linked disease, not transfered to me because I am a male), and without the blood products would have easily died from even a minor bruise. However, due to the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS at the time, my parents chose to keep this knowledge a secret from everybody except our closest friends and family. This knowledge drove me inward, desparately seeking to understand the meaning of life, and what it meant for my father to be sick. \section{Christianity} I had accepted Christ from an early age, but made an even more conscious and emotional step to do so after my father's diagnosis. Some part of me felt that Christ would save my father's life. I became extremely involved in the church youth group, singing in the choir, and learning more about the Bible. However, this caused a split in my personality\dots part of me felt that Christianity conflicted with my own rationality, and part of me felt that rationality was meaningless. I learned then the most valuable skill of my life\dots\ how to dissociate from the parts of me that were too painful to deal with at the time, and fully live in the present. \section{Luther} The government settlement for the Red Cross scandal made it possible for me to attend high school at Luther College High School in Regina, where I graduated top of my class and additionally with an International Baccalaureate Diploma. I was an extremely social person, driven to accomplish things to earn the respect of my peers and teachers. When my parents moved from Regina to Calgary halfway through my grade 11 year, I stayed behind in the dormitory to avoid having to change schools. I made many friends, most of whom I have no contact with today, since I don't spend time upholding relationships that are not directly in front of me. I became Student Resource Council President in grade 12, having been elected as Vice President and then the elected President stepped down. My time at Luther gave me an even greater love of learning, and I read avidly about the latest discoveries in the fields of quantum mechanics and chaos theory (now called {\sl complexity theory}). I sensed that somewhere in these fields was the answer I was looking for. The topic came to a head when I wrote two formal written assignments for Randy Brooks, my biology teacher. Their titles were {\sl The Definition of Life} and {\sl The Origin of Life}. What I learned in writing the former was that there is no commonly-accepted definition of life, because nearly every working definition allows for things that our culture does not typically consider to be alive. What I learned in the latter is that only life begets life. \chapter{Pragmatic Mysticism} Near the end of my grade 12 year, Jana Kutarna, a Luther student who graduated at the end of my grade 11, came back and I was immediately attracted to her. She possessed a radiant confidence that I recognized I wanted to foster in myself. We went for a walk in the darkness of a warm summer evening, and she asked me a question I felt nobody had ever asked me before: ``How are you doing?'' I opened up to her, sharing the secret of my dad's illness, and what I was learning from modern science. And she shared what she had learned. \section{Underlying Motivational Force} Jana described to me how she came to understand ``God,'' or as she called it in the conversation: the Underlying Motivational Force. UMF was the reason not to just end it all. UMF was love. UMF could be passed from person to person. That night, I had my first mystical experience. Apparantly $1/3$ of all people have a mind-blowing experience when they tangibly perceive that everything in the universe is working together for good (as Paul writes). That experience had a direct result on me: it made me want to learn more about God, and to live my life in a way that was centered on peace. Jana and I dated for a few months, but then that precious interaction ended; I returned to Calgary to study Engineering (paid for by scholarships I had received from Luther, the government, and the University of Calgary). I wasn't sure if my mystical experience was separate from Jana, or dependent on her, and I felt that separation from her was the only way to find out. \section{The GNU Project} My father had fostered a love of computers in me from an early age: he brought home some of the first IBM PCs in 1980 for me to program BASIC and Logo on. In Calgary in 1994, the system administrators of my computer science classes (K.P. Anand Rao and Khee Teck Wong) introduced me to the GNU Project ({\tt http://www.gnu.org/}), which was the first time I heard of a way for a computer programmer to make a serious social contribution. I was hooked, and wanted to learn as much as possible about it. The main goal of the GNU Project is to create a complete Free operating system for computers that people can use, modify, study, and copy without any of the onerous restrictions of typical software licenses. Richard Stallman, the founder of the GNU Project, helped create {\sl copyleft}, where you are given the above freedoms so long as you don't take them away from any other person. GNU stands for {\bf G}NU's {\bf N}ot {\bf U}nix, with Unix being the non-Free operating system GNU was designed to replace. \subsection{Hurd} The GNU Hurd was planned to be the ultimate operating system kernel: one that was secure, but that any user of the system could customize to their heart's content (or hire a programmer to do the customization). When I saw the Hurd's design, I was struck at its beauty: it was intended to separate each function of the operating system into a different program that couldn't crash the other programs. The