Saturday, December 6, 2008

Oh World!

This is a very rare occasion. I have felt compelled to write a poem, which has not happened in years. This poem is very unrefined. It does not have the sort of rhythm that it ought, and it does not rhyme at all. It's probably not a very good poem, but it captures something that I could not describe otherwise. If you think, reader, that I am writing about you, then you are right. So excuse my sometime pessimism, for not everyone can be upbeat everyday.



Oh world! You stony secretary standing
between my appointment and me,
You petulant frown upon my impatience.
Please, Miss, may I enter yet?
Oh world, I can wait only so long.
My confidence, once strong and chiseled
May soon be discarded by its sculptor.

Oh world, you beast! You vicious animal!
I only ever had love for you,
I only ever wanted the best.
Have you set your hellish minions upon me?
Do your spies feign to reciprocate?
You siren! Do not sing to my weakness,
For my weakness is my love.

And through the talk of politicians
And football, and school, and work,
Through the talk of money and need,
I always found you just beyond the word.
There you always stood, knowing my desire
To speak of you, to proclaim you to yourself.
I'd have been happy to speak only of you.

But your smirk, oh world, I cannot bear.
You mocked me with the voices of friends.
You despised me with the glance of my spouse.
You listened to my ardor in speaking of you,
Waiting until I'd said what I would,
Waiting until I'd said my greatest words
Only to reproach me for my senselessness.

So world, I apologize for ever caring
And stare at the ceiling wishing you'd let me be.
Wishing you'd hide yourself from me again,
For your beauty is unbearable as it is cruel,
Your cruelty lovable as it is absurd,
Your absurdity daunting as I am rational.
But I'll let you convince me of my insanity.

So I lay, filled to the brim,
Wondering, oh world, how it will end.
And I foolishly wish for ignorance of you
Until Somnus whispers in my ear
"There's still tomorrow, still tomorrow,
There's tomorrow, there's still tomorrow,
Tomorrow, there's always tomorrow..."

-Priam's Pride

Monday, December 1, 2008

On the Existence of Abstract Propositions and a Corresponding "Abstractese"

In the question of the ontological status of propositions, the realist claims that propositions are actually existing abstract entities to which our that-clauses refer. But if this is the case, then they must be in some sort of language -- for if they are not expressed linguistically in abstract-land, then it is hard to imagine how that-clauses could refer to them. That-clauses refer to concepts which seem to be expressed entirely through language. Indeed, what is an expression if not some sentence in some language? So which languageis it? Is it English? Surely not, because then English would be the perfect language: the language of thought. No, surely it is not any language that we now speak because if such a pure and natural language existed it surely would have revealed itself by now.

I am aware that a scientist might, here, complain that the language of nature is mathematics. But, I would respond, mathematics cannot explain itself in its own terms, and this has been proven by Gödel. The basic gist of Gödel's theorem is that no mathematical system can proven from a finite set of axioms, which means that no set of axioms can develop a system in which those axioms themselves are all provable. There is always a further axiom that must be added. And if a mathematical system is not provably true, then, in the multitude of mathematical systems, no one system can be a more appropriate language for absractese than any other.

But, you might say, what about a logical system? For because mathematical systems can be derived from symbolic logic, the natural language must be logic, which is more fundamental than mathematics. But the problem here is that logical language cannot support itself, as Quine, Putnam and Kripke's Wittgenstein have all independently shown. Language cannot explain itself in its own terms -- it cannot account for the experience of meaning that we all seem to have. Nothing like Frege's concept of a "sense" of a word, which is a meaning that is independent from the group of things to which we apply the word, has yet been found within language itself.

Therefore, abstractese must be some language that none of us speak. Let us call this language abstractese. So who speaks the perfect language out of which all propositions are formulated? Who has complete access to proposition-land where abstractese is the language of omniscience? Everyone should know the answer by now: It is God. The semantic realist has found a way to sneak God in through the backdoor. "God must exist," such a realist might claim, "because without him, there is nothing we could mean when we speak!"

It seems appropriate that we call mathematical realism "Platonism." For it was Plato that suggested to us that it wasn't enough for us to believe in an ontology of two substances: mind and matter (though Heraclitus did believe this, to his credit). Rather, he wanted us to believe in a third: the Good, where Forms and Mathematicals and other strange abstracta float freely. This one mistake has sent philosophy reeling for millennia. Plato was the first systematic philosopher who had a system worth mentioning, but it was a system that assumed an unprovable monism. Plato ignored the mind altogether and contrasted the physical world to the abstract. Out of respect for the more mysterious force, Plato decided that the abstract was the primary realm, and the physical was the derived realm. Of course, Christianity found a way to borrow this concept as well, which has provided years upon years of highly nuanced philosophy, otherwise known as "theology". Indeed, it was not until Descartes that we finally remembered that the mind creates its own realm. What Descartes should have mentioned was what Kant ultimately did mention: it is the mental and the physical which represent the real dichotomy. Those who ask what is outside the mind or outside the world are trying to posit things without sufficient cause.

The problem of the reference of words, phrases and entire clauses is the standard point of attack for realists against anti-realists. In this instance, the realist proposes these putatuve abstractese propositions as the objects to which that-clauses refer. But my question is this: if there is only the world and the mind that thinks the world, then why should our thoughts refer to anything but themselves? A thought can only be had mentally, so if the reference of the thought itself is mental, then the thought simply refers to itself. So if we adopt a mental ontology stance for propositions, that-clauses just refer to thoughts. How utterly intuitive!

But is this proof that some object or event named "mind" is the source of meaning? Well, the only proof that mind exists is the experience that a particular mind has. But because the specific content of this experience can only be explained after the fact, its existence is not provable deductively. Thus, the only evidence we have for the existence of the mind is inductive. But this essentially means that the act of inductive reasoning can only be supported inductively.

And here we have our answer. Symbolic logic and mathematics lacked the capability to prove their own premises. That is, deductive reasoning cannot be proven uniquely. But inductive reasoning can. If it is assumed that inductive reasoning leads us closer to the truth, then inductive reasoning can prove that it leads us closer to the truth, without the assistance of any other premise. So we have good reason to believe that abstractese is really the same as mentalese.

-Priam's Pride

Sunday, November 30, 2008

The Anti-Realist's Plight or Fictionalism to the Rescue!

It has occurred to me that ontological fictionalism has a unique position in the defense of an anti-Realist (or a-Realist as I prefer to think of myself) position. The anti-Realist makes a career of finding ways to discount the various ontological claims that Realists find themselves making. However, the Realist would be out of a job if he found that his arguments actually convinced the anti-Realist. Indeed, the Realist also makes a career of creating entities to combat the various reductions that anti-Realists always try to get away with. For the anti-Realist, ontological fictionalism represents the ultimate reduction. Let us see why.

These days , the Realist is always a realist about some particular entity because it plays some noun-like role in language. For example, one might be a realists about propositions because we use them as nouns (i.e. they 'refer'). The usual argument is that because the noun is an integral part of some particular discourse, and because the discourse is one we want to preserve philosophically, there must exist a reference for the noun.One such standard argument concludes that numbers and other mathematical entities exist. Now, I don't buy this argument, but that is an explanation we can save for another day. The point is that the Realist has taken it upon himself to declare that all things about which we speak exist. Thus, the only way that the anti-Realist can really gain leverage is to find some noun or class of nouns that we use which uncontroversially fails to refer to an entity. If such a noun or class of nouns could be found (call them "empty nouns"), then the trick is to reduce to an empty noun every other noun which one does not want to refer to any real object. Fictional entities and fictional worlds, then, are the single most promising prospect for assuming the role of the class of empty nouns. If it could be shown that fictional entities and worlds do not, exist at all, then one can hope to reduce other strange entities to fictional beings or worlds. Thus we have all different breeds of fictionalism: modal fictionalism, mathematical fictionalism, semantic fictionalism, etc.

