Posts

Showing posts from 2012

What Money Can't Buy, entry 1

     Sandel points out that instead of producing real public debate about the role of markets in society, the financial crisis produced the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street Protests, largely aimed at the bailout(which was necessary to avoid a depression).   Note that the Occupy Wall Street movement made for good presentations of unshaven, smelly teenagers that served the interests of the right while the Tea Party gained just enough strength in congress to threaten even the pro-industry 'Obamacare' package, much less a more reasonable single-payer system. To borrow a phrase from Vonnegut, 'so it goes'.  Chomsky et al would probably argue that the reason there was no coverage of substantive debate of the place of markets is that media corporations, which rely upon advertising, themselves depend upon the expansion of markets into more and more sections of our lives.  Thus, no real debate about limiting the reach of markets can reach into the mass media.  I suppose they

What Money Can't Buy, Michael Sandel

     OK, well, I got distracted and read through a really nice book called Symmetry and the Standard Model, which is one of the best books I've seen introducing QFT etc...  But I decided I'm too lazy to do a lot of math typesetting on this blog, so I'm going to start this book by Michael Sandel.  Sandel is a philosophy prof at Harvard.  He is very open and accessible.  He puts a premium on public discussion.  Some lectures of his at Harvard on Ethics are available free online.  This book is once again an easy read.  So, rather than do a lot of fancy mathy stuff I'm going to start the Sandel book.

One more comment on Foner and Lincoln

Just to note, unless you think I'm being too hard on Lincoln, he did tell his supporters to go to another antislavery candidate in the 1850s to ensure an antislavery candidate won eventhough it cost him that election.

Foner on Lincoln and Slavery

     The second book on Lincoln is bringing into reality a little bit more.  As a young lawyer he defended a slaveowner against the suit of one of his slaves claiming they should be freed.  As Foner said, there's no excuse for this.  Foner's approach has so far been balanced.  Lincoln's maturation seems to occur in fits and starts, with occasional steps back.  He seemed to be enamored of new industrialization, PROGRESS, etc.. that swept across America at this time.  This led him to think in terms of city-dwelling and market places rather than the farm.  It is also implied that his internal convictions were occasionally at odds with his ambition and sometimes he chose his ambition.  This last point is an interesting one to consider.  Could a more devoted abolitionist have been elected President in 1860?  If so, could they have held the border states in the Union, including Missouri, Kentucky(which were crucial waterway states obviously), and/or Maryland, which surrounds D.

Thoughts after reading my first Lincoln biography

     So I just finished reading a 678 page biography of Lincoln by White.  I'm starting a book by Foner on Lincoln and Slavery.  When I started the book I had the usual questions about Lincoln and Slavery and the causes of the Civil War etc...  I still have some of those questions because I don't like to take one writer's word for things.  I know these are still sensitive issues, but I think I should air my thoughts as I go along. 1.  White is a huge Abraham Lincoln admirer.  Before reading this biography I started, but didn't finish, a huge biography of Hitler.  The author of the Hitler biography went out of his way to attribute mental illnesses and serious character flaws to Hitler.  Well, one can understand this.  I got to the point in the Hitler biography where he had basically taken over the Nazi party and then I gave up reading.  Frankly, reading a biography of Hitler is not a positive experience.  It was educational, but trying.  Lincoln's biographer, on th

Some more philosophical reflection on Relativity and Quantum Theory

     I'm reading a book on quantum stuff that said the the EPR paper said we have to choose between "realism"(that there are a definite states determining quantum objects prior to measurements) and "separability"(that states of separated points cannot instantly affect one another).  The book said that most scientists reject realism.  It seems to me that we are forced to reject both of them.  This is so obvious to me I don't see how anyone can think differently.  What am I missing?  The states of an entangled system exist in probability functions until they are collapsed by some measurement(that ends realism), the measurement of one side of an entangled pair changes the probabilities for the other side(this defeats separation).       Einstein was clearly convinced that quantum theory violated separability, which upset his field theory notions, and then spent the last decades of his life trying to rescue separability and failing.  It seems an interesting hist

The Poincare Group

     The Poincare Group is the group that leaves invariant the interval in Minkowski spacetime.  It is the 'semidirect' product of translations in R^3 and 'boosts' written in terms of Lorentz transformations.  In quantum field theory we have to have our Lagrangian satisfy the symmetries given by this group if we're going to satisfy Special Relativity.       It's interesting to think about how we have to satisfy Special Relativity in a theory that includes entanglement. 