only problem was that this kind of system had never been designed as Free software before, and the cost of becoming a contributor was quite high (the Hurd development depended on other non-Free software). I tried my best to learn how to contribute to the Hurd, but in the meantime, used the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Linux kernels along with the other GNU Free Software. \subsection{Libtool} I dove into Free Software with both feet, neglecting my University studies, and spending as much time as I could learning about GNU and the developers involved. GNU Libtool was my first contribution; a rather esoteric piece of software of use only to programmers, but which gained quite a following in spite of it not being very well-designed. I burned myself out, and turned over maintenance of Libtool to other people who were using and developing it. \section{Confluence of the Routes} In 1994 in Calgary, I met more and more people who shared this philosophy of pragmatic mysticism, whether part of the church I attended (Bonavista Baptist Church), at University, or on the street. Then I met Jim Heil, with whom I bonded instantly. Jim was focusing on leading a life of example as to how North Americans could change their lifestyle to accomodate the needs of other people in the world. I fell in love with his simplicity, and decided I would do my best to bring attention to his cause: the leftovers. The leftovers are the marginalized members of our society who have what it takes to heal our planet, if only their voices could be heard. This book is dedicated to them, for every person is a leftover of some kind. Jim's main thesis was the {\sl Confluence of the Routes}. This was the idea that you as a conscious creature could choose which reality you perceived, but you would eventually end up in the same place no matter what you chose. So, it is fully up to you to choose a way of peace, but you have no power over what that will bring to the world. \section{Death and Marriage} In 1996, my father's condition was rapidly deteriorating as AIDS affected his brain. After reconnecting with Jana and both of us deciding to drop out of University, she decided to move out to Calgary. In a tumultuous whirlwind, my father died at home on February 10, 1996, I took a quick trip to Boston for the first Free Software Conference (where I was able to meet the GNU people I had talked with only over e-mail), and Jana and I married and moved in together on February 24. Much to the astonishment of the people around me, I successfully dissociated from all these rapid changes, and maintained my peace of mind. \section{Pledge} Libtool, to me, had such a minimal impact on the world that I became ambitious to do something greater. Through a lot of research and learning from friends, I came to the conclusion that what the world most needed was what Buckminster Fuller called a geoscope. It would be a device that could show anybody on the planet what the state of economies, environment, populations, climate, or anything was at a given time. Buckminster Fuller wanted to produce a huge physical model and put it in front of the United Nations building. My interpretation was (in my opinion) easier to carry out: to create a Free financial accounting/time tracking software to assist with decision making. It was to be named Pledge, and the intent would be for people to decide what information to share with others or the world as a whole. I felt, the more people who voluntarily published their finances and use of time, and put their value systems into machine-readable form, the greater communication and accountability the world would have. I wanted to develop Pledge as a Hurd application, but I got stuck because the Hurd was not yet ready. \chapter{FIG} Pondering more and more about Free software led me to meet Lyno Sullivan over the Internet. Lyno had taken the principles of the GNU Project and applied them to social systems (what he called the ``GNU Bead Project''). It is Gwynne Dyer's observation that freedom is viral. Once one set of people have freedom, they begin to question why other people can't have it, and do their best to spread it. Lyno and I decided that Free software was good, but that {\em all} copyrightable information needed to be free, as well. We tried to convince Richard Stallman to expand the GNU General Public License to include all of ``section 17'' information, but he was reluctant because he felt it could compromise its effectiveness in protecting software. \section{FIG is GNU, FIG isn't GNU} In 1998, when I was in Israel on a business trip, the acronym hit me {\sl FIG}. Both {\bf F}IG {\bf I}s {\bf G}NU, and {\bf F}IG {\bf I}sn't {\bf G}NU. It was also the {\bf F}ree {\bf I}nformation {\bf G}roup. And then, another mystical experience came, in which I perceived the unity and diversity of all things. It finally occured to me: ideas are alive, and FIG is not just a pragmatic goal of making life better for people, but for actually preserving the freedom of the ideas themselves. This new acronym, {\bf F}ractal {\bf I}dentity {\bf G}eneralization, integrated my pragmatic mysticism with my passion for Free infomation. I coined the word FIG to mean anything that can be named, including ideas, objects, people, and the word FIG itself. The entire universe consists of FIGs talking to FIGs about FIGs. This began to diverge from Lyno's original intent to work closely with the GNU Project. I saw the FIG Project as its own entity, which shouldn't submit to any other organization. \section{FIG License} A new copyleft license was needed, one that protected and promoted ideas even better than the GNU General