Now what would happen if, in his pursuit of fictionalism, the anti-Realist were to fail to provide the Realist any significant evidence that indicates that fictional entities and worlds do not exist? Well let us first determine what the plight of today's anti-Realist really is. Today's anti-Realist hangs his hat on a Dummett-like or Putnam-like argument which shows that language lacks the ability to escape its own strictures. Perhaps the most convincing anti-Realist argument is the argument Kripke expounds in his interpretation of Wittgenstein. This argument boils down to a rather Quinean claim that all meaning relies on definition and all definitions rely on other definitions. The goal of this method is to show that meaning does not rely on reference because it does not rely on truth-conditions. If principle this can be shown to obtain (and some believe it can), then we can evade the Realist's reference-based ontology.

Unfortunately this anti-Realist tactic of undermining the troubling concept causes just about as many problems as it solves. For if meaning does not rely on reference, then it makes as little sense to say that nouns do not refer as it does to say that they do refer. In other words, the anti-Realist is making claims about a realm that he commands the Realist not to make claims about. He is a hypocrite. Now, some anti-Realists claim that it is enough to simply show that reference is nonsense, and from this fact it is obvious without argument that a noun cannot refer. This objection is not without warrant, but I do not think that many Realists find it convincing.

What the anti-Realist needs, in addition to this skeptical argument, is an empirical coup de gras. Should the anti-Realist find empirical support for his claim that there are no entities beyond thought and experience, then he is home-free, for he has the advantage over the Realist on both the a priori and the a posteriori fronts. So if the anti-Realist cannot find a suitable means of supporting his claim that fictional entities and worlds do not exist, then we will find ourselves in a stalemate: the Realist can now posit an abstract entity (or concrete entity, if we are Lewisians) to counter every anti-Realist reduction. Just so, the anti-Realist can perform a reduction for every abstact entity (or concrete entity) that the Realist cares to posit.

In short, the program of anti-Realism rides on the back of the project of ontological fictionalism. for it is on this project alone that it relies for an empirical advantage to buttress its theoretical stalemate.

-Priam's Pride

On Aesthetics: the Emotion of Wonder

Recently, I was washing dishes and had a small philosophical moment. The small whirlpool created when I let the water out of the sink caught my eye, and I couldn't help but wonder at the sheer beauty of the physics involved: The air bubbles through the bottom of the falling water and into the middle of the drain pipe, where it rises out of the sink to make way for the heavier water. At the same time, the water moves in a circular pattern down the drain pipe, creating the the inertial effect called centrifugal force. This circular motion pulls the water out of the middle of the spout, making way for the air.

After marveling at the beauty of the event, it occurred to me that I couldn't quantify what I was experiencing at that moment as anything but an emotion. Somehow I had never before realized that wonder is the philosopher's emotion, not just her attitude. Understanding wonder as a passion has made Plato's description of eros much more intuitive for me.

Anyhow, as any good emotion does, this emotion admitted to at least partial explanation. When I tried to figure out why the little whirlpool had made me wonder, the best I could come up with is that it was the simplicity and geometry of the event at which I was marveling, because I could not produce that sort of motion on my own. But it seemed strange to me that I would wonder at a simple geometric motion, because the most difficult motions to achieve are the complex ones -- ones the human body is good at creating. How does the whirlpool deserve wonder in the face of the violinist or the dancer?

There is a poem by W. B. Yeats which I am partial to, called "The Sorrow of Love". It is short, so I can just include it here:

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,
The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,
And all that famous harmony of leaves,
Had blotted out man's image and his cry.

A girl arose that had red mournful lips
And seemed the greatness of the world in tears,
Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships
And proud as Priam murdered with his peers;

Arose, and on the instant clamorous eaves,
A climbing moon upon an empty sky,
And all that lamentation of the leaves,
Could but compose man's image and his cry.


First, I should note that this is a revised edition of the poem. The original is similar in structure, but much different in its ultimate content. The first stanza of the poem is a description of nature and an observation that "all that famous harmony of leaves had blotted out man's image and his cry." The second stanza of the poem is an expression of human sorrow, a sorrow epic in its content (indeed, Priam is a character very extreme in sorrow). For Yeats, this expression of sorrow is much greater than anything found in nature without human beings. Thus, the final stanza of the poem is a description of nature and an observation that "all that lamentation of the leaves could but compose man's image and his cry." Yeats, in his first act of wonder, has observed the world around him, amazed that there could be something so beautiful and sorrowful. But as soon as this observation has been made, the motion of his lover has turned his mind onto the beauty of humanity.

What I want to point out is that Yeats' prioritization of his emotion of wonder (that the human is more wondrous than the world) was appropriate for reasons that Yeats did not mention. In fact, the human mind and the human body alike have an architecture whose specific task is to do all those complex things that the world, by itself, cannot do. Indeed, it is we who do all the doing. Our sheer physical versatility allows us to create spectacular events and works of art, beings whose beauty lies not in a pure expression of geometric simplicity. Works of art are beautiful for their complexity. In nature, the beautiful panorama and the sunrise are events that occurs with ease, because the natural path is the path of least resistance. Conversely, works of art are events that require work. The human hand must force nature out of its normal course and into the course designed by that very hand. But this is only an a posteriori piece of evidence that human beings are more wondrous than their world.

There is, on the other hand, a priori evidence that humans are more wondrous than their world. For the emotion of wonder is an emotion that expresses an explicitly human attitude. I contend that wonder is the most human emotion there is. There can be argument that animals feel at least most of the emotions we feel when love, and it is clear that fear and anger are emotions that we share with animals. In any case, there is at least one thing that there is absolutely no evidence that animals do: recognize and adore beauty. Now those who think that I am making philosophy into the greatest career path ought to remember that wonder is not only the emotion of the philosopher. It is also the emotion of the poet, the musician, the dancer, in short -- the artist. It should not, then, be surprising if the most uniquely human emotion were expressed in its strongest forms as a reaction to the most uniquely human happenings. That is, it should not surprise us if our concept of beauty turned out to be an anthropocentric concept.

Obviously, this is just a suggestion, but I never claimed proof. The only a priori force behind this explanation of the phenomenon of wonder is the anti-Realist suggestion that all experience is inextricably tinged by the human mind that experiences it. Clearly, this suggestion rests on the primary metaphysical claim that we have no knowledge of a world beyond our minds and bodies. But, then, all personal positions rest upon a metaphysical claim of some sort.

As a side note, I should observe that an agnostic or atheistic metaphysical Realist would probably claim that the natural world is the most appropriate subject for the expression of wonder. A theist metaphysical Realist, on the other hand, would probably claim that something like God is the most appropriate subject. But, at least for me, my own experience disqualifies these possibilities. So, at the end of the day, it is the incompatible a priori positions that provide the alternatives for the possible subjects of wonder, and it is the a posteriori evidence that will determine which of these three alternatives obtains.

-Priam's Pride

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Do Dogs Have Spatial Logic?

Dr. Cogburn has mentioned in his metaphysics class that dogs have been shown to have spatial reasoning. The evidence of this claim, for Cogburn, is this: When a dog comes to a two-way fork in a path, while chasing a rabbit, he will only sniff one path before he decides which path to take. This means that if the dog sniffs in the direction that the rabbit did not go, it would know to go the other direction, because it is the only alternative left. Of course, such an explanation boils down to a logical deduction:

Let A = the path the dog sniffs
Let B = the path the dog does not sniff
Let C = the path the dog came from

Where did the rabbit go?

(1). A v (B v C)
(three-way split).
(2). ~A
(because the dog just sniffed there).
(3). B v C
(by 1 & 2).
(4). ~C
(because the dog was just there).
(5). B
(by 3 & 4).

Now, this is a very simple deduction, but had the dog sniffed both paths, then it would have gone more like this

(1). ~A
(because the dog just sniffed there).
(2). B
(Because the dog just sniffed there).

The first deduction is clearly more impressive than this one. So if this were, in fact, the dog's thought process, then I would agree that the dog exhibited spatial reasoning. What I contend is that there is a more likely explanation of the appearance of spatial reasoning, which reduces the phenomenon to a simple decision based on description of the sensory data rather than logical deduction.

I suggest to the reader to observe your spatial sensory data. However it happens, the mind interprets the sensory data and constructs for itself a vision of an environment. That is, a space is delimited to the mind. Now imagine that you are chasing some object in this visual environment without either the use of the other senses or the use of reasoning. Indeed under these conditions, one can only chase an object that remains in view. For as soon as the object escapes view, one could only guess where it is if vision is the only tool used.

With this imaginary artifice in mind, consider the dog. Dogs have very poor vision, and rely heavily on their senses of smell. Where the eyes, for us, delimit an environment more clearly than any other sense, it is reasonable to think that the nose, for the dog, delimits an environment at least as clearly as the eyes do. In other words, the dog, by smelling different areas in an environment, probably constructs these bits of sensory data into an entire olfactory environment. The rabbit, in passing through the environment left its scent swirling in the air. The dog is probably able to detect these fine-grain differences in direction, velocity and intensity of smell in the same way that we are able to detect fine-grain differences in direction, velocity and intensity of a sound. I think it is plausible to suspect that a dog's sense of smell functions in a very similar way to our sense of sound.

Should this description of a dog's sense of smell obtain (and I believe that it does), the dog in our example actually did smell the rabbit when it sniffed the side where the rabbit did not go. But it smelled the presence of the rabbit as a thing that was moving in a particular direction based on the scent left behind, and the dog simply followed this scent. So, given this broad description of the canine sense of smell, it is apparent that the dog need not do a logical deduction if the motion of the rabbit remains within the dog's sense of smell the entire time. The dog is still doing nothing more than following an object, which clearly requires no reasoning.

This is not meant to suggest that dogs or other animals do not ever exhibit rational behavior. Rather, it is meant to show that this one particular example does not provide evidence of rational behavior in dogs.

-Priam's Pride

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Workoholism

When I reflect on the job that I have and the job that I want, I sometimes find myself imagining that workaholics are some of the happiest people alive.

-Priam's Pride

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Metaethical Fiat and Moral Outrage

An interesting metaethical situation presented itself to me today. It is important to note that I have not yet done any research on metaethics, so these are virgin thoughts. It is likely that many (or possibly even all) of my points have been made by other people somewhere, but I do not know who or where.

Sarah and I went to the Renaissance Festival in Hammond, LA today. As far as Renaissance festivals go, it was quite mediocre, but this is not the point. We and some of our friends had purchased a heaping plate of Mediterranean food and were picking at it by ourselves on a set of wooden bleachers. We were having what counts, by any standards, as a lighthearted adult conversation. Being who we are, we spoke vulgarly at times and with sparse use of swear words for emphasis. As it turned out, a rather typical middle-class family had seated themselves next to us. As soon as I noticed them (and was surprised by their presence), I decided to stop using language that might be deemed inappropriate in front of children. However, I let this decision slip my mind, and incidentally uttered the word "fuck" without thinking about it. The father of the family had, apparently, had enough of our swearing and, with a note of irritation, asked if we could cool it with the "f-bombs". We were done eating, so I asked my friends if they were ready to leave the area.

These are the facts of the situation prior to any ethical judgment. What I wish to do now is explicate the events ethically. Clearly, my decision to stop swearing was an ethical claim that I made upon myself; this much is obvious. Loosely speaking, I probably made the judgment based on an ethics of personal reciprocity: I imagined myself bringing my young kids to a Renaissance Festival and dealing with the burden of them picking up new vocabulary words. It is important to observe that I was not necessitated to make this decision. That is, my ethics could have been different. I could, perhaps, have used an egoist ethics (which one of my friends did). In this case, I would observe that I had paid to attend the Renaissance Festival and had not agreed not to swear. Therefore, I was not ethically bound to not swear. Perhaps other plausible ethical assessments are also possible, but it is enough that there is more than one.

The father's reaction is also important. The father actually made two speech-acts when he asked my to stop dropping F-bombs. One speech-act is the actual request that he made: he was genuinely asking a favor of me. This speech act is not an ethical speech act, because he did not make a claim over me with it. Had this been his only speech act, it would be as benign as if he had asked me to pass the salt, which is generally considered an ethically neutral request. And by any plausible ethics, he would not be wrong to ask me to do so.

The second speech-act that the father made with his single question was moral outrage. His irritation revealed that he had expected that I would come to the ethical conclusion that I would come to and adhere to that conclusion. This irritation that this expectation had produced is evidence that he was holding me to an ethical standard (his own ethical standard) and that he was disappointed that I had failed.

What I find interesting about this contrast is that the father had imposed his ethics upon me before finding out what my ethics was! He did not simply ask if I would stop swearing, and judge from my reaction whether my ethics agreed with his -- that I should stop swearing. If I were adhering strictly to what I had agreed to do, then I might have said no. To elaborate this ethics further, I intend an ethics, here, of egocentrism. Such an ethicist might agree to do things that he was not bound to do by law, but only on the basis that it benefits him. For example, in this case, if I really thought that the children learning swear-words from me would not harm me or my world in any way (especially considering that they will learn them anyway), then I might be well justified in telling him that I would not stop swearing. As a matter of fact, I really do believe that his children learning swear-words from me, in particular, will not affect my world in even the remotest way. I could have been such an ethicist. Nevertheless, he did not pause to find out whether I was an egoist ethicist or a reciprocation ethicist.

Now not only did I make a mistake in forgetting to adhere to my own ethics; he made a mistake in holding me to his own ethics before determining whether such a metaethical claim even made sense. That is, in order for him to be able to ethically make an ethical claim upon me, his ethics must first demand that it is the only legitimate ethics. Naturally, there are many ethical systems which make this claim (many extreme religious systems, for example), but it is difficult to determine whether this appropriate. What we would find, should it be acceptable, metaethically, to demand universal acceptance of one's own ethical system, is that the entire field of metaethics would reduce to fiat. That is, the only metaethical principle is: 'All persons ought to share my ethical system'. Let us call this the Principle of Metaethical Fiat ("Fiat" for short). It is quite clear that such a metaethical move is simply implausible, because it would preclude the possibility of a peaceful plurality of ethical systems: we would always be at each other's throats forcing our own ethics down each other's throats. Therefore, if there exists any further metaethical principle, this additional principle would preclude the Fiat. For if there were any other metaethical principle, then it would be a principle of toleration, but the Fiat is a principle of non-toleration. Therefore, the Principle of Metaethical Fiat is inconsistent with any other metaethical principle.

These considerations on the Fiat entail that this principle is, effectively, a principle that there is no metaethics. If metaethics is determined publicly (and I believe that it is because metaethics is much more useful to the public than to individuals), and there are public contributors to the definition of metaethics who hold any other metaethical principle (and it is obvious that there are), then the Fiat is false. Simply put, if there exists a public metaethics, then the Fiat is false.

Thus, the father was bound by metaethics to discover my ethical system before he could be ethically justified in holding me responsible for having violated an ethical code (the code, that is, not to swear in front of children). He simply assumed that my ethical system was the same as his. This is evidence of a shift of blame. As soon as the father revealed his irritation, he broke his own ethical code just as surely as I broke my own. The most interesting thing about this dual violation is that in pointing out my personal error, he made an error of his own. And his error, as an offense against me, is an error for which I was justified in expressing moral outrage toward him. In fact, he was not justified in his moral outrage, whereas I would have been justified had I been morally outraged. In fact, had I been outraged, I could simply point to the fact that he sat next to us, and that there were plenty of equally comfortable places he could have taken his family. Thus, I could show him that he was presumptuous in expressing moral outrage to me, since he is equally responsible for sneaking up so close to a group of adults. Indeed, adult conversation is not surprising to hear from adults in a casual atmosphere.

But I did not express any outrage at all. Instead I was embarrassed because when he accused me of acting unethicaly, he was accurate in the accusation. In other words, the father was epistemically unjustified in his assessment of my ethics, and because his epistemic misstep factored into his action, he is guilty of epistemic irresponsibility. But despite this guilt on his part, I admitted my own guilt and we left his family because I decided I was likely to forget about the decision against swearing again.

Thinking back on this event, it is quite surprising to me that he was unjustified in being morally outraged, but became morally outraged anyway. One might find it equally surprising, on the other hard, that I was justified in being morally outraged, but did not become morally outraged. I'm not sure why I was so quick to forgive his presumptuousness. I should note that there are often times when I get morally outraged by the presumptuousness of others. Even when someone assumes that I believe something that I actually do believe, I am still prone to moral outrage because of presumptuousness. To the reader, this fact about my own ethical code is rather insignificant, but to me, it is evidence that there is something different about assuming ethical reciprocity.

But is it really a plausible ethics to adopt egoism rather than reciprocity? If moral outrage is the indicator of an ethical claim over others, then I invite the reader to examine her own instances of moral outrage, and determine whether it diminishes when one finds oneself as guilty as the accused. Intuitively, it seems that a person faced with such a fact would be likely to calm down, though this could again me a simply oddity about myself.

In closing, I would like to note that I believe that what I did is what Jesus actually meant by the phrase "Turn the other cheek" (assuming he ever said it). I don't think he was suggesting the slave-ethics that Nietzsche accuses him of. Unfortunately, many of his followers seem to believe that he did suggest this slave-mentality, but that is neither here nor there.

-Priam's Pride

Friday, November 7, 2008

It's Always Less Tragic on the Inside

This is a phrase that my friend, Matthew Carlin, said to me yesterday in reference to a common acquaintance. I thought that this phrase counted as an aphorism, because there seems to be a very important idea compacted into it. It recently occurred to me that most aphorisms occur in the context of a larger discussion, and the aphorism usually just encapsulates the discussion. This was one that did. When a person's life is clearly tragic in nature (that is, in the old Greek drama sense: one can do everything to the best of one's ability, and still the world falls apart in one's hands), it seems possible that that person might not ever be confronted with the full force of the tragedy. Though Oedipus is fully aware of his tragedy, the only reason this is so is that he has outlived what should have been his own death. Instead he merely tore his own eyes out. Hamlet, on the other hand, is never aware of his grand failure, because that failure includes his own death. In Hamlet's own mind, it sucks pretty bad, but until his death, there is reason for him to think that things might still get better. For the tragic hero, and even for the tragic character, there is often hope left that the world will balance out. But it is only we who will outlive the person or who can foresee the eminent destruction of the person long before it ever happens, so it is only we who are truly acquainted with the tragedy completed -- the life finished. Often there is nothing one can do when one sees a person whose life will end tragically unless something changes. One can attempt to make this person see the incumbent tragedy, the grand event that will inevitably happen, but it probably won't work, and the person will become indignant.

Thus, it's always less tragic on the inside.

-Priam's Pride

Monday, October 27, 2008

The City and the Mausoleum at Night

Another old anecdote.

Saturday, October 02, 2004 (edited, October 27, 2008)

When I stayed in Rome for a semester last year, we would frequently go to a city near campus called Albano (supposedly, it was founded by Aeneas, but he probably never existed), where we would go to bars or just hang out. Anyway, one of the most unique memories I have of Albano is the walk back to campus (we rode the bus there, but it was too late to ride the bus back). There were two sites that I always loved seeing: a panorama of the city of Rome from hill Albano was founded on, and the mausoleum on the side of the road.

A friend of mine, Kate Wolfe, used to describe that spectacular view of Rome as a sense of loss. She said that she loved seeing the City at night, especially Rome, because (as I interpreted her) it was like a human attempt to reach toward the beauty of the stars. What was lost were the real stars, because when a city is lit up all night the way Rome is, the light makes the the stars impossible to see. We have overwrought our emulation of the stars, because we block them out. To me, on the other hand, it was a succinct image of the desire that humanity seems to have to touch the divine. Our greatest dream is, if only in a small way, to finally do something that God can be proud of; to do something that the Cosmos can smile upon. However, she was still bothered by the fact that in seeing the brilliance of the City at night, she always had to sacrifice the stars themselves. And I don't know which is better to hold on to either. The only reason that the City outshined the stars was because we were so close to it, but everyone knows that those stars are so brilliant that they can cross an enormous chasm of space and still be clearly visible. The City is beautiful, but the stars are still the grand model. This is not to say that I think we should attempt to replicate the stars -- no, let the City remain only an analogy to the stars. Even better, let the stars remain visible to me at least in some places.

The mausoleum was much different, though. It was far more striking than the City. I never saw the mausoleum during the day, so I can only describe it in the ominous context of the midnight hours. We only saw it from behind a chain gate. It was a concrete structure that, in the dark, might as well have been black. It was set back from the fence about 20 feet, so it was just close enough to be visible in detail. This part of the road was always quiet. Perhaps the cars knew what they were passing, so they took different paths, in order to respect the silence of the dead. Of course, that probably didn't happen, but it seems that way, at least to my memory. The most interesting part of this mausoleum was that from the outside one couldn't tell whether there was a body in any one particular compartment or not, except by a single red light. Each compartment had a tiny, bright, red LED light on the front of it, to indicate that it was occupied (and would be for eternity). I couldn't help but think that as time passed, and these people were forgotten, they would gradually come to be known in the eyes of the living world as nothing more than red lights. An entire story, great enough for 10 tragedies and comedies at least, reduced to a single red light. How much wisdom did that light bear, and how much guilt? Every time I passed that mausoleum, I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content that those little red lights were required to convey. This loss seems to me much more tragic than the loss that Kate saw in the lights of the City.

I don't think I will ever forget those two things. They are enough to make me want to go back to Albano one day...

-Priam's Pride

Goodbye Alex Ezell

This is an old anecdote from a previous blog that I no longer use, but whose content I want to preserve.

Thursday, September 30, 2004

I recently found a few letters from an old friend. I hadn't spoken to her in about five years. I waited a few days before I called her to maybe catch up, have a nice conversation, who knows? During that time, I thought about maybe 100 things to say to/ask her. When I actually talked to her, not only did she not remember me very well, but she also wondered why I even called. I said I was just curious (I was). After six minutes of chat (no real conversation), she told me that she had to go. In dismay, I realized that she was saying goodbye forever. Of all those 100 things, I had the opportunity to say maybe two. Of all the possible conversations I had imagined, the one that I hadn't came to pass. That's what I get for telling the future. Goodbye, Alex Ezell.

It seems to me that perhaps she was telling me something about myself. She seemed to know that those two people who used to talk have long since perished. Whoever I am is foreign to whoever she is, and it would only be a confusion of our personalities to attempt to find something in an old friendship. We would be pretending that we were still those foolish children we once were (not that we aren't still foolish children). I think I am satisfied with the way that that relationship ended; would that others could end so well.

-Priam's Pride

A Few Aphorisms

One of these is a summary of a previous post, but then all aphorisms are a summary of a complex thought, so I'm not really worried about it.

1) To anyone who asks whether I am a democrat or a republican, I respond, do you offer sacrifices to Zeus or Saturn?

2) 'I am who am' is true of everyone who speaks it; so be. And should you meed Yahweh, tell him the same.

3) There is no question that a democracy in which even a single person does not have any desire to vote is, for that person, a tyranny. What is in question is whether this tyranny is self-inflicted.

-Priam's Pride

Sunday, October 26, 2008

The Nature of Time: Reflections on A-Series and B-Series

I am currently taking a course on contemporary analytic metaphysics. For those who do not know what these three terms mean when used in conjunction, it is the study of the existence claims that current analytic philosophers have made and why. The most recent topic of discussion in the class is the quest 'What is the nature of time?' In reading about the current debate on the topic, I found myself intellectually revolted by the point of departure that modern discussion has taken on the issue. I find it amazing that the debate has been structured in the way it has been for so long. Essentially, I think there is a major problem with the way this issue has been structured, so I have decided to restructure the concept myself.

McTaggart's Argument:

The argument is composed a distinction and three logical steps based on the distinction. The distinction is between two different concepts of time, named A-series and B-series. McTaggart claims that: (1) B-series actually presupposes A-series, (2) A-series entails contradiction, (3) therefore both concepts are meaningless and there is no such thing as time.

The starting point of the debate is an argument formulated by John McTaggart. McTaggart sets up the argument by identifying two conceptions of time. First, there is B-series, which is time as composed of points which either precede or succeed each other. This conception in terms of succession is considered to be a static model in which every point along the dimension of time really exists just as much as any other point. Then there is A-series, which is time as composed of three distinct groupings: past, present and future. However, these groupings change as the future flows through the present into the past. Thus, this is a dynamic conception of time.

With these two distinct conceptions of time in the background, McTaggart observes that time presupposes change. But what does change mean? For Michael Loux, in the metaphysics intro we are reading (Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 3rd ed., New York and London: Routledge, 2006), "at the very least change involves a variation in the way things are" (208). This seems to be true, but for whatever reason, McTaggart defines change in a much stronger way. We will, therefore, come back to this weak definition of change later. For McTaggart, change in "the way things are" is determined by the events that take place and how they come to be. Every change is an event, so it is the events that change over the course of time.

If time occurs in events, then events that are no longer happening must cease to be events and new events become. But this fact about time is incompatible with B-series, because the static nature of the conception prevents things from coming into being or ceasing to be. Therefore, if we are to speak temporally when we speak of time as a B-series, the temporal conception must be entirely appropriated from A-series. This is so because the concept of change fundamental to temporality is a dynamic concept of change, not a static one. In B-series, a thing's properties are fixed at every point in space-time, so there is simply no possibility of change. All speech about time, then, is only meaningful in terms of A-series, and B-series treats time in an artificial manner which presupposes A-series.

With step (1) accomplished, Mctaggart moves on to step (2). Because time is composed of the changing of events, it turns out that at some point in their career all events must be all three of past, present and future. This seems like contradiction. A supporter of A-series (an A-theorist) might respond that no event exemplifies all three properties simultaneously, so there is no contradiction. McTaggart, however, anticipates this objection by observing that when we say a thing x has a property P or 'x is p', the tenseless translation of what we are saying is 'in the present x is P'. Similarly, in the future, when x no longer has P, the translation of 'x was P' is 'in the future x is not P'; and in the past 'x will be P' becomes 'in the past, x is not P'. The problem, for McTaggart, every past and future moment was once a present moment, so each moment, past and future ascriptions can be made about x. These ascriptions, when broken down into tenseless language, differ. Therefore, we are ascribing contradictory properties to x.

Given these two steps, McTaggart decides that because his decriptions of time exhaust the possibilities of description of time (or so he thinks), time must not exist.

Evaluation of McTaggart's Argument:

I don't think I have ever seen a worse argument that has received as much attention as McTaggart's has. To be fair, the literature that the argument has produced is almost entirely critical -- no one actually believes that time does not exist except McTaggart. However, most of the responses serve to defend one of either A-series or B-series from attack, which has resulted in the fact that the overarching conception that McTaggart has imposed onto the debate does not receive a criticism. This overarching conception will be my target, and I will consider the claims of A-theory and B-theory as the bear on this goal.

I will accept McTaggart's distinction between A-series and B-series, because I think it is the best thing he wrote on the matter (even though these distinctions do not originate with him). Also, relinquishing these definitions would not mean that I do not take him seriously. What I want to question, first, is his claim that change must be defined in terms of events, because only events change. This claim is very strong and completely unwarranted. As a matter of fact, it commits us to a strange ontology of events. McTaggart, in assuming that time describes the change of events, also assumes the unity and identity of events themselves. That is, McTaggart must take as his most fundamental principle about time the concept that events exist as distinct from each other in a way described by identity. In other words, events can have names.

The assumption that events are fundamentally unified does not need to be made, though. In fact, change can be defined as the differences in spatial configuration that obtain between temporally contiguous moments. That is, change is the mere fact that at different points along the temporal axis, the matter scattered throughout space is arranged differently. The change is a discription of the differences between moments as a smooth function. This concept of change seems to me to be both scientifically sound and deeply intuitive. We often say that a surface changes, for example when I describe the topology of Louisiana, I can observe that the landscape changes from south Louisiana to north Louisiana such that the ground goes from soft and marshy to firm and hilly. This description of change is true even if time does not exist. Therefore, change is not a purely temporal term, and it is inappropriate to define it in terms of events which are purely temporal.

In fact, the difference between these two concepts of change is the difference between A-series and B-series. In A-series, time is conceived as events; and in B-series, time is conceived as a smooth spatial function over the dimension of time. But the differences between A-series and B-series go deeper than this. In fact, both series are a description of the things in time and a description of the context of these things (viz., time itself). For A-series, the things that exist in time are events and objects. Each event and each object has an identity that is maintained as unchanging, while the context is held variable: a single event can be spoken of as past, present or future. The only way that this can work is if events and objects are treated as fixed in the same way that a moving body can be treated as fixed in physics.

It is evident, now, that the reverse will be true of B-series. B-series holds the background dimensions fixed, and the objects and events that occur in this background are treated as varied and changing. Thus, for a B-theorist, when I refer to an object or an event, I am actually referring to a particular configuration of matter in occupying a finite space and a finite time. In other words, the B-theorist will bracket off a piece of space-time and refer to that piece as an event or an object. Here, we find that the physical matter and its dimensions are taken as fundamental, rather than the unitied objects and events that the matter comprises.

Now we must remember that events and objects are complex metaphysical concepts about which there is much debate. However, that debate essentially characterizes them in one of the two ways described above, so this cartoon representation of them will suffice as a sketch. A-theory and B-theory, then, is an extension of the nominalist/realist debate. The realist will typically claim that objects and events are fundamental and that time is inherently tensed and dynamic. The nominalist will typically claim that the concrete particulars that occupy space-time are fundamental and that time is inherently a static dimension. Both conceptions of time want to account for events and objects in time. This means that something must be held static and something must be allowed to vary. For B-theory what is held static is the dimension of time, and the objects and events are allowed to vary (we can take any grouping we want and call it an object or event). For A-theory what is held static is the objects and events, and the dimension of time is allowed to vary (we can refer to the same object or event in different tenses).

Responses to McTaggart's argument should be relatively evident at this point. His reduction of B-series temporality to A-series temporality simply does not work, because we have seen that there is a second perfectly good description of time to be had. His claim that A-theory entails a contradiction also does not succeed. McTaggart has not respected the fact that something must be allowed to vary if change is to be accounted for. He wants objects and events to be held static for A-series, but he also wants to be able to speak about time staticly (i.e. tenselessly). Of course, even if these first two logical steps could be made soundly, his conclusion would still not follow, because he has not exhausted the different conceptions of time. Without doing this, he cannot claim that time does not exist.

I do not find either A-theory or B-theory to be superior to the other. Both of them do a good job of describing time, but both are subject to temporal descriptions that the other has difficulty accounting for. Descriptions of events are very difficult in B-series, because places (where events occur) are difficult to define in sheer materialist terms. Similarly, descriptions of science are very difficult in A-series, because they are conceived in B-series (and probably necessarily so). What this means is that both theories have something to offer concerning time, but which one obtains (if only one does) will depend entirely on the metaphysical debate (concerning event and object identity) which underlies the two conceptions.

It seems to me that we ought to retain both conceptions, because, at least as far as human thought is concerned, they provide two different descriptions of the same thing, and each description states something true. The relevant way in which time is dynamic is that it always appears to be so to a human intelligence. The reason is that awareness is a fundamentally present-tense event. We are never aware of existing except in the present, and in the present, we can contemplate the future and the past, but to occupy the future or the past would be to make them present. Thus, time is dynamic at least for human awareness. Time is also static, however. This is so because scientific description of the world is inherently tenseless. Though it may be that only one theory is true of both the world and the entities that have awareness within it, it may also be that A-series is true of us, and B-series is true of the world.

-Priam's Pride

Friday, October 10, 2008

Experiencing Aural Intercourse

I noticed today that among the music that I consider to be genuinely good, there are only certain albums that I find myself returning to over and over. Of course, there are albums that I listen to for weeks at a time after I first hear them, but this phase usually passes, and I may return to the album only rarely. For example, I think all four Coheed and Cambria albums are excellent, but whenever I scroll through my music to find something to listen to, the only Coheed albums that I really consider are the second and third (In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth, and Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One).

So how can I consider the other two albums to be genuinely good music if I almost never have any desire to listen to them? Clearly, we have at least two different processes at work. There are the set of albums that I consider to be good music and the set of albums that I desire to listen to. These two sets are distinct, but have some overlap. It then occurred to me that I don't seem to rewatch movies in the same way that I relisten to music. Why do I not have the same desire to simply watch some work of film art?

It is at this point that I had to introduce a distinction in order to make this strange situation make sense. On the one hand, the albums that I think are genuinely good are the albums that I think are good works of art. By "good work of art" I mean that the work accurately describes something about the world in a way that can only be described in the particular way that the work describes it. This means that a good work of art cannot be summarized without losing some content, and that there is no superfluity. Thus, each good work of art is indispensible to the entire canon of art, because it describes the world in a way that nothing else does.

On the other hand the albums that I desire to hear are aesthetically pleasing to me. What does this mean, though? Clearly, this description must exclude a concept of art, because then aesthetical pleasure would reduce to art, and we would lose our distinction. What is important about these albums that I desire to listen to is that when I listen I am actually captivated by the beauty of the music. These particular albums change my mood, they make me happier. In short, there is a kind of love at work. It is not exactly, love, though. It is eros. I don't mean eros in the sexual sense, but in the broader, Platonic sense. In his dialogue, Symposium, Plato's only female character describes eros as the love of beauty. And it is true, we don't just find these things beautiful, we desire them in a way that can only be compared to sexual desire. Any reader who has experienced the sheer pleasure that such an album can provide will know what I am talking about. But even if music does not produce this feeling, there are many people for whom other sensory inputs do produce this feeling. I imagine that painters find themselves in an awed state of ecstacy when they view certain paintings or certain other visual arts. Many people find the sunrise erotic in this way. The list goes on.

Returning to the subject of film: if my distinction between good art and aesthetic pleasure is accurate, then I must not find film, in general, aesthetically pleasing. And this is fine; I still have great appreciation for the artform (it is my third-favorite art-form, afterall), I just don't have an erotic desire for it. I then realized that I don't have any real erotic desire for any visual experience, save one. The only visual experience that I give me aesthetic pleasure is the female body. Now this seems like a trivial thing to say: I'm a heterosexual male, of course I find the female form erotic. But there is more going on here; another distinction needs to be made.

Sexual desire is not sensory. It is a deeper eros than that of sensory aesthetic pleasure. I do believe that it is aesthetic in just the same way that musical eros is aesthetic, but there is an important difference. Based on my experience, it seems to me that sexual desire is actually entity-oriented rather than experience oriented. This means that the intellect is involved. When I am having sexual intercourse, it is both the act and the partner that I desire; it is not simply the visual or kinesthetic experiences involved in sexual intercouse. The reason that many people believe that sexual intercouse is all about vision and touch is that visual and kinesthetic pleasure almost always accompany sexual pleasure. I do believe that there are many heterosexual males who do not find the female body to be visually erotic (when they see the figure, they imagine themselves having sex with the woman, which appeals to the sexual eros, not the visual eros). I, on the other hand, absolutely adore the sight of all beautiful women -- it is captivating.

Let us take this line of thought even further. If the albums for which I have an erotic desire simultaneously captivate me and bring me great pleasure, then it is not inappropriate to describe listening to them as a sort of aural intercourse. Similarly, allowing myself to be captivated by a female figure can be described as visual intercourse. This explains why so many people want to listen to their favorite albums during sexual intercourse: if one's partner is beautiful, then sexual intercourse becomes both sensory and sexual intercourse. How erotic!

-Priam's Pride

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

A Metaphysical Materialism

I was entertaining the thought of being an atheist metaphysician, and this is how it went. It occurred to me how complex the physical world has proven to be. Both common sense and science seem to have proven to us all our lives that the universe, before our impact, is absurdly complex, yet equally structured. It is this structured complexity that interests me. The entirety of physics, especially through the efforts of Newton, Einstein, Bohr and others, has revealed itself to us as infinitely impressive in both size and structure. Scientists have no choice but to marvel at the beauty of the thing they study. “How beautiful,” they might say, “this thing with which we humans have no choice but to be in contact!” But is the scientist’s exclamation of “Behold!” not also a testament to the beauty of the human reason which uncovers the physical world to itself. Where theologians of old have proclaimed the necessity of a “perfect reason” which would hold a perfect relationship to all that which can be known by such a reason (i.e. an omniscient God), it seems to me sufficient to observe that the very human reasoning which beholds the depth of the physical world itself is equally complex. For if it is necessary to posit a knower of the world, then it is necessary to posit a knower only equal in ‘perfection’ to the physical world. If perfection is measured by complexity, then it seems as if human reason by itself is sufficient for the claim of such a metaphysical realist. With no need of a God to posit, perhaps we may get away with positing merely this equality in ‘perfection’ between the physical world and human reason.

We assume, as stated previously, that to prove this equality in perfection between two systems is to prove the equality of the complexity of the two systems. There is at least one piece of evidence for the equality of complexity between human knower and physical world. The complexity of the world only reveals itself to us at the maximum complexity with which we can observe it. In other words, the scientists can only theorize about a world as complex as their faculty of reasoning allows them to. The bounds of this power of reason provide the boundary of the world that we observe. But there is a problem with this simple equation of complexity. The world that we observe is more complex than the science that describes it. If it were not, then one would think that we would be able to predict all events that admit the possibility of prediction. Science has certainly not achieved this goal yet. But the “yet” is important. There seems to be a potential in science to at least come close to such a complexity.

However, even if this potential, epistemic form of complexity is not as great as that of the universe itself (or at least the physical, experiential data we have of it), we would still have one other form of complexity to add to the total complexity of human reason: the very act of reasoning is complex. Epistemologists and AI programmers will all admit that the more we study the very act of reasoning, the more complex it seems to be. Here we find that our reason does seem to have a depth equal to the physical world in both complexity and mystery. Kant himself, according to myth, wanted his gravestone to read only “The starry skies above and the moral law within,” because these were the only things by which he found himself awed. If Kant is right, then we need not posit any being besides the world and the thinker (I and my peers). But then, I thought, why stop there? Why should we even posit anything besides the world?

So why is it that metaphysicians seem to believe that we must posit such metaphysical entities as ourselves (souls, as some people call them)? We have already seen how human reason is similar to the physical world; if human reason really does describe a separate entity from the physical world, then we must look for the difference between human reason and the physical world. The easiest way to do this is to attempt to recreate human reason. Let us say that we build a computer which is recognizably intelligent. This computer would have to have a set of algorithms which describe its reasoning processes, and it is likely that these algorithms would approach infinite complexity (so, for the sake of the thought experiment, we will leave aside whether building such a computer is possible at all). It is easy to imagine that a computer could perfectly replicate the actions of a house-fly, for example, because a house-fly clearly has no reasoning, and we would say that its actions are determined by its instincts (similarly to the way a computer's actions are determined by the way it is programmed). The question of whether a computer could imitate a human being perfectly comes down to whether our actions are determined or not. If they are completely determined by whatever it is about human beings that determines us, then the difference between us and the house-fly is trivial. And if we can imagine ourselves programming a computer to be a house-fly, then we can imagine ourselves programming a computer to be a person. Therefore, either there exists only a physical world, and the complexity of human reason really just comes down to the complexity of the human brain; or there exists both a physical world and a set of beings whose actions are not determined within this physical world. In other words, either there is the world alone, or there is the world and the knower of the world. Thus, we see that the question of whether human beings are metaphysical entities comes down to the question of whether human beings are free (physically undetermined) or unfree (physically determined). Unfortunately, the facts given to us by the world do not seem to determine an answer to this question: arguments can be constructed which make human freedom just as likely to be true as complete determinism. Kant had a thought similar to this one also: he thought that the free-will/determinism debate was an antinomy of pure reason, or an unsolvable puzzle. He presented what he thought to be irrefutable arguments supporting both sides, thereby concluding that reason cannot answer the question. We do not have the space to argue this point here, however, so, for the time being, we will assume determinism to be a thesis equal in epistemological strength to human freedom.

So which thesis do we posit? Let us first posit determinism. If the universe is completely determined (ourselves included), but there is no evidence to determine whether we believe ourselves to be determined or free, then we must make a choice as to whether we believe ourselves determined or free. Because this belief is insufficiently supported by fact, it must either be irresponsible or undetermined. Assuming that there exist epistemologically responsible persons who have an opinion on this thesis, a free choice must be made. Therefore, we are free. This is contradiction, so let us see what happens when we posit freedom. If we are free, then in any decision we make, we are determined to make a decision, as Jean-Paul Sartre observed in Being and Nothingness. We are not free to be free. If our freedom is determined, then it becomes difficult to locate that freedom in the first place. Freedom begins to look arbitrary, and arbitrarity is a form of determinism. Thus, we are not free. We have, then, an apparent paradox on our hands: if we are free, then we are not free; if we are not free, then we are free. Though this problem of freedom has some features of a paradox, the arguments above are sketchy and loose, so it may not be a paradox afterall. In any case, though, the problem of freedom can be seen as an unsolvable problem (and this will have to remain an assumption).

Metaphysically speaking, what is at stake in the question of human freedom is the question of whether we form a separate class of entities from the physical world. We have also seen how the structure of human freedom (viz. human reason) is similar in complexity to the structure of the physical world. These two notions taken together would entail that there are two classes of beings: beings of the physical world, and beings which make rational choices within the physical world. But must we call this second class of beings (human beings) a metaphysical class? The only reason we would have to do this is if we cannot classify them as material. So if I want to be a materialist, I can either prove that everything in the world adheres to my definition of materialism, or I can define “material” as everything in the world. Such a redefinition would only make sense if there is real similarity between one’s designated classes of material. If we claim, then, that the act of human reasoning is itself a material (similar to, say, Leibnizian monads), then the similarity is easy to show. Let us use B-matter (short for Being-matter) to describe physical matter, and F-matter (short for Freedom-matter) to describe “rational” matter. B-matter consists of all the protons, electrons, bodies, houses, mountains, planets and stars; while F-matter consists of all different types of rational processes exclusive to free rational beings. The F-matter that exists is, precisely, all the human beings who exist and all the choices that these human beings actually make. Similarly, the B-matter that exists is all the stars and planets that have actually come into existence, rather than the set of possible objects. The B-matter that exists is, literally, the matter that our experience tells us exists. One can imagine, then, a whole dimension of “free-willers” which can be measured based on what choices were made and what choices were not made. What I am trying to set up, here, is a parallel between being/non-being and free/un-free. The act of being which any physical object does points to its existence as B-matter, just as the act of choosing which any person does points to that person’s existence as F-matter. Just as a physical entity is comprised of the various electrons, protons, quarks, etc. from which it is built, so a rational entity is comprised of the various choices made in time, and the ways that these choices fit together in the system of human reasoning to form a whole person. Thus, when we say that everything is matter, but that there are two classes of matter, the claim is non-trivial. Pending the solution of the problem of freedom/determinism, it looks as if we can dissolve the divide between realists and non-realists about the human self.

Proponents of theism would note, here, that where there are at least two classes which bear a similarity to each other, these two classes themselves form a new class. Indeed, we have already named this class “matter” (and its constituents are B-matter and F-matter). It is quite apparent that the relationship between the two types of matter is what will inform our concept of the general class “material”. As a materialist, such a theist would have to observe that there exists nothing over and above the material itself, so the relationship between the two types of matter becomes terribly important. This relationship (vague as our description of it has been) is the only appropriate subject for the term “God”, should a materialist have any desire to posit a God. I do not claim to have proven God to exist, for I do not believe such a thing to be possible; rather, I have only provided the material space within which such a God can be named. But this concept is still too vague to be useful to any serious metaphysical thinker. What is important for the reader to take away from these metaphysical reflections is the notion that metaphysicians have been so interested in distinguishing the physical from the metaphysical that they have forgotten just how similar the two seem to be. The real question is, I think, if we can develop a science of human reason, do we acquire a science of metaphysics thereby? If the answer is “yes”, then we have been thinking about metaphysics in the wrong terms for a long time.

Surreal conjecture about a science of metaphysics aside, one may reasonably ask whether the inference I've made concerning materialism is philosophically trivial. It is important to keep in mind that I have only made a plausible inference based on inconclusive evidence. Essentially, our evidence is that there are at least two entities in human knowledge that we can be certain exist: the known and the knower. These two entities seem to bear a similar complexity to each other, which makes each adequate to the other, and does not necessitate a third entity. The inference is this: if there is a similarity in complexity such each is exactly the appropriate subject of the other, then there may also be a similarity in the nature of the two entities. Thus, our inference is non-trivial in one sense and trivial in another. It is non-trivial because thinking of human freedom as a fifth dimension and human knowers as material entities changes the ways we think about the self (e.g. that freedom no longer needs to be infinite and that it can be measured). It is trivial because one must still posit another realm of entities to augment the physical world. At the end of the day, most would still consider this metaphysical realm, but it seems to me a less abstruse (and thus, more plausible) metaphysics than is usually found.


-Priam's Pride

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

A Cruel Little Galaxy

I live in Baton Rouge and decided to stay in the city for hurricane Gustav. Now it was an annoying hurricane for sure, but it wasn't really that bad in terms of catastrophes. The hurricane proper isn't the subject of this post anyway. The day before the hurricane, while it was still offshore, the sky was completely cloudless. At one point in the day, I noticed that a layer of fast-moving clouds as far as the eye could see had covered half of the sky. It was the outer bands of Gustav. I had never seen the edge of a hurricane before. I had Sarah take a few pictures of it, but I don't know how they came out. If they are decent, I will post them.

Anyhow, I noticed how peaceful and orderly the clouds were, despite the fact that they moved faster than normal clouds. They were very light, bright and had some gaps between them. In short, they seemed like friendly clouds not like hurricane clouds. I thought to myself that these were just the outer clouds orbiting the violent center. The spiral shape of the hurricane immediately made me draw an analogy to the galaxy in which we live. I thought about how the calm outer bands are like the calm part of the galaxy where we live, and that the violent center of the hurricane was like the star-cluster in the center of the galaxy. Even the empty center of the hurricane seems analogous to the theorized giant black hole in the center of the galaxy.

But if the hurricane were really like our galaxy, then it might have little intelligent beings occupying a droplet on one of these outer bands that I was watching go by. I thought, maybe these beings don't know that they are hovering over a planet with other intelligent beings. Maybe they don't know that their existence (which, admittedly is only a week or so), depends on the existence of a large destruction machine that brings misery to those without the financial means to overcome it. I wondered how they would feel about living in a universe whose very existence necessarily causes other people misery. Then I thought that maybe we are those little people. Maybe, we are three-dimensional beings in a three-dimensional galaxy which is really just a storm of a four-dimensional world, causing those four-dimensional people anguish (but at a much higher energy level).

Now, I know this analogy doesn't work perfectly. Hurricanes are three-dimensional objects, just like galaxies, so relying on alternate dimensions for the analogy is a little implausible. Not to mention the fact that modern science treats the world as a four-dimensional entity. If the analogy were perfect, it would not tell us very much about the world: we would just be comparing a thing to itself. What is really interesting about a good analogy is the ways in which the two things are
not alike.

-Priam's Pride

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Who Is the Tyrant?

I have finally broken down and decided to create a blog. There are a number of thoughts that I have had which I want to write down -- things that I do not want to forget. I also believe that other people might like to know these things and maybe some of them would be better for knowing them. In any case, the first domino to fall is a domino of outrage. Don't believe that this blog is a record of bitching, because it is not; I want to do more than just rant. But the outrage is not mitigated at the moment.

It has come to this; I cannot be silent anymore. Our presidential and vice presidential candidates are a bunch of dolts, and it is embarrassing. These three events are necessary information for all intelligent Americans:

Palin Interview with Katie Couric
Obama Speech without Teleprompter
McCain Responds to Ron Paul's Question

What is happening here? Presidential candidates are undoubtedly supposed to be specialists in their field. They do not need to know as much as a lawyer does about law, and they do not need to know as much as a political scientist or philosopher knows about political theories. They do, however, need to know something about both, and they need to know a lot about current events. That is not too much to ask, folks! As a graduate student, I happen to be surrounded by specialists. If I ask a professor about anything even remotely close to her specialization, she will be able to answer cogently, precisely and honestly. How old are these politicians? Are they not in their thirties? How much time have they had to learn their professions? This is just inexcusable. We are voting for a bunch of yes-men.

Shouldn't Palin at least be able to state her positions when asked? I find it hard to believe that a real-live thinking politician would not be able to think of more than one court ruling that he disagreed with. Palin could only think of Roe v. Wade. How standard.

Why can't Obama fill in five minutes of a speech that he undoubtedly did not write, but at least had some familiarity with beforehand? Doesn't he know what he supports? Doesn't his reasons for supporting it?

The reader can guess why McCain can't answer Ron Paul's question. He, just like Obama and Palin, was only taught to yammer about the platitudes that his party had created for him.

This is a travesty! What has our once proud country come to? Our pride has been whittled down until all that is left is bigotry. Is this even a democracy anymore? Our candidates are exactly the same, but they wear different masks. None of them can think for themselves; they just represent the same old positions that their party tells them to represent. A democratic state ought to be able to select from the entire pool of qualified candidates, but we are only allowed to select from a pool of two underqualified candidates.

This looks all too familiar. We all thought that President Bush was a fluke, that we didn't know he was an idiot before he was elected. But this is evidence that we were wrong. We should not blame President Bush for being an idiot; rather, we should blame the parties for pushing idiots on us. The fact that these two parties are using the same set of tactics for fooling us into electing their respective mouthpieces seems more than a little suggestive to me. These two parties were supposed to be enemies, remember? The only reason enemies plot together is if there is a third party, a common enemy. I will tell you who this common enemy is. It is we! These parties are trying to stop us from thinking for ourselves, because they are perfectly content to feed us our beliefs. There are more than two worldviews; the "liberal" and the "conservative" do not form the poles of an axis on which all of our beliefs lie. I always thought that the benefit of a democracy was supposed to be that every person is able to vote for a candidate based on her own beliefs. If we all believe the same things, though, the democracy becomes a de facto tyranny. The only question to ask now is this: Who is the tyrant?

In closing, I would like to impart one last video, which will show how absolutely insane Bill O'Reilly is. Of course, this is nothing that most people don't already know, but let him be an example of how these puppets react when they meet intelligent people who know what they are talking about.

Bill O'Reilly is a compulsive liar.
Bill O'Reilly is intolerant of anyone not Bill O'Reilly.

-Priam's Pride