Strange Underlinings

I evidently pushed a button so that some of the phrases I typed are underlined and connected to advertisements.   Well, anyone can do anything they want on my blog, but I hope they are comfortable with what I write on it.  I mean, you know, like Chik-Fila or however you spell, it should know that I think homosexuality is a good thing, probably better than heterosexuality since homosexual activity doesn't run the risk of unwanted pregnancy.  Actually, wasn't there a movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger got pregnant?

Some elementary things about relativity and the other forces of nature

       I guess what I'm going to say here is really a non-epiphany for anyone thinking about physics for any period of time, but as I think about it I am re-inspired by relativity.  Relativity begins by insisting that the laws of nature be invariant under change in reference frame, whether inertial or not.  It doesn't matter what induces change from one reference frame to another -- gravity, electro-weak, strong -- the invariance principles must apply, else the laws of physics are inconstant, or, non-'covariant' in the Einsteinian sense.  So, while gravity stands out in that it induces an 'accelerated frame' for all masses in the area, the principle of relativity is almost a kind of theorem for all physical law, so that whatever causes a change in motion in an object also creates a context where relativity must be considered.  In this regard then, relativity is logically prior.  If acceleration didn't produce dilations and contractions, the laws of nature wo

Starting a new book

     I am going to start General Relativity by Wald.  I will be using this as an opportunity to review some topology, analysis, differential geometry etc...  This is prompted by watching some of Don Howard's wonderful lectures on Einstein.  I also have a couple of other books on black holes that might be interesting -- one has a computation of how relativity is used in GPS.  In the meantime I will wax philosophical about God knows what.      In the meantime I have been skimming a very nice book called 'Galileo's Muse', which details the artistic, literary, and philosophical context within which Galileo made his discoveries.  The book credits Dante with discovering the 3-Sphere.  Evidently a lot of people see this in the relationship between Hell and Paradise.  There are passages in the Inferno that speak of how one knows whether one is at rest or moving.  It seems as much or as little can be made of this as one wishes -- the book has not produced a document of Galileo

The Death of My Father, The Omega Point and the Explanatory Gap

     The explanatory gap can be used by those who wish to be 'idealists', in the sense that the ultimate course of the universe is actually guided by a mental goal.  If physicalism has problems, then spiritualists rejoice.  The problem with the kind of evolution Chardin and others describe is that it is goal directed.  Evolution, even mental evolution, is guided by local challenges, not universals.  Now, this can be seen as a metaphysical point, but it is actually based on what we know about adaptation.  Any universal goal is something we make up later.  Evolution is messy and undirected.      It may be that a life of increasing conscousness is the most fulfilling, but that doesn't mean that evolution is leading to that kind of life.  It is plain wishful thinking.  Besides, I'm beginning to find a peaceful but pointless life pretty enjoyable.  The existentialists admonish us that we must find our own meaning, but now I don't even know what meaning is and I don'

The Death of My Father, The Omega Point and The Explanatory Gap part 3

     The 'Explanatory Gap' was a term coined by Levine in the '80s.  It refers to the seeming inability of physical concepts to account for subjectivity.  I have commented on a number of books by folks who seem not to understand this gap or at least seem not to fully appreciate it.  This expression situates the old mind/body and other minds problem in a more modern philosophical idiom( sorry this sounds so pretentious, but philosophy does that sometimes.  Interesting, the basic problems are in some sense always the same but re-expressed.).  Basically, the concepts and inference rules of the natural sciences are not sufficient currently to account for subjectivity.  The view that experience is somehow the result of purely physical processes is called 'physicalism'.  While I ultimately have a strong feeling that all mental phenomena are dependent upon physical phenomena, this has not been proven philosophically.  The evidences of the neurosciences provide, to me, anyw

The Death of my Father, the Omega Point, and the Explanatory Gap part 2

     The Omega Point is the ultimate supreme consciousness toward which the universe was being drawn.  There is a great wikipedia article on the Omega Point, by the way.  It is certainly a comforting thought that one is part of a larger, infinite whole, Dad used to tell he was a panentheist:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism .  I hope that Dad was indeed taking great comfort in his philosophy/theology during the final days of his arduous illness.      It's not fair that I get to have comments on this philosophy after his passing, but I think Dad would want me to continue thinking about it both privately and publicly, so here goes...  I completely reject this entire philosophy.  I see nothing in the Universe to suggets it tends toward anything grand.  It all seems to me to be, in the words of Bertrand Russell(please excuse any sexism and/or stereotyping of Victorian governesses), "Full of spots and jumps, without continuity, without coherence or any of the other prope

