Brint Montgomery Blog Site

Critically thinking about The HCG diet

2012-01-22T13:26:00.002-05:00

"I took the HCG diet plan and lost 1-2 Pounds Daily to get to my ideal weight, and kept it off -- permanently!" -- satified user.

What to make of this claim? The HCG diet is suddenly part of popular culture. To no one's surprise, a typical round of celebrities have endorsed it, and YouTube videos abound. Essentially, one limits caloric intake and takes a certain prescribed number of drops per day. I'm highly skeptical of the claims made, and of the assertions by satisfied users of the HCG product. I believe anyone who values evidence-based thinking on their own health should also be cautious. Take just a quick look again at the statement above -- how does the user establish that the weight loss is permanent? Unless they had a sudden demise soon after making the claim, they are still alive and subject to the rebound effect[1] of dieting.

Even apart from the typical problem of people being unable to account for causes of events in their own lives, one can apply a bit more nuanced critical thinking to the HCG diet:

Variables: Let H = one eats 500 calories a day. Let C= one takes HCG drops.

Claim: H+C is correlated with weight loss.

Analysis: From what I've found, no scientific studies have disentangled whether it's H alone, or C alone, or H+C which causes the weight loss. One should also add-in to the entanglement another variable, G, (i.e. a placebo effect of taking a drug) and whether this psychologically empowers one to stick with H, and which actually yields the weight loss.

Hypothesis: I suspect H + G is the real mechanism of the weight loss.

Experiment: Get a hold of six HCG bottles. Let a third-party label them 1-6, and put HCG-hued, colored-water in three of them, leave real HCG in the other three. Go on the diet with six friends for two weeks.

What kinds of predictions can be made for such an application of "personal science"? Only three: if the percent of weight loss is approximately equal among the six dieters, it's more likely that the H+G hypothesis is correct than the H+C one. If the percent of weight loss is more in the HCG users, then H+C now has some objective evidence in its favor (i.e., it survived a counter-evidencing test), and becomes more likely that the HCG drug is doing something.[2] (Of course, if the loss is less for HCG drug, then all the worse for it as a diet aid. ) Naturally, using more dieters and carefully monitoring who is (a) doing what eating and (b) doing what physical activity would make the experiment results more persuasive.[3]

O.

REFERENCES

[image] "HCG Diet divides Doctors and Dieters: HCG Drops a Scam?" mydietarea.com (Accessed 1/22/12)

[1] Many studies have shown that after five years out, the vast majority of people gain back all of their original weight, and some in addition. The main problem is that people cannot reset their metabolism unless they have a regularly scheduled, muscle-working exercise regimen. But you already knew that, didn't you?

[2] Note, too, G might still play some part the HCG dieting success, and the new question becomes how much.

[3] Yes, I am well aware that this is not a rigorously-designed, controlled study. But if you're informed enough to realize what one of those are, then you'll have to admit this little personal science study of mine beats the h@!! out of what passes for evidence in popular culture for the effectiveness of diet aids

"Taste" (as defined by Steve Jobs, updated)

2011-10-06T10:34:00.002-04:00

Steve Jobs died yesterday. I have to admit, I feel a pang of regret about it, almost as if I knew they guy. (Obviously, I didn't.) But he'd been around for so long as part of the personal computer scene, somehow he'd become a part of my own participation (and joy) of working with computers. The New York Times has a really nice article about his life, though I'm sure other publications do too. I believe it's fair to compare him with Edison, at least in as much as his products completely changed the landscape of contemporary living and the use of personal technology. One never knew what surprising products he might come-up with next. He was a real visionary, and a distinctly American one too.

I can't think of any significant way to send a condolence. I mean, what could I do, really -- email customer service at Apple and say, "Sorry that the creative visionary of your whole company died."? It'd just be too weird. I decided something I could do is update this blog entry which I posted back in January of this year, the content of which is below. D@^^! -- and he was only 56.

* * *

As a philosopher, I'm always interested when intelligent people try to define common, if ineffable terms. Certainly "taste" is one of those terms. Here's a shot at it by Steve Jobs, as quoted in The New York Times a while back:

Great products, according to Mr. Jobs, are triumphs of “taste.” And taste, he explains, is a byproduct of study, observation and being steeped in the culture of the past and present, of “trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then bring those things into what you are doing.”[1]

REFERENCES

[image] Soft-Go.com Blog

[1] Steve Lohr "Steve Jobs and the Economics of Elitism" The New York Times Jan 29, 2001

Philosophy Professor vs. Humanities Editor

2011-10-01T14:47:00.002-04:00

Plenty of room for complaint on both sides.

I was watching a video[1] where two scholars (a philosopher and a humanities editor) were giving short papers (or, more accurately, contrasting stances) on whether there is philosophical progress in intellectual culture. A couple of other people made summary comments as well.

It was an enlightening polemical contrast, though it seemed like the humanities editor really didn't understand what professional philosophers actually attempt to do. However, he well understood how professional philosophers write badly. Furthermore, he rightly understood how often professional philosophers regularly publish irrelevant B.S (mostly, on my view, as result of publish or perish hiring and retention policies implemented by market-driven universities).

I wouldn't actually say the video was worth a full sitting of an hour, unless one happened to be interested in this issue. But there was a single comment posted below the video which itself made the time investment worth it.

Posted by the nickname "melektaus," it was as follows:

"What did I learn watching this? That journalists are people with no ideas and the ability to express them, and philosophers are people with ideas and no ability to express them."

O.

REFERENCES

[image] "Do-Si-Do" maxwaugh.com (Accessed, Oct. 1, 2011)

[1] Jason Stanley, videoist "Philosophical Progress and Intellectual Culture" at Harvard/ANU Profess conference Vimeo Sept. 21, 2011 (Accessed Oct. 1, 2011) [ Jason Stanely and Carlin Romano were the main interlocutors.]

[*] Philosopher Peter Ludlow gives a more optimisic take on this bifurcation problem, essentially arguing that philosophers need their own technical vocabulary to achieve progress on subtle and hard-to-solve philosophical problems. His response is here.

Religion sticks around for a reason

2011-09-13T14:59:00.002-04:00

...and it's not really much about reason.

One of the big mistakes complainers against religion make is based in a misinformed anthropology. Such complainers denigrate people for not taking evidence into account about their religious claims.[1] But people do not operate this way in the normal go-about activities of their lives. Occasionally, when people need to, they take care to bring evidence into account for acting. But it's rare for people in stable situations to always be taking evidence into account. Most of the time people live according to their default worldview, one formed by habit and a tolerable level of pragmatic success. No extra thought is expended in examining something that is working "good enough."

Ultimately, denigrators of religion seem to be making some sort of ethical complaint. They seem to be saying that people "should" be constantly assessing one's beliefs in terms of what justifies those beliefs. But this is an overly intellectualistic worldview, and does not actually represent what people empirically do, how they live their lives.

Furthermore, the denigrator's view is usually that it would be better for people, somehow, if they were committed to this philosophy of constant assessment in life. But that is anything but clear to me.

Socrates said something to the effect that the unexamined life is not worth living. Is that really so? Maybe that's a mistaken view. And, at any rate, it's vacuous, since no one completely lives an unexamined life. People make choices, and they make them on localized evidence, such as when considering what is likely to result in one thing being more advantageous than another. So, people regularly consider evidence. Yes, they consider badly, or attend to the wrong information. But it's still examination. And such examinations couldn't be all that inadequate, since people survive and operate within greater society, along with others.

Religion has the advantage of offering a lot of systematic integration in topics normally requiring lots of independent investigation. Morality, metaphysics, social conventions, case-studies thru its literature, geography, history -- a regular exposure to and participation in a religions life far exceeds what a trip to the mall and evening after evening of watching television has to offer a person of limited means or even poverty-stricken existence. And even integration is probably over-rated, as most people want a community, and their worldview is really subordinate to the meaning they find in social interaction with others.

o.

REFERENCES

[1] For example, noted new atheist Sam Harris makes these kinds of claims regularly in one form or another, as when he writes, "I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs" (in his book Letters to a Christian Nation).

Human augmentation and other scary stories for Evangelicals

2011-08-27T20:13:00.001-04:00

Twenty-one years ago a philosopher by the name of Stephen R.L. Clark wrote an article titled, "World Religions and World Orders". He essentially complains (indeed in several places simply rants without argument) that "there are good reasons for being suspicious of the very concept of 'a religion', let alone a 'world religion'. As is often the case with these kinds of arguments against using certain concepts, the author just happens to be -- surprise! -- a socially conservative Christian, and sports the strange mythological, apocalyptic views often associated with that crowd: "My fear is that we shall instead live to see the rise and fall of Babylon, that tradition tells us must precede the Coming."[1] By this he means Jesus: The Sequel, whereby God's messiah won't be so meek and loving the second time around. An ancillary thesis to his anathema over the possibility a unified concept of religion is the possibility of a unified culture for the religious traditions of humankind:

"So there are at least two futures for us that embody some ideal of unity: the rationally crafted Kantian vessel, and the baroque contrivance pieced together by a struggling crew. As far as our biological future goes, the latter has my vote. I had rather imagine humankind, lifekind, continue on the drunkard's walk through God's immensity than be re-engineered by certified experts."

If you detect any anti-intellectualistic undertones in the above quote, you'd be right; the article is filled with little asides depreciating reason, science, and anyone who would dare think that human beings might be able to manage their own future without relying on conservative interpretations of late iron-age values, originating from more sandier parts of the world.

Now something unique that caught my eye in the article was this notion of being 're-engineered' by certified experts', and Clark does expand on this later in the article. Again, as is standard shtick for Evangelicals, his tone is that we can't trust trust scientists any more than we can leash them with pietistic values, so it's best to warn the faithful when possible. In complaining about the works of Chardin, a 1930s intellectual, Clark notes,

"Scientific industrialism -- although its spokesmen regularly denounce old-fashioned dualisms of of 'matter' and 'spirit' -- actually embodies a powerful dualism of its own, between wild Nature and the technosphere. Sometimes its fantasies are of a space-travelling civilization that need never again adapt itself to a non-human environment (precisely by placing itself in that most alien and deadly space beyond the living Earth). Chardin's fantasies of the fantasies of the Overmind [...] are to be realized through computer networks, genetic engineering, bionic enhancement of sense and muscle. Those of us old-fashioned faith-holders who suspect that we shall not be allowed to 'build a tower to heaven', nor yet to remake our bodies and the living earth, can expect to be denounced as backward-looking obscurantists, to be swept away (as Chardin hoped) in the tide of progress"[1]

As earlier noted, this article appeared over two decades ago, but science has the benefit of accumulative knowledge and expansive technology, even with the intellectual drag of conservative clergy prophesying doom about human advancement. So while the idea that we can remake ourselves was just on the edge of loony in 1990, it's now pretty much an accepted fact about what is coming down the pike. Actually it understates the case that it is coming, for the first round of the technology is already here.

In a timely coincidence with my reading, a new documentary[2] has come out just this week which examines the human enhancement themes showcased in a well-received video game. (Video games are the vehicles of 21st century secular mythology.) It shows what is the current state of the most advanced prosthetics, and how real people are using these computer-enhanced devices. The filmmaker himself, Rob Spence, is known as "Eyeborg", because he has a prosthetic eye that can be activated by waving a magnet in front of it. The eye can record video, and in the documentary it uses some of the video from his eye as part of the narrative cinematography of the film.

Seeing this documentary re-emphasizes just how forward and insightful was the thinking of that 1930s writer, Chardin; but how backward and neanderthalic is Clark's understanding of religion and culture. Sadly, Clark has lots of evangelical ditto-heads who think the same way. But Chardin had an insightful analysis about them too.

O.

REFERENCES

[1] Stephen R. L. Clark, "World Religions and World Orders" Religious Studies 26 (1990), pp. 43-57
[2] Rob Spence "Deus Ex: The Eyeborg Documentary" YouTube 8/25/11

W.D. Hudson and Religious Beliefs

2011-08-25T21:24:00.000-04:00

Some musings after reading the philosopher W.D. Hudson.

Yet again I've read Hudson's article titled, "What makes Religious Beliefs Religious." I've done this a few times over the years. It's the opening article in a Philosophy of Religion anthology I use. Hudson was a reader in Philosophy at the University of Exeter, and had quite the run of Philosophy articles in the 60s and 70s. He put out plenty of books too, apparently specializing in the study of Wittgenstein's philosophy as it could be applied to Religion.

In the article noted, he argues that religious belief is constituted by the concept of 'god'. This special "constitution" relationship applies to particular claims (one's that can't be logically doubted) when they are made within a larger universe of discourse. What's that mean? Well, take an example--in the universe of discourse about physics, it would make no sense to doubt that there are physical objects. A physical science system is constituted by physical objects; or, more accurately, the concept of the former is constituted by the concept of the latter. One can't make sense of a physical science system without importing the concept of physical objects. So, in his big move on religion, Hudson likewise thinks one can't make sense of religion without importing the concept of 'god'.

At first, I was going to write that I'm not so big on armchair philosophizing--namely, where one deeply contemplates one's navel for a bit, and then comes back from The Brink to report one's own psychological feelings about connotations of words and meanings of statements. But that would have been a lie, since I do it farily regularly.

Even so, I certainly don't trust that method as a way of discovering what's true of reality. Nor do I think it's the most reliable way to "do" philosophy, whatever that special activity is supposed to be. Instead, my position is this: armchair philosophizing is merely a starting point for creative thinking, a way to begin setting-up the more rigorous project of mathematical and/or scientific reasoning. (People used to freebasing too much Wittgenstein would vigorously disagree with this, I'd bet. That's why one should take Wittgenstein only as supplement, and not as sustenance.)

I'll develop no extended response to Hudson, but I will leverage some of his arm-chairing to show the limitations of this method of philosophy. Consider this snippet, appearing as it does toward the very end of the article:

"There are, no doubt, some logical limits on what can be discussed within any particular universe of discourse; it is difficult to conceive, for instance, of what a treatise on the chemistry of moral judgements or the morality of chemical equations could be about."[1]

I'll grant him it's futile to think about the morality of chemical equations. Of course there is the morality of consequences, such as whether one should reveal deadly chemical equations to unscrupulous parties. "Here, my terrorist friend, is an equation to make a bioweapon from baking soda and algae--overnite!" But how bonkers to think that there's a moral principle about the equations themselves, such as whether 'Na + Cl2 -> 2NaCl' is more righteous than 'Cu + S -> CuS' due to some inherent property of the symbols or their arrangements.

In contrast, it seems much easier, even preferable, to concede there is a chemistry of moral judgement. Maybe one is taken by this kind of approach:

All types of brain states are electro-chemical, material states.
All moral beliefs are types of brain states.
So, all moral beliefs are electro-chemical, material states.

In this case, a treatise on the chemistry of moral judgements might look a whole lot like a treatise on genetics and neuro-pharmacology. Hudson's armchair philosophizing fails him. It may be hard to understand the chemistry of judgements, but it's no longer so hard to conceive what such a universe of discourse is about. In fact, it's becoming frighteningly easy.

O.

References

[1] W.D. Hudson "What Makes Religious Beliefs Religious" Religious Studies 13 (1977) pp. 221-42.

Google can soon peek under dresses with mapping robots.

2011-08-20T10:37:00.000-04:00

And then everybody else could take the tour too

Google has a street trike which a person rides as the newest way to make maps.[1] It allows the company to map even smaller and closer spaces than a full car could manage. As a matter of efficiency, the principle is to shrink down the apparatus so more places can be mapped. Clearly this principle is extensible until you have the smallest of robots scurrying around the nooks and crannies of every publicly accessible place. In principle, then, one could take the view of a mouse or a fly (eventually) and cruse around at Google's "street view" and see things from that perspective. No doubt Google can already do this, but to explicity advertise such abilities would be too shocking for the public. (But already used for intelligence agencies, of course.) Privacy concerns are already a touchy issue in Europe, and would be so here in the U.S. were it not for this country's general ignorance about the implications of its own Science.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] "Pesky fly or Peeing Tom" The Latest and Greatest Technology (Accessed 8/20/11)

[1] "Google Street View trikes up close" TechCrunch (Accessed 8/20/11)

Free will to love God, or free will from a loving God?

2011-06-09T11:13:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr. Supposed Philosopher:

I recently read your article concerning Rob Bell's error about God and free will, and now I have a question for you. Would you agree that God's love is based on the free will he has granted us; or, on the other hand, do you agree that free will was given to us to demonstrate our love towards God?

I look upon you as very religious, and I thought a man of your deep piety could choose wisely in this conundrum.

Signed -

-- Choosy Mutha

Dear Muthalooker:

You've asked me to chose between two arguments which, from your post, seem to be as follows:

ARG. #1:
1. God gave us (created entities) free will
2. A creator giving a created entity its own free will entails the creator loves that entity.
3. Thus, God loves us.

ARG. #2:
1. God gave us (created entities) free will.
2. A creator giving a created entity its own free will entails a duty to love that creator.
3. Thus, we should love God.

First, there is nothing here that says I'm logically forced to choose one or the other argument. Indeed, since they both share their first premises, and since the conclusions of both are not controversial among Christians, then I'm not immediately worried about which conclusion is "right"--i.e., theologically responsible to hold.

Next, however, I caution that there are problems with premise #2 in BOTH arguments, since they are both open to a kind of counterexample disconnecting freewill and love.

Consider this thought experiment. It seems we humans are eventually going to construct artificially intelligent entities. Suppose we figured out not only the deep mystery of how physical brains can exhibit the property of consciousness (That was easy!), but also of how they maintain free will (No problem!). And, as is often the case, once we got the science down, the technology was not far behind--we then build a freewill agent.

Per ARG #1, does that mean since we gave a created, artificial entity a free will, we love it? Hardly. We might simply be using it for some ends--asteroid mining, or troop moral on Mars station 7, perhaps; and, we have every intention to throw it away or "deactivate" (= kill) it when we are done with it for the assigned task. Granted, it might be unethical what we've done, but I'm merely showing a counterexample seems available to premise 2 in ARG #1.[i]

ARG #2 fares somewhat better, I think; but, even here a problem arises. Again, on supposition that we somehow build a freewill agent, must we acknowledge a duty toward it? Talk of duty is one option for a systematic ethic. But it might turn out that we're mistaken about duties--there just are no such things. Maybe there are consequences and social contracts between agents, but some free-floating, esoteric relation known as "duty" is just an old-fashioned, mistaken concept from human cultures past. Thus, your second argument works only if one believes there is such a thing as duty. There is some controversy about this in ethics, so unless we get clear on that, it looks like ARG #2's strength can't be resolved.

Overall, then, ARG #1, seems unsound; and ARG #2 is convincing only to those who think there is some special "force" or relationship independent of human preference called duty.

O.

References

[image] "Consequentialism: It's Duty Free (ethics) Tee Shirt" Zazzle.com (Accessed 6/9/11)

[i] Compare in the Old Testament where God uses Job's horrible suffering as an end (among others) to teach Satan a lesson. The Bible seems to indicate God uses people as means-to-ends quite regularly.

On which woman is less oppressed: bikini lady or abaya lady

2011-05-25T13:16:00.002-04:00

Both are thinking a male-dominated culture has harmed the other, but one of these assessments is far more accurate than the other.

Is it really true that the women in this cartoon are both equally suffering in a male-dominated culture? Actually, it's FAR from true: if the bikini woman takes off her bikini and puts on regular clothes, no one in her secular nation beats her. In contrast, if the abaya woman takes off her abaya and puts on regular clothes, the religious police (known as the muttawwa) in her Muslim nation may beat her. So, the bikini woman is far, far better off. Again, since the bikini woman has far more liberty as a citizen, she is easily in the better position to mange whatever male domination may be present.

I imagine some would object that the bikini woman is actually more oppressed, since she doesn't know how much she's being dominated, something along the lines like-unto when children don't know when or how much they are being dominated. However, in reply, (i) children cannot reason well and are rightly seen as not understanding when they are oppressed. But adult women, especially adult women with a basic education and with equal voting opportunities in their culture, are able understand better when they are oppressed. So, the bikini woman likely understands her situation better than the abaya woman. Also, (ii) many women in abaya-enforced cultures are not given basic education. Thus, the abaya woman, not the bikini woman, is actually the more oppressed of the two. Therefore, and yet again, the bikini woman is easily in the better position to manage any male domination situations in life.

O.

On semantics, abstract nouns, and fighting with my journalist cousin

2011-05-19T18:21:00.002-04:00

My journalist cousin and I had a little debate about a certain kind of locution. She quoted a pithy remark--

   i. Life is sexually transmitted.

But I countered--

   ii. In vitro babies beg to differ with your first assertion, cuz.

She then objected--

   iii. it says "Life is sexually transmitted." Not "ALL life is sexually transmitted." So there.

At this point, I called-in my personal semantic police force, saying "Not so fast, cuz!" I analyzed such locutions as follows:

* * *

   i*. "Money is electronically transferred." My dollar bills beg to differ with that assertion; there's some that ain't. I said, "Money is electronically transferred." Not "ALL money is electronically transferred."

Same error? Yes. But now consider two others:

   iv. "Rock is atomically constructed." Here, for this case, there is no rock that ain't. So, this all-less "is" does indeed stand equivalent to saying "ALL rock is atomically constructed."

   v. "Life is biologically evolved." Again, it looks like there is no life that ain't. So, this all-less "is" likewise stands equivalent to saying "ALL life is biologically evolved."

Conclusion: the lack of an "ALL" sometimes allows "some ain't" and sometimes doesn't allow "some ain't." What an "is" remark says is easily misinterpreted.

* * *

I told her to run this analysis by my two favorite, grammar-proficient aunts, and see if they buy my position. Of course I'm an analytic philosopher, and she a journalist; but, since her mother was a speech therapist, and her mother's sister (i.e., my other aunt) was a college grammar teacher, this could end up being quite the family squabble. Alas--Grammar is ambiguously understood.

O.

Rob Bell's error about God and free will

2011-04-11T14:58:00.001-04:00

Bell's new book has the goods to make it an important work for thinking Christians to consider, but it has an unacceptable position about how God, free will, and love are related.

0. Although there are many good things in Bell's book, I won't take time here to list those. But there is one particular issue on which I think the good Reverend is in error. Apparently, others are bewitched by his position too. First, let me review where this position is, and then show how it can go wrong. Last, I'll make a case for why he (and others of piety) should have a change of mind on the matter.

1. Here's a relevant quote which showcases the worrisome position at hand:

“God has to respect our freedom to choose to the very end,” Bell argues, “even at the risk of relationship itself. If at any point God overrides, co-ops, or hijacks the human heart, robbing us the freedom to choose, then God has violated the fundamental essence of what love even is” (103-104). Therefore, “love demands freedom. It always has, and it always will. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God’s ways for us,” says Bell. “We can have all the hell we want” (113).

I think the key premise (KP) where he and others make a mistake is this one:

KP = If at any point God overrides, co-ops, or hijacks the human heart, robbing us the freedom to choose, then God has violated the fundamental essence of what love even is.

2. Sentences of the type KP are called "conditionals." To show that a conditional is incorrect, one must show how the first part can be true while the second part is false.

2.1 Take this conditional, for example: "If an Okie is a preacher, then s/he drives a Mercedes." Part one is "An Okie is a preacher" And part two is "S/he drives a Mercedes." Now then--can I find an Okie who's a preacher, and who DOESN'T drive a Mercedes? Yes, I can. I are one. So's all the preachers I know around here; why, even the District Superintendent just drives a Buick! Thus, this particular conditional about Okies, preachers, and Mercedes can't be correct, since the first part could be true while the second part's false.

2.2. So now, could KP be shown incorrect just like the above Okie example? Yes, yes it can. Part one is, "God overrides [...] us the freedom to chose." And part two is "God has violated the fundamental essence of what love even is." Now then, can I find a case where God overrides freedom, but where God HASN'T violated the fundamental essence of what love even is?" Yes, I can. Here's how:

3. Right now I'm about to grab one of two Reese's Peanut Cutter cups from the orange package in front of me. I could use my left hand, or my right. Happily, God is subtle and knows that even a falling sparrow can greatly affect future states of affairs. Stipulate outright that God co-ops, or hijacks my human heart, robbing me the freedom to eat a Reese with my left hand (forcing, thus, my right hand to do it). Furthermore, God did so with the foresight to greatly subvert, or even outright eliminate, the high-probability risk of a busload of kids plowing into my car five days hence, killing us all. In this case God has NOT "violated the fundamental essence of what love even is." Not for me--I'm glad God did it! Not for the kids, or their parents, or their friends--they're glad God did it! God's overriding my left-handed will shows he loves me, them, and all related parties. God's motive is loving; God's outcome is good. Indeed, all parties praise him for making this tiny, imperceptible over-ride on just one sub-component of my will.

4. In conclusion, then, KP is incorrect (first part can be true, while second part false.) That's why Bell and others that think along similar lines are in error about God when they claim, "If at any point God overrides, co-ops, or hijacks the human heart, robbing us the freedom to choose, then God has violated the fundamental essence of what love even is." Indeed, one should ask God daily to override those little, throw-away sub-actions that one could care less about. Yes, I want to eat that Reese cup, oh Lord; hijack not that choice. Yet, whether by my left hand or right--not my will, but Thine alone.

O.

REFERENCES

[ * ] Rob Bell "Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived" HarperOne (March 15, 2011)

Alex Trebek on Technology

2011-02-15T14:06:00.000-05:00

"If you can't be without that piece of equipment, I think that's sad. We're becoming too attached to our technology. We need more time to ourselves, more time to sit and think and be quiet, instead of constantly being accessed. And as far as Twitter goes, are we so insecure that if we're not connected to somebody else every moment of the day, we're in a panic? What happened to the days of contemplation? The days of being self sufficient? Enjoying ourselves instead of being in contact with everybody else?"[1]

O.

REFERENCES

[1] From an excellent interview with him on Time Magazine's "Techland" site: Doug Aamoth "Techland Interview: Alex Trebek" Techland.Time.Com (Sept. 21, 2010)

[*] Another great interview with him on the recent (2/14/11) IBM-Watson vs. human champions on Jeopardy is here.

Copyright: Bring It, Teacher Boy, or Shut Up. (Girls too.)

2011-01-23T15:41:00.005-05:00

I've been, more or less, mandated to take an online, busy-work type course in instruction from my sponsoring institution. (This despite the fact that I've written and taught many online courses.) One of this week's objectives was to "Understand U.S. intellectual property and our institutional policy." First off, a policy is far easier to understand than the very concept of intellectual property, since the latter is understood only by squishy social convention; and, second, since society itself is still unclear on the status of information as "property." (Hmm--maybe those two reasons are equivalent.)

Generally, if you're making money off of it, or you're losing money from it being given away, that's what society (actually, those who want compensation for creation) really care about. It's not the "property" aspect, but the profit that is made or lost on that property (including legal penalties, which, again, would be for a loss of profit) which is at issue.

As a professor, the safest practical policy seems to be that one makes sure there is a protected gateway where only verified students of one's sponsoring university can get to the material.

Also, it's probably important to note that God (or his tool of wrath, The State) will not instantly strike you dead if you've violated copyright. Copyright holders will send a cease and desist letter asserting themselves as copyright holders, and with an explicit deadline for compliance. Yet even THIS is not so clear, as some kinds of copyright might only hold for a predetermined period, such as on news sources:

"FACTS, ruled America’s Supreme Court in 1918 in the 'hot news doctrine', cannot be copyrighted. But a news agency can retain exclusive use of its product so long as it has a commercial value."[1]

Note the magic value phrase for profit again:"so long as it has commercial value." Happily, TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 1 > § 107 "Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use", give us academic types quite a bit of cover:

"the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."[2]

I love legalese. And I think that's my favorite passage in all U.S code too, since it mentions these primitive things called “phonorecords.” (Actually, the term is redefined.)

Overall, it seems to me the issue is this: if somebody has an attorney tell you to quit it, are you going to seek attorney advice and fight back; or, are you going to stop short, take whatever down, and recall that commerce rights will trump education everytime when they come into real conflict? Seems pretty clear to me: if you're not rich enough to parley--fall in line and shut up.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] used w/o permission both as a form of civil disobedience and for educational purposes.

[1] "Owning the news: Copyrighting facts as well as words" The Economist June 24th, 2010. [Actually, this is just linked to the comments. I don't own the copyright to this article, but the comments are way better than the article anyway.]

[2] "United States Code: Title 17" Cornell University Law School Legal information Institute (Accessed 1/23/2001)

Dolly's Dollies: Extra clones revealed

2010-12-24T13:15:00.000-05:00

An article over at the Singularity Hub gives some surprisingly good news about animal cloning. First, Professor Keith Campbell, one of the original scientists who cloned the '96 sheep, Dolly, has revealed that three years ago he had cloned (at least) four other copies of her. Second, these sheep (pictured above) have shown none of the health problems that were speculatively leveled at the original Dolly as arguments against the viability of mammal clones. From the article:

In 1996, 277 eggs were used to create 29 embryos, only one of which became the viable and living clone known as Dolly. Back in 2007, it took about 5 embryos to create each of the four new Dollies. Fewer genetic material was required, scientists had to spend less labor, and there was generally less failure. In other words, a decade’s progress meant that we could now create (at least) four clones more easily than we created one. In the last three years we’ve probably improved even further. Whether you want to think of that as exponential or linear improvement, there’s little doubt that we’re getting better at making some types of mammal clones.[1]

The article is very informative and clears up some of the complete speculation (and hasty generalizations) drawn from the Dolly '96.

I've always believed that cloning carries great promise for developing domesticated livestock. Take the pig, for example. One thing that is becoming apparent is how pigs are factories for flu development. If one could gentically modify a pig to have natural resistance to certain human flu-based xenoviri, then the heavy financial investment to produce such a pig suddenly has a viable pay-off path, when cloning that pig becomes an option. It would then take very little time to develop agricultural settings whereby these xeno-resistant pigs would not be worrisome flu virus factories. This makes makes good sense for both subsistence and profit farming. Contrary to what middle-class vegans/vegitarians would have us believe, agricultural animals are essential sources for maintaining the world's protein needs. Here, from that "other" university in my home state, is an interesting note on the matter:

Food is, by far, the most important contribution of agricultural animal, although they rank well behind plants in total quantity of food supplied. Plants supply over 80 percent of the total calories consumed in the world. Animals are a more important source of protein than they are of calories, supplying one-third of the protein consumed in the world. Meat, milk and fish are about equal sources of animal protein, supplying, respectively, 35%, 34% and 27% of the world supply of total protein. There are many who feel that because the world population is growing at a faster rate than is the food supply, we are becoming less and less able to afford animal foods because feeding plant products to animals is an inefficient use of potential human food. It is true that it is more efficient for humans to eat plant products directly rather than to allow animals to convert them to human food. At best, animals only produce one pound or less of human food for each three pounds of plants eaten. However, this inefficiency only applies to those plants and plant products that the human can utilize. The fact is that over two-thirds of the feed fed to animals consists of substances that are either undesirable or completely unsuited for human food. Thus, by their ability to convert inedible plant materials to human food, animals not only do not compete with the human rather they aid greatly in improving both the quantity and the quality of the diets of human societies.[2]

Pigs have been domesticated for an unbelievable 9000 years, and goats and sheep even longer, so it's about time we get a new way of controlling the viral down-sides of livestock management, an issue which has haunted us since we left our hunter-gather lifestyle.

o.

REFERENCES

[1] Aaron Saenz "Dolly Lives! The Original Cloned Sheep has Four New Copies" The Singularity Hub 12/11/2010 (Accessed 12/24/2010)

[2] "Breeds of Livestock" Department of Animal Science, Oklahoma State University (Accessed 12/24/2010)

On whether a Ph.D. or Masters degree is worth it

2010-12-17T15:14:00.004-05:00

A rethinking of what to do with your life in regards to graduate education is clearly in order.

I have heard it tell that great rises in the supply of something means there will be some corresponding lessening of demand for that something. The seems intuitively correct. Sadly, it also seems empirically accurate for the value of obtaining a graduate degree. A confluence of events have brought some droll thoughts about higher education to mind. First, I recently sat in a commencement and watched hordes of debt-loaded students accept their degrees. A large percentage of these were students who were planning to go on and get graduate degrees, or who actually had some first-level graduate degree, such as a MS or MA. Second, it's that time of year where I am called-upon to write recommendations for bright-eyed optimists--i.e., those who want to go on to graduate school in hopes of becoming academics. Finally, I've read several articles lately about unfriendly and even grave changes concerning the value and pay-off of pursuing graduate education. Moreover, I also seem to be sensitive to anecdotal accounts of what have been people's job and life prospects after education. I'll scatter-shot a few of my ideas here, since I don't have one deep thesis or analysis about what seems to be broadly bad news for graduate education.

It's always been the case that the journey from a High School diploma to a terminal graduate degree has been a tough haul. In some ways, that's to be expected, since all real learning is painful, and since the institutional filters against undisciplined character are (ideally) there to make the journey pay-off only for those with both some level of natural talent and focused commitment. (I mention the painful aspect of education, since anything else is simply infotainment. These two are easily confused, as when watching a free online college lecture on YouTube fools somebody into thinking they've somehow become properly informed on a topic in question. ) There are always sad stories about people who get graduate degrees and end up working at McDonalds or sacking groceries. Sometimes, unfriendly people gleefully point out that by pursing a highly impractical degree, such as an MA in 5th century BC Attic Greek, such a graduate has gotten what s/he deserved for not making prudent decisions for greater life. Admittedly, I think there is some force in this unfriendly charge.

However, suppose someone accurately assesses what is practical and valuable in modern society, perhaps noting some hot new, well-attested developing area of science. Even here, the supply and demand worry is grave. Consider an empirically based case scenario:

Dr. Ence is now in his late 30s. He has finished 7 years of graduate school and 9 years of post-doctoral training. He has published great articles, attended conferences and given talks. He's putting together his curriculum vitae (CV), so he can start applying for jobs as an assistant professor. What are his chances? According to a forum convened by the National Academies, the chances of a life scientist under the age of 35 getting a tenure-track position fell from 10% in 1993 to 7% in 2003; as the number of life sciences PhD graduates went from 11,000 to 16,000 and tenure-track positions held steady at about 1,200 positions. That means that Dr. Ence has to be one of the top 7 out of every 100 life science PhDs applying for a job as an independent researcher to get the position.[1]

Not good news for Dr. Ence, and there's no controversy that the life science are valuable to modern society. The bleak prospect for other less pragmatic doctoral positions would be even further amplified.

In fact, the general trends of academic slots are not friendly, as the chart below indicates, and this does not even show the most recent data for that last couple of years of The Great Recession:

One of the staple strategies of riding-out a recession is to take time-out for more schooling, and many people are pursuing graduate degrees as a way putting this traditional maxim to action, such as aiming toward top-level degrees like Ph.D's. However, where are these people going to be slotted into the system? The U.S. now puts-out about 64,000 Ph.D.s a year, and has put about 100,000 thousand of them into circulation between 2005 and 2009. But there are only about 16,000 new professorship slots at best, and there have been unprecedented cut-backs even over the last year. If you pick an arbitrary student who begins a doctoral program, 10 years later, s/he will have only a 57% chance of having a Ph.D. after s/he begins. [2] So there are two problems here--the time it takes and the chance of actually getting relevant employment. Normally, one puts in lots of time as a trade-off for securing an advantage later. But the situation for graduate study does not make that rule of thumb a reasonable course of action. Furthermore, for the highest degree, the Ph.D., when compared across all subjects with salaries for Master's degrees, the Ph.D. commands only a 3% premium in salary,[2] definitely not a reasonable pay-off for planning about future life and career situations.

Often the media cites somewhat misleading statics that unemployment numbers hit the best educated last, as this chart shows:

These statics do not seemed controversial, yet such success of keeping the wolf away from the door is predicated on one already having a job. Thus, having a degree while you're in a job is great, but that should not be confused with having a degree which can likely place you in a job. This latter is where I believe the grave news lies for anyone thinking of pursuing graduate education.

One often hears retorts that pursuing a graduate degree, especially a Ph.D., is not about getting a job, but about becoming a kind of person--one who pursues his or her deepest interests. There's no need to deny this laudible motivation; nonetheless, there are some trumping issues to this noble retort.

First, what sort of financial situation can one reasonably hope to manage for decades after the education is complete? The average graduate student carries somewhat over $40,000 in debt, but this can balloon quickly depending on when payments are due and what the employment prospects are for the degree. In fact, more than 40 percent of students are burdened with an "unmanageable" amount of debt - defined as more than 8 percent of a person's annual income. As one researcher realistically summarized it, "spiraling tuition costs and a move to a debt-based financing system make it all but impossible for students to move up and move ahead in life."[3] The slightly older chart below shows the trend, but one can rest assured trends have continued in the same unfriendly way for the last few years, and will continue to do so.

Second, consider the effect upon one's actual or potential marriage. About 7% of undergraduates marry while in college,[4] but this number is far higher for graduate students: 32% of men and 31% of women marry during graduate school, thought not everyone who starts married stays married (7.4% of men and 12.1% of women divorce during graduate school). Furthermore, the majority of students who are married at the start of graduate school have children before leaving (58% of married men and 51% of married women). [4] Can one justly make the case that a spouse should work for ten years or more in support of the other's "deep interest", and at the opportunity cost of thousands of dollars in debt, and that long with eschewing of other stabalizing social and economic opportunities? Can one successfully hope to manage a child, or the consequence to one's unborn child/children because of such economic impacts?

These are gloomy questions with equally gloomy prospects of being answered satisfactorily in 2010 and for the foreseeable future; therefore, a rethinking, or a bit more optimistically, a careful accounting, of what to do with your life in regards to graduate education is clearly in order.

REFERENCES

[1] "From training to practice: joining the faculty" New voices for Research May 20, 2009. (Accessed Dec. 17, 2010)
[2] "Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic" The Economist Dec. 16th, 2010 (Accessed Dec. 17, 2010)
[3] Steven Stoddard "Panel tackles graduate student debt" The GW Hatchet March 5, 2009 (Accessed Dec. 17, 2010)
[4] "Joseph Price "Does a spouse slow you down?" (Dept. of Economics, Cornell University) (Accessed Dec. 17, 2010)

O.

Pinocchio Paradox Propositionally Debunked

2010-11-29T20:03:00.001-05:00

Dear Mr. Supposed Philosopher:

My nephew taunts that were Pinocchio to say me, "Your nose will grow," a paradox would ensue. I said, "Nuh Uh." But, secretly, I'm not so sure. Is he really that smart, or is he just bluffing?

Signed,
Roundly Razzed
Batavia, OH

Dear R:

I'm going with he's bluffing. Here's why:

P =def. "Pinocchio"
R =def. "Roundly Razzed"

00. P says, "R's nose will grow."

Theorem 1:
01. If P lies, then P's nose grows. (premise)
02. If P doesn't lie, P's nose doesn't grow. (premise)
03. P lies or P doesn't (tautology)
04. So, either P's nose grows, or it don't. (1,2,3 ; CD)

Theorem 2:
05. If R's nose grows, P's does not. (premise of hypothetical effect)
06. If R's nose don't grow, then P's does. (premise of hypothetical effect)
07. R's nose grows or R's nose doesn't. (tautology)
08. So, either P's nose grows or it don't (5,6,7; CD)

Theorem 3:
09. If R is a physically maturing person, R's nose will grow. (premise)
10. If R's nose will grow, then P doesn't lie. (premise)
11. So, If R is still a physically maturing person, then P doesn't lie. (9,10 HS)

Main Argument:
12. R is still a physically maturing person. (premise)
13. Thus, P doesn't lie. (11,12; MP)
14. Hence, P's nose doesn't grow. (2,13; MP)
15. Therefore, R's nose still does, though.(6,14; MT)

Analysis: No contradiction found. Thus, no paradox detected.

O.

REFERENCES:

Ray Wiseman Logic and Proofs (Accessed 11/29/2010) - gives a summary of the rules of propositional logic.

On Ethics after the Theocide of God

2010-10-16T16:04:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr. Supposedly Pious Philosopher:

So I can't remember for sure in which class I heard this -- It could have been in Ethics -- but I remember someone mentioning "Euthyphro's Problem" in the course of a discussion, at one point. It was described by asking, "Is it good because God said so, or did God say so because it is good?" The implication of this is, I take it, that if a particular action is only good because God said so, then we are left with a risk of arbitrary morality, subject to the whims of God. If, on the other hand, we say that God decreed that we should do X because X really is good, then we find God subject to some Higher Force, maybe akin to the Platonic "good," which is likeunto there being a second, impersonal God that the personal One always has to reference. That seems a very unsatisfying theological assertion for a pious monotheist!

Obviously, I'm writing about this, since the dilemma has kind of stuck with me. Equally obvious is that if professors are discussing this dilemma in their classes, thousands of years after Euthyphro's death, then the dilemma has likely not been solved to everyone's satisfaction. So, everybody's stuck with it. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to find some answer that makes sense (at least to me;) and, as you're clearly a pious philosopher, I'd like to run a tentative theory by you on this matter for your analysis.

The thought that occurs to me--mostly from listening to other people who've had fewer real jobs, but more time and education with which to think about these things--is that the dilemma may be based on a false dichotomy. It assumes that there are two things: "God," and "good." How does the dilemma hold up if the following is true: "God = good"? If we turn it from a greater than/less than statement into an equality, then it seems to me like the problem doesn't get any traction. Why so? Because if "God = good", then something that is in line with God's will is necessarily in line with good as well. It is comparable to this--that the concept behind the word "One" and the concept behind the symbol "1" is the same concept, right? So, "One = 1", and necessarily couldn't' be otherwise. Stll, my theory might be too simplistic. I worry that I might be missing something.

Signed,

Good-n-Godly, more or less.

Dear G.-n.-G:

You ask, "If 'God = good', then something that is in line with God's will should necessarily be in line with good as well, right?" As I see it, this remark is equivalent to just restating the old, "God says it's so; thus, it's good" position from the Euthyphro. (And you were correct in your historical observation--that the dilemma hasn't been solved.) Unlike you, however, I tend to think that "God = good" is not the same kind of claim as is "One = 1."

As an interesting endeavor, consider again what it means to say that "God = good." If the atheists happen to be right, that there is no God, it would follow on the "God = good" view that there would be no good either; but, that seems a bit too radical. Maybe a thought experiment could help clarify things:

Suppose God appeared to me in a vision and said he's going to make himself cease to exist, and thought I, the truly pious philosopher, should be among the few to know. God then proceeds to (somehow and quite miraculously) off Himself. Poof! Now the atheists really are correct, sadly. What would then follow for my Ethics?

I wouldn't change my strong commitment to, say, not hunting children with rifles for sport, even though there is now no such thing as an absolutely transcendental moral standard against such. It's just that I'd say what was good earlier (w/ God) and what is good now (w/o God) could be the same, but the motivation for my doing good can no longer be about pleasing God, but only about not compromising my own moral intuitions, one's that a lot of people around me share, and ones which protect me from psychological trauma.

What 'good' now means (after the big Theocide event, of course) is tied to the objectivity of what a shared community does (or would) affirm of their intuitions, and not about what a divine affirms of His will, knowledge, preferences, design specs., etc. So, as to "Is it good because God said so, or did God say so because it is good?" I can't say. But the "God = good" view doesn't seem to advance the analysis.

REFERENCES

[image] Aaron Wolf "Day and Nite" (Accessed Oct 16 2010)

[ * ] A quick synopsis of Plato's Euthyphro can be found here.

[ * ] An analytic overview of the Euthyphro dilemma can be found here.

Narrative, Logic, and Wishful Thinking in Theology

2010-09-11T11:34:00.002-04:00

In a new book, with the possibly oxymoronic title of, "Analytic Theology: new Essays in the Philosophy of Theology," Eleonore Stump writes the following:

"To me, it seems that there are things to know which can be known through narrative but which cannot be known as well, if at all, through the methods of analytic philosophy."[1]

My worry here is that such a view is merely a contingent statement about the psychological assent of the individual, not about careful justification or reliable procedures for having trustworthy (even true) beliefs. A story adapted from the well-known 20th century philosopher, Bertrand Russell, is informative:

There is a small town with just one male barber; and that every man in the town keeps himself clean-shaven: some by shaving themselves, some by attending the barber. The barber, said to be a persnickety man, has a business rule whereby he shaves all and only those men in town who do not shave themselves. One day, a heavily bearded man, feeling the scratchy irritation that only a string of hot summer days can impute on such a fellow, decides to avail himself of this barber's services. As he's walking up to the shop, the thought strikes him, "Does the barber shave himself?" As he's reaching for shop's door handle, he further thinks, "Well, he does or he doesn't; that's for sure." Sadly, however, when he steps into the shop, he notes that the barber's not there. "Should I wait?" ponders the man, yet again scratching his neck.

Now people who love the narrative method for doing theology (or other religious-type thinking) would probably ask questions like, "Does this barber find meaning in having such a special commitment to whom he shaves?" Or, "Does this barber cheat members of the community by partitioning some from others as to whom he will allow into his business?" And, lots of other kinds of "deepity" fishings for Big Questions would, no doubt, also be asked.

Alas, the problem isn't that the story is just fictional, but that it's logically impossible that there is such a barber. (If the barber does not shave himself, he must abide by the rule and shave himself, but if he does shave himself, according to the rule he will not shave himself. Thus, such contradictions show our conceptual barber is nonsense.) So, what people who formulate such questions about this barber fall prey to is mere psychological assent, thinking they are asking meaningful questions. But there is no reference to the very concepts of their questions! They are fooled into asking about purely vacuous entities and events. Yet this is the very problem with much of what passes for standard theologizing. Many of the issues, even when not empirically defeasible, are simply vacuous. Sometimes theologizing fails by making scientifically false claims. Sometimes theologizing fails by making metaphorically hazy claims. But in these types of instances, theologizing would fail by making vacuous claims.

I once heard an aphorism which seems to be a corollary for this problem, at least for the traditional, dogma-based issues within theology. I'll paraphrase it as follows: "Just because a grammatically structured question can be formulated on some topic, doesn't mean there can be an answer to that question."

O.

REFERENCES

[image] william c hutton jr flickriver (Accessed Sept. 11, 2010)

[1] Oliver D. Crips, ed. "Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Theology" (Oxford Univ. Press, 2009), 255.

Jim's Logic Proof for driving as he does.

2010-08-28T11:19:00.002-04:00

Jim had studied enough logic to know he must keep going,
but not enough to know he was supposed to drive down the
center of the road.
 
01. L v R     In the past, Jim had noted that either the
              left lane is closed, or the right lane is
              closed.
02. R > Ml    And he knew that if right lane is closed, 
              then one must take the left lane
03. L > Mr    And also he knew that if the left lane is
              closed, then one must take the right lane.
04. L & R     But Jim can now see that both lanes are
              closed ahead.
----------
05. L         Which means, the left one is closed 
              (4, Simplification) 
06. R         And, too, that the right one is closed.
              (4, Simplification) 
07. Mr        So, Jim deduces he must take the right lane.
              (3,5, Modus Ponens) 
08. Ml v Mr   That, or he must take the left one. 
              (7, Addition)

Jim has correctly reasoned that he must take either of 
the two lanes, and so he yells, "Onward!" and punches the 
gas, as the above picture shows. Yet with a bit more study,
Jim would have reasoned as follows:

09. Ml         "But I must likewise take the left lane."
               (2,6 Modus Ponens)
10. Ml & Mr    "Therefore, I must take the left land and the
                right lane!" (7 & 9 Conjunction)

Such contingencies of life show the value of studying logic.

Nicely stated miniature, tech nerd.

2010-08-15T19:50:00.000-04:00

In chess and in art, there are archetypal works called "miniatures."[1] Other disciplines have them also, I'm sure; but, they don't often go under those names. For example, here is a paragraph taken from an article in PC World, which I just happened across via Google's (highly useful, in my opinion) Fast Flip:

If you want to kill your child's Facebook account, and that child is determined to not let you kill his account, you pretty much have to go Full Amish on the kid for two solid weeks -- no computer access at home, school, library, or friends' homes; no cell phone access at all. Really, anything with a browser on it -- the Playstation, PS3, the Kindle -- is off limits. Try that with a 14 year old sometime and tell me how that works.[2]

That "go Full Amish on the kid" was a nice phrase, intimating a nice image, especially given the subject at hand. I'm sure Weird Al would agree.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] Steynian Blog

[1] "miniature" Wiktionary (Accessed Aug 15,2010)

[2] "Facebook May Get a Real 'Delete Account' Option" PC World July 28, 2010 (Accessed Aug 15, 2010)

On why women's salaries don't match men's when >$100K?

2010-07-11T20:21:00.000-04:00

0. The New York Times Economix column is reporting on how Women Earn Less Than Men, Especially at the Top. Among other issues at hand regarding women and salary, the article states how, "at the top of the income scale, — jobs paying more than $100,000 — the salary gap between equally qualified men and women is still vast."

1. But to the specific issue at hand: why the break at the $100K mark? The author of the study himself suggests "that higher-paid jobs often have less concrete or quantifiable measures of productivity and duties," and that "perhaps men are subconsciously viewed as more competent than women, or are more adept at negotiating for raises." Of course these claims are a suggestion and a speculation, respectively; so, there's no weight of science, pro or con, operating in regards to such armchair sociology. I too would like to hazard a guess about the matter, but it's only that.

2. From an economic standpoint, I think there is some level of risk calculus occurring, somewhat tied to oft-stated intuitions about women's leaving and re-entering the workforce. This risk calculation is based on a subjective expectation about women and pregnancy, and I think it could be rationally motivated in terms of expectation over profit/loss when considering a pool of equally competent prospects for promotion under some circumstances.

2.1. The subjective expectation is easily captured by this question: What is the chance of the male prospects leaving (either temporarily or permanently) the position via pregnancy upon promotion versus the chance of the female prospects leaving (ditto) the position via pregnancy upon promotion? Obviously, it's essentially zero versus N, respectively; where N is greater than zero, no matter what the actual chances. So, from a strict, subjectively simple expectation of risk over profit/loss assessment, a promotion of a male from a prospect pool would be more reasonable than a promotion of a female--all other things being equal.

2.2. Granted, there's never a time where ALL other things are equal among prospects, but the subjective intuition of risk might be operating just often enough to skew promotions for higher salaried positions when, as the article states, job performance "quality measures are more subjective." After all, (a) I seem to recall that at about the 100K level, there is a slight difference in how people assess opportunity for money, and (b) I hear that for higher professional positions, it is much harder (in terms of time and money invested) to find adequate replacement of personnel with specific competencies (which is why their salaries are so high.)

3. Now, all this hardly precludes that other, outright irrational biases might also be affecting the promotion of women; but, I think the unfair leavening by nature (or by God, for you evangelicals out there) upon the woman for bearing and bringing a child to term is at play in the economics of rational risk assessment for promoting from a gender-differentiated pool of employees.

4. Well, there it is, my opinion on the matter. Yes, at the big-bucks level, women are still being treated unjustly. And, sadly, sometimes it's for irrational reasons. But now I've suggested what I take to be a rational calculus which puts not (just) the decision makers at blame, but the biology of human child-bearing itself. To be clear -- am I saying that the reason women don't get the higher paying jobs is because there is always the risk they might get pregnant? No, it's a bit more subtle than that. (i) Yes, there is a risk (given a large enough pool of applicants over time and over repeated promotions in the workforce). (ii) SOMETIMES this risk is perceived by those who promote. (iii) SOMETIMES this risk could be quantified in terms of profit/loss. (iv) Thus, such "SOMETIMES" instances are enough to skew salary differences over the 100K bracket, for reasons stated above. But, hey, at least women in liberal societies can expect to live longer!

O.

REFERENCES

[image] Kathryn Hopkins and Ruth Sunderland "Pregnant staff face new wave of bullying in recession" The Guardian (Aug. 9, 2009) { A very interesting article which seems to support the intutions I've noted above. }

Best Picture of Federal Budget Ever

2010-06-05T09:52:00.000-04:00

I've never understood much about how or where federal budget items go. This zoomable picture did more to educate me on the matter than anything I've ever seen so far. Definitely worth a look.

O.

Kurt Cobain Quote

2010-05-20T12:19:00.000-04:00

"Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are."
-- Kurt Cobain

Suppose one were already a waste, and subsequently finds s/he wants to be someone else. What then follows on Cobain's conjecture?

O.

[ * ] "In Bloom" by Nirvana YouTube (Accessed 5/20/2010)
[ * ] "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana YouTube (Accessed 5/20/2010)
[ * ] "Heart Shaped Box" by Nirvana YouTube (Accessed 5/20/2010)
[ * ] etc. etc.

Canadian Sand better than Mid-Eastern Sand for U.S. Energy

2010-05-19T14:12:00.005-04:00

This comment caught my attention from a recent article in the New York Times:

Canadian oil sands are expected to become America’s top source of imported oil this year, surpassing conventional Canadian oil imports and roughly equaling the combined imports from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, according to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm.

It used to be that access to such oil sands was cost prohibitive, but that is obviously not the case anymore. It seems like a very good national security move for the U.S. as well, because someday the mid-east will erupt in turmoil, and the U.S. could then ride-out the energy decline if it has access to Canadian oil. No doubt market prices would go crazy for a while, but at least there would, in fact, be oil available.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] New York Times

[ * ] Canada put-out a 20 minute, two-part science documentary on how the sand is processed and then the oil extracted. I thought it was nifty. It's here.

[ * ] Two years ago, Sept. 28th, 60 minutes did a segment on the Alberta Oil Sands. People were saying it had two trillion worth of oil, 8-times more than Saudi Arabia has. I guess they were right. Short & sweet, six-minute overview.

Cell Phone Usage and Tech Advances (Picture)

2010-05-15T08:00:00.003-04:00

Via: Cell Phones

I thought this picture was interesting and informative. I was also struck by how the first SMS text message was sent in 1992. Several other little factoids were revealed in this picture as well. (Click the picture or a much larger version.)

REFERENCES

[ * ] "How Cell Phones Work" As always lots of intriguing history and hints on all things cellphonick here at HowStuffWorks.

Soldier frightens philosopher

2010-04-28T21:24:00.001-04:00

A past student of mine had this photo taken of himself during a tour in the Mideast. I asked him about it and he remarked:

The gold AK 47 was a captured weapon we took off some al-Queda in Iraq. Believe it or not there were quite a few "trophy" weapons we recovered out there, almost 90% were eventually destroyed with a plasma torch. The one that still keeps me up at night was the 1917 Mauser in good condition, still fired. That got chopped up too. To me that was like an archeologist [lighting] the fire at the library at Alexandria.

I could only remark to him that, "you military types sure know how spin the horrors of war to a humanities guy."

But a second glance at the sad look on his face told me he himself was pretty much despairing over this unique weapon's imminent doom.

O.

Q & A: Advice on Daughter and Dating

2010-03-30T17:27:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr. Supposed Philosopher:

I have an adolescent daughter who is arriving at that time in her life where she is achieving those physical and emotional milestones that inevitably lead to, well, a hyper-pronounced interest in boys. Since the speculations of philosophers are always irrelevant to the REAL world and produce nothing but confusion to those who otherwise have common sense, I was hoping you could outline a few rules so that I might take exactly the OPPOSITE plan of action.
-- signed, Pragmatic Dad

Dear Daddy Realist --

The best collection of rules I've ever run across were given to me by one of the fine veterans of our county's long-past past conflicts. Let me just say that no evangelical Republican dad could ever order up a better set of Tea Party values dating commandments than these
-- B

* * *

Rules For Dating My Daughter[1]

Rule One:
If you pull into my driveway and honk you'd better be delivering a package, because you're sure not picking anything up.

Rule Two:
You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter's body, I will remove them.

Rule Three:
I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don't take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact, come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.

Rule Four:
I'm sure you've been told that in today's world, sex without utilizing a "barrier method" of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate, when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you.

Rule Five:
It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is "early."

Rule Six:
I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is okay with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

Rule Seven:
As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process that can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standingthere, why don't you do something useful, like changing the oil in my car?

Rule Eight:
The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there are no parents, policemen, or nuns within eyesight. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka - zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided; movies which features chain saws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks homes are better.

Rule Nine:
Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a potbellied, balding, middle-aged, dimwitted has-been, sporting a dollar-sign, Jack Daniels souvenir hat; but, on issues relating to my daughter, I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me.

Rule Ten:
Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy near Hanoi. When my Agent Orange starts acting up, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveway you should exit your car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early, then return to your car - there is no need for you to come inside. The camouflaged face at the window is mine.[2]

REFERENCES

[image] The Chronicle (Oct 6, 2009)

[1] I have no idea where this came from, and the earliest link to it I could find (2007) also had no idea where it came from.

[2] An interesting research brief on teenagers views of romantic and marriage relationships can be found here: "Pathways to Adulthood and Marriage: Teenagers’ Attitudes, Expectations, and Relationship Patterns" U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Oct. 2008 (Accessed March 20, 2010).

Mirror Neurons/Systems Present Method Problems for Science

2010-03-20T17:00:00.000-04:00

Giving empirical explanations for what mirror neurons are supposed to be doing in the brain ain't as easy as one might wish.

Mirror neurons are "a particular class of neurons, originally discovered in the ventral premotor cortex, that code goal-related motor acts such as grasping. Specifically, mirror neurons require action observation for their activation; they become active both when the subject makes a particular action and when it observes another subject making a similar action."[1] For example, implant wires in the appropriate region of a monkey's brain, and you can detect when these kinds of neurons fire. So when a monkey watches a researcher bring an object to his mouth (e.g. an ice cream cone), the same neurons will fire as if the monkey were bringing food to its own mouth.

Mirror neurons fire both when an animal sees or hears an action and when the animal carries out the same action on its own. Follow up studies showed the same kind of results in humans, though humans have a far more subtle and flexible set of such neurons. Further studies would show that mirror neurons are found in several areas of the brain, such as the premotor cortex, the posterior parietal lobe, and the superior temporal sulcus [see map]. But that might be several areas too many, as Greg Hickok of Talking Brains blog points out.

Mirror neurons have been associated with all sorts of social behaviors, such as detecting other minds, learning in children, aesthetic responses to dance and music, and even to why males like pornography. [2] Yet Hickok objected "if the mirror neuron system is really important for action understanding, then damage to action execution should result in action understanding deficits. I have pointed out that this prediction doesn't hold, either in apraxia or with more force in aphasia. "[3] If you're just brushing up on your brain malfunction vocabulary, recall that apraxia is an inability to make purposeful movements, while aphasia is an inability to use or understand language, spoken or written, because of a brain lesion.

Hickok also points out the common reply--namely, that of lots of areas with their own mirror neurons are working together--is not a good answer the problem, since this makes an alleged mirror system too powerful of an explanation. The matter was noted by a well-known philosopher of mind during discussions of the issue:

"At this point in the talk, Pat Churchland, who was my host, jumped in and said (and I paraphrase here), 'Now wait a minute. If mirror neurons are all over the brain then don't they lose their explanatory power? Aren't we now just back to our old friend, the How Does the Brain Work Problem?' "[3]

Hickok found this charge convincing, and now worries if mirror neurons' function can be empirically outlined at all, at least as distinct from other subsystems in the brain. Hickok's blog entry[3] and some of the comments therein are definitely worth a read.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] "Auditory Mirror Neurons" Mixing Memory Blog Oct. 2, 2006 (Accessed March 20, 2010) -- This is also a good article in itself about pianists and nonmusicians responses to watching others press keys on a silenced piano.

[1] Glossary of Terms Nature Vol. 3, No. 6, June 2002 (Accessed March 20, 2010)

[2] As an aside, I don't know who has the weirder job in this experiment, the researchers or the participants: Alison Motluk "Mirror neurons control erection response to porn" NewScientist June 2008 (Accessed March 20, 2010)

[3] Greg Hickok "Mirror Neurons - The Unfalsifiable Theory" March 19, 2010

On Brains, Science, and Political Positions

2010-02-27T10:32:00.004-05:00

Recently I was sent an article by my old friend (literally, on both attributes) and theology teacher from seminary. The article was by George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive science and linguistics at Berkeley, and titled, "Obama, Tea Parties, and the Battle for our Brains."[1] The grand theolog rightly sniffed-out that something was fishy about this article, but he couldn't quite identify the problem. (Since I was his T.A. some decades ago, he apparently thinks he can still simply assign me tasks at whim and I'll drop everything and jump right on them. Dang it -- apparently he's right!)

At the general level, the article is not too surprising: that the metaphors we use to mentally frame issues are often tied to how our brain processes bodily states. And since conscious mental states are also processed by the brain, it's not surprising that there would be shared processing structures, or similar processing structures involved in both mental processes and body-monitoring processes.

Again, that people use different metaphors to frame common issues, and then fight to understand one another is also well known. People have preferred metaphors, and words are not limited to strictly defined or precisely understood meanings. Yet, happily, metaphorical language can be decoded into less-metaphorical or even non-metaphorical language, the latter being what scientists do when they utilize mathematics and logic to explain and predict phenomenon. Reasoning with analytical languages give us the precision, understanding, and control of concepts that would otherwise be unavailable with natural languages.

Mr. Lakoff is a cognitive scientist and reports on studies that are well attested, and there's no reason to suspect his accuracy in recounting of those results. However, he seems to be defending a troublesome argument:

The vast majority of political reasoning by people is by metaphorical framing.
And those people who reason with metaphorical framing are people who are hearing only what they want to hear. Whether affirming or denying how they've framed the issue, the very re-statement of their frame simply reinforces it.
Therefore, the argument goes, people on the liberal and conservative sides of political issues are generally hearing only what they want to hear.

Furthermore, as an additional argument, he thinks conservatives of one brand or another are committed to eliminating any contrary positions, and any riding-the-fence positions, thus leaving their ideology as the only one around. After all, on Mr. Lakoff's analysis, conservatives think their position is the only one that "should" be around.

What can one make of all this? On my view, Mr. Lakoff draws a false dichotomy between what he misleadingly labels "real" reason and "false" reason, where the former is how people (allegedly) really think, and the latter is what is traditionally associated with Enlightenment ideals of reasoning. I would point out straightway how suspicious one should be of this bifurcation, as if somehow humans didn't use metaphorical framing during the Enlightenment era, or that humans are not deeply engaged in using the traditional kind of reason in science everyday. (Recall my math usage observation earlier.) Although I think the argument above is often an accurate portrayal of how the general populous operates, premiss one allows for other kinds of thinking (which Mr. Lakoff himself is doing), and premise two is plainly too strong; that people use metaphorical framing does not mean they are locked into it; it's just that people are generally ignorant, unwise, and easily manipulated -- a view of the citizenry that our U.S. founding fathers, themselves Enlightenment figures, mind you, were quite happy to maintain.

Mr. Lakoff wants his readers to think that there is a direct, uncomplicated circuit between metaphors and words in our brains, and even that "every word is neurally connected." This is complete poppy-cock. First, that every word has a location for a convenient connection has not been shown, not even partially, not even remotely. (Where is the word 'trinity' stored in my brain, or 'infinity'? Is 'stairway' stored as one word or two?) This is idle speculation tossed about as good science. Second, even if there were found circuits between metaphors and words, there would be a host of other branching circuits modulating and interfering with how that information is exchanged. Indeed, the average single neuron has 7,000 connections to it, so I hardly think that a simple, on/off mutual inhibition of brain circuits explains why, in Mr. Lakoff's words, "There is no moral system of the moderate or the middle." This claim is laughably simplistic, and all the more surprising coming from a scholar of Mr. Lakoff's level. Contrary to what computerniks wish, neurons are not like on/off switches, but fire in analog fashion and modulate the signals among one another with great subtlety and by means of complicated, even recursive feedback loops.

Granted, people can be pig-headed and stubborn, but they are not merely slaves to stimulus-response conditioning when it comes to abstract philosophical matters like politics. On the supposition that humans do have some level of free will, they can chose to reason using several different modalities, not just by their metaphorical framing. Oh but that they would pause for a while and recognize (or learn) that traditional reasoning has it's place in politics too, and can be beneficial for everyone in the political community!

REFERENCES

[image] ABC news

[1] George Lakoff, "Obama, Tea Parties and the Battle for Our Brains" Feb. 22 2010 Truthout (Accessed Feb. 27, 2010)

Oh, Religions, Why Do Ye Tempt Us?

2010-02-18T10:34:00.001-05:00

Why is it that religion is attractive as a kind of practical philosophy of life for so many people? I was reading an article on this subject by paleontologist, Gregory Paul. He argued that if people are sufficiently secure from worry and subsistence lack, then religion would greatly decline. He states,

"If the entire planet enjoyed the same level of secure prosperity seen in France and Sweden, there is little doubt that the number of devout believers would sink to the teens or single digits, no matter what organized religions did to save themselves—even if nontheists did little to promote secularization."[1]

If this is right, I wonder, then, why some very financially well-off, and otherwise psychologically stable people still find religion a valued and practical activity to participate in. Perhaps formal religion as we know it, using traditional institutions as we seem them now, will go away, but I find it hard to believe people will forgo making transcendental postulates about reality.

For example, even mathematicians, a bunch known to be committed to efficiency and minimalism, argue vehemently about whether or not Platonism is a necessary metaphysical stance when dealing with the profound usefulness of mathematics for describing the concrete world.

I can only imagine that if just this one area of abstraction is up in the air for debate, then how much the more things like morality, consciousness, and beauty will create metaphysical opportunities for transcendental posits. No, I don't think an economic or material happiness explanation is sufficient to explain the presence and decline or continuation of religion. These issues may amplify how quickly people will reach for religious answers, buy they don't explain why religion is attractive (rather than not) when such matters are not worrying people.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] Jaydee "Tempting" Flickr March 28, 2009 (Accessed Feb 18, 2010)

[1] Gregory Paul "On What Makes Relgion Popular -- Or Not" Science and Religion Today (Accessed Feb 18, 2010)

Secret Video of Iranian Drone Testing Leaked

2010-02-08T22:43:00.000-05:00

Today I read this quote about Iranian sabre rattling against the U.S.:

"The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance [Western powers] on the 22nd of Bahman [Feb. 11] in a way that will leave them stunned," Ayatollah Khamenei was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.[1]

I thought the above video was probably about representative of their level of advanced drone technology, given what intelligence sources have been noting about their research:

A U.S. intelligence official urged caution on reports of Iran's new weapons development. The official said Monday, "While the Iranians are up to more than their share of mischief, they're good storytellers, too, especially when it comes to talk of their military and nuclear capabilities." The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: "They've certainly been known to exaggerate for effect, and that appears to apply to their claims of massive production plans in the atomic field and supposedly undetectable attack drones, too." David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said Iran's technical achievement does not always match its boasts[1]

I think it's downright embarrassing that the Iranian leaders are completely clueless about how inept they appear on the world stage.

REFERENCES

[1] Eli Lake "Ayatollah: Iran's military will 'punch' West" The Washington Times Feb. 9, 2010.

O.

Nuclear Power: Obama Calls It Right

2010-01-29T13:38:00.000-05:00

As is reported about everywhere, President Obama has announced real support for a nuclear power infrastructure redux in the United States. Here in the past [1] [2] [3], I've been an advocate of nuclear power. My position has not changed. Skimming thru some of the recent articles, I have found some select, encouraging remarks about nuclear power. For example,

The US Department of Energy says that coal-fired power plants (burning anthracite, bituminous, subbituminous, lignite, waste coal, and coal synfuel) generated 1,787,669,000 megawatthours in the rolling 12-months ended October 2009, while natural gas-fired plants accounted for 906,217,000 megawatthours, and petroleum liquids (distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, jet fuel, kerosene, and waste oil) generated 28,216,000 megawatthours. Nuclear plants generated 906,217,000 megawatthours in the same period. [Amir Adnani, an energy industry executive] says, "These figures are astonishing because, if the US were to use as much nuclear energy as France, which relies on nuclear power for 80% of its electricity, we could shut down virtually every coal, natural gas-fired and oil-burning power plant. Our greenhouse gas emissions would plummet, our national security would be enhanced, and our balance of payments situation would improve."[4]

The U.S. has no shortage of Uranium either, as the stuff is "literally under our feet." Although we import approximately 95% of the uranium we use, the US has the fourth largest deposits of uranium in the world.[4]

Although I think the Democrats have been both wise and prudent to emphasize and pursue other sources of energy, I've always felt that nuclear power is the most efficient, immediate, and global-warming friendly solution to world energy needs. It also heartens me that well-informed scientists think this too.[5][6] Politically, as the both-isle standing and clapping ritual showed during Obama's speech, the Republicans can support this. Solid science, correct technology, presidential priority,and bi-partisan agreement makes this the best news I've heard in a long time about the U.S.'s energy future.

O.

REFERENCES

[1] "Nuclear Power's Hour is Now" November 30, 2008.

[2] "Coal Plants and U.S. Electricity" May 16, 2009

[3] "Steven Chu, the right choice for secretary of energy" December 11, 2008 (Chu is supportive of the nuclear option too. Obama can finally turn him loose on the problem he's been desperately wanting to attack.)

[4] "Obama: Nuclear Power Part of America's Energy Future" Zibb -- Business Wire (Accessed Jan 28, 2009)

[5] "Can nuclear power compete?" Scientific American Dec. 9, 2008 (Accessed Jan. 28, 2010)

[6] John M. Deutch and Ernest J. Moniz "The Nuclear Option (.PDF)" Scientific American. (Accessed Jan 28, 2010)

Philosophy of Action Speculations III

2010-01-28T14:32:00.006-05:00

Separating actions from behaviors requires some sort of baseline comparison, a determination on what counts as the default bodily state. Here's an argument which might suggest some analysis:

1. Any state of our body which is its default behavioral state is not to be be counted as an action.
2. A limp body is our default behavioral state.
3. .:. A limp body is not to be counted as an action.

Premise 2 raises a troublesome issue. Consider when one is asleep. The vast majority of the time when I am asleep, I am not moving. (i) Sometimes I turn over from my left side to my right. But when I do so, I awake for just a second or so, make the adjustment, and then go back to sleep. In this case, I am initiating a short action. (ii) But in dreams, I sometimes turn over too. I those cases I am not awake, so I am not initiating an action. In dreams I have a bodily behavior, but that behavior is not an action, since I form no intention to turn over. (iii) Sometimes I am not awake, and I am not dreaming; I am "dead asleep" as the saying goes. Still, a muscle might twitch, or my diaphragm might go through a single, inhale/exhale respiration cycle. Yet these things too count only as behaviors and not actions -- again, since I form no intention to do such behaviors.

Is that the default state of my body -- what it's doing (the vast majority of the time) when I am asleep? The problem here is that I'm not asleep that vast majority of the time. I'm only asleep (at most) a third of the time of a full 24-hour day. This problem arises for singular parts of our bodies too. Here's a related argument (now supposing I'm awake):

4. Any state of our body which is its default behavioral state is not to be be counted as an action.
5. A relaxed vestigial ear muscle is in its default state.
6. .:. A relaxed vestigial ear muscle is not to be counted as an action.

Premise (5) just considers a part of our body. This ear muscle case is easier than the sleeping case, since in the sleeping case I am forming no intentions at all, but in the ear muscle case I just happen not to be forming intentions (or even thinking about) my ear. Furthermore, the vestigial ear muscle[1] case is uncontroversially accurate as a description of our default bodily state, unlike the sleep state case.

Perhaps the error here is thinking that the default state is established merely by how often a body(or body part) is in a state. In addition, the default state should also be assessed as the state of behavior when there is no intention directed upon it. It is important to get clear on the default state issue in order to analyze both 'negative actions' and non-action causal consequences of actions.

O.

REFERENCES

[1] "Human vestigiality" Wikipedia (Accessed Jan. 28, 2010)

Philosophy of Action Speculations II

2010-01-24T15:17:00.010-05:00

[ I've been thinking about when somebody is properly said to act. For example, if an Oklahoma tornado blows me bodily into you, and injures you, I didn't act to injure you, even if I did cause injury to you. Or again, the wind causes irritation to my eye, so without even noticing it, I blink my eye. I had behaviors of blinking my eye, but I didn't act to blink my eye. Causes and behaviors are different than actions. Here's another in the series -- B ]

Suppose a policeman, officer Oscar, fires a warning shot to halt the actions of a wayward citizen, Mr. Kane. Unfortunately, the bullet ricochets, subsequently striking and killing Kane. Immediately, Oscar wonders if it was his actions which killed Kane. So, did Oscar act to kill Kane?

Well, there certainly were some antecedent thoughts by Oscar -- he wanted to pull his gun; he wanted to squeeze the trigger, etc. -- and these thoughts resulted in Oscar behaving in ways to carry out those thoughts -- he held his wrist steady, exercised the muscle on his index finger, etc. But the consequences seem all wrong; the death of Kane was not intended (i.e. premeditated) by Oscar. Well, it was not premeditated in any strong sense, though Oscar would have admitted that there was always a small (say .05%) chance of the death of Kane (or anybody) getting killed by a ricochet in such circumstances. We could see this as weak premeditation.

But suppose, contrary to fact, bullets ricochet with 95% probability, and this was commonly known. Let the shooting case be re-adjusted accordingly. Still, the knowledge of the consequent isn't a sure thing, even if the chance of death is very high. Indeed, stipulate Oscar didn't plan ahead, or even think about the killing consequences to Kane. Still, with such knowledge of high odds, does the notion of premeditation even matter as regards whether Oscar acted? in this 95% case, it somehow seems right to say Oscar did act to kill Kane.

But maybe one could take both cases into account in the same way:

1. An act occurs only if somebody premeditates the consequences of their chosen behaviors.
2. Oscar didn't premeditate Kane's death in the .05% case
3. Oscar didn't premeditate Kane's death in the 95% case.
4. So, Oscar didn't act to kill Kane in either case.

In cases of negligence, we say things like, "He should have thought it through." But that just evaluates whether Oscar is morally responsible, not whether he acted. Yet the moral evaluation seems to smuggle in the hidden assumption (without giving evidence for it) that he indeed acted. Yes, we say somebody is morally responsible for some consequence only if s/he acted to bring that consequence about. Fine, but did or did not Oscar so act?

O.

[image] by Scot Olsen in IraqSlogger.com

Philosophy of Action Speculations

2010-01-23T09:16:00.013-05:00

Suppose Albert plants a bomb to kill Bill. Perhaps he hides it under Bill's house. But Albert suddenly dies. Two days later, the bomb explodes and kills Bill. Did Albert act to kill Bill?

Common sense quickly says yes. But sometimes common sense is fantastically wrong, as physicists and psychologist take great delight in showing. The burden of proof would require some argument against common sense. An argument against Albert killing Bill might go this way:

1. Something (in this case, a killing) can be considered an 'act' of somebody only if there is an operating intention behind that act.
2. But there is an operating intention behind an act only if the (alleged) actor is alive at the time.
3. Albert was not alive at the time the bomb exploded.

4. So, Albert had no operating intention at the time the bomb exploded (by 3 & 2)
5. Thus, the killing of Bill can't be considered an act of Albert (by 4 & 1)

Premise (3) is stipulated by the story. (2) might be assailable, but it would take some work. (1) seems easiest to rebut. Are there cases where something is an act, but nobody is intending anything?

Suppose, when they kids, Albert bought one of those spring-loaded, fake peanut cans where a snake pops out. He placed it on Bill's kitchen shelf, so as to startle him. Weeks went buy, and Albert forgot all about the peanut can joke. One day Bill opened the can, and was greatly startled. Did Albert act to startle Bill?

Yes, Albert did. Here, it's an easier case, since Albert is still alive. Upon being reminded of the can, young Albert would say he still wants to startle Bill, so the intention is once again operant. Or, suppose Albert had forgotten about the can for only 2 seconds, but the can then springs the fake snake on Bill at the next moment. In the normal course of conversation, no one would reasonably doubt that Albert (successfully) acted to startle Bill.

Intention, therefore, is "gappy." It's like knowledge. A person doesn't know what they know every conscious moment, but if asked what the carpet or floorboards looked like in one's childhood home, a person might bring the hithertofore long-forgotten knowledge immediately to consciousness.

O.

[image] ubergizmo.com

Would you take gene therapy for monogamy?

2010-01-02T00:13:00.010-05:00

Eventually, gene therapy might be perfected as a mechanism of modifying people's courtship and mating behaviors, but "can do" and "should do" questions remain.

Behold, the humble vole. It mostly looks like an extra plump, longer-haired field mouse; but, in its different varieties, it has begun revealing that there might be a genetic basis for different styles of mating and family rearing among mammals.

First, consider the prairie vole, common to North America's grasslands

What makes it unusual among mammals is that it is both sociable and monogamous. Prairie voles groom each other, nest with one another, collaborate to guard their territory and are affectionate and attentive parents who form, for the most part, devoted couples.[1]

This behavior is in contrast to its relative, the meadow vole, which "prefers a solitary, promiscuous existence."[1] But the meadow vole can be modified: "it is possible to inject a viral vector for the vasopressin receptor into the brains of the fickle meadow voles and make them better partners and parents."[1]

The differences in behaviors between these two species of vole are due only to a small set of genetic differences:

a hormone called vasopressin and the protein molecule that acts as its receptor. Prairie voles have many vasopressin receptors in the reward centres of their brains. It seems as though these are wired up in a way that causes the animal to take pleasure from monogamy.[1]

Vasopressin receptor variations in people have been linked to problems in marriages as well. So now arises a bioethics issue:

Suppose you find yourself dating a high quality person: she or he is intelligent, healthy, physically attractive, and from a very stable family environment. As these things go, you both declare your love to one another, solely and forever, and your intentions to have a family together. One day, the partner of your dreams says s/he has a really serious question to ask you.

S/he reminds you that s/he has worked for some time at a major research center for mammalian genetics, and that there is now no doubt about the tripartite vasopressin to brain function to monogamy behavioral link. In fact, even mammals that do not usually exhibit monogamous or child-labor sharing behaviors can be induced to do so by a simple injection of a viral-implanting vector. Your partner (rightly, it turns out) says that your mutual declarations of eternal love and commitments to family participation could now rely upon more than just the too often unreliable, existential exercise of the will, but upon the assurance of a strong, undeniable natural urge (likeunto the strong, undeniable natural desire for sex or food). It would only be a one-time, simple injection.

"My love," s/he asks, "shouldn't we guarantee our commitment forever?"

O.

REFERENCES

[image] evenhappier.com

[1] "Monogamouse" The Economist Dec. 30, 2009.

AAAS Podcasts the Top Science Advances of 2009

2009-12-18T19:30:00.011-05:00

Ah, December -- when lots of different organizations give their "best of the year" lists. I'm always interested in the round-up of science discoveries, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science has a nicely done podcast which gives a full accounting of this year's top Science advances. It's free too, so that counts as a gift under the blog-o'-tree.

O.

REFERENCES

"Science Podcast" AAAS Dec. 18, 2009.

Why Religion Won't Go Away

2009-12-06T11:07:00.012-05:00

In a book review of God is Back: How The Global Rise of Faith Is Changing The World by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, reviewer Mark Vernon gives an excellent overview of why the U.S. is such a religious nation and, more generally, why religion has hung on in the face of modern developments in science and advance commerce:

The more modernity undermines people's sense of identity, through the leveling forces of globalization, the more they seek a distinctive identity through religious commitment. The more turbulent people's work lives become, the more appealing a stable church life can seem. The more people suffer under a harsh capitalism, the more religious organizations offer welfare and help, thereby drawing folk in.[1]

This is probably the best, pithy analysis of religion's continued influence as I've seen. I have to admit, I utterly believe it. Importantly, it gives the reason why religion survives, and what it's proper function should be in society. Also, it tacitly acknowledges that even were market forces and goods distributed equitably among all people, the desires for identity would still make religion attractive. Next, Vernon goes onto talk about how religion functions specifically in U.S. culture:

But there are certain political conditions that have aided God's return too, or rather sustained his presence, for he never really went away. Top of the list, the two authors argue, is America's constitution, and its First Amendment: "that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The first part of that clause is the one that is commonly remembered, in effect, the separation of church and state. But the second part is equally important when it comes to creating the right conditions for religion to thrive. It forms what might be called a free market for religion, in which everyone can set out their stall, and moreover can do so in the public square. What America's modernity has not tried to do is force religion into the private sphere, a tendency that has characterised European reactions to belief. At the same time, though, it has ensured that there is at least a theoretical distance between religion and the exercise of political power.[1]

So when religious groups are allowed to exist, but not allowed to run each other out of the country (or worse), then this forces pluralism upon society, whereby "every day people rub up against belief systems and lifestyles different from their own."[1] I would also add that in a pluralistic, open environment, where religions have to compete with one another for advocates, the weak systems will die, and the stronger ones will morph and become even more attractive to its advocates. Of course, people's psychological profiles and regional preferences will differ, so there will always be a plurality of religions in a pluralistic socio-political environment.

REFERENCES

[1] Mark Vernon "Why God is back" guardian.co.uk, 18 May 2009 (Accessed 5 Dec. 2009)

O.

"Life on Mars" Hypothesis Given New Life

2009-12-05T11:49:00.011-05:00

It looks like the life on Mars hypothesis has been given new life.

Not a long time ago, in a universe not far away -- speaking in geological and astronomical terms, of course -- a meteorite, called ALH84001 was blasted from the surface of a dusty read planet, Mars, 16 million years ago. Then, after a really L-O-N-G side trip, it eventually lands on Earth at about 11,000 BC. Finally, one of those naked primates that wander about looking for trouble (a scientist) happened to stumble upon it while tooling around Antarctica in 1984.

Back in 1996 a formal announcement was made after extended study. But there was some debate whether what was claimed to be bacteria fossils could really be so for life forms on such a small scale. "The structures found on ALH 84001 are 20-100 nanometres in diameter, similar in size to the theoretical nanobacteria, but smaller than any known cellular life at the time of their discovery."[1] The worry was that something that small could not contain RNA, the most basic, albeit primitive structure required for life (as we know it). But this worry seems to have been alleviated, because microbiologists have since been able to produce such microorganisms in the laboratory.[2] Also, new developments in high-resolution scanning electron microscopes have allowed better imaging of the meteorite than was available back in 1996, and the images are even more convincing.

All of this is consistent with an announcement by NASA scientists in early 2009 that large quantities of Methane in the atmosphere were highly suggestive of some sort of on-going microbiological activity on that planet:

Their findings, published [...] in the journal Science, show that 19,000 tonnes of methane were released in high concentrations over three specific areas in Mars's western hemisphere. The emissions occurred over a short period in summer 2003. "This raises the probability substantially that life was there or still survives at the present," study author Michael Mumma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said. "We think the probability is much higher now based on this evidence[....] By 2006, most of the methane had disappeared from the Martian atmosphere, adding to the mystery of the gas"[3]

Although Methane can be produced by volcanoes working in conjunction with other geological phenomenon, there is no evidence of any active volcanoes on Mars.

REFERENCES

[image] Recently released by NASA.

[1] "Allan Hills 84001" Wikipedia (Accesed Dec 5, 2009)

[2] Monica Bruckner "Nanobacteria and Nanobes- Are They Alive?" Carleton College Site (Accessed Dec 5, 2009)

[3] "Methane on Mars suggests possible life, NASA scientists say" CBC News (Acessed Dec 5, 2009)

O.

On Books and Popular Books

2009-12-02T19:43:00.006-05:00

Lately I've taken on the task of finally organizing my library. I've been using LibraryThing[1] and have been very happy with it, even though I've only had time to enter a small portion of my books. Nevertheless, it's intoxicating to discover all the books I'd forgotten I owned, and even more so when I discover books I'd bought to read and then lost track of them in the shuffle of life. So I've been thinking a lot about books, the book, electronic books, and all that sort of stuff.

I came across this remark on book popularity in The Economist which struck me as worth repeating:

In “Formal Theories of Mass Behavior”, William McPhee noted that a disproportionate share of the audience for a hit was made up of people who consumed few products of that type. (Many other studies have since reached the same conclusion.) A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read “The Lost Symbol”, by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it.[2]

No doubt book snobs get quite a thrill from such research.[3]

O.

REFERENCES

[image] Kevin Keenoo blogsite

[1] LibraryThing is nicely over-viewed here in Wikipedia. I can't recommend it too highly. I have deduced that if you have so many books that you need a cloud-based computer program to keep track of them all, then you have too many books. Of course there's strong counter: it's impossible to have too many books. I'm currently agnostic regarding this dichotomy. Perhaps its a paradox. At any rate, I've been initially entering books that are loose or weirdly located into my library database.

[2] "A world of hits" The Economist Nov. 26, 2009. (Accessed Dec. 2, 2009)

[3] I know I did.

Ardipithecus

2009-11-01T10:25:00.016-05:00

Seed Magazine has a nice summary of the most important discovery in human paleontology for quite some time. The 4.5 million-year-old Ardipithecus stands at the very initial stage of human evolution, where humans began bipedal walking in earnest. From the article:

What makes Ardipithecus singular is the skeleton: To anatomists, Ardi is not a mere point on a map. It is the map. As paleoanthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy describes it, Ardi gives us a view of a previously unknown “adaptive plateau” among early hominins—a suite of anatomical and behavioral characteristics that lasted for a long, stable period in the early Pliocene environment. The Ardipithecus form might account for the bulk of the whole story of human evolution—a kind of hominin that was different from anything that came before or after. [...] So how close is Ardipithecus to the last common ancestor? In the current issue of Genetics, yet another study of the human and chimpanzee genomes places the divergence between them at only 4.3 million years—a shade younger than Ardipithecus.[1]

Ardipithecus is like humans in that "she had small, human-like canine teeth. Her molars were smaller, but stout—not at all like those of chimpanzees or gorillas." Also her skull "was carried above her spine most of the time, an indication that she saw the world from a vertical, upright posture." The reason that this find is so important to Anthropology is because "the real 'missing link' —the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees—may have been a lot like Ardi."[1]

REFERENCES

[image] Seed Magazine

[1]John Hawks "Uncovering Ardi: What We Know" Seed Magazine October 5, 2009 (Accessed November 1, 2009)

[*] The article mentions where the real research was presented--in Science magazine. I have happened to have that edition, but there is an excellent online version available of all those materials found at their site: Online Extras: Ardipithecus ramidus. There is also an informative summary video to be found there.

O.

Mobile Phones as Leap-Tech for Developing Nations

2009-10-31T12:22:00.019-04:00

It's hardly news that adding technology to a developing country's infra-structure boosts its economy, but stating an exact boost for a particular items is informative. From The Economist:

"An extra ten mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country boosts GDP growth by 0.8 percentage points, according to the World Bank, by helping small entrepreneurs flourish."[1]

The importance of the mobile phone as a communication device is well known, but as mobile computing and mobile phone technologies fully merge, I believe that the GDP growth by countries which leverage such "leap tech" will become even more amplified. Imagine if mobile phone users in such countries were instead issued iPhones. Even if such countries don't (yet) have the bandwidth to use all of the internet features efficiently, just the presence of a mobile computing device that allows its users to download very cheap applications would have broad impact on individual entrepreneurs, and hence on the economy overall.

Also, developing nations sometimes lack a reliable or fully expanded power-grid infrastructure. Power is often generated by fuel, which supply can be iffy due to such common contingencies as localized wars and weather disasters. But the low-power requirements of devices like mobile phones and mobile computers gets around this problem, since they can be recharged by fairly cheap, reasonably efficient solar charging devices.

Finally, it is possible to determine and analyze how people move around by examining mobile phone usage. Different social groups within a country interact in different ways. Traffic and disease patterns could also be easily tracked, since governments can note such usage and report on it much more efficiently, where before the presence of these devices such information would have been practically impossible to collect. Properly data-mined, the millions of mobile phones in developing nations can function as ad hoc sensors for national data-collection networks.

Mobile devices quickly come down in price and are easily introduced into developing nations. Thus, these nations will have a much shorter path to development than would have been otherwise expected just a few years ago.

REFERENCES

[1] "Fish Out of Water" The Economist Oct. 29, 2009

[*] The trend is their friend, and ours, since commerce most benefits when everyone can participate:

O.

Are you safe, stupid, or selfish by wearing a motorcycle helmet?

2009-10-18T20:51:00.000-04:00

I ran across an interesting study titled, "Donorcycles: Do Motorcycle Helmet Laws Reduce Organ Donations?"[1] which argues that organ donations due to motor vehicle fatalities increase by 10 percent when states repeal helmet laws, and that every death of a helmetless motorcyclist prevents or delays as many as 0.33 deaths among individuals on organ transplant waiting lists.

The article also contains many interesting facts about motorcycling and the reasoning behind mandated helmet laws -- at least where they exit, for not many states have such laws: "Currently, 20 states and the District of Columbia require all motorcycle riders to wear helmets, and 27 states have partial coverage laws that typically mandate coverage for all riders age 17 and younger.6 Illinois, Iowa, and New Hampshire do not require any riders to wear a helmet."

Suppose you live in a state that had helmet laws and repealed them. Would you continue wearing the helmet? Well, a betting man would have trouble making money off you either way, since "several papers using single-state data find consistent evidence that the percentage of riders wearing helmets decreases from nearly 100 percent under universal helmet laws to roughly 50 percent when helmet laws are repealed." If you do wreck, the data on helmet protection is pretty convincing: "

Using [a] within-vehicle approach, [it was] found that helmets reduce fatality risk by 34 percent. Similarly, a recent meta-analysis found that helmets reduce the risk of death by 42 percent and the risk of head injury by 69 percent. A related literature estimates the effects of helmet laws on state-level fatality rates. Estimates based on within-state variation in fatalities and helmet laws over time suggest that universal helmet laws reduce per capita fatalities by 27 to 29 percent relative to states with no laws and by over 20 percent relative to states with partial laws"

I suspect the reason most riders forego a helmet is they just don't think they will have a wreck. Actually, I think there is something to this excuse. For example, there are well over 4 million register motorcycles in the U.S., and only around 5-6 thousand people will die in a crash in a given year. On average, only 12-13 motorcyclists die a day.[2] So, of all the millions of motorcycle trips happening per day, only a dozen or so of them are going to die on that day? Actually, those are extraordinarily good odds in favor of the person not wearing a helmet, at least that they won't die.

But what about injuries? I didn't immediately find statistics for this, but in Calif. it looks like the deaths to injury ratio is 1:22. So a reasonable per day injury rate would be around 270 or so. Again, extraordinarily good odds on any given day that a helmet-less rider climbs on a motorcycle. (Interestingly, while I consider this a statistically rational defense for not wearing a helmet, I myself am so irrationally risk averse that I wear one anyway.)

There are also "substantial differences across gender as regards donors and death rates. In every year, men account for roughly 90 percent of all motorcycle fatalities but only two-thirds of deaths in other types of vehicles," which is not too surprising, given even a casual glance at riders out the car window, or at a local bike showroom on Saturday mornings. Yes, there are more men riders, and men are far more prone to taking risks; but still, the study notes, "helmet laws decrease motorcycle fatalities roughly proportionately for men and women."

With four million registered bikes, there certainly are lot of motorcycle riders out there[3] But what if there were absolutely no mandated helmet laws? Among the conclusions of the study: "Estimates imply that nationwide elimination of helmet laws would increase annual organ donations by less than one percent." I found that surprising. Of course, if all states had opt-out organ donation laws, instead of opt-in laws, I'm sure there would be a much larger effect, but then donations via motorcycle casualties still probably wouldn't be significant in that case, since there would be many more organs available for transplant anyway.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] "This was worn by Dave Swisher who, at last count, has north of 1 million miles under his belt." melm00se democraticunderground.com July 31, 2009 (Accessed October 18, 2009)

[1] Stacy Dickert-Conlin, Todd Elder and Brian Moore "Donorcycles: Do Motorcycle Helmet Laws Reduce Organ Donations?" (.PDF) Michigan State University June 10, 2009 (Accessed October 18, 2009)

[2] L.A. Motorcycle Lawyers - Detailed Motorcycle Injury Statistics (Accessed, October 18, 2009)

[3] There are some interesting, if unsettling trends in motorcycle fatalities: "Motorcycle crash-related fatalities have been increasing since 1997, while injuries have been increasing since 1999. More than 100,000 motorcyclists have died in traffic crashes since the enactment of the Highway Safety Act and the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966. " (source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Motorcycle Safety Program.) As the NHTSA graph shows, people apparently born to be wild again after 1997:

Self-checkout lines: the future of education?

2009-09-20T16:00:00.000-04:00

As do many millions of people in the U.S., I am now regularly forced to use the self-checkout apparati at such national chain stores as Home Depot (shown above) and Walmart (shown here, in case you live under a rock.) I must admit, I don't like them; but, I also admit they make personnel and commercial sense for the companies that use them. Afterall, a manager doesn't have to hire or fire a machine, and machines don't need insurance, or moral talk, or discipline, or that host of a zillion other interactions required for human resource management. My guess is that they also breakdown at a much more (quantifiably) predictable rate, and probably are easier to price and plan for installation than are employees.

In the 80s, I was a part of a (educationally profitable) band. One day, a few bandmembers and myself were standing around, killing time, and the drummer made a good-natured joke at one of the instrumentalist's expense. The bemused object of the joke retorted, "Hey, buddy, you can be replaced by a machine!" Back then it was quite funny, as the drum machines of the day sounded like a cross between tin foil being crinkled and wine-glasses being dropped. However, with today's technology any such retort would be quite accurate, and maybe also in bad taste. Still, even back then, a short conversation broke out on the matter about machines and drummers, with the eventual conclusion being that "you can 'hang out' with a drummer, but you can't with a machine." That was true at the time and is probably still true for a couple of more decades, though the general drift of how we'll first have A.I. buddies is now clear.

So, as has been well attested since the industrial revolution, people are being replaced by machines. Well, not completely, of course. At checkout kiosks, there is one employee who keeps watch over a half a dozen or so of the devices. The same thing happened in the yarn industry in the late 1700s, where one (lucky) employee could watch over eight or more Spinning Jenny machines. The difference, I suppose, is that now such replacements are occurring in the service industry, not just in the manufacturing industry. It used to be said that this wasn't so bad, since somebody had to be trained to fix the machines. An optimistic view, but not true to the employment threat, since the number of people displaced is far more than the number of technicians required to maintain the displacing technology, as is seen by the automobile industry's usage of robots (video).

The sudden rise of the internet was not at first a problem for the education industry, per se, but the super-addition of broadband tools which make the posting of audio and video almost effortless is. Add to this the ever more-powerful, free and open-source cloud-based software, and one begins to think that education would not require institutions like colleges and universities to deliver an adequate degree. However, at this point, it is way too early to make such a claim, since having access to information and learning a subject are two different things, as anyone who has bought a calculus or foreign language textbook knows.

From my observation, most of the educational success that occurs in formal institutional settings comes from peer motivation and personal coaching. People do best when operating in face-to-face social groups, whether in academics, sports, or even in casual exercise programs. World of Warcraft crack-heads not withstanding, the internet is not yet able to offer a significant substitute for this social activity. Granted, that it might offer this someday cannot be ruled out, but we do not have full immersive, three-dimensional displays (i.e., interfaces) nor even the internet infrastructure to deliver this. Furthermore, not all disciplines are skill-based, template-based, or procedural-based; or, put differently, education and Engineering are not the same kind of endeavor. Still, in the early stages of education, there is information that must be mastered, and often it is somewhat template-based--such as using a technical vocabulary, a fairly-standardized history of the discipline, and other lower-division kinds of overviews and introductions. And it is with these where educational institutions are being forced to change. By analogy, just because the checkout kiosk is tolerable for some retail activities does not mean I would want it for all of them. For instance, the case-by-case, situational complexities of medicine and chemistry means that pharmacists are still required to review and perhaps even discuss what products I get at the back of Walmart, even if the fruit and vegetable guy at the front of Walmart need not review me about my choice of onion.

Ultimately, universities will have to separate (1) content that can be delivered for impersonal learning from (2) discipline-specific knowledge that requires a certain amount of personal interviewing and coaching. Quite a bit of money has traditionally be generated by using instructors to teach the former, but it turns out the latter is the more difficult and important task of education. Acquiring data is one thing, analyzing it is quite another, as Astronomers, for example, well know. The internet will continue to be a fine (if financially disruptive) tool for content delivery, but as a student gets more content, there are subsequently more difficult issues in knowing what to do with such content, and that requires a mind-to-mind engagement.

O.

Is Higher Education Worth it?

2009-09-19T09:53:00.008-04:00

Certainly here in the U.S., and across the world's developed nations, the answer is still a clear Yes.

The above image (duly lifted from The Economist) shows that in the U.S. there is an $100,000 dollar advantage to the state's coffers (even after student aid programs are taken into account) and around $165,000 dollar advantage to the individual him- or herself.

Some people have worried that there are too many college graduates, and that high supply will mean a lower demand for them from employers, but this has not been the case, so the time and money investments by a person seeking a college degree still pays off.

Also why people chose college at all is not clearly based on the calculation of these financial advantages:

Alison Wolf of King’s College London, the author of a book provocatively entitled “Does Education Matter?” says a big reason why school-leavers go to university is peer pressure. With many graduates to choose from, employers increasing turn up their noses at anyone who does not sport a degree, no matter what the job’s requirements. The result is more akin to an arms race, with everyone running to stand still, than a recipe for increasing prosperity.[1]

Finally, higher education is always a good way to ride-out times of unemployment and recession, because when the economy returns, graduates are best placed to enter the marketplace with the appropriately acquired technical skills. Of course, as a college professor, it is both prudent and enjoyable for me to purport such analysis.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] The Economist (from article below)

[1] "It still pays to study" The Economist Sept. 12, 2009.

The ethics of getting tested for Alzheimer's

2009-09-06T20:18:00.010-04:00

The New York Times is reporting that European researchers have discovered two genetic variants for Alzheimer's which "account for about 20 percent of the genetic risk of the disease." A second research team has also found one of the variants, as well as an additional one of their own.[1]

Not surprisingly, this brings up the old question--would you want to get tested for having a disease for which there is no cure? As in all Ethical issues, I imagine that people's intuitions would differ on this matter. For example, a young, single person might think that the knowledge of an event which is very far off could only lower the quality of life in the here and now. But an older person with lots of family members reliant on his income or status might consider it a prudent way of managing an otherwise uncontrollable end.

A relevant consideration is Alzheimer's cost:

"In a 1994 report from the American Journal of Public Health on the economical and social costs of Alzheimer’s, it was the third most expensive disease in the United States after heart disease and cancer. They reported that the average lifetime cost of care for an Alzheimer’s patient is $174,000 with a two to twenty year life expectancy after diagnosis. This figure does not include the loss of wages both for the Alzheimer’s sufferer or the caregiver."[2]

Given this, some might argue that there is an ethical imperative to get tested early, no matter what your age. Health care costs go up as the symptoms of Alzheimer's worsen. The earlier somebody is diagnosed, the better position they will be in to financially prepare for when it occurs. Therefore, in a medical system which is partially reliant on taxpayers (i.e. in Medicare), one owes it to the financially supporting community to put all information on the table.

Consider a somewhat parallel case where one owes the community an acknowledgment of any blood disease when donating blood, since tainted blood would immediately harm those in the community. Alzheimer's also harms the community, though its peculiar harm is merely financial. Does that make a difference in the imperative to get tested?

O.

REFERENCES

[image] Jim Baen's Universe Blog

[1] Nicholas Wade "Scientists Connect Gene Variations to Alzheimer’s" New York Times Sept. 6, 2009.

[2] Carolyn Dean, MD "The High Cost of Alzheimer’s" everything.com (Accessed Sept. 6, 2009)

Afghanistan: The Sequel to Vietnam?

2009-08-31T20:02:00.006-04:00

From today's The Washington Post:

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said any recommendation for more forces would have to address his concerns that the foreign military presence in Afghanistan could become too large and be seen by Afghans as a hostile occupying force. "Clearly, I want to address those issues and we will have to look at the availability of forces, we'll have to look at costs. There are a lot of different things that we'll have to look at," he told reporters.[1]

I'm starting to get a bad feeling about how this operation is going. It appears the current administration is too politically chicken to put it on the line and dump more troops in. Of course we are occupying the country, but since it's so politically fragmented to not do so would be an increasing danger to us.

This is actually the real instance of what was a bullkrap theory back in the 60s about Vietnam--that the communists would take over and we'd be in danger. Well, as the 9/11 plane crashes have shown, this time there really are clear and present dangers to the U.S. by well-financed terrorist organizations operating out of Afghanistan. (Just where is their money coming from, anyway?) Yet the secretary of defense is worried about costs? Perhaps he should wonder what the cost of another strike on U.S. soil would be.

Here, Secretary Gates, I'll tip you this Afghanistan Taliban banknote. Maybe that will help with the costs.

REFERENCES

[1] Peter Graff and Andrew Gray "U.S., NATO must change to win Afghan war says commander" The Washington Post Aug. 31, 2009.

Mr. Marshal Brain on Customer Service Robots.

2009-08-22T23:04:00.003-04:00

Marshal Brain makes some fascinating observations about how robots will change the economy.[1] I was especially interested in his case scenario of the McDonald's robot service worker. Since a McDonald's robot (attractive and humanoid in appearance) will remember every interaction with you, as the customer; along with what you ordered, what you talked about on your last visit, etc., it will present a very emotionally impacting experience. But what's more strange, if you go to another McDonald's in another state, that robot there will have all the same information as well. So you as the customer will have the very surreal experience of every McDonald's robot treating you like you're their best friend, most valued customer (of the moment) -- somewhat like Starbucks employees try to fake, but which the robots might really believe, if they have beliefs, by nature of their programming.

REFERENCES

[image] Raina's Thoughtful Thoughts blogsite Feb. 19, 2008 (Accessed Aug. 22, 2009)

[1] "Marshall Brain speculates on how robots will change the economy and replace human workers" Singularity Summit 2008.

Good Maslow quote

2009-08-17T08:00:00.002-04:00

"It isn't normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement"[1]

REFERENCES

[image]

[1] Taken from Alain DeBotton The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (Pantheon Books, NY. 2009) p. 113.

People are pattern seeking primates

2009-08-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

From The Chicago Tribune:

When asked about climate change, half of Americans recently polled by the Pew Research Center and the American Association for the Advancement of Science said they didn't believe in it. (Nearly all scientists said they did.) And how many of us, when Michael Jackson died, thought yes, of course, he completes the Ed McMahon-Farrah Fawcett trio? Scientists say this is no surprise. We're wired to do this. Our brains are great at solving scientific puzzles -- and to leading us to believe that celebrities live and die under different rules of the universe than the rest of us.[1]

REFERENCES

[image] "Examples Of Kinetic Illusions In Op Art" Popgive blogsite: Funny stuff, Videos, Pictures, Gadgets, Bizarre, and much more (Accessed August 4, 2009)

[1] Trine Tsouderos "Humans often deny science while trying to find meaning in patterns" Chicago Tribune August 4, 2009.

Yet Another Opinion on Francis Collins' Confirmation to the NIH

2009-08-13T11:44:00.006-04:00

Some people are really worried that Francis Collins, a well-qualified scientist and out-spoken, moderate Christian will soon be in charge of the National Institutes of Health. For example, Jeff Schweitzer, a marine biologist, neurophysiologist, and the author of Beyond Cosmic Dice, writing in Religion and Science Today, says:

When I worked at the White House as the assistant administrator for international science and technology in the Clinton administration, our paths crossed a few times, and he always left a favorable impression. Nevertheless, I am deeply disappointed in the choice of Collins to lead the NIH. Collins has become the public face for the insupportable idea that science and religion are compatible, and therein we discover the real problem with Obama’s nominee. His appointment gives that curious notion a patina of legitimacy when, in fact, science and religion are no more miscible than oil and water.[1]

I recently was asked to write a response to his article and submitted the following short essay:

Having just read Mr. Schweitzer's, letter, I noted several odd positions in his worries about Francis Collins, a Christian, being appointed as head of NIH. First, for example, why is it that science and religion are somehow incompatible because one discipline searches for mechanisms while the other discipline appeals to purpose? On this view, it looks like there should be no conflict, thus Mr. Schweitzer's oil and water analogy seems misapplied.

Second, Mr. Schweitzer holds that "Religion seeks meaning and the answer to 'why' the world is as we know it, based on the unquestioned assumption that such meaning and purpose exist." On the contrary, even atheists hold that life can have meaning without there being some grand purpose to it all. So it is hardly necessary that religion confuse meaning with purpose, much less hold it as an unquestioned assumption that they both exist. For instance, I happen to hold there is both meaning and purpose in life; but, I question those assumptions almost everyday as a professional philosopher and as an advocate of the religious life.

Finally, as I'm sure others will point out, the following argument of Schweitzer's is inadequate: since God is all knowing, God would know "every animal that would exist." That God knows all the possibilities for how random processes might obtain should not be confused with God knowing all and exactly what must obtain. The latter view affirms a kind of puppet determinism on God that is now (happily) passing out of fashion in Christian metaphysics, and is hardly an axiom of a life of faith. I affirm evolution and also happen to believe in God. Luckily, the US will soon have a director of the NIH that thinks likewise.

Brint Montgomery, Ph.D.
Chair, Dept. of Philosophy
Southern Nazarene University
Oklahoma City, OK 73008

O.

REFERENCES

[1] Jeff Schweitzer "Another Opinion on Francis Collins Confirmation" Religion and Science Today August 11, 2009.

Trapdoor Spider

2009-08-12T21:04:00.004-04:00

The Trapdoor Spider is doubly wise
   Hiding beneath her lid from enemy eyes.
Springing upon her victim with sudden surprise
   Yields her another day of life via ants and flies.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] "Trap-Door Spider" everythingabout.net (Accessed August 12, 2009)

[ * ] A slow-motion capture of a Trap-Door Spider in action.

A.I. and Medicine: The Interview Kiosk

2009-08-12T08:00:00.002-04:00

Here is where the next layer of artificial intelligence will enter the medical system. Note that the computer pays attention to where the faces are and gives empathetic responses. The .wmv video link is here. The technology was developed by Microsoft researcher Eric Horvitz.

O.

REFERENCES

[ * ] "Meet Laura, Your Virtual Personal Assistant" National Public Radio March 21, 2009 (Accessed August 2, 2009) - An interview with Horvitz when he was first announcing this technology on an NPR show this last March.

[ * ] John Markoff "Software That Cares" NY Times (TierneyLab) July 28, 2009 (Accessed August 2, 2009) -- Author of a NY Times story talks directly about Horvitz' medical interview system. There is also an embedded version of the above video, but with a bit less resolution.

Research on naps nothing to snooze at.

2009-08-09T08:00:00.000-04:00

From the New York Times:

Fully one in three adults admit that on any typical day they take a nap, according to a national survey released Wednesday [....] Napping, writes James B. Maas, a Cornell University sleep expert, “should have the status of daily exercise.” Mammals that divide their day between two distinct periods — sleep and wakefulness — are in the minority, according to the National Sleep Foundation, which pointed out on its Web site: “While naps do not necessarily make up for inadequate or poor quality nighttime sleep, a short nap of 20-30 minutes can help to improve mood, alertness and performance.”

Well, I'd like to write a bit more, but I'm feeling a bit...[yawn]...you know...

O.

[image] Business of Life website.

Thoughts about veterinarian care vs health care

2009-08-04T08:00:00.006-04:00

Yes, there are interesting economic parallels to both expenditures, but that d@#n wiener dog's days are numbered.

I saw this interesting graph at The Enterprise Blog. Andrew Biggs makes a couple of comments which are doubly insightful:

Two things are interesting here: first, the rate of growth of spending from 1984 to 2006 wasn’t all that different—and in both cases, spending grew faster than the rate of economic growth. As new technologies are developed for humans, we adopt them for Bowser and Fifi—because we can afford to and we think it’s worth it. [...] Second, the level of spending was very, very different: we spend hundreds of times more on ourselves than on our pets. The main reason for this is obvious: we value our own lives and those of our families more than we do our pets or other animals. At the same time, however, veterinary care is one of the few areas of health where we are directly confronted with difficult decisions regarding the costs and benefits of additional treatments.

Well, I can afford that my WIFE'S Wiener dog get the once-a-year shots, but that doesn't mean I WANT to. (Public notice: I don't OWN a Wiener dog; I merely live with one.) Biggs claims about difficult decisions with pets only applies to the amount of subjective value I'd impute on the pet (which ain't much).

For example, suppose that this dog of seven years suddenly takes sick with an illness. I could expend around $50 having her put to sleep, or I could borrow a friend's 12-gauge shotgun, take a short drive, to a secluded area, and for the price of one, maybe even two shells (for both barrels to assure a merciful efficiency), produce the same outcome--a dead dog. Now the cost of paying the vet to do it would be much better for my wife, but for me, it's not that big a deal. Having shot animals in past hunting trips, there would be not a millisecond of suffering on the Wiener dog's part--believe it. In fact, there would be LESS suffering, since the doofy Wiener dog would always be with her recognized pack-mates. (And not "family" which would be WAY wrongly conceived.) So for the average cost of two new factory-loaded 12 Gauge Shotgun shells i.e., 50 cents total), and about 2 miles of gas (at $2.21 in today's prices in Oklahoma, i.e., 20 cents total for the round trip), I can off the Wiener dog. That's over 50 times cheaper. I should start a blackmarket business.[1]

And then, of course, it would be my turn to get a cat!

O.

REFERENCES

[image] Andrew Biggs "A Dog in the Healthcare Fight" The Enterprise Blog July 13, 2009. (Accessed July 30, 2009)

[1] I have a close friend who at one timed lived with a cat, and with equal disdain for the animal. Upon heading out to vacation, his wife warned him that if, per chance, that cat would suddenly disappear while they were all gone, even if I were likewise gone, she would place the blame fully on him for plotting thru me to have the cat terminated. (Luckily, the cat disappeared after I was gone to Hawaii and before my return. I purported a theory from known problems.) Besides, I might have ethical qualms about killing a cat.

[Video Link] Robots and tactical warfare

2009-07-30T13:11:00.012-04:00

A few pictures up front, but then some very prescient views of tactical warfare scenarios using robots. I especially liked the gun-toting stair climber, which is certainly a manufacturable item should someone so wish. (You can click the video and get to the original YouTube for full screen.)

O.

"The Core of Evil": Edgar Allan Poe Updated for the 21st Century

2009-07-10T12:40:00.012-04:00

"The Core of Evil": Edgar Allan Poe Updated for the 21st Century

I. Preface

(Audio version) Because the English language, like all languages, evolves over time, sometimes even the best-written works can slowly become inaccessible to modern readers. Advances in science and technology give even well-attested words different connotations. Add to this the challenge of reading Victorian Era prose (1837-1901), and some works by classic authors can appear especially opaque. In this close paraphrase, I have made only a minimum number of changes necessary to bring the author's meaning forward into today's categories of thought. Where a change is made, it is to make the original thought more engaging, and thereby more accessible, to today's basic world-view than it could otherwise be when given the original work. Ultimately, the deepest and most insightful writers about the human condition take only the slightest tweaks to bring their positions back with a vengeance.

II. Introduction

As a Philosopher of Mind, I was immediately struck that Poe is offering something like an analysis of consciousness in his The Imp of the Perverse, an essay which initially addresses psychology-like themes but which then transitions into a short-story. It appears that freewill, non-conscious (or, perhaps, sub-conscious) processing, and personal identity issues seemingly all make appearances within this work. In Poe's time, the relationship between mind and brain was not understood, and it is only haphazardly understood even today, if at all, and with many controversies at immediate issue for anyone who cares to skim the literature. Phrenology, transcendentalism, and various strains of religious metaphysics all melded together into victorian folk-views of mind, which persons would have been perfectly comfortable talking about ghosts, spirits, and other such (to our minds) Halloween-appropriate entities.

-- B. Montgomery 7/9/2009 ]

III. "The Core of Evil"

In the consideration of the mental faculties and neuro- impulses -- of the basic movements within the human "soul," to use an antique term, the popular notions of psychology have failed to make room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a radical, primitive, irreducible emotion, has been equally overlooked by all the religious advisors and ethics counsellors who have preceded such psychologists. In our pure intoxication with science, we have indeed all overlooked it. Even so-called intellectuals have suffered its existence to escape their senses, solely through want of belief -- of faith; -- whether it be faith in God-imparted revelations, or faith in the seemingly magical properties of Quantum theory or String cosmology. The idea of this propensity has never occurred to us, simply because of what it demands of us to confront. We saw no need to account for something apparently outright extraneous. We could not understand, that is to say, we could not have understood, had the notion of this basic movement within ever imposed itself; -- we could not have understood in what manner it might be made to further the technological advancement of greater society or its individual citizens, either immediately or at some distant, space-colonized future.

It cannot be denied that the popular views of the human mind and, in great measure, all transcendental mumbo-jumbo about the human soul has been concocted by means of arm-chair speculation. The intellectual or logical person, as contrasted with the understanding or observant one, set himself to imagine essential designs -- as if to dictate purposes to God Almighty. Having thus fathomed, to his satisfaction, the intentions of Deity Itself, out of these intentions the arm-chair speculator built innumerable systems about what is this thing called Mind. In the matter of common sense thinking, for example, we first determined, naturally enough, that it was the design of God that humans should eat. We then assigned to every human a neural structure, or brain module, perhaps; and this tiny, electro-chemical sub-section of neurons becomes the scourge with which God compels humans, whether dieting or not, into eating. Secondly, having settled it to be God's will that humans should continue the species, we discovered all sorts of brain structures consistent with our expectations.

And so as with equally aggressive ideals about how the mind works,--so too, in short, with any other pet psychological theory about ethics or creativity we happen to come up with. And in these arrangements of some Grand Theory of human action, psychologists, whether right or wrong, in part, or upon the whole, have but followed, in principle, the footsteps of their predecessors: deducing and establishing every thing from their preconceived notions of humanity, and upon the ground of the objects of God, if they are pious; or of the more mysterious fathoms of physics theories, if they are not.

It would have been wiser, it would have been safer, to classify (if classify we must) upon the basis of what humans usually or occasionally did, and was always occasionally doing, rather than upon the basis of what we took it for granted God intended them to do. If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in God's inconceivable thoughts by which God put all of reality together? If we cannot understand God by studying the concrete examples of biological creatures, how then in God's metaphysical relations which were brought to bear in designing it all?

Induction -- that is, straight-forward observation should have brought popular psychology to admit, as an innate and primitive principle of human action, a paradoxical something, which we may call perverseness, for want of a more nuanced, scientific term. In the sense I intend, it is, in fact, an instinctive drive with no accompanying evolutionary goal. Through its promptings we act without comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as a biological contradiction in terms, we may so far modify the claim as to say, that through its promptings we act, for the reason that we should not.

In theory, no reason can be more unreasonable, but, in fact, there is none more strong. With certain minds, under certain conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. I am not more certain that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and alone impels us to irresistible action. Nor will this overwhelming tendency to do wrong for the wrong's sake, admit of philosophical analysis, or scientific resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive impulse-elementary part of human nature.

It will be said, I am aware, that when we persist in acts because we feel we should not persist in them, our conduct is but a modification of that which ordinarily springs from the defensiveness of popular views of the mind. But a glance will show the error of this idea. The defensiveness of what we might dub, 'folk psychology' has for its essence, the necessity of rationalizing our own behaviors. It is our safeguard against injury to our self-concept. Its principle regards our psychological well-being; and thus the desire to be well is coordinated simultaneously with its development. It follows, that the desire to be well-adjusted individuals must be balanced simultaneously with any principle which shall be merely a modification of animal-like aggression toward others, but in the case of that something which I term 'perverseness', the desire to be well-adjusted individuals is not only not aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment, a primitive self-destructive combative emotional disposition exists in every human being, everywhere.

An appeal to one's own heart is, after all, the best reply to the kind of deceptive, folk-psychology bullshit in currency today. No one who trustingly consults and thoroughly questions his own inner-self, will be disposed to deny the entire radicalness of the propensity in question. It is a more obvious truth about human nature even than it is paradoxical fact about the mind. There lives no person who at some period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire to tantalize a listener by subtly evasive talk. The speaker is aware that he displeases; still, he has every intention to please, such a person might usually be curt, precise, and clear, the most concise and illuminating language is struggling for utterance upon his tongue, it is only with difficulty that he restrains himself from giving it flow; he dreads and deprecates the anger of him whom he addresses; yet, the thought strikes the speaker, that by certain intricacies and complexities and by little additions now and then this anger of the listener may be carefully stocked. That tiny seed of a thought toward evasiveness in the speaker is enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and embarrassment of the speaker, and in defiance of all consequences) is then indulged.

Or again, suppose we have a task before us which is of some urgency to be performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. Maybe even the most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole mind is begging to take on the task. It must, it shall be undertaken today, and yet we put it off until tomorrow, and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse, obstinately persisting in the error of our own fault; wrongly self-willed or stubborn, and without our even being aware of it. Tomorrow arrives, and with it a more impatient anxiety to do that to which we've committed ourselves so strongly, but with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This craving gathers strength as the moments tick by. The last hour for action is at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us, -- of the definite with the indefinite -- of the substance with the shadow. But, if the wrestling with ourselves proceeded thus far, it is the shadow which prevails, -- we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and is an ominous sound for our happiness. At the same time, this odd and irrational delay on our part is a funeral song, somber notes to the ghost that has so long overawed us. But then it suddenly flies away at the last possible second -- it disappears -- we are free. The old energy returns. We will labor now surely! Alas, by that time it is however, by far, too late for action!

We now stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss -- we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genie in the Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud upon the precipice's edge, there grows into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any genie or any demon of a fairy-tale, and yet it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which electrifies the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is equal to the idea of what would be our sensations during the first few seconds of a fall from a great height. And this fall -- this rushing annihilation- for the very reason that it involves that one most despicable and loathsome of all the most despicable and loathsome images of death and torture which have ever presented themselves to our imagination -- for this horrid, contemplated act do we now most vividly desire, we both loathe it and yet lust for it. And because our reason violently claws us away from this brink, therefore we want it all the more so. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of a person who, shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a jump to his own doom. To indulge, just for a moment, in any attempt at the thought, is to be inevitably lost; for even a tiny bit of reflection would urge us to halt such an insane commitment to act, and therefore it is, I claim, that we cannot halt it. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to drag ourselves backward from the abyss, we will plunge, and be destroyed by our own now fragmented will.

Examine these similar actions as much as we will; nevertheless, we shall find them resulting solely from the spirit of the perverse. We perpetrate them because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is no reasoned motivation nor rational goal; and we might, indeed, deem this perverseness a direct instigation of some unholy, medieval demon, were it not occasionally for the blind luck of random chance allowing people to occasionally live through such horrid acts.

I have brought up this whole issue, that in some measure I may answer your question, that I may explain to you why I am here as I am now, that I may assign to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect of a cause for my wearing these orange coveralls, and for my tenanting this cell on death row. Had I not been so careful to expand on the issue, you might either have misunderstood me altogether, or, like other slack-jawed ignoramuses, have fancied me insane. As it is, you will easily perceive that I am one of the many uncounted victims of this perversity, this Seed of Evil found in every human being.

It is impossible that any one's deed could have been wrought with a more thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered upon the means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their accomplishment involved a chance of detection. At length, in reading some french memoirs, I found an account of a nearly fatal illness that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency of a scented candle accidentally poisoned. The idea struck my fancy at once. I knew my victim's habit of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment was narrow and ill-ventilated. But I need not irritate you with impertinent details. I need not describe the easy artifices by which I substituted, in his bed-room night-stand, a cotton wick of my own making for the one which I there found. The next morning he was discovered dead in his bed, and The Coroner's verdict was -- "Death by accidental aerosol poisoning."

Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years. The idea of detection never once entered my brain. Of the remains of the fatal wick I had myself carefully disposed. I had left no shadow of a clue by which it would be possible to convict, or even to suspect me of the crime. It is inconceivable how rich a feeling of satisfaction arose in my heart as I reflected upon my absolute security from detection. For a very long period of time I was accustomed to revel in this feeling. It afforded me more real delight than all the mere financial advantages accruing from my dastardly deed. But there arrived at length a barely discernible moment, from which the pleasurable feeling grew, by scarcely perceptible gradations, into a haunting and harassing thought. It harassed because it haunted. I could scarcely get rid of it for an instant. It is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the recurrence in our ears, or rather in our memories, of the burden of some ordinary song, or some unimpressive snatches from an advertisement repeated ad nauseam on the radio or TV. Nor will we be the less tormented if the song in itself happens to be good, or the music's style to be our preferred. In this manner, at last, I would perpetually catch myself pondering upon my security from detection, and repeating, in a low undertone, the phrase, "I am safe."

One day, while sauntering around a mall, I caught myself up short in the act of murmuring, half aloud, certain customary words. But in a fit of irritability, I now said them thus; "I am safe -- I am safe- yes -- if I'm not fool enough to make open confession!"

No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an electric chill creep toward my heart. I had had some experience in these fits of perversity, (whose nature I earlier took some trouble to explain), and I remembered well that in no instance had I ever successfully resisted their attacks. And now my own casual self-suggestion that I might possibly be fool enough to confess the murder of which I had been guilty, confronted me, as if it were the very ghost of him whom I had murdered -- and beckoned me on to death.

At first, I made an effort to shake off these nightmarish thoughts. I walked vigorously -- faster -- still faster -- at length I ran. I felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of thought overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas! I well, too well understood that merely to think such, in my situation, was to be lost. I still more quickened my pace. I bounded like a madman through the crowded stores, stumbling down escalators, racing through the expansive mall-ways. At length, people took alarm, and security took pursuit. I felt then the consummation of my fate. If I could have torn out my tongue, I would have done it, but a rough voice resounded in my ears -- a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder. I turned -- I gasped for breath. For a moment I experienced all the pangs of suffocation; I became blind, and deaf, and giddy; and then some invisible fiend, I thought, struck me with his broad palm upon the back. The long imprisoned secret burst forth from some deepest, hidden part of my mind.

They say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with marked emphasis and passionate hurry, as if in dread of interruption before concluding the brief, but pregnant sentences that consigned me to the injection chamber and to hell.

Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial conviction, I collapsed into blackness.

But why shall I say more? Today I wear this orange, and sit alone in a steel and concrete cell, and am here! Tomorrow I shall be cell-less! -- but where?

The End

REFERENCES

[ * ] Poe's original (p. 1845/46) story can be found here:

Edgar Allan Poe "The Imp of the Perverse" Classic Literature About.com (Accessed July 7, 2009)

[ * ] I was motivated to do an updated translation of Poe's essay by an article I recently read in The New York times:

Benedict Carey "Why the Imp in Your Brain Gets Out" New York Times July 6, 2009.

[ * ] Mr. Carey's story relies on the following recently published scientific paper:

Daniel M. Wegner, "How to Think, Say, or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion" Science 3 July 3 2009:Vol. 325. no. 5936, pp. 48 - 50. DOI: 10.1126/science.1167346

[ * ] If you enjoyed this paraphrase, and can think other Victorian Era English essays which might be effectively translated into 21st century concepts, I hope you'll take the time to link them by means of your comments. -- B.A.M.

O.

What is the American Dream?

2009-07-01T11:54:00.007-04:00

The American dream might be no different than the general dreams of all humans everywhere.

Dear Mr. supposed philosopher, I have a generic, even cliche question: What is the American Dream? If you're so damn insightful, how come you don't answer stuff like that?

F.U. (in Arkansas)

Dear F.U. Arkie:

As an Okie, constantly bathed in the hot sunlight of Republican values, I've had too many opportunities to think of this, but have only now been prodded to write about it. The American dream might be no different than the general dreams of all humans everywhere.

People need shelter, clean air and water, sleep, good physical relationships (as in sex, exercise, etc.) with others. But if these needs could be taken away at any instant, then these would not be very satisfying. (We'd be living under constant threat.) So, a safe political system that gives security and order (as in rule of law, explicitly defined limits, stable govt. etc) is, in addition to these things, also highly desirable. In that case, people might choose to raise a family or join groups that value their work. In a capitalistic society (such as America's), work can be a contribution to the good of the country, at least if one sees that the labor or goods are valued by many people, or by significant people.

There are, of course, other more esoteric things that people might dream of having. Status in a society, responsibility, and the pursuit of knowledge are very rewarding, though some people cheat themselves by thinking such things are completely "phony" or "luxuries" of a life of excellence.

Art, music, and moving toward carefully nurtured peak experiences of life are also very important (such as long-term career goals). In the U.S. these things can be accomplished very easily with planning and patience. Other cultures are not so lucky, and can only dream of what Americans and other Western based free-market economy nations can provide their citizens.

We in the U.S. (and likewise other Western based free-market societies) have many good options for self-fulfillment, but there is probably one more component which is not so operant these days among consumer-oriented citizens: helping others fulfill themselves in all the ways just outlined. It turns out that this last part, helping others, is the only thing left at the end of life, when helping one's self no longer matters, or no longer even makes sense. So, unless that habit is nurtured earlier, through-out life, it likely will not suddenly appear at the end of life, and thus closing out the American dream in a meaningful way (via altruism) will probably not happen.

In conclusion, I think the American dream is actually the dream of all people everywhere to flourish and achieve their full excellence as human beings. Happily, this is quite easy to do in the United States of America.

How closet anarchists die

2009-06-23T16:26:00.010-04:00

I like the graffiti style that makes a cardboard cut-out, and then sprays that same pattern in zillions of odd little places. (I believe this is called stencil style.) Graffiti is to the city what tattoos are to the body.

If I end up with a terminal case of cancer, and when armed with the certainty of nothing to lose, that's when I'm finally going anarchist by graffiti. As I think more about this, I've decided I'm not joking. Of course, now that I've finally reconciled my epiloguish acts with a closing philosophy of life, it will be just my luck to die of sudden heart attack or dozing happily in my sleep.

O.

[image] Remaining Relevant blog

[ * ] Some really interesting stuff comes up on Google Images if you type in "graffiti art" or "stencil graffiti"

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Up and Away

2009-06-19T18:34:00.008-04:00

A trusty Atlas V rocket threw the NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft toward the moon today. The LRO is the one I find most interesting. It will go into orbit around the two poles, turning a suite of six instruments on the moon for thorough mapping. It's looking for potential landing sites for astronauts, but will produce a super detailed map of the lunar surface using laser altimetery and radically high resolution, 3D digital photography. LRO's high-resolution mapping is even good enough to show some of the larger pieces of equipment previously left on the moon by other missions. It's estimated that a full 70–100 TB of image data will be returned.

An excellent 7 min. video overview of its missions can be found on YouTube.

O.

REFERENCES

"Real World: NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission" YouTube Feb. 24, 2009. (Accessed June 19, 2009).

Google chats and A.I.

2009-06-08T23:33:00.012-04:00

Recently I've been listening to some lectures on the Google Tech Talks channel on YouTube. One is by Ashwin Ram, Associate Professor and Director of the Cognitive Computing Lab in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. He talks about how games might use various kinds (or levels) of artificial intelligence to achieve realistic interaction. As computers become more powerful, some of these advanced methods can be realistically implemented. Prof. Ram -- talk about a name that matches his career! -- gives some statistics on who plays games at the beginning of his talk, and then transitions into a survey of the broader techniques of A.I.. The questions at the end by the various attendees at Google were also quite interesting.

Another deep topic of A.I. comes from what's called Artificial Life, an area where I especially have research interests. Though the topic is just as engaging, Unlike the smooth Dr. Ram, this presenter comes off as having endured multiple attack wedgies from everyone in his High School's athletic program (including the coaches.) Nonetheless, his research and results are unquestionably competent. He's Virgil Griffith, a graduate student in Computation and Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology, and one-time target of a sedition and espionage suet.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] The Bleeding Purple Podcast Blog

[ * ] Ashwin Ram "Case Based Reasoning for Game AI" Google Tech Talks April, 3 2008 (Accessed June 8, 2009)

[ * ] Virgil Griffit "Polyworld: Using Evolution to Design Artificial Intelligence" Google Tech Talks November, 8 2007 (Accessed June 6, 2009)

How a college prof. is using his Kindle 2

2009-05-24T15:26:00.015-04:00

I'm not a gadgeteer, but the Kindle 2 has been practical for me.

One of the things professors do is read--a lot of stuff, and regularly. So anytime somebody presumes to offer a new means of reading, it seems reasonable to make a quick assessment of whether that new means would be helpful. When the Kindle 1 first came out, I was fortunate enough to have a friendly, fellow prof. show me his model, and do so right before he took a big over-seas trip. Since he didn't want to pack lots of books, and then later be forced to lug them around the world, buying a Kindle 1 made good sense. (He's eventually sold the unit, however, after the trip, even though he got good use out of it.) I played with the Kindle 1 for all of about five minutes, found it intriguing, but at that time decided it too costly for the hundreds of dollars investment.

Then, of course, the next version, the Kindle 2, came out. It was thinner, and when compared with the earlier model, their keyboards and their navigation buttons are markedly different, in a good way according to my tapping intuitions. My friend's Kindle 1 used a scroll wheel and a weird selector column located above that scroll wheel, but the Kindle 2 did away with that and used a five-way navigation joystick instead, which sat nice and close to the 'menu' and 'back' buttons. Turns out that the joystick makes my thumb a little sore after a while, but it's been working great for me overall.

The Kindle 2 rests in the hands pretty easily also, and I used to get (what I called) "scholar's cramp" from holding a book or journal open too long with one hand while in my standard reading stance. In some ways, though, that problem was a major motivator for me to try the Kindle. I got tired of juggling journal articles, anyway, and many of the academic journals are now formatted to .PDF files, which our library offers in spades through its many scholarly databases. But in using the whole .PDF angle is wherein I really found that the Kindle was helpful.

As any owner knows, the Kindle allows for easy highlighting and annotating of text, thus one can excerpt all the annotations and notes one makes as s/he goes along in the article. (They're all saved to a text file.) I had students search around in the academic databases for articles they wanted to read, and then submit those articles to me by email or by some other link-to method we could all use. Then, we would all download the articles; they would print them, but I would stick them on my Kindle. (After all, it was a new device, so I was anxious to use it when possible.)

I quickly found that it was basically effortless to make fill-in-the-blank handouts for students to use while working through the reading of the articles. Sometimes I'd get the students together in small groups of 3-5, and they'd fill out these handouts, thus assuring me that they've at least surveyed the article. Or, at other times, I could give a hand-out to them before they read the article, and they could fill it out and hand it back the next day as a low-stress way of showing me they'd worked through the essential issues in the essay.

Naturally, all the straightforward advantages of reading books, news media, and other standard fare are still great, but the ability to manufacture hand-outs in such an easy manner was something I'd not anticipated. I also found that since the Kindle 2 is so easily transported from place to place, I was actually almost two weeks ahead in my homework reading load, since I'd grab 15 minutes here and there of reading on the Kindle (and, of course, marking the text along the way.)

I have not tried to use it from the lectern as a way of moving through my lecture material, since I'd gotten in the habit of not using notes a while back. (I tended to read them, which is hardly interesting for me, much less to students.). But I did find it handy to use my highlighted text as a way of reminding me of the things I wanted to talk about when they arose in journal articles. And, too, the ability to quickly search for an exact text phrase in an article came in handy more than once.

Again, the real time advantage seems to lie in the mark-as-you go method of reading the assigned articles. The only downside is that the keyboard, while adequate, is not comfortable to use for typing anything over just a dozen words or so. But I think that's been good, overall; since, I don't get bogged-down commenting, but instead spend the bulk of time actually reading. If students have as good experiences with usage as have I, then some academic version for them will probably be fairly successful in short order.

O.

Coal Plants and U.S. Electricity

2009-05-16T14:13:00.017-04:00

You may wish they'd go away, but it won't be anytime soon.

There are a lot of worries about coal-fired power plants, since they pollute the air and are a significant cause of greenhouse-gas emissions. However, I did not realize just how powerful these plants are. In fact, The Energy Information Administration "reports that more than 600 coal-fired plants still produce about half of America’s power and will still produce 47% of it in 2030."[1] A full HALF of our energy is produced from but 600 or so coal plants! So they are not going anywhere soon.

It turns out that nine coal plants were canceled this year alone in the U.S. These plants "would have provided about 6,650mw of power, or enough to heat almost 5 mil. homes."[1] It appears that coal-plant technology is very efficient, and I can see the attraction of energy planners wanting to use them.

A typical coal power plant yields 500 megawatts, and produces 3.5 billion kilowatts over the course of a year, taking 1.43 million tons of coal to maintain this amount of electricity. It's difficult to imagine what these quantities mean, but here's something easier to wrap your mind around: 1 light bulb.

If you left your 100 watt front-porch light on 24 hrs a day, all year long, then you'd need to burn 714 pounds of coal to provide its energy. And, or course, there's the side effects of 5 lbs. of Sulfur Dioxide, and 5.1 lbs. of Nitrogen Oxide, both of which are the main causes of smog and acid rain. Also Carbon Dioxide is a cause of global warming, and your bulb would place 1,852 lbs. of that into the air as well.[2] Even if you just turned it on, or had it on an automatic timer for an eight-hour night that's still 238 pounds of coal over the year. Electricity is renewable, but the light bulb scenario shows that the by-products of electricity by means of coal usage are not something one wants to renew.

Many people worry about what I believe is the best solution to the energy crisis, nuclear power, thinking that it is somewhat more dangerous to the environment, but such is not the case: "a coal-burning power plant emits more radiation than a (properly functioning) nuclear power plant."[2] This is because a coal plant produces small amounts "of just about every other chemical element on the periodic table."[2] Therefore, the cumulative effect of those radioactive elements is one more problem for coal plants and one more advantage for nuclear plants.

click map to expand
O.

REFERENCES

[image] "Utah Coal Plant" All American Patriots Website (Accessed 5/16/09)

[image] "Map of Coal-fired Power Plants in the United States" Power Magazine Oct. 15, 2008(Accessed 5/16/09)

[1] "Coal-fired power plants: the writing on the wall" The Economist (May 7, 2009)

[2] "How much coal is required to run a 100-watt light bulb 24 hours a day for a year?" HowStuffWorks (Accessed 5/9/09)

Google Trends: Religion, Physics, and Philosophy

2009-05-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

The clear correlation among these terms makes one wonder how these concepts are related in the public's mind. It certainly appears they are conceptually linked to one another.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] Google Trends

[ * ] In case you're wondering, "Google Trends shows how often a particular search term is entered relative the total search volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. The horizontal axis of the main graph represents time (starting from some time in 2004), and the vertical is how often a term is searched for relative to the total number of searches, globally." [from wikipedia]

U.S. and gun control: wise or foolish?

2009-05-02T23:35:00.008-04:00

0. An old friend of mine recently wrote on his blog the following:

[The second amendment] has widely been interpreted (erroneously, I believe) to give every American the right to own any kind of gun they please. I believe the Fathers would have worded the amendment more carefully if they could have foreseen how many innocent people were being slaughtered daily in one of the most advanced countries in the world.

He goes on to cite sobering statistics concerning the various groups which die of gun deaths in the U.S. He closed by accusing the N.R.A. and other lobbyists of being responsible for keeping Americans asleep on this issue. I have, on and off through the years, owned guns, and have more than once considered joining the N.R.A., so in many ways my friend brought the issue to a point in my mind.

Admittedly, gun ownership in the U.S. is a very tricky issue. I will grant that many undesirable deaths are indeed caused by the prevalence of guns in America. However, I believe there are other matters regarding gun ownership that are worth considering.

1. First, Many of the deaths in the U.S., about 81 per day in 2004, are by suicides, particularly by white males over 40. So if one adjusts for those deaths, 25 of the 39 deaths per day in that age bracket are for people who are choosing to end their own life. This hardly counts against gun use, since people use autos and other technology to end their lives too.[1]

2. Second, although guns cause lots of undesirable deaths in the U.S., which is a bad thing, they also save lots of lives and injury by preventing many crimes. In fact, an academic study on this advantage showed a clear preventative use of guns which far outweighs the damage done by them:

"The most comprehensive study of defensive gun use, by award-winning criminologist Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz (1993), found that handguns were used for defense nearly two million times per year, amounting to two-thirds of defensive gun uses. Kleck separately studied National Crime Victimization Surveys and found that people who use guns to defend themselves are less likely to be attacked or injured than people who use other means, or no means, of protection. Kleck has concluded that guns are used to defend against crime 3-4 times more often than to commit it. Forty states have Right-to-Carry laws allowing people to carry concealed handguns for protection away from home, and such states have lower violent crime rates, on average, compared to the rest of the country. Since 1991, the number of states that have Right-to-Carry laws has risen from 17 to 40 (an all-time high) and violent crime has dropped 38 percent."[2]

3. I conclude, then, that the gun, like the automobile, does result in many injuries and deaths, but the benefits that autos and guns offer actually outweigh their liabilities.

4. Finally, I like the idea of there being a registration database for handguns, since these types of guns are most likely to be used in a crime. Also, it is enlightening to consider that virtually no gun crimes are committed by people who are N.R.A. members, so perhaps the key is some sort of certification program in addition to a registration program--at least for handgun ownership.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] "What is 'gun control'" www.a-human-right.com (Accessed 5/2/2009)

[1] "An accounting of daily gun deaths" New York Times

[2] "Handguns:Summary" NRA Website

Epistemology joke

2009-04-30T12:57:00.006-04:00

This is probably an old joke, but it does get to the heart of many kinds of debates in perception and (alleged) knowledge by induction.

An engineer, an experimental physicist, a theoretical physicist, and a philosopher were hiking together through the hills of Scotland. They reached a hilltop. Looking over to the next hilltop, they saw a black sheep.

In delight, the engineer cried, “What do you know? The sheep in Scotland are black!”

“Well, some of the sheep in Scotland are black,” replied the experimental physicist.

The theoretical physicist considered this a minute, then said, “Well, at least one of the sheep in Scotland is black.”

The philosopher thought for a second, then responded, “Well, it’s black on one side, anyway.”

The allusion here is to a well-known 1976 article by Alvin Goldman, which among other things warns against us allowing lucky circumstances into our concept of knowledge. One part of that article is well-summarized in an entry titled "Defeaters in Epistemology" in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Suppose Henry is driving through a Wisconsin town, admiring the scenery. He sees a barn and believes “there’s a barn.” Unbeknownst to Henry, this Wisconsin town is full of papier-mâché barn facsimiles, which look like real barns when viewed from the road. However, the structure Henry happens to look at is a genuine barn. He just happens to glance in the direction where one of the few real barns is located. His belief is true since he’s looking at a genuine barn. He also appears justified in holding this belief. Henry believes what seems to him to be the case. He has no reason to believe that anything is suspicious about his perceptions, much less that he’s in a town mostly populated with fake barns. He also knows that barns are fairly common in this part of the state. Nonetheless, it seems that, however justified Henry may be in holding this belief, he doesn’t know that there is a barn present. He is of course lucky to believe what is true in this circumstance, but it’s precisely this feature of the situation that raises doubt about whether he knows there is a barn before him. Had he looked at any other time, his eyes would have landed on a fake barn and his resultant belief would have been false. Knowledge would seem to require that it not be a matter of epistemic serendipity that one’s belief is true.

Ah, such is the life of philosophy, that even its jokes require analysis. But that's a good thing!

O.

REFERENCES

[image] Slow Leadership Website (Accessed 4/30/2009)

Graph: Living without Healthcare Coverage

2009-04-16T07:00:00.000-04:00

I thought this was an interesting graph for two reasons. First, it shows the relatively longer time-frame of this recession over the last two major recessions (shaded areas). Second, it shows both the trend of the uninsured and how that trend is exaggerated by the current economic conditions.

O.

The Rich Young Ruler was Right

2009-04-12T21:44:00.010-04:00

Rethinking the encounter between Jesus and the rich young ruler

Jesus, a Jewish quasi-rabbi of the first century, spoke against materialism. He often would speak against "the rich," who stored up their possessions where moth and rust could destroy. Being wealthy, therefore, was seen as a bad thing, or if not outright bad, then it was seen as being highly risky for being in a proper relationship to God.

For example, in one story from the Bible,[1] a young man came to Jesus and, after some initial quibbling about who gets the standard of 'good' correctly attributed to whom, the young man attests that he was not a liar, nor defrauder; and, that he was generally a moral person all around. No protests arose from Jesus or others when he said this. But Jesus then tells him take up with him, and to sell off all his belongings, give the proceeds to the poor, and there would, as a consequence, be a heavenly reward. The young guy was wealthy, and therefore saddened, apparently thinking the risk of investment was not worth the odds of payoff. Was he rational to decline Jesus offer? I think so.

There's a couple of items to this story from antiquity which I find worth considering. First, compare this case to a hypothetical one where the rich young guy was found dying of a disease. His doctor tells him a cure is available, but it would cost him his net worth. Would he have sold it all? Well, if he checked it out, saw that it worked on others, and talked with people who had the same problem, got the same advice, and realized the benefit; then, almost certainly he would have--at least If modern indications of bankruptcy as tied to dire medical bills is any indication.[2] So, the young guy would seemingly make the most rational decision on a risk calculation.

Now, consider his decline of Jesus' offer. One might counter-argue that the young guy secretly knew it was the wrong decision. But that goes against the medical argument above. If it was known that the investment, or risk of investment, was worth the payoff, it's not a wrong decision. It appears that Jesus was asking the young guy to turn his brain off. (Not an unusual tactic for preachers.) But there is another angle here too: one can image the young guy dying after many years, and subsequently going to heaven. God says, "You'd have had a much more impacting life it you'd taken up Jesus' offer. That would have been a pure exercise of freewill, a virtue. Still, you did the rational thing by following the evidence available to you. And that was an exercise of reason, also a virtue. Enter in, then, my good and faithful servant."

Second, it seems a trivially easy argument to make that one should not be caught up in worldly wealth in the first century. There is no upward mobility, only the most rudimentary understanding of commerce and money management, and very unpredictable circumstances for commodity control (weather, war, etc.). It makes no sense to worry about material goods when there is so little chance that one's worry or circumstances could increase the opportunity for such goods. By analogy, it would be like telling a modern North American not to worry about being in a plane crash, but instead to plan one's trip using a plane as is convenient. Well, of course! After all, it would be patently irrational to worry about crash insurance when there's so little chance that one's circumstances would produce such a catastrophe (1 in 25 million). Likewise for a first century Palestinian to worry about materialistic advance, seeing how little chance there is for it.

Third, maybe this is why Jesus thinks it so difficult for a rich person to get into heaven: Unfortunately, the rational evidence indicates that the risk of investment of resources is NOT a rational one given the expected return. Even if it's TRUE that selling all one has to the poor and following a religious life of poverty is best, one cannot make such a decision unless there's some evidence to that effect. What's worse, anyone who is reading this is virtually assured of being counted "rich" by standards of comparison with the rest of the world:

"At the point at which people have their own home, enough food to eat, clothing to wear, running water, a sanitary sewage system, and a television, a computer, and the ability to ride in an airplane, they are in the top 20 percent of the world's inhabitants."[3]

But in a country like mine (United States) there is upward mobility by means of education, wealth management, and stable environments for business enterprise. Also, as an empirical matter, rich people tend to do far better, as do their children. Poorer children live under stress, and this has been shown to affect them and their offspring:

Children with stressed lives, then, find it harder to learn. Put pejoratively, they are stupider. It is not surprising that they do less well at school, end up poor as adults and often visit the same circumstances on their own children. [....] It is now well established that poor adults live stressful lives, and not just for the obvious reason that poverty brings uncertainty about the future. The main reason poor people are stressed is that they are at the bottom of the social heap as well as the financial one. [...It has been ] shown repeatedly that people at the bottom of social hierarchies experience much more stress in their daily lives than those at the top—and suffer the consequences in their health. Even quite young children are socially sensitive beings and aware of such things.[4]

In the end, the young guy was wealthy, and saddened, apparently thinking the risk of investment was not worth the odds of payoff. Not to him, and not to his children, or his children's children. Was he rational to decline Jesus offer? As far as evidence goes, it would seem so.

REFERENCES

[image] "Rich Young Ruler" Stained Glass Window in First Reformed United Church of Christ. (Accessed 4/12/2009)

[1] Mark 10:17-31 New Testament

[2] "For the years 2003 and 2004, just over 50 percent of all personal bankruptcies were the result of medical debt by those with health insurance. A significant percentage of those listing medical debt as the reason for their bankruptcy are 65 and older. Other groups disproportionately bankrupted by medical debt include single women raising children on low wages or who have been abandoned by their husbands who refuse to pay child support." From "Bankruptcy and Medical Debt" BCS Alliance (Accessed 4/12/2009) The stats for 2008 were no different, with half of those filing having experience a serious health problem. See "Bankruptcy Statistics 1980-2008" BankruptcyAction.com (Accessed 4/12/2009)

[3] J. Matthew Sleeth, Serve God Save the Planet Zondervan 2007. -- A bad book in most respects, with terrible logic, no documentation, and a literalistic appeal to the values of a pre-scientific, pre-techological people as a way of setting the ideals of 21st century global environmental management. See also this graph, which shows a similar distribution of income

[4] "I am just a poor boy though my story's seldom told." The Economist April 2, 2009.

O.

Would no Einstein yesterday mean no nuclear proliferation today?

2009-03-24T19:28:00.012-04:00

Einstein's deep insight into energy and matter was sufficient to get us where we are today in terms of nuclear proliferation, but his insight wasn't necessary to our nuclear/political worries. Without him, not much would be different now.

Suppose that Einstein had not been born in 1879; indeed, suppose that he never was. Then the equation E=MC² would not have been discovered when it was, which happened to be during WW2. WW2 was won quicker than otherwise by the allies, because they dropped A-bombs on two Japanese cities. These two bombs were dropped only to minimize allied causalities, i.e. for a political reason, not for necessary strategic reasons.

It is certain that E=MC² would have been discovered fairly quickly, since there are several different routes in physics which point to the energy-matter equivalence so deftly captured by the equation. Maybe it would have been a year or so, maybe a decade, but it would not have taken too long, given the cumulative theoretical and technological powers of science.

Now, under the post WW2 peace-time conditions, someone probably would have suggested that one could use such a formula in making a really powerful atomic, even hydrogen bomb. As now, it would strike many as a horrible weapon to make, and many would opposed it. Still, would the most advanced industrial nations begin to make such a bomb? I think they would.

Iran is proceeding with such plans, apparently, in order to get what every nuclear armed nation gets when it engineers a bomb: instant regard from its neighbors. You have to take such a nation seriously. Iran, as have others, obtains a kind of insurance against conventional bullying by threat of military take-over. One does not waltz a military into a nation with nuclear weapons, since the cost to the invading nation is too high, indeed the cost seems to have a high probability of mutually assured destruction, a cold war axiom of political engagement used with great precision in dealing with the old Soviet Union, and an axiom still politically operant among nuclear capable nation states even today.

Since nations seek to guarantee their sovereignty against hostile military invaders, and since nuclear weapons are the most technologically efficient way of so doing, even if Einstein had not discovered the E=MC² equation when he did, I do not believe the current problem with nuclear proliferation would be significantly different than it is today.

I think this has an interesting (hypothetical) implication. If, per horror, there would be a nuclear war, human doom would not have been sealed by Einstein, the Manhattan Project, or even by nuclear weaponry. It would really have been by entering into the process of understanding and manipulating the natural world which sealed our doom. (Consider the philosopher Aristotle's view on Hamartia) In a word, what may kill humans in the end is their propensity for Physics.

O.

[ * ] Some argue that industrialization is what will get us, which is just a slower doom.

[ * ] Others argue that nano-technology will off us, and sooner rather than later.

Making the grade with Provigil

2009-03-17T16:51:00.006-04:00

From Reuters:

In December, Volkow said recent surveys on college campuses suggest drugs such as Novartis' Ritalin (NOVN.VX), or methylphenidate, and Provigil are being used by students, professors and others as a brain-boosting drug.[1]

Turns out there's a high chance it's addictive. Athletes are well known for having their pharmacological sins, but apparently academics have a few secrets as well. Not me. The military has also had successful use with it, though not so much for cognitive enhancement as for minimizing the necessity of sleep during combat operations:

The French government indicated that the Foreign Legion used modafinil [generic for Provigil] during certain covert operations. The UK's Ministry of Defence has admitted conducting on-going research into Modafinil. While it has has reportedly been investigated by the United States military for use by its soldiers to replace the current amphetamine derivatives. One study on helicopter pilots suggested that 600 mg of modafinil given in three doses can be used to keep pilots alert with only 8 hours of sleep in an 88 hour period. Another study on fighter pilots showed that 300 mg modafinil given in three divided 100-mg doses sustained the flight control accuracy of sleep-deprived F-117 pilots to within about 27 percent of baseline levels. It's unclear what the long-term effects on the brain would be from this sort of sleep deprivation, especially for people in as high-stress an environment as combat.[2]

Of course if one is in low stress levels, maybe it is just merely addicting. It does offer up an interesting thought experiment. Suppose you knew that some illegal drug was addicting, but it would raise your IQ to 140, putting you right up with leading math and physics professors in mental ability (approx. 1 in 100 people).[3] Would you do it? Still, if you got caught, you'd be forceably taken off it, so you'd float back down to where you are now, something known in fiction as the Algernon-Gordon Effect.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] Comic Vine Website

[1] "Cephalon's Provigil may be addictive-US study" Reuters (Accessed March 17, 2009)

[2] "Modiodal, What is Modiodal? About it's science chemistry and structure." Chemistry, Structure, and 3D Molecules (Accessed March 17, 2009)

[3] "Definition of IQ" Geocities personal website of R.N. Seitz.

Darwin, Evolution, and Religious Influences on Belief

2009-02-15T09:24:00.010-05:00

Education level influences whether you believe in Evolution; but, religious influence matters way more.

Of course in this celebration year of Darwin's birth, there will be plenty of good articles, and Nicholas Wade has written one for the New York Times. Here's an insightful quote, but there were many:

From the perspective of 2009, Darwin’s principal ideas are substantially correct. He did not get everything right. Because he didn’t know about plate tectonics, Darwin’s comments on the distribution of species are not very useful. His theory of inheritance, since he had no knowledge of genes or DNA, is beside the point. But his central concepts of natural selection and sexual selection were correct. He also presented a form of group-level selection that was long dismissed but now has leading advocates like the biologists E. O. Wilson and David Sloan Wilson.[1]

I'm sure this celebration of Darwin's 200th birthday must be excruciating to people who believe that the first two humans in history walked around naked in a garden a few thousand years ago, humans whom subsequently had a bad run-in with a talking snake. A gallup survey released this month found the following:

only 39 percent of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution," and just 24 percent of those who attend church weekly believe in that explanation for the development of life on Earth. [...] and 36 percent said they don't have an opinion either way.[2]

The poll also notes that education level has much to do with the issue, since "Among those with high-school educations or less who have an opinion on Darwin's theory, more say they do not believe in evolution than say they believe in it." [2] No big surprise there. Although the numbers are markedly different when direct comparisons of education level are made -- "Just 21 percent of respondents who had up to a high school level of education believe in evolution, compared with 74 percent of those with postgraduate degrees." -- it appears that education is not the predictive factor. Instead, it's the influence of religious beliefs: "55 percent of those who seldom or never attend church expressed belief in evolution, while 11 percent do not, and 34 percent have no opinion."

One thing I find notable is the "no opinion" crowd. I wonder if it because they are really ignorant about biology, or if it's because they don't want to admit their views on the matter publicly just because the matter is (sadly) controversial.

O.

References

[1] Nicholas Wade "Darwin, Ahead of His Time, Is Still Influential" Feb. 9, 2009 New York Times

[2] "Darwin's Birthday Poll: Fewer Than 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution" Fox News Feb. 12, 2009 (Accessed 2/15/2009)

[*] Some people think that there are still too many missing links in the fossil record, and that Evolution, as we understand it today, is therefore not established; or, maybe that evolution at the macro-level is not established, at least, in light of such missing fossil evidence. But this is just an old (religious) wives-tale. Here's a nice article from Live Science which discusses and showcases many types of linkage fossils: Robin Lloyd "Fossils Reveal Truth About Darwin's Theory" Feb. 11, 2009 Live Science (Accessed 2/15/2009)

The owl is wise

2009-02-07T11:14:00.003-05:00

The owl sees all
even when darkness reigns,
and is therefore rightly accounted
as a symbol of wisdom.
So too, is the owl a predator.

O.

[image] "Juvenile Borrowing Ow" Elegant Memories Photography Flickr Feb 6, 2009. (Accessed Feb 7, 2009)

[ * ] Classification

* Kingdom Animalia (the animals)
* Phylum Chordata (fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals)
* Subphylum Vertebrata (animals with backbones)
* Class Aves (Birds)
* Order Strigiformes (owls)
* Family Tytonidae (barn and bay owls) and Strigidae (other owls)

[ * ] "Owls of North America" The Owl Pages -- excellent site which gives scientific name of each species, full descriptions, and even sound files which showcase the calls of each species.

Epistemic Oddity: "I know, but I might be wrong."

2009-01-27T12:08:00.009-05:00

Let p be the proposition, "I will see a sparrow tomorrow." Suppose someone in Seattle, Mr. S, were to say, "I know p, but I might be wrong." This sounds very strange!

If S were to say "I believe p, but I might be wrong," then there would be little contention. Maybe S would see a sparrow, maybe not. Both states of affairs have occurred in the past with some regularity: sometimes S saw sparrows on some days, and sometimes S didn't see sparrows on some days. There is no contradiction on the one hand in believing something will occur, but on the other hand in being wrong about that occurrence. (This is how bets are won or lost.)

Consider Mr. S saying, "I am a bachelor, but I might be married." This too sounds strange, but the reason is quickly identifiable. All bachelors are unmarried by definition of the term 'bachelor' in the same way that all triangles are three-sided by definition of the word 'triangle'. However, consider carefully how these definition types subtly vary.

This pair, < bachelor, triangle >, is not quite related to this pair, < unmarried, three-sided >, by an identical relationship. The < unmarried, three-sided >, pair contains in its first position a negative attribute, what a term excludes in meaning; while the second position contains a positive attribute, what a term includes in meaning.

This pairwise difference indicates that one might have to be vigilant in deciding whether to define knowledge with positive or negative attributes. Take a uninstantiated definitional schema pair for 'know':

s1: < know, X > < wrong, Y >

If (s1) is a negative type definitional schema, then X will be defined by at least one concept it excludes--namely, Y. And If (s1) is a positive type definitional schema, then X will be defined by at least one concept it includes--again, Y.

If we substitute 'triangle' for 'X' and 'three-sided' for Y, then part of what defines the concept of 'know' is in terms of what it includes. What, therefore, does 'wrong' include? It might be that S (allegedly) know something, but it includes what's false. Alas, here's a contradiction, and why S's utterance seems so strange. It would be irrational on the one hand to claim that I'm wrong about p, that it's false; but on the other hand to claim I know p. This is not how the word 'know' is used in natural language in common contexts. (Compare: suppose I decide to hold a person's feet to the fire to obtain terrorist information. You say I should not torture. I say that this action isn't torture. Question: Who has the precedent here for how the word 'torture' is used? Answer: how the word is used by the statistically significant community of discourse. One might be tempted to worry that a dictionary decides the issue. But if you or the interrogator buy a company that prints dictionaries with your own definitions, this hardly resolves the issue.)

But there is another way to read the definition of knowledge which does not make S's utterance a contradiction, and which doesn't make it seem so strange.

If we substitute 'bachelor' for 'X' and 'unmarried' for Y, then part of what defines the concept of knowledge is in terms of what it excludes. What, therefore, does 'wrong' exclude? It might be that S knows something, but S excludes his justification being guaranteed adequate. So there is no contradiction in this interpretation of S's utterance. S still knows something, but it's possible S knows it for reasons unrelated to what S takes to be it's grounding. Of course, p must still be true, and S must still believe p. It's just that S is willing to make no claims to infallibility for his justification. Here it looks like in making a claim to knowledge, one prioritizes the truth of a claim over its justification. This seems right, since the practical affairs of choosing among reasons are what guide actors. (Question: Is being factually correct about where a predictor is in nature more important to survival and reproduction than having justification? Answer: for the individual, yes. For the social group with teaching/learning outcomes that affect group survival? Maybe not.)

O.

[image] Kingston Field Naturalists (Accessed Jan 27, 2009).

A few calmly considered thoughts about evidence and ethics

2009-01-25T12:19:00.007-05:00

One must separate the motivations of people's good behaviors from the logic which entails those behaviors. If one wishes those good behaviors to continue - and here I am using 'good' in the ethical sense - then a reinforcement of those motivating reasons itself is good, no matter the evidential value of those reasons.

Doing the right thing for the wrong reason -- and here I am using 'wrong' in the evidential sense of 'bad reasoning' - is by far the normal activity of people everywhere across this world and thru its history. Indeed, this is the essence of Religion.

Certain kinds of people want others to do the right thing for the right reason (the former 'right' being ethical, the latter 'right' being evidential), but these people live in a fantasy world of idealistic optimism (perhaps a kind of religion in itself); consequently, they are continually disappointed with those around them. Although introducing better evidence and teaching critical thinking skills is desirable when appropriate, a realist about human nature recognizes the social prudence of reinforcing motivations which allow such good behaviors to continue unabated. This is the essence of Pragmatism.

O.

[image] Max Oppenheimer Die Schachpartie 1885-1954

On Going Grey

2009-01-23T07:00:00.001-05:00

I'll admit I'm seeing a bit of winter sneak in, even though it's but around July 15th for my metaphorical year of aging. Always good to know my odds, however:

"Basically, people gray as they grow older," said osteopath Tyler Cymet, vice president of medical education at the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine who practices at Northwest Hospital outside Baltimore. [...] The average white male goes about 30 percent gray at the age of 34, "give or take nine years," Cymet told ABCNews.com. African-Americans hit the 30 percent gray mark at 44 years old, plus or minus 10 years. After the head turns 30 percent gray, it is another two to seven years until a person is fully gray. About 50 percent of all people are graying by 50.

I learned such life-changing facts upon reading an article evaluating Obama's noticeable new shade. Apparently he is three years away from that magic age of 50.

The color of your hair is determined by the amount of distribution of the pigment known as Melanin. When one ages, the body produces less Melanin so hair gradually becomes gray or white. As one manufactures less Melanin -- Alas! -- one acquires more gray hair.

I suppose I should count myself lucky, since baldness doesn't seem to run in my family -- at least if baldness is considered less attractive, which is controversial. But my father was luckier. Not only did he not have any baldness to speak of, he had a kind of silver-steel colored hair that gave him a natural camouflage from acquired graying. I had a fourth-grade social studies teacher that had silver hair also. No telling how old that guy was. I guess the life-long silver haired people appear older earlier, but appear (relatively) younger longer. I wonder if that's a bug or a feature in their genome?

O.

REFERENCES

[image] Ming Chen "Scanning Electron Microscope Pictures" University of Alberta Website (Accessed Jan 19, 2009)

[1] "Age or Stress? The Graying of Barack Obama" ABC News Jan. 19, 2009.

Justification: of me or of my belief?

2009-01-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

Suppose the year is 1350AD, and I go to several medicine men in friendly tribes in order to get an explanation for my skin element, a multi-colored, unsymmetrical patch of skin that has a raised center and has been growing larger lately, although slowly.[1] With some variation, they tell me that sometimes the yellow jacket bee and the ant will fight[2], and if one has recently touched an ant after such a fight, the anger of the ant can remain in me. The general agreement is that an ant probably crawled over my arm sometime in the past, and this was the cause of my ailment. Consider, then, the statement --

p: "An angry ant which touched me caused my skin condition."

There are two ways to think about the justification of p. First, one might be saying that I, the person, am justified in holding p. And second one might be saying that p itself, the proposition, is justified. Put more tersely, is it the believer or the belief which is supposed to be justified?

In my 1350AD existence, no one could say I was somehow gullible or irresponsible in my belief, since I sought the best authoritative sources available for me, and since I had no better explanation to offer. (After all, the germ explanation for disease lies 500 years in the future.) Furthermore, ants and bees are known to cause painful skin marks in other ways, so there's a certain analogy of experience to my skin ailment. Suppose, as is highly likely, I come to believe the explanation of the medicine men. Someone might be tempted to think I am indeed justified.

But I think this is the wrong way to think of justification, since it seems to say that my lack of negligence or due diligence is what justifies a belief. The cold reality of the matter is this: my belief that p is wrong. The correct explanation is actually at the cellular level, with cancer cells multiplying and the rest. But it's 1350AD, so I have no clue about such things. Neither does anyone else. p is believed on defective and misleading evidence.

I think this is one problem with many religious beliefs. People think they (the religious beliefs) are justified because they (the religious believers) exercise due diligence in their inquiry, just as the 1350AD person did for the skin ailment. But that's not enough for justification of beliefs. Whether the believers are justified is a different kind of issue. There are two different targets here: Epistemic justification must be carefully distinguished from Ethical justification.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] A.J. Isbister "The Critics"

[1] These are classic signs for skin cancer

[2] "The Yellow Jacket and the Ant" Native American Lore Index (Accessed Jan. 17, 2008)

Commitments to knowledge and defaults to knowledge

2009-01-17T11:28:00.009-05:00

I've been reading in epistemology lately, and shall be doing so regularly for a while yet. I've seen a couple of moves which strike me as puzzling.

First, it's claimed by some writers that knowledge has a normative element. Apparently, when I assert a claim to knowledge, I am making a "commitment" to truth, that (on the basis of evidence) I am "entitled" to this commitment, and that I have a "right" to believe it. Such strange talk! When I claim to "know" something, I certainly feel I'm correct, that the world is a certain way, but I don't feel like I'm making an ethical claim. Can one make an ethical claim and not be aware of doing it? Suppose I'm saying to the janitor, in the act of handing her the object in question, "The trash can is here," which I would claim to know. Am I making a commitment, or feeling entitled or asserting a right to my belief that the trash can is at a certain place? I think not. I am disposed to think a certain way about the world when I make a knowledge claim, but that I'm committed, entitled, asserting a right, etc. -- that would be a very odd way of talking about what I'm doing in making a knowledge claim. Odd because I'm not doing that. I somehow think others are not doing it either. Why is it that people so quickly want to artificially inject ethics into everything?

Second, I've seen it claimed that, lacking any other contextual cues, any assertion I make is tacitly defaulted to a knowledge claim. Really? In the normal course of my daily utterances, anything I say is a claim to knowledge? Automatically unless shown otherwise? Now that's a strong claim! I think it's fair to say I'm asserting a belief in what I say, and that I've a certain level of psychological attachment to what I say. "Yes, Pat, I think the trash can is right behind the filing cabinet." Do I claim to know that? Often, I don't even consider the epistemic status of what I say. After the fact I might say I was psychologically assured of my statement to Pat, and that I indeed believed it. But to claim that I knew something or that I was asserting a knowledge claim at that instant is way over-stated. I can't see why some writers in epistemology want to make such assured claims about people's utterances. What surveys or psychological studies show that this is the default way that people view their utterances? I sure don't see them giving any citations to this effect.

O.

Compassion and Emptiness

2009-01-13T17:00:00.004-05:00

"Listen," She said, as if resigned that I wouldn't get it, "Listen. There are many universes, of which we inhabit only one. But in each universe, the goal of Being, the goal of capital 'B'-Being is compassion. That's it, pure and simple. It's the fundamental, spiritual orientation of things.

"When you look out even into this universe, there are 100, maybe 200 billion stars in just our galaxy alone, but it's just emptiness between this and yet another star-filled galaxy. The insight into emptiness is enshrined right out there, in the very structure of the universe itself. Just emptiness. Plain emptiness. That's all there is to real wisdom. Acting with compassion, and recognizing emptiness. Nothing else. No metaphysics, no deep doctrines, all logically connected into some semantic super-structure. Just those two things: compassion and emptiness."

I looked at the woman beside her, thinking she might have some comment to kick-in. She didn't. Until now, she hadn't spoken the whole time.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"She's best thought of as my sister," the woman began, "though that's about all you could make sense of. The real truth is worrisome, is complicated--." She trailed off. The talking had stopped now, and she was staring ahead, seemingly not waiting for anything, much less a reply from me.

"So, why are you two here today? I mean -- do you regularly pray at this time or what?" I was trying to keep the conversation going. This lady seemed interesting, different than I'd expected. "And your, uh, sister comes regularly with you, I take it?"

"It's not that she's regularly with me, it's that she never leaves."

"Okay," I slowly said, drawing it out. I found myself thinking I was standing a bit closer to this woman than I probably should be.

"If I move, she moves. If I'm still, she is still. when I am meditating, it should be on her. So in meditating or acting, she should be my focus. She has come to teach me compassion."

The pseudo-sister, or whatever she was, didn't seem bothered by our talking about her, she just smiled, perhaps as if thinking of some happy but insignificant moment in her private past.

"Some time ago, she presented herself, and without any words I knew what her role was -- that when I died, she would also die. I had no reason to live, I was alone. I didn't have things badly, but I was just in the habit of rising each day because I was in the habit of eating, and tilling my garden, and then of going to sleep, and of living my regular life -- again, by pure repetition without exception. I had no reason for being, nor did I chose to 'be', I just 'was', going on day after day thru the same kind of life."

She watched me. Perhaps she was assessing me, evaluating whether it was worth going on. Well, that's how I took it, anyway. So I tried to relax. And I tried to simply show that I was giving her my attention, all of it. It's rare to pay attention to somebody, and not just for later evaluation, or just for a break to get some words back in as soon as possible. Or just to summarize what somebody else has said in order to satisfying them that you really did listen. So I simply gave her my attention. That was enough. She went on.

"Now I live out of compassion -- compassion for her. My life may or may not be worth anything. But how can I say of her, that her life isn't worth anything? My life is worth at least hers, that much I'll say. So I take care of myself. And not because I seek a long life, but because I seek her long life, and my life is now her life. Before she presented herself, I had emptiness but no compassion. But now I have both emptiness and compassion. This is the sole meaning a person will find in this universe."

The women stayed-on a bit longer at the temple, but eventually a smile and a silent nod indicated that they would both be taking their leave. And soon enough, both emptiness and compassion were again found outside the temple.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] focajonathan "Women praying in front of the Jokang temple" Flickr Oct. 8 2006 (Accessed 12/22/2008)

Curved Space

2009-01-11T12:11:00.011-05:00

It is known that we live in curved space. But what if there was a world just like ours, but where space was far more curved, and what if everything in that world was bilaterally symmetrical to ours? It is more than just easy to imagine such a world: to observe an excellent representation of it requires merely looking into this mirror.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] mcost "Microblogging Session" Sept. 4, 2008 Flickr (Accessed Jan. 11, 2009)

[ * ] This photograph strongly reminds me of the sorts of things that enchanted M. C. Escher -- particularly his well known "Hand with reflecting sphere". Here is an homage to that Escher litho, but done with modern color photography.

[ * ] The planet Mercury, recently in the news due to some nice satellite photos, brought the issue of curved space from mathematics into physics. That planet was just a bit uncooperative in how it moved around the sun, given what Newton's physics predicted.

The Multiverse is speculative and wasteful

2009-01-02T17:08:00.004-05:00

Sometimes I can't help but ponder this whole multiple universe issue. Maybe it's because I'm a philosopher that I'm attracted to this juicy piece of Science bait -- if talk of multiple universes really is Science, which has been at some controversy. There are two things that I often wonder about. The first is the role that multiverses are suppose to play in cosmological theories, which seems problematic to me. The second is the too-explosive range of universes that supposedly spring into subsistence when available quantum states are utilized as ways of mapping the possibilities from the immediate moment forward.

I
At first glance, it seems that were there a multiverse, it would not be observable, since any such other components of the multiverse are being created outside of our big bang light sphere. Indeed, every other component universe of the multiverse would have the same problem, that of not being able to observe anything outside it's own big bang light sphere.

"Look," someone might counter, "direct observation is not needed to establish or give evidence for the multiverse, for there are other, indirect ways to justify it. This theory has survived falsification and there are no other contenders for anything better." The idea here is that if some physics theory predicts an observational consequence of a multiverse, and we don't see that consequence, then the multiverse theory (or that particular type of multiverse theory) would be defeated.

Put differently, with a bit more detail, suppose somebody claims, that some observation set (+O1) entails a theory of an unobservable multiverse (-T2) And this theory of an unobservable multiverse, entails some other set of observational evidence (+O3). We then note that +O1 should always entail an observational correlation to +O3. So the scientific matter would stand as follows:

+O1 --> -T2
-T2 --> +O3
So,
+O1 --> +O3

If one noted the presence of +O1, but the absence of +O3, then that would be good Popperian[1] defeating evidence for -T2. But the harder problem is where we are now: Where we have +O1 and +O3 kinds of phenomena (from quantum theory, apparently) but the status of darling theory -T2 (the multiverse claim) is worrisome.

Suppose there is some other kind of unobservable theory, maybe of another kind of multiverse with vibrating strings, or maybe of super-powerful beings, or even of a supernatural being which holds the order of space and time together in the way we observe it. Indeed, perhaps there are several of these types of theories floating around. Call any one of them -Tn . (By analogy, suppose you had a jar of colored marbles, M. You close your eyes and pull out one of a certain color, which your near-by friend notes to himself as '+M_red'. But for your part, you can only say, '-M_n' to represent a marble whose color you don't know about.)

So the scientific matter would stand as follows:

+O1 --> -Tn
-Tn --> +O3
So,
+O1 --> +O3

If such a theory did not, up to the most recent testing, show any exception of correlation of +O1 to +O3, does that make it a good theory? There are an infinite number of -Tn -type of theories one could posit that are consistent with the noted observations. That's very worrisome. It looks like one is using speculative, metaphysical linkage to build a cosmological, scientific theory. But if intelligent design posits in biology have taught us anything, this all seems the wrong way to go, for whether the linkage is of a personal metaphysical object (God) or an impersonal metaphysical object (a non-observable super-structure), one leaves the realm of science as it's been practiced since Galileo.

Admittedly, I do think advocates of a multiverse theory can get around the above complaint; since posited, apparently unobservable entities sometimes turn out to be observable after all, as the history of the concept of 'gene' has shown. So my real problem is that cosmological positions about about a multiverse are derived from previously held commitments in quantum theory, and quantum theory is probably the most intensely tested, most reliable scientific theory known to science. Thus, what really tempts me to multiverse belief comes from the bottom-up issues of quantum theory, not from the top-down issues of cosmology. So let me now turn to this side of the issue.

II
The first step that seems to draw me in is what has drawn many in: the unrivaled empirical success of quantum mechanics. Many scientists intimately involved in quantum mechanics think it's more than just a handy mathematical model for organizing data; instead, they have the gaul to say it's "true", even if they often admit they don't understand what it all means. As Michio Kaku writes, “It is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. In fact, some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it is that it is unquestionably correct.”

The second step that makes me muse all metaphysical about multiverse claims is the on-going engineering attempts at quantum computing. Whole governments and academic institutions are pumping big dollars into a form of computation that can use peculiar quantum mechanical phenomena like superposition and entanglement as a way of manipulating data, first by representing the data in parallel ways, and then by operating on all of those representations. But to harken back to the first step above, there are quantum mechanical phenomena, because the world itself has a real structure -- namely, a quantum structure. Quantum computing harness a lot of stuff going on in parallel, specifically bit storage and bit operations. But these parallel activities are supposedly not going on "here" -- so just where are they going on?

The third step which pulls at me is where I make a simple deduction from the first two temptations. We talk about our 'Universe', which is supposed to be the One, the Everything. And these quantum phenomena used in quantum computation are happening at some particular place, in somebody's lab. But these computations, beyond the observed phenomenon, are taking account of several different states which are "not" representative of some local lab's state of affairs. So they represent states of affairs that are not local, but removed from the local. What is the ontological status, the nature of the reality of this non-local place?

And now the mind-thrust begins. Apparently, the states represented by these quantum representations are states of 'possibilia', affairs that are possible in terms of what's happening now, but gain something extra -- call it 'subsistence' -- upon being stored as data. This is akin to the celebrated Schrödinger's cat issue, where the cat has no actual status until one looks at it, or until some arbitrary event collapses the cat's dual-subsistence into some non-arbitrary state of affairs plucked from the set of 'possibilia' --i.e., the cat, as both alive and dead, moves from subsistence into existence. So, just as there is an actual cat that enters a non-actual, dual-subsistence cat state for a bit; likewise, there are quantum phenomena that enter a non-actual state for a bit, and then -- well, it's just more than I really want to think about; but, I can't seem to avoid such thoughts. People are always writing about it, bringing it up in conversations, occasionally outright asking me about it -- even though I really wish they wouldn't.

Anyway, to summarize -- there's the way things are, and the way things might be, and the "might be's" are somehow accessible from the way things are in quantum computing. But a moment's thought makes one realize that there are an infinity of the way things 'might be' from the way things 'are.' At this moment I could utter, by voice, any given number. I might say "One!" at the top of my voice. Or I might whisper "Two-thousand eight -hundred and fifty-two to the 39th power." Short of having to just take the few moments to utter the very sounds it takes to identify the arbitrary number in question, there are an infinity of numbers I can select from. I could even partition my arbitrary utterances into a structure: I could resolve beforehand to utter only odd numbers, or only even numbers, or only numbers divisible by five --- it doesn't matter! I still get an infinity of choices within whatever pet basis criteria for utterance I happen to choose beforehand. This must mean that there are an infinity of parallel states of affairs that either could spring off, or do spring off from this very moment, from this tiny choice of what I may utter. Add all the other utterers available, and the possibilities loom ghastly large. What am I supposed to think of this? How am I supposed to think of this?

Maybe the latter question is at least tractable. Take a slightly different angle: why utter elements from infinite, structured sets of numbers? 'Too dang many chickens in that coop! Instead, in order to narrow things down, I could utter collections of formula from algebra: "1< y < 20", "x < y*3 < z." Hell, that's some pretty talk right there! I like this game! Again, how about this one: "Let z=x and x<7; and, x is either 2, 3 or 4; moreover, stipulate that x is not 4." Now I've thrown in some logic operations as well! Call this 'f' for fancy formula utterance. And for good measure let's call the set of answers for f (if there are any answers) by the capital letter 'Z'.

Behold -- my utterance f hangs in the air, held temporarily by my (and by any hearer's) short term memory, or maybe it would hang a bit longer if written on a chalkboard, or stored in a computer, or chiseled in granite -- whatever; it's stored someplace in some physical medium, where I, or somebody, can later retrieve it.

Certain strange ideas can arise here. Suppose you ask me how much I'm going to spend on coffee this morning. On the one hand, I could say, "Why, only as much as I have in my wallet!" But there is an exact amount in my wallet, I just happen to be ignorant of how much that amount is. On the other hand, and here's where the strangeness begins, I could say, "Why, f!" (And then I'd jump up and write the formula for f on the chalkboard so you're not clueless.) You'll grant me that there are different equivalent ways to write f on the chalkboard.

I could write the original locution:

f: "Let z=x and x<7; and, x is either 2, 3 or 4; moreover, stipulate that x is not 4."

Or, maybe this:

f1: "Let z=x+0 and x<7; and, x is either 2, 3 or 4; moreover, stipulate that x is not 4."

Or, though odd and extraneous, this:

f2: " Let z=x+1-1 and x+1-1<7; and, x+1-1 is either 2, 3 or 4; moreover, stipulate that x+1-1 is not 4."

The first, second, and third versions all have different information in them, a different collection of symbols, but they all yield the same list of answers in Z -- namely, { 2 , 3 }. (So, it's turned out that the variable z could be a legitimate answer for f in more than one way. So that's why we need not just 'z', but 'Z' to track the list of all legitimate answers.) When you ask me the coffee question, formula f is somehow identified as the answer, even if (chatty guy that I am) I answer your question in two or three different, but synonymous ways, likeunto f1 and f2 above.

Alas, now I'm forced to introduce yet another capital letter, 'F', to account for all the ways that I could synonymously utter (e.g., speak, or maybe chalk-down) f as an answer to your coffee question. A moment's thought shows there's an infinite number of elements in the set F. (I could also add zero, or two zeros, or three; or, I could add one, and then subtract it, or two, and then subtract it, or three...)

And now for further weirdness. As earlier, the states represented by Z are states of possibilia, affairs that are possible in terms of what's happening now (I might pay $2; I might pay $3 for coffee), but these 'possibilia' have gained subsistence upon being stored as data, the job that f is doing in our conversation. Restated, there's the way things are, and the way things might be, Z, and the "might be's" { 2, 3 } are somehow accessible from the way things are at the moment of conversation. So too are the states represented by F, and its "might be's", affairs that are possible in terms of what's happening now (I might restate f one way, another way, etc.), but these "might be's" { f, f1, f2, f3, ... fn } have likewise gained their own subsistence at the moment of conversation.

But now there's yet a further explosion on the already ghastly number of multiverse possibilia branching out from the moment of conversation. Granted, by uttering any synonymous phrase f within F, I've constrained my money commitment to only one of two expenditures, $2, or $3; but, that does not mean there is only two possibilia branching out in the multiverse. Why? Well, since there are an infinity of ways of communicating f (an infinite number of elements in F), there are a concomitant infinite number of subsisting possibilia too. An infinite number of me's, and an infinite number of you's out there waiting with baited breath for me to grab onto the horn of which dollar commitment I'll take as regards to coffee expenditures. Yet this infinity arises not because there are an infinite number of dollar options, but because there's an infinite number of ways of stating even a limited number of dollar options. Afterall, even if I'd just said "I'll spend two dollars," where Z has now only a single element { 2 }, F would still have it's infinite number of elements.

There's nothing in the laws of physical possibility, much less logical possibility, which constrain me to state f in one way rather than another. But this means there is this infinity of duplicate universes, this grand waste of me's and you's where there would be only a single, syntactic shuffle, a trade-off of a couple of extraneous +1's/-1's for a couple of extraneous +2's/-2's within F that separates whole branches or collections of branches within the multiverse. What's the lesson of that?

I will tell you. The multiverse is wasteful. Occam's razor counsels us not to multiply entities beyond necessity; but Quantum's razor provides us with the ugliest possible corollary to that claim: beyond entities there's the necessity of multiplication.

O.

REFERENCES

[Image] Nature.com (Accessed 1/2/2009)

[1] A quick over-view of Karl Popper's falsification procedure can be found by Ralph E. Kenyon, Jr., "Popper's Philosophy of Science" (Accessed 1/2/2009)

[ * ] I thought my first post of 2009 should be something both philosophically and scientifically oriented, since that's what the blog is supposed to be about. Yes, I'll admit I wander from that ideal now and then. And I can't believe I'm still piling time into this (so-called) little side venture of going on four years. The problem is that Google tells me that people from all over the world drop in on this blog, and about a third of them are returning visitors, so it always feels worth it to write something that people are going to read (or listen to).

Another tape tech format era closes: VHS

2008-12-22T12:56:00.006-05:00

Alas, one more dying gasp of popular 80s technology -- the VHS tape. A quote from an LA Times article describing the last VHS distributor in the US:

After three decades of steady if unspectacular service, the spinning wheels of the home-entertainment stalwart are slowing to a halt at retail outlets. On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor, Fla., warehouse run by Ryan J. Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes. "It's dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt," said Kugler, 34, a Burbank businessman. "I was the last one buying VHS and the last one selling it, and I'm done. [....] Just before Halloween, JVC, the company that introduced the Video Home System format in 1977 in the United States, announced that it would no longer make stand-alone videocassette recorders. The electronic manufacturer still produces hybrid VHS-DVD players, but it's not clear how long that will last.[1]

I've seen the 8-track come and go, the cassette, and now the VHS tape. Kugler also goes on to prophecy about the life-span of the DVD. An interesting article on the overview and epilogue of the VHS tape.

REFERENCES

[image] 3Critical (Accessed 12/22/2008)

[1] Geoff Boucher "VHS era is winding down" Los Angeles Times Dec. 22, 2008

[ & ] Some excellent cut-aways of the VCR tape mechanism can be found here and here.

[ & ] Although in Russian, and Japanese, a similar look at the mechanism of the casette tape can be found here and here.

[ & ] And, of course, the groovy 8-track should also get its due.

O.

Artificial Hand (from Aiko project)

2008-12-13T12:20:00.005-05:00

One of the more intriguing projects to come of out building life-like human robots is the research on component body parts. Here is an excellent video showing state of the art fore-arm muscle control which can be directly tied to an artificial hand.[1] The hand project is tied to the Project Aiko Fembot.[2] Of course, fanboys know this has all been predicted for decades, ever since Luke Skywalker's "fix".[3]

REFERENCES

[1] "Fembot Aiko serving human with smaller hand" You Tube August 25, 2008 (Accessed December 13, 2008)

[2] Mary Anne Simpson "A Perfect Female Companion: Project Aiko " Physorg.com December 12, 2008

[3] "Luke Skywalker's Prosthetic Hand" Kwenn's Database (Accessed 12/13/2008)

O.