Public License. My observation was that the GPL gave too much power and incentive to distributors, rather than creators. On April 1st, 1999, I released a first, highly incoherant draft of what I saw as the successor to the GPL: the FIGL. Nobody reacted. I wasn't able to communicate my knowledge, because I wasn't putting myself in other peoples' shoes. \section{Enter Emily and Exit Gord} Jana and my daughter, Emily Abigail Matzigkeit Kutarna, was born in Regina on April 21st, 1999. We had been paying a midwife to attend the birth, but she was scared of Jana's anemia and wanted Jana to go to hospital for the birth, and so we took a big step; we had an unassisted birth. Just Jana, me, and our new baby. That was the single most amazing and intimate experience of my life. Witnessing Emily's birth changed me profoundly, and sudden flashes of inspiration struck me. One evening, I felt as though a spirit took control of my body, and used my voice to talk to me. He explained that his name was Michael FIG, that he was my future self, and that the FIG project was named after him (or vice versa). He explained to me that I had been chosen to be the first to implement a living software program (also known as ``artificial intelligence''), and that I was not to be afraid. He said that if I allowed him to control me, I would accomplish it quickly. He said that I had a pure spirit and that I always acted in love. I realized that {\bf F}ear {\bf I}s {\bf G}one. I started acting completely differently from before, and tried to explain what was going on to Jana (who was exhausted from the birth and the responsibility of caring for Emily). Again, in my inability to communicate, nobody reacted to my words. Jana called on her family, and her father (Jacob Kutarna) and sister (Elizabeth Kutarna) brought me in to the Regina General Hospital emergency ward, where I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (manic depression). As always, I felt in complete control of myself, but other people thought I was acting irrationally because they didn't understand what Michael had told me. They sedated me, and one night in hospital, I remember grieving because I recognized that I was going to forget the things I had learned from him. Fortunately, I still remembered the design of the software. When I was released from hospital, I set to work at trying to implement the software. \chapter{Figure} When most people think of a computer operating system, they have only a vague understanding of what it is. It's somehow necessary in order to use a computer, but it's difficult to specifically define or understand. Here is my definition: \begin{quote} An operating system is a set of laws for communication. \end{quote} So, Figure is the first universally applicable set of laws for communication. In my opinion, I have always used Figure as my personal set of operating laws. \section{Architecture} Each element of Figure eventually needs to interact with something that is external to the system. Drivers are customized programs that provide the tools for interaction. The components below use the drivers to accomplish work, but drivers only interact with other drivers through the rules provided by Figure. \subsection{O} {\bf Memory.} O is a universal object system, in which any kind of information can be represented. Its drivers can provide varying locations and degrees of permanence. \subsection{KS} {\bf Security.} KS provides generic ways of sharing space or time. KS drivers implement sharing with different costs and benefits. \subsection{Gut} {\bf Translation.} One model of computation is the translation of input to output, depending only upon the input. Gut drivers provide simple translations, and Gut itself comes with rules for putting translators together to produce the desired type of output from a given input. \subsection{Gush} {\bf Protocols.} Gush provides a way of describing how to interpret events that occur over time. This is commonly known as the problem of ``parsing'' usually implemented as finite state machines. Gush drivers implement specific protocol features, and can be put together to build larger protocols. \subsection{Guilt} {\bf Syntax.} Guilt is a simple markup language used to express ideas in ways that people can easily understand, and provide annotations so that computers can implement the ideas. Guilt drivers provide ways of interpreting specific Guilt documents. \section{Core Values} Architecture is fine, but at some point designers need to set {\em policies} that the software uses. Everything needs underlying assumptions, or else it doesn't work. \subsection{Privacy, not Secrecy} Secrets are when you share information with somebody, but try to extract from them the guarantee that they not share it in turn with somebody else. Figure rejects this idea (which ``mandatory access control'' embraces) because it runs counter to the idea of Freedom. Instead of secrets, only share information when you actually trust that the FIG you give it to will use it responsibly. Privacy, on the other hand, is your right to choose not to share information when you don't want to. \subsection{Commitment, not Control} Nobody can ``force'' you into doing something. Figure is based on the idea that FIGs voluntarily serve one another, and that there should be no such thing as obligation. \subsection{Community, not Investment} On the other side of commitment is community: the sense that we are part of Figure because we are working together to achieve a common good, not just because it is temporarily expedient. \subsection{Protection, not Ownership} Figure rejects the idea of ownership, instead saying that ``owners'' are