My Father's Death, The Omega Point and the Explanatory Gap part 1

     During his final illness, Dad found solace in the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin, a renegade Jesuit whose teachings were denounced by the Church(typical of the folks Dad admired).  When I went to see him in  2012, he asked me for my thoughts about the evolution of consciousness and life.  I gave him what I considered to be a textbook Darwinian answer to the effect that it's all random with no goal or point whatsoever, that development is determined locally by pressure of environment on the available genetic pools etc, etc....  Dad had clearly determined otherwise.  Evolution was, and is, in what I take to be his view, a developmental process that has more in common with the enlargement and expression of a universal Mind one finds in Hegel than the ad hoc adaptations I see in standard Darwinism.  He explicitly mentioned Teilhard de Chardin to me at the time.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin      Related ideas such as rapidly accelerating rates of te

Romney doesn't seem to want to be President

     The only thing I can figure from the string of stupidity coming out of the Romney campaign, beginning with the flop of a convention, is that he doesn't actually want to be President of the United States.  Neither do I, but there have to be easier ways to go about not being President.      I also agree that in his heart of hearts Romney is a people-pleasing moderate.  I agree with those who see him as ambitious but with no idea what he's about.  He and Ryan made an obvious, and failed, attempt to capitalize on the middle east riots -- but perhaps Romney's heart wasn't really in it.  The only way I can see Romney now failing in his bid to not be President is if Obama does something abysmally stupid in one of the debates. 

More outrageous behavior...

Another thing I did that may or may not be attributable to father was a play I wrote in 9th grade.  Evidently this was in response to an assignment of some kind.   I decided to write a play called 'Odysseus and the Malaka Monster'. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=malaka Three or four of us put this play on in front of the class ending in the refrain 'Malaka here, Malaka there, Malaka, Malaka, everywhere.'  As we did this we repeatedly made an obscene gesture to the class which fortunately the teacher had not seen before.

Some thoughts on what I owe my father part 1

I've had some time to think about the things I can trace back to my Dad as his illness has progressed.  Things about me, who I am, that I think are most clearly coming from him.  Those of you who know me well know a few things about me: I'm obsessed with philosophy, I have a sense of humor and a willingness to say things that step WAY over the line.  I also love Mozart -- love is probably too mild a word here.  Philosophy -------------- This is going to sound trite and stupid, but my intellectual life has been absolutely dominated by a drive to know the truth.  It drove me to study philosophy, physics, mathematics, literature etc... There is no doubt that this drive ultimately comes from my Dad.  While Dad and I have been different in how we express this, it comes from the same bent of mind.  I'll never know whether it's simply genetic, part of my brain fires the same way as his, or whether it was something I acquired from my time with him, but it is definitely the

My recent reading of history

      Well, lately I've been reading a lot of history.  I guess it happened when I was learning about Chinese culture and religion.  I found that my understanding of China from the 19th century to today helped me understand everything else going on in the world a bit better.  So I decided to go back and look at WW2.  I've done a lot of reading about the causes of WW2, including much of a biography of Hitler.  At the same time I got a huge book on world history.  It's like I'm trying to get some picture of history in my mind I can carry around all at once.  It's like I'm trying to have a clearer sense of who and what I am by looking more thoroughly at where I am in history.  It's a kind of culmination of my education.     On the other hand world history is disjointed enough that this desire of mine for this kind of integration is bound to be unfulfilled.  And furthermore, if I succeed what will I gain?  I'm hoping I won't feel so much like I'm f

Mr. Rubio's Speech at the Republican Convention

     Yes, I caught Eastwood's appearance at the convention, about which much has been said, but it was less interesting to me than Mr. Rubio's speech that followed.  Marco Rubio is an impressive public speaker.  I see that he is bucking to be a leader in the republican party, and he certainly has the talent. I don't know what his ambitions are, perhaps the presidency, but he has the chops to do it.  That said, I also found Rubio's speech almost entirely devoid of content. Of course,  knowing how to spend time in front of a crowd and say nothing for 15 minutes or so is also an essential political skill.     The one place he actually said something got on my nerves. He said that belief in God is the most important American value of them all.  Well, Mr. Rubio, no it isn't.  Remarks like this actually scare me a little bit.  He may believe this, or he may think it made a good soundbite.  In any case at least some of his audience holds this position -- and that bothers

Zhuangzi and the Past

     Lately I've been thinking a lot about the past.  I find myself, involuntarily, turning back the clock to things I cannot change.  I can here Zhuangzi say, "Well, if you can change the past, and it would make you feel better, do it."  What does this mean?  Well, the past is not just the past; it is an interpretation, a perception.  When the events of the past occured in the first place, it was a matter of interpretation.  Our whole perception of ourselves is constructed after the fact as though there were some coherent story behind it.  This story is what gives our lives meaning, and also traps us within its confines.      There are plenty of things I could resent about my past, plenty of people I could be angry at -- especially myself.  I've done many things I wish I hadn't.  I have limitations I wish I didn't have. But the things I've done I had no choice in doing, just like objects have no choice but to fall.  It's the same with everyone else

Taoist reflections on my 45th birthday

     The Tao Te Ching says that the universe treats us as straw dogs.  Meaning that we are burned as if in a sacrifice.  The sage, so says the Tao Te Ching, treats people as straw dogs.  Interpreters say this doesn't mean to be mean; it means to remember that everyone is temporary, including the people we love the most.  It makes no sense to kick against the pricks of the universe about this.  This interpretation is certainly consistent with the rest of the Tao Te Ching, but someone can take it in a mean way if they choose -- and I'm sure some have.      I personally don't plan on being mean to anyone at this point of my life.  However, I've come to know myself well enough to know that I don't plan on starting some spate of massive, public political involvement. That's one way to go in life, but it isn't my way.  I'm emotionally too unconnected.  I realize my connection to the society around me, but it is not in my nature to throw my hat in too much.

Zhuangzi -- The Butterfly

     For Allinson the butterfly image is the perfect image for the Zhuangzi because it represents an internal transformation to 'beauty' from 'ugliness' -- though he insists on calling caterpillers ugly when I find them rather cute and fuzzy.  I always like to see them crawling around, you know, devil-may-care, along the sidewalk.  I could crush their little guts out if I wanted, but I don't because I'm a nice guy.  Poor little things.      He also points out how transient the butterfly is.  The self-transformation is itself very delicate and could be 'broken quite easily'.  Any state of mind, even the state of enlightenment, is therefore impermanent.  You can lose it by forgetting the lessons of the zhuangzi.  Now, I know what you're saying: the whole point is to forget that there are lessons to begin with...  There are no lessons.  Just hang out and be spontaneous.  But this is easily forgotten.  Next thing you know you're squashing metaphor

Zhuangzi -- individual and society

     What I'm beginning to understand about this response to Confucianism is that these taoist thinkers are rejecting in many ways the entire social contract.  The social contract of hierarchy and social obligation.  There is a hint that the spontaneity suggested here yields social relations based on authentic compassion, not on compassion arising from obligation or the sense of right and wrong.  There is, after all, no right and wrong in the philosophical sense.  More important than right and wrong is freedom from societal rules.      The famous passage where Zhuangzi rejects the position of prime minister is often criticized in the west because he does not accept his 'obligation'.  The critics have missed the point.  The point is that the freedom itself is what life is about, to give that up for this sense of obligation is to destroy the very result of his own enlightenment.

Zhuangzi Part 4 -- Monsters

     Allison starts off the 4th chapter of his book on the Zhuangzi by making us regard social outcasts.  In the extreme case he refers to them as 'monsters'.  These are people whom normal people avoid.  Zhuangzi puts philosophical reflections into the mouths of cripples, hunchbacks, people with no lips, and one Master Shu: "My back sticks up like a hunchback and my vital organs are on top of me.  My chin is hidden in my navel, my shoulders are up above my head, and my pigtail points at the sky."(as quoted in Allison pg. 52). Allison goes on... "The use of the monster serves two philosophical functions.  First, the monster is a living counterexample to the norm, whether cultural or biological or both...That which all monsters possess, which is feared and avoided by those who live according to the rule, is spontaneity.  In a very subtle way, then, the first philosophical significance of the monster is to make us aware that the value represented by the monster

Zhuangzi Part 3

     Allison says that the transformation of the giant fish into the giant bird represents the transformation of the reader from reading the Zhuangzi.  He also says that the skepticism of the smaller animals is not just a representation of relativism, but is rather a representation of the 'small minded' reader who will not accept the idea of transformation.      I will have to see what the rest of his interpretation of the Zhuangzi says.  Allison's book has so far not told me the secret of the big transformation the book portends.  Most books that do this end up in anticlimax: "Always remember to check your references" or some crap will be the final message.

The Zhuangzi, part 2

     So I got frustrated trying to understand what was going on in the Zhuangzi.  I then got on Amazon and bought three books on it.  The first one: Chuang-Tzu(Zhuangzi) For Spiritual Transformation, by Robert Allinson, claims that the Zhuangzi's inner chapters(1-7, the ones most likely written by the historical Zhuangzi) are intended not as a mere relativist treatise, but is meant to cause a 'spiritual transformation'.  I read the Tao Te Ching this way so I think this point of view has some merit.    Allison says that the mythological beginning is not just some obvious relativism, rather, it is intended to cause the reader to relax the analytic part of the mind and release the intuitive and aesthetic part of the mind.  He warns that the analytic part of the mind will be engaged in the text but that it is important to release it at the beginning.   Allison says that the myth is not literally true but is true in some other sense.  I agree with Allison that the aesthetic

Attempting to Understand the Zhuangzi

     I've read about 1.5 chapters of the Zhuangzi. I've found it very difficult to understand.  I have understood some things but I suspect I am missing much of the point.  So far I've gleaned: 1. Chapter 1 is an examination of perspective.  There is a huge bird/fish.  The bird is referred to as the roc.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roc_(mythology) in the translation I have.  It can turn from a bird to a fish of enormous proportions.  The chapter reminds me of some of the themes in the story by Voltaire called Micromegas -- an extraterrestial in this story has 73 senses. 2.  It is evident from the examples given in the chapter that we should consider that our notions of the universe depend on our scale and our nature.  The universe itself has a nature which we are not necessarily  constructed to understand, if indeed the whole notion of understanding can be applied to the universe at all.  From the Tao perspective, "understanding" is always relative to interest

Starting The Book of Chuang Tzu

I know it's been a few weeks since I've written anything here.  Sorry I fell through on my promise to keep telling you how stupid your life is.  But I have in the meantime been reading a number of books on world religions that I wanted to have more exposure to.  In particular I read the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Tao Te Ching several more times. I also read some analysis of these books.  I've decided, however, that the book that I am going to spend some time working on is the Chuang Tzu, usually called a Taoist book,  but the translator says there was no such thing as 'Taoism' at the time this was written. There was a body of folk wisdom that the author(s) of the Tao Te Ching and The Chuang Tzu drew from.  Of the books I have read lately, the Tao Te Ching(I even got a book called the Dude De Ching, which gives a Big Lebowski reading) has had the biggest effect on me. It is difficult to grasp and short, so I thought I would try something a little longer and

Sam Harris -- New Age Nutjob?

     So I was reading The End of Faith, was a little bit into it when I ran across the following: "There also seems to be a body of data attesting to the reality of psychic phenomena, much of which has been ignored by mainstream science.  The dictum that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" remains a reasonable guid in these areas, but this does not mean that the universe isn't far stranger than many of us suppose.  It is important to realize that a healthy, scientific skepticism is compatible with a fundamental openness of mind."(pg 41) In the footnote to this passage he says "There may even be some credible evidence for reincarnation."(pg. 242) Well, I'm not going to let anybody accuse me of being narrow-minded, so I'm going to investigate all this crap, I mean evidence. I'm going to be sure and finish the End of Faith, including his mushy section on consciousness at the end.  I'm going to follow it up by readi

Ecclesiastes, Entry 1

      You might find it odd that after all my protestations about being a secular humanist that I would pick a book from The Bible, the OLD Testament no less, as the subject of a sequence of blog entries.  It is about time I revisited this book that has had such an important effect on me.       In fact, of all the books I have ever read I cannot think of one that has changed my life the way this one has.  I first read this book when I was 14.  Its first word changed me forever.  Soon thereafter I read Macbeth, my favorite Shakespeare play, containing these words: "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tommorow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time and al our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking Shadow a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing." I ha

Sam Harris Assaulted by Evil Horde of Ayn Randians

Sam Harris suggested that perhaps the very rich should pay their share.  He was then viciously set upon by marauding objectivists: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/how-to-lose-readers-without-even-trying

Noam Chomsky on the "New Atheists"

     Below is a link to a response from Chomsky on the subject of the "New Atheists".  It is interesting and typical Chomsky: http://richarddawkins.net/discussions/616576-noam-chomsky-on-new-atheists I apparently also missed out on all the fun.  Evidently Hitchens and Chomsky got into it -- in all likelihood initiated by Hitchens, unless I miss my guees -- over 9/11 and the Iraq war.  If you look up something like "Hitchens debates Chomsky" you get a number of nice hits.

Vegan Link about plant sentience

http://unpopularveganessays.blogspot.com/2009/06/plant-sentience.html

Vegetarianism and Plants

    Alright, I've had enough of this.  There is zero evidence that plants feel pain.  They do not have the requisite nervous system for such sensations.  They lack a brain and other sense organs.  I'm not a botanist, and it is evident that some plants are able to respond to the environment, but I am unaware of any mechanism any of them possess that would indicate sensory experience of any kind.  Now, animals such as my dog very obviously feel pleasure, pain, etc... ; this applies to cows, chickens, pigs, etc...as well.    Unless there is some paranormal method whereby plants are able to have sensation(though, I don't know what good sensory experience would be to a carrot or a rutabaga), I can find no evidence for it.  It is obvious to me that animals do feel things.  Thus we should try to reduce that suffering since we can.       As for other animals not being sensitive to the pain of their quarry... That lack of awareness is their excuse.  We don't have that excuse

My Return to Vegetarianism

     So Easter Sunday a couple of years ago I'm at the Cheesecake Factory with my wife and best friend from church and I order the stuffed mushrooms.  They were incredibly delicious.  I couldn't believe how good they tasted!  I scarfed them down with great gusto and commented frequently how much I liked them. I was thinking to myself self-pityingly how little enjoyment I had in this life and how much I enjoyed these mushrooms.       Well, it turns out the mushrooms were stuffed with sausage!  Thus ended 15 years of vegetarianism.  The next thing I knew I was guzzling Metamucil and stuffing my face with the carcass of every sentient being I could legally order.  In particular I enjoyed steak.  OH MY GOD did I enjoy steak.  I blew a ton of money on every variety of steak, I preferred a good marbled one.  Getting hungry?     I could eat a gargantuan amount of meat in a single day.  It reminded me of the halcyon days of my youth when I could eat two bacon cheeseburgers at a ti

Free Will by Sam Harris: Well Written, Flawlessly Argued

     The gentle reader should be aware that I arrived at his conclusion, that there is no such thing as free will, for the same reasons as Harris some time ago.  So, readers may decide that I am too easily convinced by his arguments.  Long time readers of my blog will recall I was very critical of The Moral Landscape, which I thought was deeply flawed, so it's not that I'm somehow under his spell.  I just have to admit that he nailed this issue.      All of our thoughts arise in us from unconscious processes.  We don't control the thoughts that arise, they just arise.  We don't control our desires or intentions; they just happen to us.  Even if we have a soul we did not choose it; wicked people under this theory are simply unfortunate.  Even if conscious processes are necessary for certain decisions, we are passive recipients of those processes.    Quantum Uncertainty is no solution.  It just makes our decisions statistical, not free.  He recounts the now famous L

Ayn Rand, Pure Evil, and the End of my Patience

     Well, OK, I can see that Ayn Rand makes me upset.  Perhaps this means I should just avoid reading the rest of this book for awhile.  I mean, I enjoy a good rant as much as the next person, but is it really productive?  There are plenty of sites on the internet devoted to hating Ayn Rand's philosophy and everything it stands for.  On the one hand I could say to myself, "There can never be enough!" on the other hand "What's the point?"     I'm basically a mild-manered, peace-loving guy.  I try to understand where others are coming from, even if they are completely out of their minds, reality impaired if you will.  I mean, it's not their fault, really.  They can't help it.     And as for pure evil...well, yes the philosophy is pure evil -- sorry, I can't take that one back.  But the people who follow it are just misguided, that's all.  I feel sorry for them...well, no I don't.  Everyone is misguided about something.  I mean, if

Atlas Shrugged: Pure Evil, Inelegantly Written

     Well, I've gotten a start on Atlas Shrugged.  It is even worse than I remembered!  The writing is execrable and the message is heinous.  She's not exactly subtle about her points.  It takes no great intellectual effort to glean the message from this protracted piece of tripe(now that I'm a vegetarian I no longer knowingly eat tripe.) .      Obviously Rand is indulging in some fantasy of a masterful masculine capitalist, Master of the Universe.   I can see how this image could appeal to certain men, especially.  All around these figures are pitiful hippy do-gooders who care about the poor(who are inferior or loafers).  The capitalist master takes abuse from ungrateful parasites all of whom he could swat like flies, but because of some misguided sense of noblesse oblige he does not.  Take for example Hank Reardon, whose victory in the production of a new metal is belittled and even resented by his family, all of whom ultimately depend upon him.  He is TOO KIND to them.

Atheist Materialism and Philosophy

     Some may wonder how I am an atheist materialist since I have a history of studying philosophy.  Haven't I read Derrida? Stanley Fish? Foucault? etc... Yes, I have read much of this.  I am familiar with a lot of the history of Western Philosophy.  I am familiar with the main arguments from the big movements in its history.  I am also acquainted with Eastern Thought.  I think the Tao Te Ching an incredibly wise book.  I once again recommend it to everyone.  If I'm so aware of this, how can I adopt what seems a metaphysical position?  Well, let me start at what I consider the epistemological beginning: 1. Can  I demonstrate the existence of anything outside my immediate here and now experience? No. This includes the universe and other minds.  There is, as far as I can tell, no successful argument.  Period. 2.  Can I use logic to demonstrate that I ought to use logic to make philosophical decisions? No.  These arguments immediately become self-referencial, circular, etc

Ethics With or Without God

     In response to the American Humanist Association's 'Day of Reason' a certain Mr. Ham posted online that there could be no absolute moral standards without God.  Everyone would be on their own to decide for themselves what is right and wrong.  It seems he is right here.  I have been unconvinced by any attempt to demonstrate logically the truth of any moral propositions.  So far, so good.       Here's the problem, though: NONE of the arguments for the existence of God are convincing.  I have thought about these things for my entire life and that's the skinny.  Thus, one can choose to believe in God if one wants, or choose not to.  I think the probability inclines against the existence of God, but that doesn't make belief in God impossible, just not compulsory.       OK, so let's try to follow the logic where this goes.  One is certainly free to choose to believe in God and the morality of contemporary Christianity along with it.  Or, one is certainly

A personal aside about my religious experience, Dante, and Ayn Rand

     Those who had known me for a long time might have been surprised when I converted to Christianity, and was a practicing Christian for a number of years. I had up until that time been a rather intense atheist for most of my life.  My first doubts about God occured when I was around 11 or 12.  I had a brief period of some kind of belief around 15-16, and then returned to atheism around 17.  I stayed an atheist until my mid-30s.  How did this conversion happen? Why?      I have asked myself this question over the last number of years.  The closest I can come to an answer is that the first influence was Dante.  I spent several years, starting around 1999, virtually obsessed with this Florentine poet.  His powerful writing spoke to me, a man in middle age,  feeling somewhat lost, wondering how I had arrived at the position I was in.  What did I believe in? What would become of me?      I was also irritated by the smug arrogance I saw about me in the Academy.   Once again the folks

Ayn Rand, Private Property, and Unfettered Government

Private Property -----------------      Let me start by saying I am not a socialist or a communist.  I fear that both of these systems would tend to concentrate too much power in the hands of the governmen which would have to stamp out 'unapproved' capitalist ventures.  On the other hand, I am not a pure capitalist in the way that Ayn Rand is.      Unlike Ayn Rand I don't think private property is some 'right' that exists outside of some agreement among persons regarding what property is and how one may dispose of their property.  Our 'right' to private property has to be enforced by some entity.  That is, I need to be able to call the police or take someone to court when someone absconds with this 'property'.  Operationally, the enforcement of those rights by collective agreement(ie, by the government) is what DEFINES my right to property in the first place.  There is no other meaning to the notion of property.  Thus, it is the government itsel

The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

     A number of years ago I attempted to read Atlas Shrugged.  I found the book so revolting that I put it down.  Over the years since then I have become acquainted with Objectivism and met a large number of its adherents among my mathematical and scientific colleagues.  I found that the philosophy exerted a doleful effect upon their personalities.  It seems logical, now that I have come out as a Secular Humanist, to revisit what Rand considered to be her magnum opus and respond to it.      First, however, I need to let out my response to Rand's philosophy.  This so it will be out that I read the book with a rather strong bias.  I will attempt to bracket that bias out while reading the book and do my best to give the book a fair shake.       So,  from my reading in Objectivism and my reading about Rand's philosophy I have come to consider her thought one of the most pernicious philosophies to survive from the 20th Century.  It is down there with the philosophies I loathe t

Why I am a Secular Humanist Part 4 -- Gay Marriage, Capital Punishment, Pornography, Abortion, Animals

In this entry I will state my conclusions regarding some hot button issues. Gay Marriage --------------      The state ought to get out of the marriage business altogether.  Marriage between two or three or ten adults should be a private matter.  As far as the other issues freqeuently raise, hospital visiting privileges and family health care plans...  I don't understand why a patient can't just say in advance who should be able to visit them.  AND there should already be UNIVERSAL, FREE, HEALTH COVERAGE for all Americans.  That would solve the family health care question.  I believe such a thing is possible, but it will take time and commitment. Capital Punishment -------------------- Capital Punishment should be banned.  It is excessive and is a non-deterrant.  People are ultimately not responsible for their behavior, so why should we punish them as though they were 'evil'?  We should realize that people become murderers etc... for reasons.  Those of us not

Why I am a Secular Humanist part 3

     Where Secular Humanism comes into difficulties is with ethics.  Atheitsts who like science fall across the political spectrum.  How can one position say that they alone represent the interests of humanity while the other positions, all deeply felt, do not?  Some philosophies associated with atheism, such as contemporary communism on the one side, and the untrammeled capitalism of Ayn Rand on the other, are downright pernicious.  I haven't met a lot of communists among my mathematical colleagues, but unfortunately the philosophy of Ayn Rand is like a cancer.  I find that this point of view, with its pseudo social darwinism, has a revolting effect upon the personalities of those who adopt it, making them less humane, less compassionate.  I, for one, cannot live like that.      I am further not convinced by any of the arguments for morality given by secular thinkers such as Sam Harris or even Derek Parfit.  These arguments are all invalid.  Morality has to start from somewhere,

Why I am a Secular Humanist Part 2

     Perhaps if Nietzsche were alive today, to see the incredible advances of modern science and technology, especially modern medicine, he would have a different view of the power of science.  On the other hand, we take the obvious successes of science so much for granted that people, I'm speaking of postmodernists here, don't realize the magnitude of what it has accomplished.       Contemporary physics is INCREDIBLY accurate.  Quantum Field Theory is accurate beyond the wildest dreams of the science of earlier generations.  Science has pegged the age of the universe, perhaps part of an infinite multiverse, at 13.72 billion years ago.  Our understand of the nervous system, especially of the brain, has made enormous strides over the last few decades.  We now have an impressive understanding of how the various parts of the brain are responsible for our consciousness and behavior.  These two areas of understanding have provided many answers and our best shot at answering more o

Why I am A Secular Humanist Part 1

     Humanism is not necessarily fashionable as a position in philosophical circles anymore, such is the influence of postmodernism.  Humanism, with its emphasis on reason and science, is throw-back to modernism, to philosophy unencumbered by the influence of currents of more recent Continental Philosophy.  Indeed, the fact that humanists use the word 'human' suggests a universal definition of the 'human' that we are told has been manufactured by western powers to legitimate certain forms of power.  So, how can someone who has absorbed Nietzsche and is especially fond of Foucault, able to take the humanist position?  That is the question I am going to try to answer in the next few posts.      There is no doubt that Nietzsche was a great genius.  He was certainly one of the great stylists.  He paints a disturbing picture of the modernism of the 19th Century.  He plumbs its emptinesses, reveals the nihilism implied by what he saw as the conventional values of his time. 

A Universe from Nothing, By Lawrence Krauss

"Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could." -- The Sound of Music.      I hate The Sound of Music.  It's the most smarmy, sappy, namby-pambly P.O.S. ever.  Thus, when I heard that Prof. Krauss had overthrown this thesis from the musical, I was elated.  I immediately ordered his book from Amazon.  I've always been confusesd about this issue.  If we think of space and time with nothing in it as nothing, then we have a problem, because I have to imagine galaxies popping into exisence as something coming from nothing.  If I think of the existence of space and time itself as part of the 'something' that is in the universe, then I get confused about what I'm thinking about.  I should be not thinking about anything.  I'm not sure I know how to think about 'nothing' per say.  Nor do I know what it means to say that  something 'comes' from nothing since 'comes' here seems to imply time itself.  If time is part what is 'comin