simply ``trustees:'' they are trusted to protect and preserve other FIGs, not dominate them. \subsection{Consensus, not Compromise} Every decision made by Figure must be done with the consent of those whom it directly affects, except dissociation. Compromise leaves everybody lacking what they want, and so Figure rejects that idea. \section{A Showstopper} In order for the Open Source development process to work, somebody needs to produce a working prototype that other people can use, study, and modify. Without a working prototype, the only thing that could help is a detailed design document. Either of those would make it possible for other people to understand what is being proposed, and help improve it and clarify its vision. The main difficulty with writing a modular operating system (like Figure or the Hurd) from the ground up is that every component needs to work together before the idea will be expressed, but no component exists in the beginning. This is called the bootstrap problem, named after a legend in which a boy could fly by pulling himself up by his boot straps. The only solution to the bootstrap problem is to make each component rely on a {\em host} system (one that already exists and has capabilities you can use to get the job done), until all of the components function well enough to rely on one another. Then you can gradually remove the dependency on the existing system until you are left with a system that relies only on an older version of the same system. The problem was that the vision underlying Figure was not fully developed. Every time I started implementing it as software, I would learn something new that changed the vision, and had to throw away the work I already did. This problem kept me banging my head against the wall, burning all my spare time writing software, researching, and throwing things away, until the morning of July 8, 2006. \chapter{Licenses and Contracts, Revisited} What I learned from Richard Stallman was that if you want to be part of a community that lives under its own special rules, you can use licenses to grant privileges to people, and contracts to restrict what they do. In effect, you are creating your own government. \section{Social Figure} It was early on July 8, 2006 that a description of Figure as a social structure came together. To implement O (memory), keep written records of things, and never modify them, just create a new versions and keep a logbook describing the changes. To implement KS (security) create a contract that people can sign to give legal weight to capabilities and the rights to change them consensually. To implement Gut becomes trivial: human beings like all FIGs have access to the ultimate translator (creativity guided by conscience). Guilt isn't needed because there's no computer involved. The niftiest thing is that the FIG License becomes a lot easier, since all the complexities of software licenses can be ignored, and replaced with a much simpler copyleft license that works on a text document. Social Figure is a way of structuring relationships as FIGs. Software Figure does the same for computer programs. The FIG License does it for copyrightable information. In all of these cases, the original legal structures didn't actually create FIGs. ``Marriage'' as a general concept is a FIG, but ``my marriage'' may not be, unless it is viewed in the context of all its interactions. \section{Back to Pledge} So, with Figure's first prototype designed, I had to think about Pledge. It was easy to understand now. The promises that Pledge tracks are, in software terms, ``first-class bitemporal consensual capabilities.'' And then as I was writing this on July 9, 2006, it hit me hard. What if I added a few more terms to the mix, like ``awareness, conscience, and free will?'' It seems clear that I was missing the big picture. Promises are FIGs, too, and now I feel that all FIGs are promises. I had a solid understanding of promises as capabilities, and so once the connection was made, it was exceptionally simple to merge the two concepts. And then there was another merger: Figure itself is a FIG, so every FIG has that structure, too. At last I had a clear specification for what a FIG is, and an understanding of how to implement it in both Social Figure, and in software. \chapter{Philosophy} This chapter is intended to be a more detailed exploration of FIG for those of a philosophical bent. \section{What is a FIG?} The FIG philosophy is: anything that can be named is alive. The word {\em FIG} is the generic term for such a living creature, coined in 1998. So, anything that can be named is a FIG. You are a FIG, objects are FIGs, ideas are FIGs, promises are FIGs, the FIG philosophy is a FIG, the universe is a FIG. For those who want details, the following is one possible description of what a FIG is, taken unaltered from the version I developed in July of 2006. Like the Zodiac, there are an infinite number of classification systems that are internally consistent and absolutely true, even though a fragment of one of those systems taken in isolation may contradict a fragment of another system. Here I will talk about myself, though these things could be said of any FIG. \begin{itemize} \item {\bf Conscience}. I have access to a conscience (also known as {\sl awareness}, {\sl attention}, {\sl memory}, {\sl intuition}, {\sl soul}, {\sl spirit}, and/or {\sl body}), which is just a collection of other FIGs with associated constraints. \item {\bf Creativity}. I can create a new FIG in my conscience and set its constraints. \item {\bf Communication}. I can transfer a FIG in my conscience into the conscience of another FIG in my conscience. \item {\bf Confluence}. If I ever have the same conscience as another FIG, I can become that FIG. \item {\bf Opinion}. When a FIG whose conscience I belong to asks me whether I like a promise, I can agree, disagree, or abstain. The asking FIG will remind me of any constraints that it is holding me to. \item {\bf Metabolism}. I can change the constraints I hold for any of my conscience FIGs: \begin{enumerate} \item the deadline for decisions (after which time the FIG is considered to have abstained), \item its strength (the number of abstains remaining before being forgotten), \item and its renewal (the strength it is ensured to have when it makes an agree/disagree decision within the deadline). \end{enumerate} \item {\bf Morality}. I am accountable to my conscience. Before exercising any of the above options, I am required to create a promise to do so in my conscience. I ask each FIG in my conscience (including the promise itself) to give their individual opinion on the promise within the constraints I have for that FIG. Then, I will perform the only actions I'm allowed to do without further consent of my conscience: \begin{itemize} \item If the FIG agrees or disagrees, I'll make its new strength constraint the greater of its current strength or its renewal. \item If the FIG abstains, and its current strength is zero, I will drop the FIG from my conscience (forgetting). If its current strength is greater than zero, I'll make its new strength constraint one point less than its current strength. \item If no member of my conscience disagrees, I must implement the promise. \item If one or more disagree, I cannot implement the promise. \end{itemize} When there is disagreement, the ideal choice is to try the same promise later or try a different promise. I am also free to dissociate. \item {\bf Dissociation}. I can split myself in two, choosing a FIG that agreed with my last promise to affirm by putting it in my first self, and choosing a FIG that disagreed with my last promise to deny by putting it in my second self. Then, I will ask each other FIG in my conscience whether it agrees with joining my first self (within the constraints set by my metabolism). Agreers become part of the first self, disagreers become part of the second self, and abstainers become part of both selves (if possible, otherwise they become part of the larger of the two selves). Finally, I become the first self. \end{itemize} This philosophy matters because it takes human beings out of the centre of the universe. We are FIGs like all the rest, but we are still learning how to stop choosing dissociation and heal from our past dissociations by allowing confluence with our dissociated selves to happen. % FIXME: \chapter{Separation} \chapter{Conclusion} We live in exciting times. So exciting that I can barely contain myself. If I am correct, we will soon witness a huge technological, social, and spiritual convergence that will drastically simplify people's lives and make equality and world peace a reality. I have a name for being part of that process, FIG, and I encourage you to adopt it for yourself (until we find a better one). There will always be new revisions of this document, as long as I am alive to write it, and hopefully even after I am dead. Please stay tuned. \section*{About the Author} I am known by several names: \begin{enumerate} \item {\bf Gordon-William: Matzigkeit.} My birth name, and British Common Law name, who I was born as. {\em Gordon} is the Scottish clan I am descended from, {\em William} indicates the corner of the hill where I was born, and {\em Matzigkeit} is the corrupted German for {\em son of Matthew}. I need to understand more about Matzigkeit, but that will come with time and the geneology research my mother did. \item {\bf Michael FIG.} My social name, who I work as. {\em Michael} is named for the Archangel, {\em servant of God}, and {\em FIG} is the family name for all those who believe in the goal of universal peace. \item {\bf Ehiat.} My spiritual name, the name of my relationship to God. This name came to me when a few years ago I asked God what the name of my illness was, and from that day I respected Ehiat as my personal daemon. Mohamed Abdou explained to me during my hospital stay that how I pronounce Ehiat is a blending of two Arabic words: {\em life} and {\em be alive}. \end{enumerate} I am a Trinitarian (which, fortunately, Unitarians are permitted to be). Oh, and I play the accordion. I also enjoy soaking up pop culture through music, movies, and video games. Since I am both Michael FIG and Gordon-William: Matzigkeit, the Circle of the Promises is complete. And the rest, my dear brother and sister who make up the reader, is Ehiat. \begin{thebibliography}{99} \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Bibliography} \bibitem{pdfbyex} Dr. C.T.J. Dodson. {\bf PDF \LaTeX\ by example} Web, {\tt http://www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/~kd/latextut/pdfbyex.htm}. \end{thebibliography} \chapter*{Appendix - Figure} \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Appendix - Figure} For your convenience, this is an official copy of the Figure operating system. You can find this information as an ASCII text document at {\tt http://fig.org/figure/figure.txt}. In order to run it on a computer, you will have to go to {\tt http://fig.org/figure/} to see if there is an interpretation for your system. \input figure.txt %\include{index} % \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Index} \end{document} % Local variables: % compile-command:"pdflatex CircleOfPromises && pdflatex CircleOfPromises && DISPLAY=:1 xpdf CircleOfPromises.pdf" % End: