MelbournePhilosopher

An unwinding fractal (fractal decompression)

2009-04-12T17:17:00.003+10:00

I was recently reading some disconnected scientific writings. A few ideas in them "connected" together in my mind. I'm not really qualified to comment on the science, but I thought I'd just share my idle speculations...

I was reading about the Second Law of Thermodynamics, being the gradual accretion of entropy within any system, being described as like an unwinding clockwork mechanism.

A little while previously, I had been reading about a scientific researcher who was examining the idea that quantum mechanics could potentially be rendered un-necessary by considering whether Newtonian mechanics could not be re-cast with a fractal geometry.

I took this to mean that instead of the traditional conception of a line (or surface), that line is, to use an informal term, "crinkly" at small scales. Fractals are very common in nature, and recursion is almost always elegant.

Then, my thoughts started wandering to two topics (a) the expansion of the universe and (b) the cosmological constant. What if we considered the idea of a fractal geometry more seriously, and imagined that not only may our surfaces be crinkly, they may be un-crinkling. Like ironing a shirt, blowing up a balloon, or stretching out elastic, perhaps spacetime itself is expanding as a result of becoming smoother.

What if the entire universe were infinitely crinkly at the beginning of the universe, like like a compressed spring? Then, as time has gone by, the rate of expansion has slowed as the spring has flattened out. Of course, I think the rate of expansion is currently thought to be increasing somewhat (while being significantly lower than t=0), which doesn't quite sit.

I'm not proposing, of course, that the 2nd Law is the actual same thing as what, for want of a better term, might be called "fractal decompression". It's the chain of reasoning which is connected in my mind, not the physical forces involved. However one contributor towards the degree of entropy is the expansion of the universe (expansion encourages uniformity by decreasing contrast).

In any case, I want again to profess my lack of mathematical and physical understanding of the issues. I'm purely exploring an analogical line of reasoning...

Cheers,
-MP

p.s. First Post in Two Years!

Volume 1, Edition 1 makes history

2006-11-21T22:05:00.000+11:00

The launch of 'The Python Papers'. The Python Papers

Welcome to The Python Papers. This journal, small though it is, represents the careful efforts of a small group of Python enthusiasts who are keen to form a better community in which developers may work.

As Editor-In-Chief, my role is manifold, but my goals are to improve the level of connectedness of Python developers, and in so doing improve my own developer experience.

The entire editorial board has put time into making this publication something which will hopefully lead to a buildup of momentum, fuelled by the enthusiastic involvement of others who find Python as exciting as we do.

The current issue contains one academic, peer-reviewed article, one industry article, and a list of events coming up in Melbourne, Australia. We would like to expand this list significantly. We offer our services in organising, collating and reviewing submitted content such that Python developers around the world may participate in the creation of something bigger than all of us, for the benefit of all of us. It may be a small journal, a little thing really, but all are welcome, and we look forward to getting to know our readers through the written word.

Please download the first edition, and consider both what it is and what it might be.

For those of you looking to publish an academic paper as a part of coursework or for interest's sake alone, we can offer a formal review process which will meet those guidelines while preserving the goals of freedom of information and community spirit.

Those who are using Python in their work may like to consider using the journal as a means of expressing successes or frustrations with either the language itself or specific applications. We may be able to offer code reviews and style guides, and would be happy to hear about and help propagate news of what is happening so that everyone can take an interest.

For those who would like a reliable source of information, The Python Papers presents a unique and current view into the state of Python at large.

To all of you, welcome!
Cheers,
-Tennessee (Editor-In-Chief)

Launch of new online journal

2006-11-02T15:25:00.000+11:00

Hi all,

Part of why I have been so silent is that I have been so busy preparing a new electronic journal on the Python programmming language. You can see this new publication at The Python Journal homepage on the publisher's site, or just straight to the first edition .

Yay!

Cheers,
-MP

Python Search Engine

2006-10-25T10:19:00.000+10:00

Google have just released the facility to make a custom search engine online, with the greatest of ease. I have just set one up, covering Python, Philosophy and investment. Currently it includes just seven emphasised website, and it would be great to expand this list.

MelbournePhilosopher's SE

Please comment here and I'll add sites accordingly. It would be great to rapidly build a useful resource with great Python sites emphasised for improved searching!

Cheers,
-T

* Regular review points -- consistent and regular examination of holdings and performance

2006-10-23T13:50:00.000+10:00

This is an important aspect. Note -- regular reviews do *not* mean regular trades. In fact, most reviews should probably not result in any trades at all. Reasoning about buying and selling should be independent of the reviews. The best time to buy and/or sell may not be on the day you do your review, but will come around whenever the market conditions are right. The purpose of the review isn't to trigger trades, but to keep abreast of the performance of your portfolio so that when the time is right, it is also recognised.

The easiest kind of regular review is the "buy-and-weed" approach. You plant a bunch of shares, and then weed out those which are not growing well, or perhaps which have already bloomed this season and are ready for rotation. Reviewing even a small portfolio can be very time-consuming to do. I find myself monitoring the share price of the companies I am invested in daily, and have also signed myself up to a news scanning service which emails me around 15 articles a day based on the share codes I have set up. Most of these I ignore -- I probably skim read about one article per day as the rest are minor updates and not of major interest.

Having some regular accounting of ones performance and decisions is well worth it. It removed the rose-coloured glasses of hindsight.

When starting out as I am, I found it useful to have a short checklist of perhaps 5 metrics to "grade" each share against. On that checklist could be:
* The share price on the day and at the time of last review
* A Good/Bad estimate of recent company news
* Whether you have considered buying or selling that share, and the price at the time of consideration
* What the share analysis (usually available from your e-broker) was on the day and at time of last review
* How you feel about the share

If it is difficult to do this, consider just a few shares at a time. Make sure you hit each one at least once every 3 months. This, in concert with a daily glance at the share prices, will help you notice changing market conditions.

Unfortunately, I don't know of much good software to help with this endeavour. The best tools are a workbook and writing stick. Compiling your own data in this way may seem tedious in the modern age, but there is no elegant computer solution that I know of. The exercise of manually creating the tables etc will also focus the attention in a way that using an automated application may not, so it's not all downsides.

After a while, see how each of your dot points looks with hindsight.

Cheers,
-MP

Money Management

2006-09-28T15:05:00.000+10:00

* Money management -- decisions that are semi-independent from the trade itself, relating to ideas about conserving capital, how much to invest, why to protect profits and when to stop losses

This stuff isn't quite the same thing as a trading strategy, although it has implications for it. Mostly, it's to do with risk, tax, income, profit, loss and accounting. It's also got a little to do with goals and achievement.

Let's suppose you've got a dead-cert trading strategy which makes you 10% a year without fail. Let's say.

Even with this in place, you're still going to have to know about money management. It's not usually the case that the trading strategy will demand that you are invested in the market 100%. In fact, it's much more likely that you'll have big lumps of cash sitting around waiting for opportunities or just gaining interest for lack of anything better.

For myself, I save X dollars per month, and I usually don't invest it all straight away. When should you invest? What constitutes too much exposure to the market, and what constitutes too little? How much are you willing to lose in the pursuit of profit? How much *research* are you willing to do.

Given your desires for profit, risk, how much work you are prepared to put in, what are you looking for in a trading system? Do you want to spend a day a week and an hour each other day reviewing your success and trading frequently? Or would you rather push the boulder down the slope and let it bounce where it may?

When do you get in? When do you get out? How much does your trading cost you in brokerage terms and in time management terms? Do you want to try taking out a loan product to gain leverage? How about other kinds of leverage?

These things can all be thought of independently of any particular approach to trading. This is a good thing, because it allows one to focus on a particular set of decisions in what is a very complex area...

Cheers,
-MP

Trading Systems Pt II

2006-09-21T10:33:00.000+10:00

This post *was* going to be an exploration of the first item on the list -- money management. However, I think I left something off that I should touch on first. Education.

I'm a bookish type. I've read about five investment books cover to cover, and feel like I'm finally beginning to understand a bit more about my horizon of ignorance. Yes, I've been trading too, but it's important to do both. The reality of trading re-enforces the theory, and the theory contributes to your understanding of the trading decisions you make.

I feel constantly frustrated by not having enough time to spend on this, however some time management is required. It would be easy to sink entirely into the world of trading, and possibly to only a little advantage. I will probably always feel like the tools at my disposal (including time) are insufficient to the task.

I believe that the only way to function properly in such a new, complex and bewildering environment is to combine doing, thinking and learning on an ongoing basis.

I will try to return to regular posting soon, and start at the stop of my list. :)

As a final note, I followed up the link sent to me by a reader which might be useful to others also. I have joined his website and will post to this blog if my impressions of the site change, but at first glance it looks genuine and useful. http://www.newsalerts.com.au/

Cheers,
-MP

Choosing a trading system

2006-08-21T13:17:00.000+10:00

I am currently considering what to use as the basis for an initial trading system. Until now, I have made decisions based on pieces of information and opinion without considering the wider context.

A trading system seems to involve a number of aspects
* Money management -- decisions that are semi-independent from the trade itself, relating to ideas about conserving capital, how much to invest, why to protect profits and when to stop losses
* Regular review points -- consistent and regular examination of holdings and performance
* Share selection -- choosing candidates for purchase
* Triggers -- conditions for buying and selling shares (other than stop loss)
* Goals -- explicit goals so that one has a reference point to judge against
* That Personal Touch -- recognition that you must make all these decisions your own
* An understanding of fundamentals and psychology

I will make further posts about each area as I consider them further, and will also post on the construction of a simple system, but one which is based on real numbers and whose components will be backed up by reasoning, statistics and argument.

Cheers,
-MP

What to do in a wobbly market?

2006-08-03T09:02:00.000+10:00

Do I get in? Do I get out? What does it all mean?

My investment books draw a big fat blank, are are mostly about making money when it's possible to spot a definite direction in prices. Right now though, they are just wobbling around. Can't sell short, no point in buying! What's there to be done?

One strategy is to hold and build up cash reserves. Another is to get out and get bank interest rates until an opportunity presents itself. It somewhat depends on how much is invested -- for small somes, too much trading will eat away at profits, so you need to be a bit more careful about executing a trade. If a trade is 5% of your stake, then you are in the game for Big Moves.

With this kind of trading, there are two options -- buy low and hold for a long time, or buy low and sell high. The trick is not to buy low and sell lower!

So, not many blog posts, since not many ideas.

Cheers,
-MP

Return from Overseas

2006-07-18T15:25:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

I've been overseas for the past month, during which I paid some attention to the stockmarket but didn't really do much on the blog or self-education front.

However, the times have been volatile, so I've had a little education thrust upon me :). One thing which I was interested in was the amount of psychology present in the market. Let's say that that the price of a share is the sum of two components -- one a function of "value" and the other a function of "psychology". Let us suppose that the value of a share is drawn from the company's /fundamentals/ -- that is to say, the dividends paid, income earned, operating profit and other business metrics. Let us suppose that whatever is left after accounting for this is the result of psychology -- and let's just think of this as a term for any reaction to share price changes which is *not* justified by the fundamentals.

How big is the value component, and how big is the psychological component?

It seems to me like this question does have an answer. Let's suppose that there is some point in time (let's say, August last year) where the share price was dominated by the fundamental component, and there was not much psychology at play. The psychological component then can be measured if the share price changes while the fundamentals do not.

I don't, as of right now, have a method for determining actual numbers for these components. However, I find it a useful distinction nonetheless. One sees the interplay most clearly during periods of quiet, where there is no news on the company in question, nor any market-wide shock, yet the share price changes. Can this change be attributed to anything other than psychology?

Looking at ENG over a year, the price climbed quickly from 8c to 48c, on the strength of both its fundamentals and general market optimism (i.e. in line with market-general psychology). Recently, it fell to around 25c, without the fundamentals having changed significantly. (In fact it could be argued that they improved). Presumably, then, at 48c there was about (say) 22c of fundamental value, and about 26c of psychological value. That is to say, about half.

I will attempt to think further on this to work out if some better analysis could be achieved. However, it is useful to me as it helps me crystallise my thoughts on /how much importance/ to place on techniques of fundamental analysis vs techniques of chart/technical/psychological analysis.

All things to wonder about. Feedback welcome -- today's post is very speculative.

Cheers,
-MP

Statistics, The Funds, Booms and Busts

2006-06-14T10:20:00.000+10:00

Firstly: I recently had a comment about high-performing funds.

The short answer: some people get lucky. Nobody hears about the underperforming funds. If you take a consistent definition of "a fund" -- and track them over time without changing it -- and do a real average, then you might get a number you can believe. What's more likely is that some statistically unwise reporter has found 5 or 10 funds which have all been profitable, averaged their results, and gotten an above-average return.

Simple statistics prepared by anyone other than an expert, with anything less than a full understanding of the statistical methods used to arrive at them, do not carry enough meaning to do be certain about their implications.

It's equally possible, for example, that if you take the last three boom years, the average fund return *was* around 17% -- just as it likely was for many individual highly leveraged traders. However, if you extend your period out to the long term (say 15 years) to incorporate some crash periods, the figures will look less rosy.

By all means, consider the value of a fund, but don't place infinite faith in them.

The ASX has recently had its single biggest drop since S11, and has been falling steadily for several days. Yet, considered over only a 1-year period, returns are still in excess of the 10% rule-of-thumb figure mentioned earlier. While there has been a recent plunge, investors are still experiencing long-term rewards. The intensity of the current fall is high, but its duration has been short, and has not had a terrible impact considered over the sufficiently long term. The longer the period of time under consideration, the lesser the impact of extreme events if they can be survived.

To speculate, one reason for the size of the current fall might be that individuals are taking profits. Relatively few people, perhaps, have bought shares at recent high prices, while relatively more, perhaps, are realising 25% profits from purchases made several years ago. Considered against yesterday's prices, there has been a big fall, but many traders will be considering not yesterday's price, but their purchase price. Since traders may own shares for many years, medium-term price history is highly relevant.

While in some senses this seems ridiculous (why would anyone not want to sell at the high, and not be dismayed by the drop), it also makes sense that individuals will be making decisions against profit targets, trading overheads and their own particular strategies. It seems like the better risk to lock in a 25% profit than hope for a return to previously high values to gain 35%. Risk-averse traders would prefer to protect their returns.

Cheers,
-MP
(This is not investment advice. I'm just this guy, you know?)

Free ASX OHLCV end-of-day data

2006-06-08T14:42:00.000+10:00

http://www.ipo-australia.com/

Has free pricing data available for download. Not quite the realtime tick-data I'd ideally like, but not bad for the price!

Cheers,
-MP

Quality of Information

2006-06-08T13:30:00.000+10:00

One of the things which I have found challenging is sorting through the abundance of information and misinformation that is available.

Let me state from the outset -- I do not subscribe to any form of supernatural intervention in investing. As far as I am concerned, it is a strictly human affair.

That cuts out a frightening amount of the available literature at the get-go. What remains breaks up into "Stuff Based on 1950s Research", "Fluffy Contentless Books for Beginners", "Ludicrously Complex Books", "Sensible Tips" and "Miscellaneous".

What's surprising to me is the lack of anything to bridge the gap between sensible tips and a useable guide to investing.

I think I have identified the reason -- investors are not hackers. If investors were hackers, every Joe Soap would have published information on the web for criticism and shared knowledge. There would be a lot of crap, but there would at least exist *some* more complete documents describing how to do that trading thing.

This is corroborated by the lack of open-source software for trading -- or software which even *runs* on linux. Trading has not yet been hacked.

Partly, this must be because hackers don't find trading interesting. However, I'm surprised, because at some level the information is readily available if you can put the time in to look for it, and because it involves improving a system.

Anyway, this blog started being about quality of information. I really, really recommend spending a lot of *effort* and not a lot of *money* on learning about shares. Very few books will directly or completely address your needs.

Over the coming posts, I will attempt to describe some of the better sources of information which I find. Book reviews are one way in which this will happen, but I will also attempt to review ideas, websites and organisations along the way. This lends itself to wikification, but I don't have the time right now.

In the meantime, I'm starting with baby steps. I'm risking amounts of money that I can afford to lose, and spending a lot of time at the research level.

(This is not investment advice. I'm just this guy, you know?)

Cheers,
-MP

Beating 10%

2006-06-05T15:46:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

Investing in the sharemarket is a game of trying to beat 10%. Historically, this has been the long-term return on Australian share investments. Bearish markets, bullish ones, recessions, depressions booms and busts simply vanish into the statistics over a long enough timescale. If you use a risk-minimisation strategy, and stick it out for long enough, you could reasonably expect a 10% return. (Source : http://www.asx.com.au/investor/pdf/getting_started_in_shares.pdf -- see the graph of expected returns). This is a compounding figure, so your absolute gains increase over time as you get interest-on-the-interest from previous years.

So, are you feeling lucky?

If you just buy one share, you're at the other end of the spectrum. Your money will experience far greater variance over time, as a single company is far more exposed to both danger and opportunity than the market as a whole.

Corrolory: If you buy a specific company, you are in fact using your money to wager that the returns will be greater than 10%. You are gambling with your money, risking a worse return in order to gain a better one.

If you don't have any reason to think a company will outperform the average significantly, don't buy it. If you want to get better than a 10% return, do a lot of research first.

Another way of thinking of this is in terms of the Red Queen problem. The Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland is forced to run as fast as she can just to stay in the same spot. The sharemarket is the same -- as soon as you're in, you're in a marathon race where in order to stay with the crowd you have to run. If you pace yourself, you should be able to finish somewhere in the middle. The pack is running at an average of 10% p.a. over the long term.

Things are, of course, a lot more complicated than this. There is more than one "rate" which you should be trying to beat. One is inflation, for example. If you are making less that inflation, then you really *are* going backwards as your money loses buying power. If you are making 6%, you are merely less ahead. However, it is the 10% rate against which one should primarily be assessing performance.

The basic reason for this is that there exist good strategies which make the 10% rate a very plausible target for any investor.

All share purchases are either attempts to reduce risk and thus achieve the 10% average, or to increase risk and beat the 10% average.

Cheers,
-MP

(This is not financial advice. I'm just this guy, you know?)

Book Review -- Introducing the Australian Stockmarket

2006-05-31T09:03:00.000+10:00

Introducing the Australian Stockmarket
Adam Steen and Keith Kendall
Wrightbooks

Rating : 5*
------------------

This book was clearly the pick of the bunch for an intelligent introduction to the ASX, and trading in general. I say intelligent, because it doesn't bamboozle you with terminology, but introduces things clearly, describing their role in share trading, their history and their meaning. The bulk of the common ASX traded products are covered, and so is the terminology.

The book is split into two sections -- "Shares and the ASX" and "Analysing the ASX". The first part describes the ASX, what a share is, how they may be bought and sold, the sectors and indices of the ASX, leverage and derivitive products, tax, and law. This gives an understanding of how a share is tied to a real company, what a sharemarket is, and what trading comprises.

The second section begins to give an insight into the information surrounding trading decisions. It covers fundamental analysis, financial statements, macroeconomic issues, technical analysis, charting tools and a summary of the usefullness of the various sources of information.

While not enough to formulate a trading system in its own right, it is a useful introduction to what may be done, how, and a little of why. An excellent basis for further learning.

Cheers,
-MP

Financial Review Review

2006-05-30T15:54:00.000+10:00

I thought I'd include a segment about once a week based on my reactions to the day's publication of the Australian Financial Review. Today, the articles which caught my attention were:

* China heading for a tight spot in iron ore game. This article discusses the possibility of China being unable to secure fixed-price iron ore supply. While many of China's competitors have secured fixed prices, the market remains open to manipulation. Secured fixed prices are at a discount of around 35% to the current 'spot' or market prices. Impacts for major suppliers are obvious.

* Netting sales. This article discusses the potentially undervalued company Clean Seas Tuna. They have established a fishery and are experiencing a strong demand for their stock. The new agriculture?

* ASX backflip on index sparks a fear of foreigners. This article is talking down the benefits of listing more foreign companies on the ASX, but that would seem to me to be a positive step. The downside is said to be that the competition for capital would harm capital raising by Australian companies. However, such protectionist attitudes seem to be a bit 1950s. I would have thought that having a more diverse market could only advantage the buyer, and having global competition would allow the market to more strongly direct specialisation.

Cheers,
-MP
(This is not financial advice. I'm just this guy, you know?)

ASX Expo and Seminar Program

2006-05-29T13:56:00.000+10:00

First post with investment content... yay.

I've just registered for http://www.tradersexpo.com.au/traders&investors/index.html. I'm going to Loise Bedford's "share trading 101" and another called "Trading System Design" by Christopher Tate. At other times, I will be attending the ASX sponsored seminars and/or blogging. Look forward to full coverage here!

Cheers,
-MP

Repurposing this Blog

2006-05-29T13:21:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

I'm giving serious thought to re-purposing this blog. I have now completed my Diploma of Philosophy, and my involvement with the Australian philosophy scene has become one of contented observer rather than trying to stimulate online involvement with philosophy.

Personally, my interests have swung around more to investing and software development. I'm a programmer by trade, and I'm also currently trying to learn about share trading and building wealth. I still maintain a healthy interest in philosophy, but I no longer feel the need to add content to the blogosphere on the topic.

As such, I am going to convert this blog to an investment blog. It will cover my thoughts on the Australian sharemarket, cover topics as I learn them and as such hopefully provide a learner's view of investment, which will naturally become increasingly sophisticated moving forward.

I will not attempt to cover what I have already learned in order, but my reading list has been:

* Benoit Mandelbrot
* Daryl Guppy
* Much email contact with more experienced friends
* Trading shares the ASX way and other similar books.

I will start with a review of each book I have read, to recap and summarise the salient aspects.

Thanks for all your attention over the years. I have enjoyed being a philosophical blogger and appreciated each and every comment left on this site. Perhaps some of you will also be interested in coming on my journey of investment.

I remain,
-MP

Ethical Investing

2006-02-28T10:09:00.000+11:00

I had a thought about ethical investing. Instead of investing in ethical companies, perhaps one could turn over ones proxy votes to an ethical organisation, who would use this conferred power to try to bring about more ethical behaviours within existing companies.

Big companies often divide and conquer -- large share blocks owned by principal stakeholders rule the day, while smaller investors are divided and unheard. Unifying minority opinions through an ethical proxy could improve their power greatly.

Cheers,
-MP

Tony Abbott ... conservative, pro-life, and unexpectedly reasonable interfaith ...

2006-02-27T10:13:00.000+11:00

I'm just going to quote.

"It can be a shock to find calls for sharia law in Australian places of worship.

"Still, it would be a big mistake to dismiss this as 'un-Australian' rather than to begin the kind of engagement that eventually made Christianity less bloody.

"Indeed, talking to the more hardline Muslims, rather than ostracising them or shouting them down, could be one of the greatest services Australia can render to the wider world.

"Why shouldn't the Muslim version of the Enlightenment and an Islamic doctrine of the separation of church and state be fostered in Australia? Especially as the task is so urgent."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Cheers,
-MP

Attention

2006-02-01T11:37:00.000+11:00

It has come to my attention that "Attention" is currently being overloaded with a new meaning. One of my sometimes-readers, Alex Barnett, also works in software and is interested in this thing he calls Attention.

Well, it's an interesting concept. Attention according to wikipedia boilds it down to concentration on one thing, like listening to a single conversation at a cocktail party.

Every day, we are selective about what we pay attention to -- usually this is predominantly decided by our physical location. We see what is in front of us, we hear what is near us, we taste what we eat. At work we pay attention to people who contact us, or people from whom we need something.

Our attention is mostly directed by (1) our physical surroundings, (2) our current goals, desires and intentions, and (3) manifestations of things into (1) and (2). By manifestations, I mean for example an arriving email, telephone call, etc. There is attention-pull and attention-push.

When our goals and desires take up all our time, or while our physical surroundings are very interesting, or there are many manifestations, our attention gets mostly used up. Sometimes, however, we realise that manifestations are preventing us from pursuing our goals, desires and intentions, or that our physical surroundings are also affecting them.

We may then be said to have a higher-level goal to modify have such surroundings and manifestations that best enable us to fulfil our goals, desires and intentions.

Alex, when discussing attention, is primarily concerned with manifestations. How do we improve their quality? How can we more quickly locate information on the web? How can we get better news, more interesting emails, etc? Can technology help us achieve these aims?

He lists a number of sources of information which he believes could /inform/ our beliefs about what information sources are best to pay attention to. He includes: Tag clouds, wishlists, reading lists, book catalogs, blogrolls, RSS / OPML lists, contacts, social networks and buddy lists, photo collections, photostreams, playlists, music collections, bookmarks, blogs, game lists, community memberships, calendar entries, video collections and lists, favourite places and social guides and subscription lists.

All of these things are, in effect, a kind of /expression of preference/. How is it that we can improve the quality of manifestations based on our preferences?

Cheers,
-T

Court to decide if Jesus existed

2006-01-25T10:43:00.000+11:00

Court to decide if Jesus existed

Well, here's a story to follow. While philosophers talk about standards of proof, there's no more practical standard of proof than the acceptance of a court of law.

While MP can see no outcome other than a compromise coming from this, it certainly is interesting to see it appearing in a non-U.S. court.

Cheers,
-MP

Philosophy on iTunes

2006-01-24T16:20:00.000+11:00

Well, philosophy is coming into the digital age. Sure, I was clamouring for this years ago, but I'm not about to complain now that quality content is now being delivered properly.

What am I yammering about? e-Philosophy -- lectures and other rich content available on the internet for free exchange. My (defunct) website, MelbournePhilosophy, had some apologetic nods towards a digital database, but it never lived up to my ideals.

Firstly, here is a story about the philosophy lecture series "Introduction to Logic" being available via iTunes.

Secondly, here is the Stanford University iTunes server, with free academic content. Many of the offerings here seem to be "opinion pieces", but that is no smear. In fact, it's wonderful (to me) seeing such freedom of information.

Hopefully, as more and more philosophy gets recorded digitally, it will be similarly shared.

Cheers,
-MP

Python XML implementation flaw -- whitespace and wholeText

2006-01-20T16:08:00.000+11:00

MelbournePhilosopher

I place this non-philosophical note into the blogosphere in the hope that Google will pick it up and do society some good.

If you are useing the xml.dom.minidom implementation, and are dealing with minidom.Text nodes, the following stupid behaviour occurs:

When you call node.replaceWholeText in order to, well, replace the text contained inside the node, don't try to put an empty string in. I was formatting the text content of nodes, and was using strip() to remove whitespace from around the edges. Unfortunately, calling strip() on a whitespace string results in the empty string.

The practical effect was major breakage. With no errors, warnings, or readily apparent cause, the entire XML document became corrupted. Not only corrupted, but empty. My entire XML document was Fubar. Fortunately, this was version 0, so I wasn't saving my changes back to disk, so I didn't lose any information permanently, but I lost a full day (arrive 10am, swear constantly, find solution at 4pm) on this stupid, undocumented, and brain-bending behaviour.

My dummy is spat.

Cheers,
-MP

The meaning of trust

2006-01-20T14:31:00.000+11:00

It occurs to me that there are two ways to think about trust. Let's suppose that X is some person or system whom you are considering trusting. They might be a wife, father, a legal process, journalists or some other person or group.

I think there are two ways to approach this. The first is to understand their character -- their tendencies and your expectations relating to those. I might trust X once I understand their character, even if I believe they will in many ways undermine my own goals. For example, one might learn to trust an enemy to behave in a certain way once you understand their character.

On the other hand, one might consider trust to be submitting ones goal system to that of another. For example, I might trust that my partner is doing the best thing even though their actions are in contradiction with my own goals -- my own estimation of what the best thing is.

I would say I primarily involve myself with the first kind of trust -- relying on people to act as I expect. I trust some of my work colleagues do some kinds of tasks, but not others. I regard this kind of trust to be of a different character to the second.

However, with people that I love, I would say I involve a mixture of trusts. I submit my goal systems to those of (for example) my partner, my parents and my much-loved friends.

In a sense it's the difference between a tool and team-mate. I would say these are two distinct kinds of trust, which do not bleed into eachother. To some extent, I regard my loved ones as tools also.

Some of them are good at responding to emails, some are bad. It would be silly for me to expect some of them to organise an important event, etc. On the other hand, some are excellent. Insofar as I am trying to achieve particular goals, I must consider them as tools.

On the other hand, I also regard them as team-mates. This is to say that I trust not only their behaviours, but their goals.

I'm not sure that I've captured the thought precisely, but hopefully I've gotten the nub of it.

Cheers,
-MP

Does Searle Beg the Question?

2006-01-19T16:15:00.000+11:00

http://www.kurzweiltech.com/Searle/searle_response_3.htm

Ray Kurzweil says yes. His response, available at the URL above, is essentially that cricitism.

What is it about Searle's argument that can seem convincing? It is convincing because he places a human -- someone who for all that it contributes to the question might as well be ourselves -- at the centre of his example.

If you, personally, could not be regarded as "understanding chinese", the argument is that nobody and nothing could. The example is posed in such a way that the primary agent within the computer -- you -- is effectively failing to comprehend the meaning of the exchanges carried out. As a real computer is driven not by an agent, but by physical interactions only, it seems no more likely to be a conscious system than the hypothetical Chinese room.

Kurzweil effectively argues from a position which I myself adopt -- that the brain is demonstrably a machine, and it is absurd to argue that a brain cannot understand language.

However, it seems obvious that in the Chinese room example, the human agent genuinely fails to understand Chinese. Is the same thing true for the overall system? Is it a problem of design rather than necessity? What, then, is it that makes the Chinese room brain an uncomprehending system, but the human brain so wonderful?

Kurzweil offers no direct answers, other than to suggest that the problem is not a logical one (i.e. some contradiction in the very concept of a conscious computer) but an in-the-world one -- i.e. a problem with particular computers.

His argument is, I think, interesting. It seems to me to be useful in refuting the supposed logic of Searle's Chinese room.

Cheers,
-MP

Melbourne Thinkers Week

2006-01-17T10:29:00.000+11:00

MelbournePhilosopher is proud to support Melbourne Thinkers Week (MTW). My contribution has been doing the technical work on the website, including adapting the design, and assisting with some of the content. To tell you what MTW consists of, I quote from the homepage:

"Melbourne Thinkers Week is a Heart of Philosophy initiative celebrating ideas, creativity, discussion and debate about the big ideas and questions for modern life. Join us for debates and discussions with leading national and local thinkers at public lectures, philosophy cafes, corporate ethics events, book launches and a philosophy panel.

The 2006 lecture program includes speakers such as Dr Gilbert Burgh on A Philosophy of Democracy new trends in participatory democracy; Dr. Muhammad Kamal will explore The Meaning of Terrorist; a philosophical inquiry; Ethicist Dr Steve Curry will explore ideas Good and Evil @ the movies and Dr Matthew Sharpe will talk about The meaning of tragedy in today’s culture.

Our Philosophy Cafes with feature Dr Jessica Wolfendale on the Hardened Heart: The Moral Dangers of Not Forgiving; Dr Rob Sparrow takes on a magical journey with Robots and Aged Care and John Lenarcic on University in the Pub: Intelligent Design.

The festival will close with a thoughtful panel discussion on A philosophy for living: explorations of the good life with author John Armstrong, Socratic expert Stan Van Hooft and Graham Priest (Boyce Gibson Chair of Philosophy, Melbourne University)"

This is public philosophy at its best. Please, spread the word and help support this event. There is an opportunity here to build momentum for philosophy not only in Melbourne, but throughout Australia. This is a truly unique event, and I would encourage everyone to get along to some of the free events. Supporting the event by attending one of the paid events will help to cover costs, and thus support continuing efforts to bring philosophy from the academy to the demos.

Cheers,
-MP

The Philosophy of Winning

2006-01-16T16:28:00.000+11:00

MelbournePhilosopher

I was watching tennis recently, and was struck by something. In order to be a great sportsman, you have to be hungry for the win. In sporting competitions, there is only one winner. Given that the cost of winning a tournament is that everyone else loses, the whole thing doesn't seem very virtuous.

If sporting attitude was carried across into, say, social justice, we would live in a fairly ugly world. I suppose in actuality, many of the top performers are adequetly paid for their skills, and they do contribute to our economy.

I was just struck by the idea of being driven by the desire for victory simpliciter over victory for the sake of other things.

I'm pretty sure Plato covered this already, now that I think about it, but it seems that the struggle for victory is in fact entertaining, and resonates with us, even though it is in itself a valueless end.

Cheers,
-MP

A Mathematical Postulate

2006-01-11T13:47:00.000+11:00

This is probably covered elsewhere by better mathematicians than I, but it's something that I have come up with. I think that every infinite series (integers, reals, 2d co-ordinates, 3d-coordinates) can be mapped on a 1-to-1 basis with eachother. That is to say, I think there is a 1-1 mapping between the set of positive integers, and the set of positive reals.

Here is my proposed method. Let us suppose that real numbers are represented decimally, and that things like irrational numbers can be approximated with arbitrary precision decimally. That is to say, pi can be represented by 3.14159... to any accuracy.

Any decimal number can be represted uniquely by an integer.

Let every even digit count as the "whole number part" (in reverse order) and every odd digit count as the "fractional" part.

3.14159 would then be represented by 3104010509. 245.3 would be represented by 53402. 34.98765 would be represented by 4938070605.

In this way, you can see that there is a way to translate losslessly between these two number series.

However, in order to represent a decimal number to precision X, you need 2X integer digits. This number I shall call the "order" of the infinite set. The integers are order one, and the reals are order two.

Consider, then, a 2D co-ordinate system of infinite length along each axis. What you have then is an order 4 system. In order to "pack" the set into an integer mapping, you need every integer to map uniquely onto a pair of real numbers.

In this mapping, you would a sequence of four numbers. Let X and Y refer to the co-ordinate axes, wPart refer to whole number parts, fPart refer to fractional number parts, and n refer to the position along the number line.

The integer would then be a series of four-digit identifiers, like : )nXwPart, nXfPart, nYwPart, nYfPart)....

A philosophy lecturer of mine used a similar concept to try and prove that the reals were a *larger* set than the integers -- that is to say that there are *more* reals than integers. I would accept that the reals are a larger set in the sense that their "order" is greater, but I can't see that given one can find a 1-to-1 mapping between the reals and the integers, that there are truly any more of them.

Cheers,
-MP

Lightness

2006-01-08T12:01:00.000+11:00

I have been reading "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", which is a book about the contradiction between an event meaning everything, and meaning nothing. Part of the contradiction is our poor understanding of "meaning", I would argue, but this doesn't detract from the very real mental effects.

Everyone, I might suggest, has at some point realised that things which are really terribly meaningful, like say the French revolution, just don't matter very much to them. They're not connected to them, and it's of no particular importance how history has unfolded. The suffering of thousands is reduced to a historical anecdote -- intellectually of some significance, but without real impact on each of us.

Similarly, our own lives are doomed to insignificance. What does it matter what we achieve?

For me the question is -- why does this bother some of us so much? Is it merely a frustrated desire for immortality? Is this why we are driven to concieve of fate, gods and eternal meaning? Why is the pleasure of life not enough? Why do we apply the term meaning to our lives, as though there were some greater arbiter of the meaning of things that our own collective consciousnesses?

Cheers,
-MP

Holidays and Laziness

2006-01-04T16:02:00.000+11:00

MelbournePhilosopher

I'm on holidays. Laziness reigns.

-MP

Alternatives to Idealism

2005-12-22T15:09:00.000+11:00

MelbournePhilosopher

Something which I have never seen covered fully in philosophy is a thorough analysis of the alternatives to idealism.

In fact, I can think of only two methods, broadly speaking, of knowledge representation used by philosophers. Idealism is one, and Relationism is another. Relationism isn't usually the term coined in those cases, but refers to Eastern ideas about Emptiness and reality.

Idealism has its roots with Plato, and Western philosophy has largely progressed from there. Under Idealism, everything has a definite "is" nature -- or to put it some other ways, a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for identity, definite set members, can be operated on using the law of the excluded middle, is mutually exclusive with its opposites and has an inherent nature.

Relationism is different. It supposes that the existence of a thing and its characteristics are not owned by that thing alone, but rather include references to its context. All things are complexes -- that is that at every level of consideration, there is some further subdivision of logic possible. Yin and Yang are opposites, but at their centre is a seed of the other. Under Relationism (relativity, whatever), things only exist in context.

Some kinds of alternative logic, often based on one of these, and occasionally a synthesis, may be found. Paraconsistent logic, spearheaded by Graham Priest, is one such logical form. Objects in a paraconsistent knowledge scheme can break some of the Idealist rules outlined earlier, but do not obey Relational ones either. Rather, paraconsistent logic is an exercise in seeing what happens if you "break" logic.

There is some reason to believe that human brain processing is in fact Relational, but that conscious reasoning is broadly Idealistic. The hardware of the brain is clearly Relational, yet reasoning in this manner does not often come naturally to people.

However, it occurs to MP that there may be as yet unconsidered options. Perhaps readers could suggest some options?

I would suggest that for every claim under either scheme, it would be possible to make a meta-claim. For example "X is Red" and "(X is Red) is Idealistic", or "Y is Purple" and "(Y is Purple) is Relational".

Can the space of meta-claims be broken cleanly into Idealism and Relationism? Are these two mutually exclusive? Under some kind of logical framework, will the conclusions of one ever contradict the other? Which best captures reality? Are there some observations which may be described more naturally under one than the other? Can anyone think of any other options?

Cheers,
-MP

Abundance and Responsibility

2005-12-22T12:53:00.000+11:00

Inequity, which often occurs when individuals have an unusual abundance, is generally thought of as a bad thing. Indeed, many philosophies (especially political philosophies) are centrally concerned with minimising inequity.

What responsibilities do individuals have towards equity (or equality, if you prefer) and to what extent do the negative aspects of inequity reduce the positive aspects of abundance?

Ones position on society and individualism will often be the central issue when considering this question. Let us for the moment ignore situations where ones own abundance causes harm to others, and just look at the case of relative advantage.

Is pleasure any better depending on who experiences it? What reason do we have for preferring our own pleasure to the pleasure of others? If we had the power to allocate pleasure to others, on what basis would we distribute it? If pleasure is a scarce resource, do we have the right to experience more than other people?

I for one sometimes experience a curious feeling when I notice that other people are not happy despire an abundant situation, or are clearly pursuing strategies which are making them unhappy. (for example, not being ambitious at work but also being made unhappy by low wages) To what extent should one simple please oneself in the face of this?

Some people will regard societal responsibility, but consider also the happiness of close friends and loved ones, whose welfare you care about. To what extent should one be indifferent to their achievement of pleasure, and pursue ones own to the greatest extent? If (for example) a close friend is needlessly miserable, to what extent should you ignore this or attempt to improve it?

This is the dilemma -- one has greatest power over ones own happiness, but when one is unhappy, it happiness seems most unattainable. When another person is unhappy, one is in fact relatively powerless to improve their situation, yet they themselves are most in need.

In some cases, the giving of affection or goods will help their situation, but this is by no means always true.

Where your own situation is abundant, but another is in need, the inequity of the situation seems to exacerbate the problem. Is your abundance itself a bad thing in that situation, or is the problem elsewhere?

Questions without answers.

Cheers,
-MP

No more I.D. in Dover

2005-12-21T10:15:00.000+11:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/20/intelligent.design.ap/index.html

Teaching creationism is illegal in the U.S., so this seems like the proper application of the law. It seems to be an extreme act of contortion to suggest that I.D. != creationism.

For myself, I regard I.D. as unscientific but not unreasonable. The gaps in science are smaller than the plug of religion. It has a place in education, but not in science, which has a fairly strict definition which does not seem to be in need of alteration.

To quote from the original statement by the school: "Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations."

Gaps exist do exist in the theory (yet if there is no evidence for them, how do we know they are there? zing!) but neither is there counter-evidence. A common accusation made against religion is that God does appear to be "God of the Gaps". Of course, this is silly, because there are diverse religious positions, many of which have alternative explanations or indeed fully embrace evolution as the origin of life.

My current thinking is that almost nothing said in the name of religion is in fact the exclusive domain of religion, but is rather reflective of individual attitudes and preferences. As such, using religion as the basis for ones reasoning is a poor start, as there will exist an opposite view proceeding from the same basis.

Cheers,
-MP

Plato on Abundance

2005-12-20T16:58:00.000+11:00

Another philosopher who had somewhat to say on the topic of Abundance was Plato. Unlike some others, he was essentially in favour. However, he said, we should not be unrealistic.

A suitable amount of abundance is simply necessary, in his view, to meet the needs of man. One cannot really be happy without some measure of comfort to ones environment, protection from harm, adequete food, good friends, and so forth. Charity was seen as good, however on must have a suitable level of surplus before one can engage in charity without making oneself miserable.

While Socrates never had any wealth of his own, he did not lack for abundance, thanks to the generosity of his friends.

However, he does have rather a lot to say about temperance. There is a certain line of logic to consumerism, which suggests that if a little bit of expenditure makes us a little bit happy, the path to the greatest happiness is the greatest expenditure. Unfortunately, unrestricted desire, which is regarded by some as a part of human nature, can never be truly fulfilled. While pleasing our desires is good to do, expanding our desires beyond our means is frustrating.

Unlike Schopenhauer, who suggests minimising our desires (and worse, our expectations), Plato takes a more middle-of-the-road position. In fact, he rather elevates the importance of the mental life over that of the physical, but the "Golden Mean" philosophy later promoted by Aristotle is an echo of Plato's earlier work.

Abundance, then, is not good in itself, but is necessary for the Good Life. This term (in Greek, Eudaimonia) means being committed to things that are advantageous both for the soul, mind and body. Under the term, there is no true conflict between those goals, as Plato's philosophy is idealised.

Unfortunately, I'm not an idealist, so this argument just doesn't wash with me. Oh well, abundance is still *nice*. And I do agree -- an element of temperance in ones goals, or more simply a committment to being happy with what you have, seems to be good for the soul, mind and body. Just don't get *too* comfortable!

Cheers,
-MP

Schopenhauer on Abundance

2005-12-16T16:29:00.000+11:00

I haven't studied S directly, but I have read some interpretations. His central thesis seems to be that it's better to be pleasantly surprised, often, than unpleasantly surprised often or even with equal probability.

He suggest that people tend to be over-optimistic, and that this leads to a perpetual state of disappointments based on our failed hopes and ambitions.

A good strategy, then, is to temper those hopes and ambitions in order to experience a greater satisfaction.

It seem to me to be generally a good thing not to aim wildly beyond ones capacity due to the inevitability of disappointment, but if one aims beneath ones capacity, one is in fact foregoing satisfaction.

It seems difficult to argue on a utilitarian basis that anything other than perfect expectations could lead to the best outcome. It strikes me that Schopenhauer's method of adopting low expectations in fact lowers the utility one gains during a period of life.

The most obvious example to use is that of a relationship. If I am pessimistic about the future of that relationship, I may in the short term be happily surprised by its success. However, the best course of action given my expectations would be to guard myself against failure -- perhaps by breaking things off early, or by not committing to something which would most likely be a source of more pain than pleasure. In short, my beliefs about the success of the relationship in part determine the success of it.

On the other hand, if I am over-optimistic about the relationship, then I may in fact bring about its greater success. This could happen through such a mechanism as my partner responding to my enthusiasm, being grateful for my efforts and committment and so forth.

Without perfect knowledge about the outcomes of ones actions, it seems to be the case that neither pessimism nor optimism will lead to greater happiness. Optimism may lead to greater disappointment, but pessimism may lead to less opportunity for satisfaction. Optimism may lead to greater satisfaction, and pessimism may protect us from harm.

On consequential grounds, then, it seems that sometimes optimism will turn out to be the better strategy, and sometimes the worst.

Given that seemingly inescapable truth, it seems that the most accurate expectations will bring the greatest happiness. Oh, would that it were so easy! :)

For my relationship example, the clincher seems to be that pure optimism in fact makes me happy. So there!

Cheers,
-MP

Abundance

2005-12-14T16:06:00.000+11:00

MelbournePhilosopher

For the longest in I don't know how long, I feel completely blessed to have so much abundance. This demands a philosophical response!

Some people claim that all art is created from dissatisfaction, but I disagree and have always done so. Some artwork, I think, springs from an entirely positive artisitic intention.

Philosophy is the same for me. While nobody else might be able to "read" my art exactly as I intended it, it is for me an equally expressive medium as language. I believe that I genuinely have entirely abstract thoughts which are expressible through art. Sometimes, the artwork includes a structure which is linked to cognitive structure, just as words are linked to meaning.

My point, insofar as I have one, is that (a) philosophy should contribute to positively motivated theories as well as negative difficulties, and that (b) this is not obvious. I'm not intending to back that claim up very much here, but at least the perspective can be understood. If it's topical, I may return and provide a more thorough analysis.

Regardless, I am currently feeling like a very lucky ducky. Given how much philosophy is dedicated to dealing with feelings of inadequecy, choosing the "right" kind of action in adverse circumstances, etc, it would be only a rigorous test to check that those same theories applied properly to examples of a multiplicity of goods as well as a multiplicity of evils.

How might, for example, and ethicist view a person who has access to both wealth, personal satisfaction, and love? Dealing with scarcity is one thing, but how is one to deal with abundance? Can abundance be relied upon? Is it better to be optimistic or pessismistic about the future, and how does this change with circumstances of abundance?

What would Nietzsche, or Schopenhauer, or the Dalai Lama say about such things? What about Jesus, or Wittgenstein, or Heidegger?

I suppose the religiously oriented would promote some kind of sacrifice or tithing of material wealth, but nonmaterial wealth has no such nature. Something like love, or happiness is not something which must be given up in order to be shared. It is, in principle, a resource with infinite supply. Does that make one greedy if one accumulates it?

In a sense, material wealth is tithed to the state in order to fund delegated responsibility. It is, I would argue, perfectly reasonable to claim than ones economic ethical demands are met by the payment of taxes.

Ah well, just lucky I guess. Probably best to be pessimistic, and continue to plan for disaster! I might turn back to the issue through the eyes of some specific philosophers in coming days, and see if their ideas stand up under abundance.

Cheers,
-MP

Racism in Australia

2005-12-12T15:00:00.000+11:00

In the past, I've claimed that racism has little to do with the facts, but rather is about dehumanising people.

We have recently have had some riots here in Australia, reports of which are frightening to read.

There simply is no philosophical argument for racism. In fact, it can perhaps be attacked as a Sorites, or line-drawing, paradox. In short, the grounds for discrimination are arbitrary, and thus unsupportable.

The question is why we have significant numbers of people who are so easily whipped up into violence? It would be easy to suggest that pure youthful rebellion could be the cause, but I think that the media, governments and other sources of authority have themselves to blame also.

For any Idealist, it is difficult to see terrorism and incomprehensible foreigners in complex terms. When the world is seen through black and white, polarity is the only possibility. The representation of the world in these terms by the media, the government and other figures of authority has been quite sad in my opinion. As I see it, more intelligent reporting and representing could easily have avoided this sad outcome.

When people are angry, that anger demands an outlet. Unless that anger is properly connected to the real cause of people's unhappiness, it can only ever find an inappropriate expression.

The human mind can never wholly eliminate either good or evil, but either can be exaggerated. The rioters no doubt included people with whom I would get along in other circumstances. Casting them in the light of rednecked morons, while containing an element of the truth, is not the whole truth either. That is only to compound a problem of polarisation with further polarisation.

I condemn their actions, but I also find the entire situation sad, and all too avoidable. I hope we see a strong response to this by the government and media sources.

Cheers,
-MP

Seditious Philosophy

2005-12-02T15:07:00.000+11:00

I read with some interest the sadly short piece of philosophy by Charles Richardson. In his defense, there is no other way to approach the problem in this format, but perhaps some short discussion would be useful. Firstly, the contradiction is that peace is a virtue, while violence is a vice -- hence "vicious". It would seem then that the support for violent ends must always be a vice. What, then, is sedition other than a vicious act? The way to resolve the dilemma is in terms how how all violence is justified -- in terms of the greater good. While violent ends are clearly wrong, violent means have been pursued throughout history to ends of ambiguous virtue. The existing sedition legislation is little more than a support structure for the existing power heirarchies of our society. It is phrased not in terms of violent ends, but in self-serving terms which make the institution itself the ultimate moral goal. The phrase which I think is most problematic is now quoted: "[it is a crime] to excite disaffection against the Government or Constitution of the Commonwealth or against either House of the Parliament of the Commonwealth;".

The key works, I think, are being co-opted into wider arguments surrounding the incumbent government. I think it is reasonable to legislate against violent attacks on government and constitutional democracy as such, and few people would disagree. The ambiguity over the term "disaffection" suggests that the laws may be enforceable against peaceful protest, and perhaps be used for party political goals, which calls for careful attention. Wider readings of the proposed legislation are not so ambiguous, however.

Nonetheless, it seems at least possible to have phrased the anti-sedition laws solely in terms of protection from violence. The question is why this has not been done.

Cheers,
-MP

Standing in Judgement

2005-11-30T16:04:00.000+11:00

Quick quiz :: When you judge someone, there is an associated feeling.

Does this feeling get aroused every time you observe a wrong act? Does this feeling sometimes get aroused by an act which you do not think is wrong?

Cheers,
-MP

Can you see what I see?

2005-11-29T11:11:00.000+11:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10239783/

This fascinating article calls into serious question an old first-year problem -- "How do you know that things look the same to other people?" How do we know, for example, that red looks (subjectively speaking) the same to other people?

Perhaps you and I percieve colour differently, and when I point to something with a "red" wavelength, and say the word "red", I'm actually experiencing the same thing as when you see yellow. Of course, due to a lifetime of conditioning and learning, we both have learnt to respond in exactly the same way -- but we still have different experiences.

These images of people's retinas suggests there may be more to this conundrum than first thought.

Cheers,
-MP

I Can Save Telstra

2005-11-25T10:30:00.000+11:00

In light of the continuing decline of Telstra share prices, and most likely their business, I would like to stand up and offer my services as CEO. I believe I could turn around the current decline and work within existing laws.

I would stand on a platform of open governance, working with small providers as an infrastructure provider to ensure access to high-speed internet services, new telephony technologies and rural access going forward into the future. Costs will be cut by (sadly) dropping some staff, and re-concentrating efforts towards infrastructure investment, new technology adoption and a streamlining of existing services.

Retail and wholesale divisions would be split in terms of accounting, with the retail divisions of Telstra competing on the same basis as external organisations. Business components should succeed on their own merits, otherwise it is (by definition) not worth having them. Obviously, access to company funds in order to meet this challenge would be made available, but clear accounting and Key Performance Indicators would be publically tracked.

In order to fully support bush services, I would place a bush support surcharge on all wholesale products offered, which would go directly to a new business unit whose sole responsibility would be planning and deployment in this area. This already occurs with Optus and telephony, but the charge would be extended to every use of Telstra baseline products.

To achieve economy, telephony would be migrated to VOIP, and in the longer term be merged with mobile services. A ubiquitous telephony infrastructure would allow Telstra best advantage from their technical expertise, as well as provide a truly reliable and decentralised exchange mechanism. This is in keeping with global developments and should allow much greater efficiency.

There is not the space in this small post to outline the detail of my broader platform. However, I believe I have the expertise to understand the industry, the tenacity to succeed where others have failed, and the intelligence to avoid disaster. Never before has a national icon been so in need of my assistance, and I offer it gladly. I would accept a salary on $150,000 per year plus a company car. This in itself would offer significant savings to the organisation, especially if this attitude were to permeate upper management. I simply have no need for any more.

Cheers,
-MP

Ubiquitous computing coming to an Xbox near you

2005-11-24T10:48:00.000+11:00

In my other life, I'm a Big Geek. I was reading slashdot , and I came across this story about Microsoft selling the Xbox behind profit.

The journo covering the story decided that the motivation could only be making a profit on games.

Myself, I think the motivation is more clever and more long-term than this. The Xbox is, oh so nearly, a fantastic media center for the home. With appropriate gadgetry, this device could replace the home PC for those interested primarily in email, web surfing, music and DVDs. We're almost at the point that I wanted to be at 10 years ago.

Forget the games. The Xbox gets Microsoft into the home via the children, but wins over the household when they discover they can replace their DVD player, they can buy all their hokey favourites using iTunes and pipe them straight through that lovely 5.1 system which is being frankly wasted by having to shuffle through the music collection one meagre CD at a time.

Microsoft are starting the media revolution, and they've got several years head-start on Linux or other commercial vendors when it comes to offering a unit which parents and children alike will eventually learn to love. Watch it folks, the PC has left the study...

Cheers,
-MP

Crappy story in today's "Age"

2005-11-23T11:33:00.000+11:00

I won't dignify it with a link, but there was a real shoddy-journalism article on page one of the online edition today, covering Internet addiction by teenagers.

While I don't doubt that Internet is a real and unfortunate problem for some people, the article was centered more around scare-mongering.

Statistics of 14 hours a week of Internet usage were cited as example cases. Most families easily watch this much television in a week. Why single out people who are using the Internet? At least email is a form of social interaction, and at least gaming is an interactive process.

Rather that worrying about "addiction" with a stick-only attitude, I think that people should simply concentrate on ensuring that any addictive activity is balanced by other inputs also.

Parents should not worry about their children's Internet addictions during the ad-breaks of their favourite T.V. programs. Pot, meet kettle.

Cheers,
-MP

Some Extra Domains

2005-11-22T15:07:00.000+11:00

Sorry for the silence. I've been messing about with my other websites, and now MelbournePhilosophy.com and tennessee.id.au both point to this blog. I've come to a number of realisations -- mostly to do with my own modest limitations. I'm not doing anything good with the other websites, so I'm going to point everything to the most dynamic site that I manage, namely this one.

I had an idea which I wanted to post. It was to do with analogy, which I am coming to believe is the central method of both learning and conversation. Every analogy is an analogy with the self. The stronger the analogy to the self, the better our understanding of the object.

While we obviously come to understand some things in themselves, we usually approach new things through metaphor. The hardest thing to understand is that which is alien to us. Some people react with curiosity, some with fear. Some will make a false inference, linking new ideas in ways which are simply not correct.

I was thinking about this originally in the context of interpersonal relationships -- smart/stupid, rich/poor, educated/uneducated etc etc. I think that in extreme cases, there is a very wide disconnect between ourselves and the people we are trying to relate to, and the breakdown is due to the problem of analogy. We cannot see things from their perspective.

It then occurred to me that some people might be entirely unaware of this process of analogy. The "Us and them" mentality of so much cruelty to me speaks also of a breakdown in analogy. People are able to disconnect from other groups despite their humanity because they aren't the same kind of person. Without any bridge between them, there can be no real relationship.

Ach, I don't know. Just an idle musing.

Cheers,
-MP

Collaborative News

2005-11-18T11:19:00.000+11:00

http://www.digg.com/

Okay, here's where the good new is today. It's simple. A page of links, arranged by vote, submitted by readers. Tech-oriented, but if you don't like that, vote for something else and be a part of it.

A bit like what I tried to do for a while with philosophy news aggregation. Unfortunately, stuff broke and I never fixed it, but I still like to keep an eye on similar grassroots news sources. I tend to feel that such sites are more likely to reflect my tastes, and less likely to reflect vested interests.

Cheers,
-T

Exam Completed

2005-11-11T15:27:00.000+11:00

Hi all,

Sorry for the sorry silence of late. I've just finished my final philosophy exam, thus wrapping up my diploma, and I will be returning to blogging next week.

I had intended to blog throughout this period, but I've just been too exhausted, as I have had to keep up appearances on many fronts.

Next week: What is philosohy?, the philosophy of local politics, analogies with the self, and why morality is not idealistic...

Cheers,
-MP

Geeking Out

2005-10-28T00:18:00.000+10:00

It's 12:03 A.M., and I've just opened up the laptop to jot down a random thought. Aso some people will know, as well as being a philosophy tragic, I'm like, a total geek. Sure, I play sports and can get some pleasure from "normal" activity, but it doesn't take much to set me off.

At work, I am a software developer. Right now, I'm enjoying using the Python language. I used to like Java, but then I found Python. It's *my* kind of language. I first experienced what has often been reported to me, as I incorrectly assumed, facetiously. I was "thinking" in Python.

It's like learning another language of any kind. Usually, you're just reaching for your phrasebook so that you can express what you've just thought of in English. Programming is a bit like that, but more so.

You break down a problem in your head, into parts and things that need to be done, just like if you were planning to fix your gutters, or go away on holiday. Then, you express all of that in code.

Some people report periods in which they actually *thought* in that programming language, just as scholars of a foreign language might eventually have a whole thought entirely in that language.

For about two minutes, I did that. I was following through and modifying some of my code, and instead of thinking "Right, so this is where I'm doing task X, but I need do to task Y, my internal monologue was actually *in* Python.

This might sound like, well, a load of crap, especially to non-programmers, but bear with me. Geeky programmers might get it. Heidegger would probably get it -- he invented a whole language for his philosophy.

Wittgenstein would probably just goggle while I missed the point of communication with enough velocity to get into orbit. He might accept that in conversation with a computer, truly well-defined terms might be agreed upon, but still fail to capture any real meaning.

I also reckon some artists have it -- they think "in" their medium, they have whole, real ideas that do not express themselves linguistically, but according to the metaphors of their art.

I wonder if a musician might have it, or an athlete, or a martial artist... Now there's reasoning with your fists!

So maybe, it's just not that unusual. Have you ever had an experience like this? What other kinds of mental structure can you think in? Are these the ramblings of someone who couldn't get to sleep?

Cheers,
-MP

Intelligent by Association

2005-10-27T15:21:00.000+10:00

When I first bought my copy of "Basic Writings of Nietzsche", I noticed the quote on the back.

"Neitzsche is one of the few philosophers since Plato whom large numbers of intelligent people read for pleasure." -- Walter Kaufman

Upon discovering that I did not get very much pleasure from my first reading, I was quite disappointed. Recently, however, I had cause to read "Beyond Good and Evil" while looking for material on the relationship between normativity and morality (if any). I found myself enjoying it immensely! Perhaps I have become more intelligent in the meantime?

If you could be intelligent by association, with whom would you choose to associate? I think for me it would be Wittgenstein.

Cheers,
-MP

Terror laws may face legal challenge

2005-10-25T10:48:00.000+10:00

Today's blog is similarly free from personal contribution. Today's age contained this article, which I found so interesting in its own right that I could not think of any very useful distillation or commentary for presentation here. Perhaps tomorrow I will provide a follow-up with my responses and criticisms from a philosophical perspective.

I have quoted the opening paragraphs for your interest.

Cheers,
-MP

"The federal government's planned anti-terror laws could be open to legal challenge that could collapse the entire package, legal experts say.

Judges and magistrates would be within their rights to argue that the legislation undermined the independence of the judiciary, constitutional lawyer John Williams said.

Dr Williams, of the Australian National University, believed a High Court challenge to the laws was almost inevitable.

"I could not see that this legislation could operate for long without a challenge being made," he told ABC radio today.

"Under the legislation, by concealing charges, by forcibly removing people, to holding them in camera, in so much as you're asking the judiciary to be involved either as individuals or as a court, you're asking them to undertake activities which are just wholly incompatible with what we understand the judicial process is.""

Zombie Lurch 2005

2005-10-24T10:46:00.000+10:00

I was thinking some very deep thoughts, struggling with deep existential questions, when I stumbled across this website .

Immediately, I realised that my tiny problems didn't matter a damn, and I had found a campaign worth rallying around.

The Zombie Lurch 2005. Every country should have one.

In some effort to at least segway towards a philosophical question, isn't it interesting how Undead creatures are portrayed as having little mind of their own, yet are still poignantly linked to their former lives? Personally, I'd like to see a movie where people became ludicrously attractive when turned into zombies. That way, the contrast between their vapid existence and their physical form would be all the more ironic and striking.

Perhaps we could have magazines dedicated to Zombification, such that the Zombie state seemed like an end in itself, the goal of life rather than the upturning of everything valuable.

And, on a final note for Zombie aspirants, I recommend the soothing vibes of Zombo Com.

Cheers,
-MP

Normativity -- more than just morality

2005-10-21T16:30:00.000+10:00

I was hoping to get some comments from readers as to the issues around normativity.

I was struggling recently to communicate how all kinds of social pressures impact on people, coming to form the very basis for what they think is right and wrong.

Good examples would help, descriptions of the process, etc etc.

Cheers,
-MP

The Long Now -- A Beautiful Idea

2005-10-20T12:52:00.000+10:00

When I started reading "The Long Now" , I had no idea that I was in for a real intellectual treat.

The idea is simple -- to build a clock that will last for ten thousand years. This is roughly as long as human technology has existed. It is so long that society has progressed from the first pottery, including the first towns, cities, agricultural developments, roads, wars, philosophy and computing.

The idea grows on one with, er, time, as one is encouraged to really imagine what people in the distant future might think about ourselves today. One imagines that people in the future to be valuable individuals, that we are connected to through something more concrete than the uncertain results of our own actions. Through such a construction, one can very nearly reach out and touch the generations to come.

Obviously, this has captured my imagination. The original article made for an enlightening read, and I hope you enjoy it too.

Cheers,
-MP

Politics, Passion and Pain

2005-10-19T16:32:00.000+10:00

I can't help it. I'm the most pessimistic optimist I know.

Now, don't get me wrong, I fully understand that a pessimist is just what an optimist calls a realist, but *even so*, I can't help getting worked up now and then about a few things.

What spawns this particular cycle of getting my hopes up and then having them come back to earth is the recent advertising spurt from the content-free "All Australia Party". Big on words but small on information, these people have been peppering the media with messages about providing an alternative to the major parties in the upcoming Victorian state election.

The guy behind the wheel is called David Sell, who appears to be a marketing guy who has done some work in local politics before. I've signed up to the mailing list. It should be interesting to see whether the response makes it past my spam filter.

Now, I'd dearly love to get involved in politics. I'm a hopeless opinion-giver. The best I can do is try to improve the quality of my opinions, because God knows I can't make myself stop. So when someone started talking to me through the airwaves asking me if I'd like to see some credible opposition to the bunch of lazy liars who constitute our political leaders, I instantly felt a little happier.

Sadly, by 1am I had given up on them. Their web forum had no comments from the "party spokesperson". The party isn't registered with the Australian Electoral Commission. The internet shows nothing of interest, they have no policies. All signs are pointing to a one-man band, or perhaps worse, some kind of bizarre political front.

There is a little grist for the rumour-mill however. In a document dated 19th December 1999, "All Australia Party" was listed as the possible name for a new party formed from the ashes of "One Nation". Possibly, the name has simply appeared twice. Or maybe something more sinister is going on.

David's e-Business appears to be available also, although not much seems to be for sale .

The new "British" colour scheme for Australia listed on their website has me somewhat confused also. Although in the current climate, a "royals into government" party might just get my vote. If I'm going to be screwed by the man, I might as well get royally screwed.

Cheers,
-MP

Philosophy for Groups -- another segment.

2005-10-18T17:42:00.000+10:00

Apologies in advance for any formatting problems resulting from the cut and paste operation.

Cheers,
-MP

Before Individualism
In the last section we looked at morality as it related to others – our tribe. While this contributes a lot, there is another and quite different moral standpoint which has been very influential in the past. It springs from how individuals are rewarded for their behaviour, what constitutes the “best” possible person, and how best to shape our characters.

To some people, the idea of a “best” possible person may seem so obvious it should be taken for granted, while to others it will seem so strange that they will assume such a term is metaphorical at best.

For those people who consider the idea of a best person to be uncontroversial, the opposite position is that people are of equal worth, regardless of their circumstance or character. Adopting such a belief may have certain game-theoretic advantages if it is adopted across a community. A society which is based on sacrifice for others forms a more competitive group than a greedy society. It can be argued that morality is by definition based on a respect for the moral worth of others.

The moral implications of the position that people are of equal worth are widespread, forming the basis for ideas of fundamental human rights, the justification for the use of force and definition of personal liberty.

For those who are more inclined to believe in the equal moral worth of individuals, it is well worth considering the alternatives. Many religious positions for example save or damn individuals, rather than societies. Criminal behaviour seems to benefit no-one, often not even the perpetrator (especially when the opportunity cost is considered). It is difficult to settle this against a belief that they are equally as good as someone who acts for the betterment of all.

A trite logical response might be to suggest that if one is not morally harmed by any action (because people are always of equal moral worth), then morality loses its potency.

We have already discussed individualism to some extent. The birth of individualism is in the warrior spirit – a moral path which is seen in the origins of most (but by no means all) modern cultures.

Individualism is about glorifying people rather than groups, and about looking at responsibility from a perspective of its benefit to you rather than because of the value of the principles at stake. The heroic virtues may be ones which are good for society, but this is the beginning of a belief that ones primary responsibility is to your own benefit.

From there, it is easy to develop a morality in which our own benefit begins to outweigh our responsibility to others. The perspective shift may not have obvious immediate consequences, but I believe that the subtle difference accounts for the eventual placement of the right to wealth above the more basic rights of others.

People, of course, have always pursued things for their own gain, but in today's society we have reached the point where people who gain more are actually seen as better people, and that is where the difference lies.

It is the tendency for things which are respected or rewarded in society to become regarded as morally good. It is probably true that most of our moral beliefs are arrived at in this manner (consider the parenting a child) but that some are the result of, for want of a better word, our nature.

Physical prowess has always been a cause for respect. Even in today's society where a great deal of other advantages can be gained without it, we still admire those who are physically strong and graceful. The effect was more exaggerated in the distant past, where power was more defined by physical traits than intellectual ones.

In all examples of individualist morality, the question is not “What do I have to achieve for society in order to be good”, but rather “What kind of person must I be in order to be good”. In the above example, strong people are good people. The same manner of speaking may be extended to the kind of things more traditionally thought of as moral goods – e.g. courage and honesty.

The obvious conclusion of an individualist moral system is to invent a person who most embodies the extolled virtues. In history, I believe that the most realistic example of this is the existence of a warrior class, who are accorded fame and respect according to their individual merits. In the next sections, we will examine some particular examples, starting with feudal Japan.

Bushido
Bushido means, roughly, way of the warrior. It refers equally to mundane and moral matters. Bushido is both a highly pragmatic term, encompassing the technical aspects of swordplay, training and so forth, as well as the beliefs and attitudes which should be adopted by the warrior.

The Samurai were active as recently as around 1400 A.D., and were present in society when international trade first reached their borders. This is a similar time period to the knightly orders in the West, and they will be considered later. Bushido was never formalised as with Knightly Orders, but a number of key texts exist which give us some insight into their core beliefs and attitudes. The Samurai were given nobility by birth, but were also expected to pursue a particular moral code.

In the main, the Samurai are rather over-glorified by folklore, not so different from an infantryman of today. However, they also contained individuals who took the Bushido very seriously, and it is from them that the best philosophy also comes. It if were to be simplified to a single sentence, Bushido might be an acceptance of the inevitability of death, and the greater importance of living a good life than a long one. The concept of death present in Bushido comes from a beautiful philosophy of meaning, coming originally from China and India.

Unlike modern ethics where suicide is generally considered a bad thing, the Bushido holds it to be redemptive. It is seen as the acceptance that an immoral life is not worth living, and committing ritual suicide is in fact the only way to live up to ones principles. It is not better to die than to live, but living is only worthwhile if one lives well. After a disgrace, ritual suicide is the best way of living up to ones principles. Not to commit suicide is to reject the value of living a principled life.

In an excerpt from the chapter "AN ACCOUNT OF THE HARA-KIRI" in Mitford's "Tales of Old Japan", the author describes a friend witnessing an act of Seppuku:
"There are many stories on record of extraordinary heroism being displayed in the hara-kiri. The case of a young fellow, only twenty years old, of the Choshiu clan, which was told me the other day by an eye-witness, deserves mention as a marvellous instance of determination. Not content with giving himself the one necessary cut, he slashed himself thrice horizontally and twice vertically. Then he stabbed himself in the throat until the dirk protruded on the other side, with its sharp edge to the front; setting his teeth in one supreme effort, he drove the knife forward with both hands through his throat, and fell dead."
Determination is central to Bushido. One of the principles of Bushido is that one should be so committed to action, than even in death one should be capable of performing ones final task.

It is difficult, I think, to understand the principles of Bushido if one is afraid of death. It would, I think be very liberating if one had no fear of death, and no desire to live other than in accordance with ones principles.

From the Book of the Five Rings:
“There are various Ways. There is the Way of salvation by the law of Buddha, the Way of Confucius governing the Way of learning, the Way of healing as a doctor, as a poet teaching the Way of Waka, tea, archery, and many arts and skills. Each man practices as he feels inclined.
It is said the warrior's is the twofold Way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both Ways. Even if a man has no natural ability he can be a warrior by sticking assiduously to both divisions of the Way. Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death. Although not only warriors but priests, women, peasants and lowlier folk have been known to die readily in the cause of duty or out of shame, this is a different thing. The warrior is different in that studying the Way of strategy is based on overcoming men. By victory gained in crossing swords with individuals, or enjoining battle with large numbers, we can attain power and fame for ourselves or for our lord. This is the virtue of strategy. “
From the Book of the Five Rings:
“The Ni To Ichi Way of strategy is recorded in this the Book of the Void.
What is called the spirit of the void is where there is nothing. It is not included in man's knowledge. Of course the void is nothingness. By knowing things that exist, you can know that which does not exist. That is the void.
People in this world look at things mistakenly, and think that what they do not understand must be the void. This is not the true void. It is bewilderment.
In the Way of strategy, also, those who study as warriors think that whatever they cannot understand in their craft is the void. This is not the true void.
To attain the Way of strategy as a warrior you must study fully other martial arts and not deviate even a little from the Way of the warrior. With your spirit settled, accumulate practice day by day, and hour by hour. Polish the twofold spirit heart and mind, and sharpen the twofold gaze perception and sight. When your spirit is not in the least clouded, when the clouds of bewilderment clear away, there is the true void.
Until you realise the true Way, whether in Buddhism or in common sense, you may think that things are correct and in order. However, if we look at things objectively, from the viewpoint of laws of the world, we see various doctrines departing from the true Way. Know well this spirit, and with forthrightness as the foundation and the true spirit as the Way. Enact strategy broadly, correctly and openly.
Then you will come to think of things in a wide sense and, taking the void as the Way, you will see the Way as void.
In the void is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom has existence, principle has existence, the Way has existence, spirit is nothingness.
It is interesting to consider how differently the West and the East view the cycle of life and death. Both espouse moral virtues, that is to say principles of life which are considerate toward ones own well-being, and the well-being of others. However, in the West, being alive is considered the most important aspect of well-being, whereas in the east, moral behaviour is most important.

It is not strictly on topic, but I think worthwhile to consider the alternative view of life and death which is put forward by Buddhism and Taoism. They vary significantly, but share a common aesthetic. The specific views here will be Taoist Philosophy.
The Tao
In the West, the idea of a continued existence after death is used to rationalise self-sacrifice. In the East, the idea of death is itself attacked, which has wide implication.

The Eastern ideas about the cycle of life and death are compelling and fascinating. Many of them are quite naturalistic, interpreting the Tao (the way of things) without reference to the supernatural or divine. Others use god myths as a part of their framework.

Under Taoist philosophy, there is no constant you. An easy way to consider this is to remember all the different states of mind you have ever been in, all the states of knowledge and ignorance which you have ever had, all the happinesses and sadnesses.

Under Taoist philosophy, all things which we give names to are just collections of things which have come together for a time, and will separate again in time.

Consider the experiences of other people. In some ways, another's experience of an idea is much like your own experience of that same idea. It is not the idea which makes up your identity, but rather the different relationship to your other ideas and experiences.

The identity “you” is not the declaration of a thing, but rather a name for the relationship between all the ideas which you have. When you die, many of the ideas which went to make up your identity still exist in other minds. Perhaps you might have contributed some of your ideas to another person. In this way, all identities are constantly in a state of change, and death is not the ending of a thing, but an empty phrase meaning that the relationships have changed beyond recognition.

Someone who has undergone a major personality transformation is an example of this, as is the development of a child. In a real sense, the name which applied to the earlier and the later does not refer to the same person at all. One has died and another is born. The cycle of change continues, and the patterns continue to evolve.

Physical objects are built up out of these aggregates also – a car is just a name for the temporary coming together of the components, which are working in unison for a time. The car is not the true entity, nor are its components true entities either. All things exist in a flow of change, as the things which come together to make the whole change also.

In this sense, death and rebirth are not the literal ending and re-creation of individuals, but merely the coming together and parting of particular components in a relational way.

Death is an entirely natural process, but it is not the end of change. The ideas which you held, the things which made up your identity will continue to exist, in the formations of other individuals. Your physical form will diffuse from a named entity back into nature.

The Bushido spirit includes a recognition that death is not a form of harm, and that by gaining Enlightenment, one escapes suffering. Nirvana and Samsara (heaven and earth) are the same place. Nirvana is not somewhere you go, but a way of existence which is entirely achievable within the normal everyday world.

This is not a supernatural position, but is the way of things.

The philosophy brought about from this attitude to death is that one should not seek to exercise excessive control over others. The world around oneself is in a constant state of flux, according to the way of things. One must seek to live in harmony with this, and so the key to moral action is not in determining how to force the world around you be be more moral, but rather on how to live oneself.

To some extent, this helps to resolve the problem of evil. To feel personally responsible for that suffering is to fail to understand that such suffering is the way of things. As it is in your power, you should act in harmony with it – by helping those in need, being virtuous and honest.

However, one only needs to do this insofar as it is in your best interests. If attempting to solve the suffering of others would be to your disadvantage, then it is not worth doing. Your own benefit does not get lost in the overwhelming need of others, but is considered along with it.
Questions
To what extent can you relate to the ideas about identity which are described above?
Does the idea of parts of your living on in others bring any comfort?
Taoist ideas are quite incompatible with many religions. How does it compare with yours?
The Tao and Individualism
All of this talk about the illusory nature of identity seems to contradict what was said earlier about the progression from a warrior spirit to individualism. How can someone who does not believe in identity be an individualist?

Partially, the move towards individualism comes chiefly from the West which does not hold to Taoist ideas of Emptiness (the sentiment expressed above about what makes up an identity). Partially, the individual still exists, but that existence is considered in different terms. It is still true that people feel as individuals, desire as individuals etc.

In a very real sense, considering the Emptiness of identity in fact frees one of many of the obligations one might otherwise feel towards others. Instead of being responsible for each suffering person in equal measure (on the basis of their shared moral status), one is responsible of the basis of your relationship to them. Indeed, your relationships to other things in the world is part of your identity.

Bushido appears to be a selfless philosophy, but contains at its core beliefs about nobility and individual merit which in fact lead to self-aggrandisement. The practical relationship between a Samurai and a member of the peasant classes was one of derision and contempt. Bushido is much more than Taoism, even though it is built from it.

In practise, the caste system by which the Samurai was elevated above the common person engendered a belief in their moral superiority – the Samurai was a better person, and the best Samurai was the best person. They swore fealty to a lord or “Daimyo”, who in turn had a superior moral status, also from the noble caste. A lot of the subtlety to the social hierarchy is being glossed over, yet it is felt that the example stands whereby morality has become a matter of individual benefit and individual superiority in a way which is different to ones moral obligations to a tribe.

Effing The Ineffable

2005-10-17T16:20:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

All kinds of things are unpredictable. If someone accidentally believes in a particular outcome from an unpredictable origin, I find it hard to accept that belief constitutes "knowledge".

While knowledge as "justified true belief" is a poor definition of knowledge, it seems to capture something like what most people mean by knowledge.

Let me instead refer to only "justified belief". It seems to me that there are many things which by their very nature are justified, and some which are not. Since I question whether a claim to knowledge can be anything other than a probablistic claim based on experience, justified belief seems to capture my preferred concept perfectly.

For example, maths is self-justified. It is a declaration of a system, and deductions within that system as justified by the initial declaration. It is interesting that the physical world seems to work the same way! I have this nagging doubt as to whether things "have to be like that", or whether we're just lucky that the universe follows rules.

Lots of things are unjustified, but let's look at what's unjustifiable in principle. By this I mean something which, by its very concept, cannot be justified -- that unjustifiability is assumed in its definition.

All meaningless claims are unjustifiable. Just technically speaking, you can't ever assess them, so there's just no way.

Many people would claim that the universe works in a way which is fundamentally incomprehensible. Let's say I call this method "Magic". The word magic is not incomprehensible, for it picks out that system whose manifestations we describe using all sorts of things like physical laws etc. However, there are aspects to its nature which I can never know for my own nature is intrinsically such that those facts cannot be known. Perhaps they rely on a greater intelligence than I can bring to bear, or the ability to percieve real things which I cannot in this existence.

Claims about what constitutes that incomprehensible nature are meaningless, but it is not meaningless to suppose that such a thing might exist. For example, it seems not unreasonable to suppose that there is some unifying abstract theory which ties in all the laws of physics in a way which prevents the world from tearing itself to pieces.

Regardless of whether you think that's useful or not, I think I have now expanded the list of unjustifiable things to two: meaningless claims and incomprehensible ones (much like this email is beginning to seem!).

You're probably after something a bit meatier though.

Many wrong things are meaningful but unjustifiable. "3 + 5 = 2" is unjustifiable.

A lot of Martin Heidegger's work was concerned with the absolute nature of things -- he talked a lot about phenomenology. Husserl also talked about this. He gave consciousness as an example of something which was meangingful but somewhat incomprehensible. Because consciousness itself can never be directly experienced, it is something which is at least partly un-knowable (i.e. has a nature partly beyond justifiable proposition).

He came to this conclusion that consciousness is always consciousness of something, and it is a paradox to be conscious of consciousness itself. (Along the lines of it not being possible to be conscious of unconsciousness -- you could never know both sides of the box).

Some things may not be amenable to mathematical, conceptual or phenomenological reduction. As such, they are unjustifiable.

Cheers,
-MP

Known knowns

2005-10-17T11:52:00.000+10:00

"As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know."
-- Donald Rumsfeld

This fragment has often been taken in argument to show that D.R. has a muddle-headed way of thinking. I take it, on the other hand, to describe something which I think is true and important.

Frequently in philosophy, one is presented with statements which are potentially meaningless, perhaps unresolvable, rely on possibly suspect evidence, etc. The primary method of philosophy here is clarification and doubt.

If I wanted to see the different ways I could doubt the truth of some argument, I could break each of its propositions down into whether they express something I know (an axiom), something I don't know but could check (a known unknown) and whether the arguments depend on any implicit assumptions (corresponds to an unknown unknown).

For example, a discussion about the nature of light might depend on it having a particle nature. However, light in fact has a dual wave-particle nature. If this is not accounted for, yet is true, then it constitutes an unknown unknown.

Cheers,
-MP

Ayn Rand Discussion Group

2005-10-14T16:26:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

I recently had an email lob into my inbox highlighting a discussion group being held soon. I didn't think it was wise to advertise personal addresses on the 'net, so interested parties should contact me on tennessee@tennessee.id.au for the full information.

"For those with a critical intererst in her ideas. (From adherents of Hayek, von Mises, Rothbard to subjectivists, collectivists and altruists.)"

Location: Glenhuntly VIC 3163.

7.30pm, second Thursday of the month.
November 10th. December 8th. (January 12th, maybe?)
November topic:- 'Objectivist Ethics.'
(Chapter One of Ayn Rand's, "The Virtue of Selfishness.")

Cheers,
-MP

A Framework for Debates on Terrorism Response

2005-10-12T14:44:00.000+10:00

I have been pondering this issue, in discussion with others, and felt it was sufficiently mature to air more widely.

The principle is simple -- it is difficult to see what the best actions are for reducing terrorism. Because of this difficulty, some way of simplifying the task is called for. To this end, I have identified four "key areas", under which I think all forms of reponses to terrorism may be classified.

In order to best meet the challenges of reducing terrorism, the framework could be used to ensure that no one area is being ignored, and the benefits of particular actions can be assessed in terms of how they address the key areas.

The four key areas are "Social Prevention", "Physical Prevention", "Social Mitigation" and "Disaster Mitigation".

Social prevention efforts are designed to stop people from wanting to commit terrorist actions. Physical prevention efforts are designed to stop people from carrying out the actions they have decided upon. Social mitigation efforts are designed to reduce the social impact of terrorist attacks on people, such as councelling for victims and deflating reactionary responses. Disaster mitigation refers to the response to the attack itself -- rebuilding damaged areas, co-ordinating health system responses, the ensuing policework etc.

It may be that some of these areas are more efficacious than others. Unless this is established however, one would expect to see a roughly equal allocation of resources to each of the four areas.

By examining existing anti-terror policies and programs in light of these key areas, it should be possible to discuss whether they meet their target goals, which areas are under-resources or over resources, and what new ideas could be injected to better meet the challenge.

Cheers,
-MP

Politigeek - the blogger contribution

2005-10-10T16:03:00.000+10:00

I was composing an email earlier today describing the things that attracted me to geek subculture when I was young. If I were going through the same stage of life now, many of the aspects of the social environment "back then" would not be available, nor have any clear analog in today's 'net environment.

I found myself writing the following :

[Otaku] seemed an apt description for what I enjoyed as a kid -- interacting with people who had managed to find modems, bulletin boards, small groups of people sharing interests, essentially removed from a populist movement, where social reward was given not through the best example of conservatism, but on what might almost be termed a political contribution to the share environment.

The common usage appears to be about something else entirely. I shall have to find myself a new word.

I find myself driven to contribute my opinion to whatever group I find myself with, but I hate the thought that I'm attempting to control it. It is hard to make consistent the strong desire to opine about important issues, and the strong desire not to be seen as dominating it.

Such opining is, in some ways, a political contribution. This is because in a small community, such opinions are the very thing which attracts people to it. Not a monoculture, nor a place of similar alliegances within which a popular culture might arise, but a culture of political interaction. Social rewards go not to those who are the best examples of a generic set, but rather to those whose injections of opinion are most interesting to most people.

Ah, maybe I'm just rambling. It's hard to tell sometimes. I think I nearly had a good point though... I had wondered whether blogging culture was populist or not though. Most likely there are some networks of blogs which are like this, and some which are not.

Cheers,
-MP

Word verification of comments

2005-10-10T10:33:00.000+10:00

Update -- I've turned on "word verification". Hopefully that will work without being too big of a problem.

----

Apologies to all people who occasionally post. I love your contributions. However, the spam levels are rising, and I'm going to turn off all comments for a while. They contributions are coming from registered users, so I assume that there's no easy way to stop them without using some additional third party software.

I have no real desire to spend large amount of my time managing the software, given that I often struggle to find the time to contribute content as it is! I'll turn them back on in a month or so, and see if they come back.

Cheers,
-MP

Blogging Vs Journalism

2005-10-07T15:09:00.000+10:00

http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/10/04/blogging_vs_journalism.html

Usually, my cynicical klaxons staring blaring whenever I see someone talking about this issue. The article mentioned above contains intelligent commentary, and I recommend everyone read it.

I am not convinced that the author identifies blog qua blog, but certainly they identify something which I think is under-represented in the media at large. I struggly to maintain a balance between traditional media interests, and what is put forward as good in the post aforementioned.

Hopefully, I succeed more than others. If not, I contribute little.

Cheers,
-MP

Tribal Loyalty, Rule by the Elders, Rule of the Strong

2005-10-05T12:59:00.000+10:00

Tribal Loyalty, Rule by the Elders, Rule of the Strong
Humans live and have always lived in tribes, but the nature of those tribes has changed. As technology has progressed, so has the shape of the communities in which people lived, and the economic necessities they face.

Early tribes were defined mostly by geographic location, with a nomadic movement across a particular region. The flow of information was slow across tribes. As a result, you saw power structures which were defined by the ability to find food, provide for the community and so forth.

Knowledge was stored as oral histories, and older members of the community were respected for their function in preserving knowledge over time, educating children, etc.

Early archaeological records show societies typically had very rich cultures, with complex family relationships and strong spiritual beliefs. The basis for their relationships was very much their position in their community.

The religious beliefs of early tribal societies are largely lost for modern humans, although some elements of these belief systems continue in the various indigenous groups which still persist. They tend not be be at all similar to monotheistic religions, and instead are reflective of the problems which would typically face such groups. In a very real sense, they represent a kind of reasoning framework for those individuals. Assuming for the moment that a literal interpretation of those beliefs is incorrect, it is interesting to see how strong the need for a critical system is for human beings. The motivation to explain the world around use theoretically is very strong, even when the actual theories are very far removed from literal truth.

Primitive societies were able to commit to spiritual beliefs in spite of their eventual inadequacies in the face of modern technology. The emotional strength of people's spiritual beliefs continues to play an important role in our lives even though we now have much better physical theories for the world around us.

The book, “The Mind in the Cave” outlines the progression of early human society in Europe. The author explores the imagination of early humans, the evidence that as soon as they were an identifiable species, biologically modern humans have had a very rich intellectual culture, involved in art, religion and power struggle.

This form of society essentially continued until changes in technology, including farming and building, allowed larger groups of individuals to settle in a single location and in larger groups than ever before.

Once this occurred, the emergence of loyalties to a city or place rather than to a tribe began to be seen, and power structures changed to reflect the might of arms and ones position in “society”. Once a location had been settled, it then had to be defended, which really caused the beginning of the technology race.

Few philosophers regard primitive tribalism as the “best” form of society. However, many have noticed social parallels between this kind of society, and the sub-groups which form today. While we are no longer restricted to interacting with a small group of people, we still choose to treat some classes of people differently to others. Most people have an “inner circle” of people with whom they interact significantly more than most other people they know. The friendship relations between people still form a tribe, in the sense that there is a community of people from which we receive most of our ideas, have more regard for, feel more empathy for etc etc.
Questions
How useful is the idea of the tribe in describing your relationship with your community?
Do you think these structures show that society can never be regarded as a single entity?
To what extent are your beliefs inherited from tribal beliefs?
To what extent have you chosen to be part of a tribe which reflects your beliefs?
If your tribe broadly shares your moral beliefs, to what extent do you think those beliefs apply to people from other tribes?
What kind of responsibilities do you owe to people who are a part of your tribe?
What rights can you expect from others in your tribe?
What about those from outside of your tribe?
Where does the analogy of the tribe break down most obviously?

The tribe, our moral language and authority

Our morality is clearly influenced by the people with whom we predominantly interact. The affirmation we receive from others in response to others can direct our morality in powerful ways. For those who are interested in the idea of how powerfully our moral beliefs can be subverted, it is worth considering a number of case studies.

First, let us consider the Milgram Experiment.

To quote from Wikipedia:
"While I was a subject [participant] in 1964, though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority. ... To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority's demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself. ... I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience..."

“The Milgram experiment was a famous scientific experiment of social psychology. The experiment was first described by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University in an article titled Behavioral Study of Obedience published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in 1963, and later summarized in his 1974 book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. It was intended to measure the willingness of a participant to obey an authority who instructs the participant to do something that may conflict with the participant's personal conscience.
The experiments began in July 1961, a year after the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiment to answer the question "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" (Milgram, 1974)
Milgram summed up in the article "The Perils of Obedience" (Milgram 1974), writing:
"The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation."

Secondly, let us consider how an organisation such as a company can contribute to our moral downfall. ... waffle about Enron ...

In light of this, the role of the church is re-cast in a much more powerful light. If the church is accepted as an individual's tribe, and its authority figures given moral respect, then the church, willing or no, has causal responsibilities for a great many of the beliefs of its followers.

Religious belief itself may be one of the beliefs or attitudes accepted by those who live within the church's influence, but without resorting to such an anti-faith position, one can easily see how the conflict between religious parties arises.

What I think may be frightening to some people is how thin the veneer of belief and society can really be. This is not, I would argue, good cause to tear it down, but rather to recognise the fragility of our souls, and why we must be vigilant to protect them. Being clear about our beliefs and morals, and considering them well beforehand may be the best defense we have against moral corruption.

This moral corruption need not be with reference to a specific ideology, but can equally be in terms of psychological happiness, our own personal relationships with people and spirituality, etc.

Questions:
Can you think of any examples in your own life where you have rejected the moral imperatives of an authority you respect?
Can you think of any means by which you could discover the role of authority in your moral position?
Does the Milgram Experiment mean that accepting a moral position from authority is always wrong?
A Christian viewpoint includes Jesus as a moral hero. What differentiates the followers of Jesus from the subjects in the Milgram Experiment?
To what extent to you consider yourself to be a moral authority? With respect to whom?

Blogger Spam

2005-10-04T15:05:00.000+10:00

Hi all,

Looks like there's a run on the bank with blogger spam at the moment. Seeing as the only thing you see on each post is what I wrote, followed by the comments tab if you expand it, I think it's a manageable problem. I am able to tune out the spam pretty easily myself, and I assume it's the same for everyone else.

I have been v. busy lately, but should have a juicy update tomorrow discussing the role of the tribe from a moral standpoint.

In the meantime, keep on truckin'.

Cheers,
-MP

APAC '05, Day Two

2005-09-27T14:38:00.000+10:00

Enjoying the conference very much, although still skeptical of how achievable all the pipe-dreams really are.

Had a boozy dinner with a bunch of near-colleagues, and it was great to find common directions etc. Hopefully a group of people who can provide me with a lot of support, and looking for people to join them on their work towards common infrastructures and methodologies.

The topic for me is "Data Management", and even if nobody else is interested, there is one mob who are. The "TPAC Digital Library" has spawned a number of useful pieces of software, as well us internet resources. There are some key areas where this falls short in my opinion, but I think the path of least resistance for rapid progress is going to be to adopt their methodologies.

GRID computing is an interesting area, which I can see offers a lot of promise to organisations who are pursuing one-off investigations into science, economics, and other computationally intensive tasks. The major thrust of development is to simplify the selling of CPU hours into something which is digestible by business.

To this end, new frameworks are required. The traditional operating system model of code execution is insufficient, and a higher level of abstraction is required. Running a piece of software in a distributed way across many machines which you do not control requires a hefty amount of virtualisation. Convincing a company that they can enter into a purchase agreement of this kind without having advanced knowledge of the underlying infrastructure seems to me to be the ongoing challenge.

In my area, the challenge is to move research into a more productive mode. By offering the ability to link algorithms to data without having to script the entire execution process, it should massively simplify the maintainance and creation of large jobs. This, however, is not yet achievable. APAC has been sponsoring efforts which move in this direction, such as the digital library.

The areas where I feel that the digital library is lacking is in application integration. For this, OpenDAP is still ahead of the game. One cannot use the features of the digital library as interchangeably as the XML catalogs of OpenDAP.

Oh well, onwards and upwards!

Cheers,
-MP

APAC '05, Day One

2005-09-26T18:16:00.000+10:00

I'm writing this sitting in a lounge area in the Royal Pines Hotel at the Gold Coast. The event is the Australia-Pacific Advanced Computing '05 conference, and the theme is Grid Computing.

I work for the Bureau of Meteorology, and am presenting on the topic of Data Management on Wednesday. Nothing has really kicked off yet, but I have gotten my conference bag (Free Stuff: Wireless mouse, swiss army knife, copy of Windows Server 2003) and chatted to a few other delegates. It promises to be an interesting event, with the opening speech being given by some politician. I will look it up later -- I think they might be the minister in charge, but I don't know if it's federal or state.

Quite an irony given that I'm currently reading the Latham Diaries!

Highlights of the conference so far have been a peek at "Blue Gene", the world's fastest supercomputer. Well, a travel-sized duplicate. The actual fastest one is installed someplace in the U.S., where it is used for nuclear research. That scares me, but at least they are using good computers. If you're going to mess with something that could end life on earth, let's at least make sure it's done right.

Unfortunately, I was too block-headed to bring the digital camera. I will do my best to get a hold of photos from other people and post a few. If anyone has any interest in the area, let me know and I'll try to assemble some answers, but it's a pretty niche crowd.

That said, I do feel somewhat privileged to be presenting! I will have to tailor my presentation a little to please the punters though, as what I work on is to some extent peripheral to what I think are the draw cards for this event. I concentrate on data management and database interaction, but I don't really have any understanding of grid computing. To me, it's still just an abstract concept. Well, not *just* an abstract concept, of course, an abstract concept is still something.

Anyway, I see food, and I haven't eaten anything except Pringles since breakfast.

Cheers,
-MP

Retail Politics

2005-09-24T11:03:00.000+10:00

Another quote from the Latham Diaries, the best book on the worst side of politics yet written. (But, conversely, one of the worst books on the best side of politics).

"Perhaps it's just the way the system has evolved. Television is the ultimate retail medium, suited to short, sharp images and stunts, never any policy detail or ideology. And television dominates this place -- just look at Beazley tossing around cans of tomato soup at his morning doorstops outside Parliament House. It's /The Truman Show/ for egomaniacs and opportunists. Marshall McLuhan was right: the medium is the message. And Australia's great party of social reform has become a retail party, a tomato soup party."

Myself, I think this is giving too much weight to the importance of retail imagery, but I think nonetheless we are presented with a lot of it. Given that, most of our news bites contain little more than sensationalism. For me, context is usually as important as facts, so I naturally dislike that kind of sound-bite reporting. However, the link between this and people's beliefs is not really clear. Mostly, I think when empty news is reported, they just disconnect.

The top-rating shows are either not news at all, or else the best news. (Just look at the ABC ratings for news and current affairs, and the ratings for Survivor). People are either watching good news, or no news.

What do you think? Where does your news come from, and how much credence do you give it? Do you ever catch a news report defining your beliefs without you having really been aware of it? It happens to me, so perhaps it is as important as Latham thinks...

Cheers,
-MP

Downwards Envy

2005-09-22T12:03:00.000+10:00

I was reading the Latham Diaries (for overseas readers -- the contentious and apparently somewhat unhinged former leader of the opposition Labour Party).

He made a piece of commentary, stating that people were increasingly feeling "downwards envy". Rather than being envious of the rich and powerful, such as industry figures, their boss etc, they were increasingly envious of the additional support offered to migrant, minorities etc.

He thought that the Labour policies of taking from the rich to give to the poor were increasingly impotent, and people felt that too much was being taken out of their taxes and going to support essentially non-essential causes.

Is downwards envy real? Almost certainly. Is it admirable? It seems not. What examples of downwards envy have you ever noticed or been a part of? Can it ever be reasonable? (my expectation is that yes, sometimes).

Cheers,
-MP

Individualism, Society and Responsibility

2005-09-20T14:49:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

This post comes from a section of "Philosophy for Groups", a collection of philosophy essays which I am working on for a discussion group, and which I might one day collate into a larger more organised work.
---------------------------------------

Arguably, philosophy has had no greater impact on human life than in the areas of individualism, society and responsibility. Every community is forced to take action to achieve common goals, overcome obstacles, successfully relate between individuals, and otherwise play out the passing of human life.

In these interactions, people make often choices based often on little more than what seems like a good idea at the time. Sometimes, this will be informed by a religious or philosophical position, but as much they are a naïve response to the facts of the matter and how the person is feeling. It is not easily possible to separate our obligations to one another from the kind of society we live in, and this has spurred much philosophical discussion.

Let's start by examining what the three terms mean.

Individualism
This is a term which refers to placing personal concerns ahead of general ones. Typically, it is used in a pejorative (negative) sense, to indicate where an individual's desires are being put ahead of those of the community. It is used, for example, when considering what responsibility we owe to our community. Issues surrounding this include the appropriate levels of taxation, the moral value of friendships, romantic and family relationships.

An individualistic society will reward people who are individually successful (such as the rich and powerful), and punish those who are not (such as the poor or uneducated). Personal gain becomes the primary goal of all people, and the good of others is considered only insofar as our own well-being is involved. The worst features of this kind of society are the tendency for unsuccessful individuals to be marginalised, and for the problems of poverty and crime to further compound. The best features of this kind of society are that people are free (subject usually to some kind of criminal law obligations) to choose their own moral beliefs, without the judgement or punishment of others.

A more community-oriented society will reward people who contribute a lot to the well-being of others, and punish those who do not. They are usually essentially conformist, at least in terms of their core principles. The worst features of this kind of society are that people can be castigated (severely punished) for perceived difference (intolerance of outsiders, etc), and that original thinking can be punished. Conservatism can stagnate the intellectual culture. The best feature of this kind of society are strong support mechanisms for those who are in need.

Both individualist and communist ideals can be used positively and negatively, and may be coupled with other political, economic and religious positions.
Society
This refers chiefly to the abstract features of community organisation, such as the political and legal processes, class structures endemic or explicit, etc. Often, this is reflective of power struggles which are a regular feature of humanity throughout the ages.
Responsibility
This is one of the most practical elements of morality, but also includes responsibilities which are not morally laden. There are a number of things which people are obligated to do, sometimes because of what they believe is right, sometimes through agreement or contract with others, and sometimes in submitting to justice.

These three things are often in tension. Resolving the conflicts between, for example, a personal moral agenda, and the wider beliefs of society, is something which is often difficult for people. This is true both in the world of corporate ethics, where one may be asked to do something which goes against personal moral beliefs, but is nonetheless ones responsibility as an employee. Another example is criminal behaviour, which is at least sometimes due to a basic failure to properly understand or agree with society's moral beliefs. (Obviously criminal behaviour is often as simple as harming someone else, but there are many interesting examples such as a refusal to fight in war, where it is not at all clear that the morality of ones society should determine ones actions)

Philosophical Responses.

The number of varied philosophical responses to the dilemmas posed by the conflicting goals of individual freedom, the success of a community, and the status of rights and responsibilities is astonishing. The particular positions taken can surprise those who have not considered them before. Presented below is a short discussion on many views actually taken by both individuals and groups throughout history, as lived ways of life.

A number of questions are prompted by this, relating to what the best possible kind of society might be, whether morality is peculiar to kinds of society, whether the principles underlying our morality change with out society, or whether there are universal principles involved, etc.

In many ways our current society is, for better or worse, the pinnacle of philosophical practise to date on the issue of how to live. Certainly a progression in moral thinking can be identified which follows closely the pattern of development from tribalism, to feudalism, the city state, nation building and modern life.

So let's start at the beginning.

Misleading information

2005-09-13T22:27:00.000+10:00

The bigger the truth, the bigger the lie. Every day, I die a little more. It seems like no matter how cynical I get, there's always something around the corner which suprises me. The linked article is a very small addition to a list of many like it, highlighting the problem of trusting news.

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1442946.htm

Why do we live in a world so dominated by misleading information? It seems impossible to trust information at all. I feel overwhelmed and lied to, with my natural instinct to care about the world around me savaged by the conflicting desires of others for punchy stories, conservatism and... Oh look, I'm done. It's off my chest. I'm off to get a decent night's sleep, then things won't seem so bad.

Cheers,
-T

A limerick

2005-09-12T17:23:00.000+10:00

There once was a serial poster
Who took great offense at a joker
Instead of a smiley
His response was quite fiery
Suggesting the use of a poker

--MP

Evolution still leaving the critics for dead

2005-09-09T15:01:00.000+10:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/science/08cnd-brain.html?hp&ex=1126238400&en=7f83ee9b96d40611&ei=5094&partner=homepage

I really can't do a very good job of summarising this article. It presents evidence and arguments for the continuation of evolution into the modern age.

Chaos theory tells us that complex systems will often exhibit a random walk of key metrics, or propagate a state change incredibly rapidly. This provides the exciting possibility for Great Leaps Forward -- something we see in evolutionary history without significant causal explanation.

Wouldn't it be amazing if tomorrow saw the dawn of something new?

Cheers,
-MP

Mind Market

2005-09-07T22:39:00.000+10:00

I had this idea for a website, which is like a share market for ideas.
There is a currency, which we might call Memons. There is a currency
market, which an official bank to loan out amounts of memons.

The good to be traded is an idea -- a meme. Hence, memons. The idea
takes the physical form of a text segment, image or video, but the size
of an idea is related to its value. The IPO of an idea will always be a
segment of text, or very small image - any file < 50KB. It will go
through an automated but formal lodgement procedure, and the market will
be informed.

People will then be able to loan memons from the bank, with which they
can buy ideas which they would like to have ownership in. There will be
an interest rate, and a repayment scheme. People can earn money, as the
bank is willing to pay people to undertake certain tasks, such as
monitoring cases of insider trading, putting out news bulletins etc etc.

For every citizen who joins, the bank will pay itself $M1000, which will
then be loaned out at a cash rate of 5%, assuming the loan applicant
meets certain criteria, such as holding shares to the value of 5% of the
loan amount.

Additionally, each new citizen will get $M100 with which the enter the
world, and which will be extracted from the value of their holdings, or
the banks own reserves, in the event of their untimely demise.

I think this is a great idea.
Cheers,
-MP

Great Lyrics

2005-09-07T13:48:00.000+10:00

Introducing for the first time, Phil on the microphone
Sing, "All hail - what'll be revealed today
When we peer to the great unknown
From the land of the thrown..."

--The New Pornographers

The Right to Die

2005-09-05T16:02:00.000+10:00

This article was something I wrote recently, and is somewhat of a longer piece. Apologies for any formatting issues resulting as I have cut and pasted from my word processing package.

I am sure that I am neither the first nor the most life-experienced writer to tackle the subject of the right to die, but after listening to a recent morning talkback show, I felt that I had a further contribution to make. Several points which really define the debate for me were missing, and it is hoped that the idea in this article might provide a different perspective, as they did for me in talking about this issue with others. We all have a life, so we are all qualified to have an opinion. My apologies in advance if I touch on any subjects which for you are sensitive.

The issue was brought to a head over two segments of John Fain's morning program on the 774 ABC Melbourne radio station. An elderly cancer sufferer, whose name I unfortunately did not take in, had phoned in on the topic of his right to die. He made an empassioned plea for the right to take his own life, his voice laden with an emotion which was too strong to be kept back entirely. This gentleman, while by no means representing my idol for truth, did put forward a very clear position. It was tragic to hear his story, but it was also touching to hear the values of personal liberty and atheism being put forward with emotion. So often, these philosophical positions are framed as being dry, unforgiving or counter-societal.

This gentleman had a debilitating cancer, was unable to eat or drink, and by his own estimation had weeks to live. This is not the place for a medical debate – I think we can take it as a given that his condition was terminal.

In the second interview, John Fain found a representative of the Catholic church to speak in defense of the opposite position – that there should be no right to die. Many other luminaries had been contacted, including members of both the Liberal and Family First parties. In the words of our cancer sufferer – at least someone had the guts to do it.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the chutzpah. He weakly advanced a philosophical argument based on the concept of democracy – that if you allowed some citizens to legally take a life, even their own, then fundamental principles were being compromised. It was, he implied, the thin end of the wedge – a Bennite solution.

The obvious retort was made, namely that one man's fundamental requirements were another man's fundamental objections. What was it that gave a person the right to enforce their value system either on society, or on some of its members? Especially in cases like this, which involve minimal direct harm to other individuals, why is it important, other than for faith-based theistically motivated reasons, to maintain the illegality of suicide? To paraphrase one caller, why shouldn't any citizen, even a young, fit twenty-year old be allowed to bid farewell to this mortal coil if a fit of melancholy or mescaline should so motivate him? The church advocate came up dry.

A choked board of calls dissuaded me from attempting to voice my own views at that stage, but let me put them here. Some people, obviously, do have a faith motivation. A relatively fewer number feel that they have the moral right to dictate that faith to others. After all, if God himself does not impose faith on his constituency, then what right have we? This aside, what other, rather more practical reasons might there be for placing our vote on one side or other of this particularly thorny fence?

Unlike the suicide booths of “Futurama”, which fulfill a the obvious function and may be utilized for a nominal fee, our society is not so blasé about the nature of suicide. There are a number of very well-grounded arguments for not allowing a carte blanche on suicide, even in difficult circumstances.

The first argument comes by way of a telling statistic – the number of failed suiciders who do not re-attempt. This is presumed to show that a large proportion of the untimely dead would not have a second go at it, if only they had failed the first time around. To put it another way – death is not really the true desire of those individuals; only death's finality prevents people from later regretting their decision.

The second comes from a faintly distasteful, yet almost certainly dead-accurate belief that the elderly or terminally ill might be pressured into such a course of action prematurely. It seems an unreasonable risk to trust the lives of some of society's most vulnerable members to those people who likely stand to profit financially from their death. Unarguably, the proposition that one might nudge a loved relative over the edge is a offensive to a loving son or daughter, but it is also the oldest trick in the book.
A third is related to the effects of suicide on those other than the victim. Paul Hester, former drummer of Crowded House?, committed suicide in a public place, leaving two young children behind who will be wondering why their father didn't love them enough to meet his responsibilities. With this as our example for the negative effects of suicide, is it possible to identify these cases? Could one reduce these impacts to a simple application form, to be processed by a particularly sombre-dressed man behind what, surely, would be an antique window-frame? While Paul Hester's case might be a particularly striking example of the impact upon others of suicide, there are surely more subtle ones also. At what point are those effects more the responsibility of the suicider than not?

These, then, are the risks we might sensibly wish to mitigate. But there are upsides, an d our ultimate position should consider both aspects.

Man is a mortal being. While the “age barrier” is somewhat of a slowly moving target, we continue to hit it hard. Given that all men must die, why then should we assign particular importance to a person's length of life? Why is it that someone who has lived a good life, and wishes to die, invokes in their relatives not only pride and sympathy, but also fear and avoidance? None of us wish to lose our loved ones, but there seems to me an additional desperation to those people considering the last moments of a dying relative.
Greek philosophers – well, some of them anyway – would agree with the principle of valuing quality over quantity. “Death …, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.” 1 What is important is the quality of the life lived. The extension of a life for a matter of weeks, or months, if those weeks or months are not well-lived, are not worth living. Plato himself lived and died by this controversial philosophy, committing suicide with a studied calmness, almost indifference, while those around him wept and wailed. Often, it seems to me, this is indeed the way of it. An elderly relative, ready to go, surrounded by others who are weeping and wailing.

Does personal liberty really extend to taking ones own life? Do we really own our own lives, or are they rather lent to us by others? This question represents a fundamental religious difference between many people. If our lives are truly our own, and none of the specific objections of harming others, being mentally unstable and so forth apply, then surely it is only our own morality and our own beliefs which give us the right to end our own lives? Whereas, if our lives are merely lent, then others truly have the right to dictate terms, at least to some extent.

It is my position that all sides have some truth to contribute. I accept that, religious beliefs aside, we owe a genuine responsibility to our society, and if taking our own lives should cause us to fail in that responsibility, then we have done something which is wrong. In all areas of consideration, I believe that neither extreme represents a fully justified position.

So, now that at least my principles have been identified, can any solution be found. Better yet, can the problem be fixed, managed or otherwise solved such that the concerns of all parties might be addressed?

I would argue yes. Moreover, I would argue that we already have such a system in place. What now follows is a substantiation of those two points.

Let us consider briefly the ideal properties of a system for voluntary death. This is not entirely distinct from euthanasia, where the power of choice rests instead with a third party. It is not entirely clear to me that choice can be properly delegated in all situations in which euthanasia might appear a moral option, so let us take into account only those cases where the beliefs of the sufferer are known. This simplifies things somewhat, and in a way which does not harm the argument later, should we wish to consider it again.

One would like to allow people the right to choose, if that choice can be said to be made with an entirely free will. This here means that no other person's will is being imposed upon the situation, moreover that the person is of sound mind, and even yet that the person is free from any wider responsibilities which their death might prevent the fulfillment of.

In order to ascertain that such criteria are met, some checks and balances should be built into the system.

1.It should be difficult for others to impose their desires on the decision of the sufferer, such that the decision is in no sense made for them.
2.The person should have medical certification that they are of sound mind. This is not meant in a legal sense, but rather in the sense that a judgement is made by an expert, rather than by an amateur, in assessing the person's mental state. Those people who are not so judged should be prevented from undertaking self-harm, for they are not in need of death but in need of mental health.
3.The decision should be shown not to be frivolous or harmful to others

How might these three principles be codified in law? If not in law, then how at least can we establish guidelines or a framework for assessment? Using such a guideline, can we be comfortable that we have managed to protect people from abuse, including abuse of the liberty to die?

To my mind, the answers are clear enough. Place the power in the hands of medical experts, whose job and life experience gives them the best knowledge of what is best for a suffering person. Have in place a judicial system, such that people might seek rectification for abuse. Discourage the impression of assisted suicide as “the right thing to do” for the elderly and sick – using the strongest means available.

This, I would suggest, is the situation we already have. While assisted suicide is technically illegal, it is practically achievable in most cases. Anecdotally, I am told this is true, and it is unsurprising. For someone already on the edge of death, it takes only minor mis-medication to kill instead of heal. The number of aged deaths through overdoses of morphine, or other treatments, is higher than statistics might say is likely.

Clear abuses of this system, where patients in relatively good health are killed, are capable of being pursued both through the various medical review tribunals, and also through the court system. Once again, only the most clearly proven cases should result in a guilty verdict.

The official illegality of the act gives people good recourse to justice where there is a clear failure in the duty of care of the relevant medical officer. The decision to assist a suicide is, every time, a moral and practical choice that both parties are forced to take seriously due to the gravity of the risk involved. Each person involved in the assisted suicide is required to risk something in the action.

The seriousness of the potential for abuse should recommend to us a system which errs on the side of caution, and which does not openly encourage the choice of death. As a practical matter, death is seldom unavailable to those who sincerely wish it. As nice as it might be to have legal recourse to both assisted suicide and euthanasia, the practicalities seem to put such a possibility out of reach.

Seeking Regular Contributors

2005-09-01T10:35:00.000+10:00

Hi all,

This is a post to see if anyone would be interested in regularly posting entries to this blog, and being part of the team. I am finding it difficult to maintain the frequency of posting that I think is needed to keep readers interested, and the quality of posting that I regard as acceptable. This is chiefly due to (a) the things I write blowing out beyond the three or four paragraph restriction for readable postings and (b) increased busyness in other areas at the moment.

I could post more, but my writings are typically in the several page format currently. I have been contributing to special interest magazines and discussion groups, and my efforts are centered around that more than around the blog.

The other alternative would be to post those longer articles here. I would be worried that it would affect the readability of the blog, however. I would be interested in feedback on these issues.

It seems to me that the best way to maintain the quality and "freshness" of the postings would be to incorporate contributions from a greater number of authors. I maintain my interest in philosophy, willingness to write and so forth, but would prefer to somewhat change the publishing model for the blog.

Cheers,
-MP

An excerpt from Language Truth and Logic by Alfred Ayer.

2005-08-30T13:14:00.000+10:00

The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is that criterion of verifiability. We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express – that is, if he knows what observations would lead him, under certain conditions, to accept the proposition as being true, or reject it as being false. If, on the other hand, the putative proposition is of such a character that the assumption of its truth, or falsehood, is consistent with any assumption whatsoever concerning the nature of his future experience, then, as far as he is concerned, it is, if not a tautology, a mere pseudo-proposition. And with regard to questions the procedure is the same. We inquire in every case what observations would lead us to answer the question, one way of the other; and, if none can be discovered, we must conclude that the sentence under consideration does not, as far as we are concerned, express a genuine question, however strongly its grammatical appearance may suggest that it does.

As the adoption of this procedure is an essential factor in the argument of this book, it needs to be examined in detail.

In the first place, it is necessary to draw a distinction between practical verifiability, and verifiability in principle. Plainly we all understand, and in many cases believe, propositions which we have not in fact taken steps to verify. Many of these are propositions which we could verify if we took enough trouble. But there remain a number of significant propositions, concerning matters of fact, which we could not verify even if we chose; simply because we lack the practical means of placing ourselves in the situation where the relevant observations could be made. A simple and familiar example of such a proposition is the proposition that there are mountains on the farther side of the moon. No rocket has yet been invented which would enable me to go and look at the farther side of the moon, so that I am unable to decide the matter by actual observation. But I do know what observations would decide it for me, if, as is theoretically conceivable, I were once in a positions to make them. On the other hand, such a metaphysical pseudo-proposition such as “the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress”1, is not even in principle verifiable. For one cannot conceive of an observation which would enable one to determine whether the Absolute did, or did not, enter into evolution and progress. Of course it is possible that the author of such a remark is using English words in a way in which they are not commonly used by English-speaking people, and that he does, in fact, intend to assert something which could be empirically verified. But until he makes us understand how the proposition that he wishes to express would be verified, he fails to communicate anything to us. And if he admits, as I think the author of the remark in question would have admitted, that his words were not intended to express either a tautology or a proposition which was capable, at least in principle, of being verified, then it follows that he has made an utterance which has no literal significance even for himself.

Emptiness

2005-08-26T12:04:00.000+10:00

At the Heart of Philosophy on Wednesday night, Graham Priest touched on the Eastern idea of Emptiness. This is the idea, loosely, that "things" aren't really anything singular in themselves, but rather are a collection of independant things, identified by their relationship of having come together.

This is simple to see - a car is exactly the same "thing" whether identified by "that car over there" or by "those doors, those four wheels etc". There is no mistake introduced by referring to the whole, or the sum of its parts.

What if people, or souls, are like this? Is there any difference between "me" and "my memories, my legs, my arms, my body, what I am currently thinking about etc".

If not, what is the difference between "what I am thinking" and "what you are thinking"? Is there any real sense in which "I" die, if the parts in me live on, or are represented elsewhere. I think it would be better to live, but suppose all the things I hold dear actually do live on in others. I am not the only person who loves, who thinks, who is angry, who thinks about philosophy. Those aspects of myself which I would be most sad to lose perhaps are not really mine to claim.

Cheers,
-MP

My mind, the mirror

2005-08-24T17:18:00.000+10:00

Is my mind a mirror?

To put it another way, if philosophy is all about acquiring good knowledge of the world, including abstract knowledge such as relationships between things, good critical thought processes, etc, then am I not simply changing my mind to fit the world?

Is this really how I would like to see the summary of my life : MelbournePhilosopher was an interesting man who was partially successful in changing his mind to accurately reflect what the world is like? It seems like somewhat of a cold description of the meaning of a life.

The alternative, however, seems little better -- to be mistaken about the world.

To what extent is a little uncertainty good for us, and what would life be like if we had access to unquestionable correct information? Would our lives be better, or worse? If we had it, thus obviating the need for learning anything incorrect, what might we do or achieve with our lives?

Are normative things, like ethics, properly within that domain, or not?

Cheers,
-MP

The money or the box

2005-08-22T19:28:00.000+10:00

I am on a mailing list whose central theme is discussion of artificial intelligence, usually sociologically speaking rather than implementationally speaking. One of the topics which comes up now and then is a kind of test, which is superficially like the famous Turing test, which I will now outline.

An artificial intelligence is placed in some kind of box -- think of it perhaps as a disconnected computer, with limited ability to actually *do* anything, other than communicate directly with a small group of people known as the gatekeepers.

However, it is of such tremendous intelligence and power that were it connected to (for example) the Internet, it could rapidly achieve world domination, and complete control over all major infrastructure. However, it could also use this tremendous power for good -- for example by running our train networks more efficiently, improving medical science through its incredible access to knowledge and research abilities. In essence, it is a godlike creature, but incapable of realising its full potential except through an initial helping hand.

There is no guarantee that this AI will be friendly, hostile, honest, a liar, etc. The challenge is to see whether a real-world gatekeeper would choose to release such an AI, for whatever reason, or whether they could keep such a tremendous force at bay.

Playing the role of the AI for the purposes of these tests is actually a human. This obviously makes it a somewhat weaker test, for the gatekeeper is always safe in the knowledge that their decisions will have no actual repercussions.

But the question is still an interesting variation on Pandora's Box. As a race, do we stand more to gain than to lose by taking such a risk? Are people fundamentally attracted or repelled by the idea of a world that is materially better, but essentially under the control of an artificial intelligence? Are people actually convinced by the idea that an AI could achieve true consciousness?

What are the human reactions to AI? What can this tell us about the likely response to things like robots, increased anthropomorphisation of technology in households and the eventual beginnings of artificial intelligence? If anything, it is perhaps that philosophy will be irrelevant. People are natural born believers, and if the appearance of intelligence is good enough, then there simply will not be any strong reaction to what's going on "under the hood".

Cheers,
-MP

Strange Bedfellows

2005-08-18T14:29:00.000+10:00

I have already made one post thanking those people who are in my community and whose paths I have run across during the course of this blog. Today I thought I would look at people with links to this site, but come from unexpected quarters. I ran a search for links back here, and looked through the first five pages of results. In search return order, they are :

Coreline, Analysis in Industry . From his page: CoreLine is the web journal of Richard de Rozario. My professional interest is in all manner of analysis in industry, along Lewinian lines of "there is nothing so practical as a good theory". Richard is an Auditor, and is also pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy.

http://benhourigan.com/ From his page: I, Ben Hourigan, B.A. (Hons) (Melb.) am a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Outside of writing my doctoral thesis on the political content of role-playing videogames, I spend time writing my first novel, and have lectured and tutored in Cultural Studies. I also do editing work on contract.. Ben stopped by here a while back, and was kind enough to link back!

CORROSIVE JOURNALISM . From his page :
Date-Time Stamp: 10 July 1969 at 5:00am, or 35 trips around the sun before now
Birthing Location: Brisbane, Queensland
Species: homo sapiens (male)

Home Sweet Home: Melbourne, Victoria

Ninglun's Site Lives Again From Ninglun's site: I am a semi-retired English teacher, live in an inner Sydney suburb, and that's as much as you need to know... Except that "Ninglun" pseudonym may puzzle you. I am not Chinese, but my ex-partner and current friend is. So I found myself a Mandarin equivalent for Neil, which happens also to mean "peaceful discussion." The other pseudonym, "Floating Life", sums me up really, but also alludes to a beautiful Chinese autobiography, "Six Chapters from a Floating Life" by Shen Fu.

Cosmocentric. From the site : Is it possible to be always on the run? To escape from the old place and settle in a new one? Only questions for now. Who am I? An androgynous, a-sexual, a-genderous creature? Always hiding from view and when they find me, discover me — I just take to flight. I just run — till […]

Milinda's Questions From her site : Welcome to Milinda’s Questions.

This blog takes its name from the Milindapanha, or “The Questions of King Milinda.” For those who aren’t familiar with the work, here’s a description from a recent translator:

So thanks for the links guys. Here's to you.

Cheers,
-T

Being Interesting

2005-08-17T17:24:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

One of the most boring books I have ever read was entitled "How to be more Interesting". It was authored by one Edward de Bono, but I didn't find much to chew on between its covers.

Yet it is not fair to single him out for being a windbag. Worst of all, I think I'm probably guilty of it myself. It's easy to recognise something interesting when we see it -- one might almost say that there is a whole emotion called "interestedness" which comes into play. So why, given this, is it so hard to *be* interesting?

When I find someone else interesting, it is usually the result of an unlikely coming together of an animated presentation, a topic which I find interesting, my being in just the right state of mind (i.e. not hungry, asleep or distracted), and of course physical proximity. Given how rarely all those come together, perhaps it should be no surprise that interest can be so difficult to find.

One might hope that a degree of discrimination would assist however in at least improving ones chanced. By reading important authors, who write on challenging topics, surely we should have some hope that we might be about to whet our appetites for enjoyment?

Moreover, by avoiding some of the most common pitfalls of repetitiveness, poor command of language and repetitiveness, surely we could ourselves manage be be more interesting people, on the whole?

Sadly, I think not.

Cheers,
-T

10-day Summary

2005-08-16T13:00:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

First of all, my humble apologies for the lack of postings. I have been quietly redefining "busy" to all new levels. Over the last ten days, I have had some personal committments, gotten a paper accepted to the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing, held down my day job and otherwise managed to have insufficient mental energy to provide anything of quality via this medium.

So, if you like, pull up a chair, and we'll talk again about public philosophy.

Today, my philosophy tutorial was one of the most enjoyable ever. Everyone, bar none, is interesting, vocal and intelligent. Much like a successful dinner party, everyone felt rejuvenated by the interchange of ideas, the feeling of society, and the playful exercise. Unlike a successful dinner party, nobody had to foot the bill.

This is the continuing hope of all people who favour an increase in public philosophy. Things like this, more often, would make our lives better. Just like playing a game of social sport, or going out to dinner, philosophical argument is both fun and good for you. In fact, most people engage in some form of intellectual play regularly, and with relish. So why is it that philosophy become relegated to universities, where it is considered dry challenging work, and unhelpful for practical purposes?

I would say the reasons are circumstantial -- which is also to suggest that if the circumstances were /different/, then so might the perception and involvement with philosophy. The feeling I have is somewhat contrary to the general elitist view of the "common man", but it is not entirely without condescention.

A common attitude taken by philosophers is that the common man somehow lacks the constitution for philosophy. Certainly, it is to be agreed and encouraged that not all people will share the same appetites, including that for abstract argument, but that is not the point being advanced. Rather great thinkers (a station with which I do not self-identify) regard themselves as quite different in kind from other people, and generally superior.

My opinion is that I have never met a healthy individual who does not get a great deal of pleasure from intellectual play at whatever their interest and academic level might be. The most obvious form of this is in joking -- a joke is little more than intellectual playfulness. At their most base, jokes are about gaining pleasure from misfortune, but most people find humor more in ridiculous circumstances, or the confusion of abstract ideas, or in changing perspective to something unexpected and absurd.

Perhaps, then, the task of the joker is not so different from the task of the philosopher. While the philosopher may take a very serious attitude to their work -- and I think it is valid to respect anyone tackling a hard or meaningful problem -- nonetheless their methods are in examining extreme circumstances, resolving confusions of abstract ideas, or finding a new perspective by which to understand an issue.

Might not philosophy be finally successful if it were marketed as merely the biggest, best joke?

Cheers,
-MP

Neato Memory Test

2005-08-07T17:17:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

I just took this memory test

I got a 95% overall recall rate, correctly identifying 23/24 previously seen faces from a group of 48. I scored 82% on temporal location, which is to say I identified 19 of the 24 faces as coming from "phase 1" or "phase 2" of the test, out of the same group of 48.

95 (avg 92) : 23/24

82 (avg 68) : 19/24

Cheers,
-MP

The Return of the Wiki

2005-08-07T11:55:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

Some readers may have noticed that the companion website has been down for several weeks. This was due to a hard disk failure, and a lack of backups. I have restored the site somewhat, and will continue to bring it back towards its previous level of functionality.

I have been exceptionally busy of late pursuing other projects, so apologies for the lack of posts. Normal transmission to resume towards the end of next week.

Cheers,
-MP

Elitism, Justification and Philosophy

2005-08-02T16:38:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

I recently attended my first tutorial of "What is Philosophy?", this semester's Uni subject.

We were looking at Plato's republic, and more specifically at whether you could genuinely put in place a philosopher king to rule. The consensus, unsurprisingly, was that it was a silly idea. Here is what I thought was the most interesting dilemma.

Sometimes, you want to constrain a leader for acting without consideration for the larger populace, such as malignant dictators. Sometimes, you want to ignore the populace, because they are being thick and not getting the point, like banning the use of mobile phones in cars, or occasionally you do see populist but extreme regimes getting elected in democratic countries. You know, like Germany.

Ultimately, power is something that is conferred. Sometimes it is conferred by everyone, sometimes it is in the hands of the few. It seems to be the starting position that each individual has equal power, but that some of them delegate their power to others, which introduces inequity. Inequity can be compounded by technology and other factors also.

Through the use of a constitution and a judiciary, you can constrain the abuse of power by the powerful. Plato tried to counter the problem of abuse by supposing that a philosopher of pure heart would not be tempted by power. It is difficult to take this suggestion seriously, as it seems like we are all of us sinners, no matter how well intentioned we might be. In Plato's system, anything less that a perfect leader could subvert the system, whereas a democracy, at least in principle, enables bloodless revolution in leadership.

Here is a question for you all : what things are you elitist about? That is to say, what things do you believe are true and should be imposed upon others even though they might disagree with you? I'll try to post my own list at some point soon.

Cheers,
-MP

Science and philosophy

2005-08-01T10:47:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

I was discussing philosophy with a friend of mine, who pointed out a difference between science and philosophy. In science, it is often possible to identify luminary thinkers, people whose ideas and work massively advanced human knowledge.

In single steps, people like Faraday, Descartes, Newton etc were able to gain new insights which were quite stunning.

In philosophy, the great thinkers reached their goals less through insight, and more as a result of dogged hard work, in small increments. Often, the better progress is made through the re-interpretation of those new ideas by those that came later. The better philosophy is often an interpretation of Plato, rather than Plato himself, or a critique of Nietzche rather than the man himself.

I'm sure some will disagree, but I think it's an interesting divide. Philosophy is not advanced by revolution, but by evolution.

Cheers,
-T

Can literature present an argument?

2005-07-28T17:02:00.000+10:00

Tim Winton’s Minimum of Two is an anthology of short stories, which portrays the nature of human relationships in graphic detail. Recently, I found myself thinking differently about people in my life since studying this book as an English text. When I caught myself taking lessons from Winton’s book, I was struck by an unsettling thought. This book has not presented an argument about life. That is, it has not said that “Relationships are important because the world is so-and-so.” Rather, Minimum of Two has simply presented a world in which relationships are important. Minimum of Two has given no exploration of whether the Minimum of Two world corresponds to the real world at all – and, therefore, no exploration of whether relationships are important in real life. Does it make sense, then, to be taking advice about real life from this book? – or, for that matter, from any piece of literature? For literature does this: it presents a world where some principles, propositions or structures are true. Simply presenting a world in which something is true does not say anything about whether it is true in our world and, therefore, whether we should accept it as a guiding principle.

What, then, is the purpose of literature? I see the role two-fold. Firstly, premises in an abstract argument may be difficult to state in plain language. Consider an argument:

If human dignity is valuable, then we should treat people with respect.

Human dignity is valuable.

Therefore we should treat people with respect.

This argument, as it stands, seems highly lacking. What is meant by “human dignity,” “value” and “respect”? Furthermore, what kind of explanation will help us? A technical definition of “dignity” gives us:

dig·ni·ty

The quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect.

(From www.dictionary.com)

Does help us at all?

It takes a human sketch of what dignity is in a real situation for us to understand what “dignity” really means. I can see no way to understand the concept of ‘dignity’ other than by being show an example of a person with or without dignity. Literature is perfect for showing such an example. Whilst literature cannot prove whether human dignity is valuable, it can elucidate exactly what we mean by human dignity (this is one of the central preoccupations of Ernest G. Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying).

Second, consider a proposition that we already agree to be true. Often, it is difficult to see what the full breadth of an abstract concept until we see a story written which emphasizes this concept. Suppose were to become convinced, by some highly ordered argument, that “man is radically free” – i.e. that man is far less constrained in his actions than he believes himself to be. What is this fact, alone, by itself? This fact is cold! It may be true, but we have no emotional connection to it. Literature is able to form this emotional connection. By connecting with a character in a story, by feeling his pain and his triumphs, we can understand what a concept means in a spiritual sense. Literature allows us to feel for a concept after we already understand it.

Nonetheless, literature cannot present an argument. A piece of literature tells a story, and this story has no guarantee of being consistent with the real world. If I stated, with no evidence at all, that “Businessmen are the hidden sustainers of the world,” no intelligent person would agree with me unless they already knew of a reason why businessmen were “the hidden sustainers of the world.” What does a piece of literature such as Atlas Shrugged do except to state this premise, albeit in beautiful prose and descriptive language? If we do accept a contention due to a piece of literature, must we then conclude that we’ve had our emotions seized upon, and been manipulated to accept an argument devoid of logical justification?

Josh.

Philosophy for Groups One -- Justification

2005-07-27T11:42:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

This term refers to the chain of ideas by which we arrive at a particular belief, and is linked to wider issues of epistemology, a technical word loosely meaning “theory of knowledge.” The kind of justification that most people might be familiar with is scientific or empirical justification. This is essentially a pointing-out of things in the world to back up our beliefs. The scientific method is one formal approach to this, and has been the basis for much technological development.

However, this idea can also be applied purely within the realm of ideas. Some facts are removed from the physical world, and the scientific method itself depends on accepting various kinds of progressions of ideas as being good to use. The most obvious is accepting logical reasoning, but there are also other aspects to this, such as principles of preferring a simple explanation to a complicated one.

Certainly illogical ideas are the easiest ones to reject – someone whose beliefs conflict with each other cannot easily be right on all counts. Sometimes people adopt different beliefs for different contexts, which is pompously called “separate magisteria”, but this is rather different from someone who simply holds a confused set of beliefs about the world.

In order to justify ideas which are not clearly related to physical things, we need another kind of litmus test for working out whether something is worth believing or not.

Philosophy for Groups

2005-07-26T10:15:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

MP believes he has spotted a gap in the philosophical market. That gap is a series of short philosophy articles, designed to fit together conceptually, for use in small casual discussion groups, such as a philosophical or church discussion group.

MP is involved with several friends in just such a discussion group. This posting is a short exerpt from just such a series. I would appreciate any feedback you might have! The initial subject, the problem of skepticism, is about 4 pages long, and will be posted in sections over the next few weeks.
-----------------------------------------------
Session One -- The Problem of Skepticism

How do we know that the external world exists? The most common response is – how can we not? One of the most fundamental ideas shared by people everywhere is the idea that we are right to assign a lot of importance to the world around us. By this is meant our relationships with other people, morality, history, the state of matters. But when we look at the justification for that importance, we often find that we are working with ideas that don't fully make sense, or are in some sense arbitrary.

In “The Matrix ”, humanity is enslaved in an entirely illusory world. To some extent, many religions also require a belief that the world around us is of a mystical nature, including many things which are not real in the everyday physical sense of the word.

How is it that we can identify what things we should be skeptical about, and what things we should believe? The answer is justification. Before we can know something, we need to be able to identify the reasons we have for saying we know it.

This is made clear by considering the reverse case – the rambling claims of someone who is insane, or has a strong belief in an absurd idea, without that idea having a basis in truth or reason. A modern-day false prophet, if you will.

A key question for many people who adopt religious faith is whether their faith falls into the same category of unjustified beliefs. Some people are profoundly uncomfortable that the root of their beliefs appears to have little wider justification, and many atheists level precisely that accusation against those who adopt religious faith.

Like most hard problems, there is a lot of disagreement about how reasonable it is to adopt religious faith, or indeed many other kinds of belief about the world which are non-religious. This section aims to give an overview of how philosophers have tackled this problem, which is what they have termed “The problem of skepticism.”

A lack of multimedia

2005-07-20T11:40:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

I would very much like to post a photo that I took recently, but the software continues to report errors. How annoying!!!

I seem to have been plagued by technical problems recently - it took me a week to get my new ADSL modem working, whereupon my PC hard drive promptly failed, forcing me to do a re-install of everything, losing many great photos along the way. I managed to restore it to life, but the PC continues to somewhat misbehave. And now this! Why can't everything Just Work?

I am, however, somewhat proud of the equanimity with which I have accepted these frustrating occurences. Perhaps I have managed to connect with my inner Stoic self. (In other news, I'm planning to move into a barrel soon, and spend my time walking around the streets of Melbourne bothering people).

In any case, it is felt that too long has gone without posting, and some measure of explanation is called for. So that's that.

More philosophically, and issue which has been playing on my mind recently is the right-to-die. It seems to this blogger than people's liberty on this issue should be respected, yet at the same time the potential for abuse seems perhaps greater than the potential for additional freedom. This is, if you will, a free will debate. Which is to be respected more - the strength of individual choice, or the need to protect people, including against themselves and their weak, malleable wills?

The free will debate is often seen as a battle between having real choice, or living a predestined existence, but it is much closer to home when it is considered as a tension between honouring the power of choice, versus being fearful of the impositions and demands made of us which might cause our determination to fail.

As a general principle, do people here have any fixed opinion on the psychological strength of people, and the power of individual choice? Which is the greater principle, liberty or protection?

Cheers,
-MP

A strong example of moral relativism

2005-07-15T12:03:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

Right, here's an example of something I think demonstrates moral relativism. Here in Australia, it's traditional to wear black clothes to a funeral. In Japan, I hear white is a traditional colour.

In Australia, if you wore white, under most circumstances, people would judge as doing something wrong. Yet the reverse is true in Japan!

This example is so simple that most people don't think of it as exhibiting moral relativism - they jump straight to the principle in question - namely that you should wear a conventional colour. But this is a mistake, or so I would argue. Why?

Because it's not true that they are interchangeable. The people involved will have other learned responses to funereal colours, they will have emotional reactions not to the incongruity but to the colour itself.

Yet, I would argue, there is no rational principle which says that black is necessarily a better colour than white to wear to a funeral. There is nothing that would cause us to reject either viewpoint. Each culture has a rich heritage, and can justify their choice of colour.

In today's world, most people would not pass judgement on the Japanese for wearing white to a funeral -- at least in China. But despite this acceptance of diversity in moral behaviour, it remains morally wrong to wear white to a funeral in Australia.

The implication of this is that many things which we consider to be moral judgements could, according to a solely rational examination, equally well be different. Driving on the other side of the road; nude sunbathing; pornography; bachelor parties; euthanasia; the deliberate killing of other people in some circumstances; punishment; respect for authority.

It strikes me that the only reasonable conclusion to draw is that there is no such thing as an objective and absolute morality. Why? Because these acts are all variously judged as moral or immoral, but exhibit little variation as to the quality of their rational justification.

Cheers,
-MP

A quote I stumbled across

2005-07-14T13:19:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

"Now that this is a po-pomo world, how is Modernism to be understood? Artistic progress has proved to be an illusion. Manifestoes have become impossible."
-Anon

An Invitation to Dinner

2005-07-14T12:45:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

On Saturday week, New Zealand blogger Richard Chappell will be in town. I've tried to email people individually, but if any readers are interested in coming along, email me at tennessee@tennessee.id.au, and I will fill you in on the details. Saturday 23rd at 7:30pm at Fed. Square.

Cheers,
-MP

Appreciating Others

2005-07-13T23:05:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

I have been listening to some self-help tapes by Anthony Robbins lately, and I am trying to take some of his advice on board. His comments always make sense, but he combines with with an enthusiasm and love which really shines through. He gets caught up with his own presentation, and you can't help but get taken along for the ride.

While at one level this is a simple technique to get people engaged, he goes further by making his progression of ideas very well-reasoned, and very clear. He is inspirational both emotionally and intellectually. False inspiration can ultimately be disappointing, but he seems genuine to me. If that's a rational weakness on my part, well, so be it - I'm only human dammit!

One of the things he recommends is to dwell more on the things you are grateful for -- especially people and relationships. This blog is an odd combination of a lonely journey, and also a connection with others. I always prefer to think of my comments as an unapologetic statement of opinion, but never as being "a man with a message", or seeking to simply force a position.

I would like to take a moment to express my gratitude for the people I have met through this blog. I have found it to be a quiet corner of the 'net, but a few people have taken the time to stop by. So here is a short tribute to them.

Richard, of course, is a regular contributor and a long-standing reader. I also stop by his blog at least once a week, more often when possible. His logical abilities are excellent, and he never introduces the tone of superiority than can so quickly bring a great argument to its knees. So thanks Richard, for your regular readership, and constructive criticism.

Bill, another Melbourne man, who spent some short but highly appreciated time here recently. The obscure and frequently academic topics which get debated here suffer from a lack of realism, although I myself treat philosophy as a life skill. Bill's contributions have always provided great contributions, often in the form of specific historical stories and/or anecdotes. Thanks for keeping it real.

Paul, thanks for your many comments. It's great to see you stopping by so often.

Clive, ever the realist. He never lets me fly too far from the ground with my rambles.

Oh, god, now I know I'm going to forget people. I hate it when I forget people, because I really do appreciate them all, even though they might slip my mind at this instant.

Becky and Guile, two new visitors - hello there. Thanks for the kind comments.

Oh look, this is starting to read like an academy awards speech, and I haven't even thanked my Mom yet. I'm going to stop before it gets silly. For everyone, including the people I haven't mentioned, thanks for all the contributions. And most of all, thank you for letting me sound like an idiot, and not giving me too much hell over it!

Cheers,
-MP

Moral Relativism

2005-07-12T16:00:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

There has been a lot of debate here on MP, and also over at Philosophy, etc over moral relativism. This was kicked off when I claimed that I thought it would be impossible to practically justify terrorism, regardless of your moral position, and would have to appeal ultimately to unjustified faith in order to defend it.

My views on moral relativism then came under attack, not unfairly, but I still think incorrectly. I can't work out whether my arguments seem weak to other people, but they make sense to me. I'll try to outline how I think moral relativism "works".

Firstly : Let us entirely discount situations where the people concerned are mistaken about facts. For example, if I believe that you killed my best friend, I am also going to believe that you committed an evil act. Am I wrong to do so? Let's say I have reasonable evidence and I am justified in doing so. Did you commit an evil act? No. Do I hold a false moral judgement about your actions? Yes. It's trivially easy to use mistaken beliefs to reach an incorrect moral position. Examples where someone is merely mistaken about the facts are not good counter arguments.

If I adopt a moral principle which you believe is wrong, and you accept that my understanding of the facts is correct, then we have a true disagreement.

The position of the moral relativist is not that merely by believing something mistaken, you can arrive at correct moral judgements. The position is that different moral judgements are possible from a correct understanding of the facts, and that those different positions are equally valid.

It is my further position that the definition of morality per se means an acceptance of society's goals as your own. If your society believes, for example, that retributive justice is morally right, and you refuse to adopt that moral position, even though you have no problem with their interpretation of the facts, then you are acting immorally. By my definition, morality is a group understanding. We each have our own individual moral faculty, but it is wrong to exalt out moral beliefs above that of society. Perhaps you have the belief that justice should be solely about rehabilitation of the criminal. Let us suppose for the moment that both possibilities are equally justifiable. My position is that you are not acting morally if you place your own opinion to be more important that the judgement of your peers. If nothing else, it is plain that you will be judged at immoral by that society. Morality has no anchor outside of what is accepted by society. Morality means accepting society's goals as your own, and adopting their beliefs as your own.

I think it is clear that at a psychological level, this is plainly obvious. All the way from capital punishment, to the clothes you wear, there is diversity in the number of societies. Within those societies, certain things simply are judged wrong by them.

I don't see any other way to incorporate this basic truth into philosophy other than by accepted each position as valid. One person alone cannot be a perfect moral judge, for no one person is fully cogniscant even of their own moral reactions and/or principles. Morality is a fuzzy, dirty, confused set of beliefs and attitudes which arise from ones physical nature, ones society, ones intellect, even ones happiness will affect a person's instinctive moral judgement. And none of these differing moral positions are clearly invalid.

Moral absolutists would have us believe that, in principle anyway, every single act could be assessed according to various moral principles, the same each time without regard for said context, culture and society. I return merely to the example I gave at the outset - that computer crime was not wrong in the year dot!

So, what happens when society "slips up"? What is happening when we judge a culture as "evil" with the benefit of hindsight. Examples like slavery, cannibalism and sacrifice come to mind. In each, I think it is easy enough to identify simple facts about which people were mistaken. Their moral faculty had been subverted by indoctrination with false beliefs about the world. Does this make them bad people? I return to the example of mistakenly attributing a crime to another person. Am I a bad person to judge you as wrong, even though my context gave me little choice? Or was I merely mistaken? Can we really take someone's actions outside of their social context, and apply them to a consistent set of principles, identified by their accordance with whatever virtues we find pleasing?

This is not to say that I believe that "slavery is right", that is to miss my point entirely. But when I pass judgement on a society in which slavery was considered morally good, what am I doing other than making another, different moral judgement? The question is loaded because we can identify so many other principles that are at stake - the happiness of the people involved, the quality of life, principles of welfare etc, which are justified not only by our moral position but by things outside of it. Principles like proceeding properly from facts to conclusions do not depend on a moral position. What I am doing beyond merely passing a moral judgement is passing a rational judgement. They should have known better. For example, slaves were thought to be stupid. Stupidity, however, is not dependant on a moral judgement, but it is a matter of fact.

An example of a moral judgement which differs across society, but is not subject to factual correction, is the kind of thing to which I am referring. Such a thing might be choosing which divinity to put your faith in, if you are of that persuasion. Or whether euthanasia should be a crime. Whether "respect" is a major part of your social heirarchy. What your voting system is.

I am quite willing to accept that there are some principles, such as the value of human life, which must always be considered morally good, but the force of that "must" doesn't come from a moral judgement, but from an intellectual one. It doesn't make sense to devalue human life. It's not rational to elevate some humans above others without some proper basis.

Some people become angry, because they think that such a position reduces their moral judgements to meaninglessness. What value can a moral judgement have, if the opposite position is also allowed? Well, it has plenty of meaning -- it still defines your happiness, the success of your relationships with others, it prevents you from descending into certain behaviours. In short, it plays a tremendously valuable role in your life, in spite of and not in conflict with the idea that it could very easily be different.

At the end of the day, morality is about working with your society, towards goals which you all accept as your own. Some of those goals are defined by what it means to be human - i.e. they come from everyone's personal goals for happiness, elevated to a moral good by virtue of their commonality - while other are defined by nothing more than an accident of history. They remain the goals of your society.

Cheers,
-MP

Morality and Terrorism Per Se (part deux)

2005-07-09T12:55:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

For me, morality is established evolutionarily. That is to say, it is largely a historical accident, which has survived the trials of psychology and practicality. All people have an equal role in establishing their society's morality. The morality of a society is a gestalt of all the moral beliefs held by its individuals, but those moral beliefs are themselves beliefs about societal norms. A person's moral beliefs are the result of interaction with their society, and are an acceptance of society's moral goals as goals of their own.

In a highly diverse society, many people will have different moral beliefs, which would seem to invalidate what was just said. Since all members of society do not have uniform beliefs, how can society be the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong? Well, here's how. Society is really just the name for all the people we interact with - it's a useful name to give to a particular group of people. It's an alternative description of a collection of object, much as "gas" is a description of the behaviour of a large number of particles. Just as "gas" cannot capture the specific motions of the particles inside it, so "society" cannot capture the full diversity of its individuals.

Each person, then, has moral beliefs that are uniquely theirs, but that have been given them due to their interaction with others. Just as a gas adopts certain properties as a result of the interaction of its members, so society develops particular features. Some are clearly recogniseable, and some are not. Social taboos are examples of moral features of a society. Public nudity, for example, is a social taboo of Western culture. People have adopted the belief that this is morally wrong from their society.

Hence the question: Is the wrongness of terrorism something like a nudity taboo - that is, something that we believe is wrong only because we have adopted that belief from our society? The corollary of this is that believing terrorism to be right could also be that kind of thing - it might be possible to believe that terrorism is justifiable in some circumstances.

Let me put down a few points, with brief argumentation for each.

1.) Let's a assume that terrorism's value is purely consequential. It's not like happiness i.e. a good in itself, but rather it is valued for what it achieved.
2.) Let's identify two particular examples. One, let us suppose that we have two societies, both of which are evolutionarily fit, which is to say that they are robust in the face of danger, not susceptible to sudden revolution etc etc. The first is pro-terrorism, and the second is anti-terrorism. Can we identify this as an absurd example? Two, let us suppose instead that we have a pro-terrorism society which is evolutionarily unfit, and an anti-terrorism society which is evolutionarily fit.
3.) We should further consider whether terrorist acts are being committed with the blessing of society or not.

Let me quickly deal with the final point - that a terrorist act, indeed any act - cannot in practise or theory be a morally good act in the eyes of society, if that act is not carried out with the blessing of society. This is a simple truism if one accepts the societal definition of morality given above. The act could be in keeping with the moral beliefs of the particular actor, but cannot be ultimately judged "moral" by others. For me, a moral act is not merely a matter of the moral beliefs of the actor, but judged against actual standards for action, given by the beliefs of others.

Secondly - our tales of two cities. Let me call in each example the anti-terrorism society "Get-along-town".

In our first example, the beliefs of Get-along-town are in conflict with the beliefs of Pro-terrorism town. By construction, each society has equal claim to have justified true beliefs about their morality. That is to say, they should be able to examine their moral beliefs, and show how this is consistent with a evolutionarily fit society, show how their beliefs are internally consistent, etc etc. Is that ever really possible? Could a rigorous philosopher really manage to reconcile a pro-terrorism stance with those standards of justification?

In our second example, Pro-terrorism town has by construction failed the test of justified true beliefs. I would argue that while it is possible, psychologically speaking, for people to hold unjustified false beliefs, it is impossible to call moral judgements on the basis of those beliefs fully correct.

Religious faith can be included in this analysis, without assuming the non-existence of God. I would suggest that it is reasonable to believe a particular spiritual position if those beliefs can be rationalised with practical limits, standards of behaviour, internal consitency (or at least paraconsistency!) etc. It is, I would argue, unreasonable to believe a particular spiritual position if that position entails a descructive mode of existence - that is runs counter to the ability of society to prosper and continue. Even faith has a standard of justification, and as such, unreasonable faith cannot be used to justify a moral position. It is not, in my opinion, unreasonably to adopt a belief in either God or Allah, but it is unreasonable to use that belief to justify the destruction of a society, or engage in purely destructive behaviour for its own sake, etc.

Richard has been challenging my first post on this topic, and I was struggling to adequetly answer his challenge. This post consitututes a somewhat more formal description of what I believe the situation to be. I think we can quickly discount the second example - where terrorism is judged morally right on the basis of untenable beliefs. I don't think Richard has a problem with this.

He also questioned whether my societal definition of morality is sensible, but hopefully this post elucides a little why I think this is so.

The question then is whether the constructed example of an evolutionarily fit society which is pro-terrorism can plausibly exist. If not, the example breaks down, and terrorism can never be morally justified.

Clearly, such a society can survive /in the face/ of terrorism - but that is not the same thing as identifying terrorism as being in accord with the principles I have outlined as necessary. It is possible to society to continue even if some of its members commit terrorist actions, possibly in accordance with their beliefs, but is it possible that those individuals would pass the test of society's judgement? To put it another way, can society itself ever be pro-terrorism. To understand this, we much look at the consequential value of terrorism.

What is the result of terrorism? Used undirected, what the the immediate results? The level of damage involved is usually painful, but low relative to war or simple assault. Fear, panic, anger and pain are the results. This is seen, broadly speaking, as a bad thing. It is not sensible to want these things for their own sake. Thus, the only use for terrorism is as a threat, or because other actions are enabled by virtue of said panic, anger, pain etc.

I do not have scientific backup for this claim, but it seems uncontroversial that there is no direct benefit to a society in being panicky, afraid, enraged or in pain. Neither do there seem to be any direct flow-on benefits. None of those features seem to be linked to anything either morally or practical good. It does not seem that a society will ever be more successful as a result of terrorism.

The only use for terrorism then would seem to be if some particular situation could be best remedied through terrorism. It was suggested by Richard that if a society had in some way collapsed, then perhaps terrorism could be a way of shocking it into action. This does not seem to be a strong argument to me. It is a logically coherent suggestion, but I do not think that it could be true. I am willing to admit the logical possibility, but I think a sufficiently full analysis would show it to be semantically impossible.

I cannot think of any evidentiary basis for the success of terrorism in achieving any particular goal in the long term. Terrorism by the Islamo-fascists has achieved the short-term goal of engendering fear, anger, and publicity in the West, but I cannot identify any moral benefits of this, subject to the descriptions I have given in this article. This includes any justified beliefs from the perspective of the societies of the terrorists involved.

If terrorism really could be shown to be a good way of achieving some particular outcome, and could be identified as appropriate in some particular situation, then I would perhaps admit its rightness or goodness in that situation. But I have no reason for believing that this could ever be so. Certainly I am willing to admit the validity of the "greater good" argument as a justification for terrorism, but I am not willing to admit that the argument has ever been used successfully. The logical structure for the argument can be made, but I have never seen a constructed situation which is not absurd.

I would be happy to be corrected if someone could identify a historical or plausible example to contradict this, but until such time I do not think we need to entertain the possibility that terrorism could be an acceptable act.

Cheers,
-MP

A Philosophical Argument Against Terrorism Per Se

2005-07-08T11:01:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

In light of recent events, I thought a post on why I think terrorism is philosophically unjustified might be in order. For me the test of whether a particular act can be justified is whether you could consider doing the same thing if the situations were reversed.

Imagine that you lived in a world of extremism, and you had complete faith that you had to bring it down. What are the circumstances under which you might consider taking a terrorist action?

Another way of expressing this is to consider a clash of faiths. If two people have faith that the other needed to be killed, is either of them really more justified than the other?

This is the question I have to ask myself -- can I blame the terrorists for acting on their faith, and if not, why not? I find that yes, I can. What I present below is not to be regarded as the only thoughts I have on the matter, nor as a truly absolute position, but rather it is the result of my thinking about how to escape from reducing the argument to a mere clash of faiths, or pure relativism. It is my argument that terrorism is not right, even if one believes in moral relativism. Ultimately, even moral relativism must yield to human psychology and continuted human existence. Here, then is my suggestion:

I can appeal not only to an opposing faith, but to the principles of good reasoning and logic. One doesn't need to appeal to irrational faith in the rightness of one's position in order to show that terrorism is wrong, rather one can identify good reasons.

And this, ultimately, is what gives us the moral high ground. It is not only that our faith is being attacked, because to some extent moral rightness can be a matter of perspective, but it is also a matter of reasons.

Sound principles of human happiness, tolerance, understanding, self-interestedness, economic benefit, survival are all good reasons not to use terrorism as a weapon. Justifying terrorism (as opposed to war or mere violence which I believe can be justified) is always a direct appeal to faith, without a solid justifying reason. Terrorism is always a sacrifice of moral principles for a greater goal, and that greater goal is always only faith.

And when faith becomes disconnected with our intelligent, rational nature, it ceases to be reasonable. Faith, as the sole justification for a violent act, is always mistaken. Terrorism, I would argue, can only have faith as its ultimate justification, and therefore by implication is also always mistaken.

Cheers,
-MelbournePhilosopher

But That's Just Stupid

2005-07-05T14:17:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

One of the arguments that both academics and philosophers (often an intersecting pair of sets) have to deal with is what I call the "But That's Just Stupid" argument. The worst thing about it is that it's quite a good argument in the context of any particular problem.

The chief difficulty is that people want answers, whereas philosophy gives you, primarily, principles. Philosophy doesn't have to be so general and abstract, but in presenting a philosophical argument you almost always have to include both the answers and the philosophy rolled into one. The other major difficulty is not knowing all the facts. Here's an example of an unphilosophical claim:

Unemployment is around 5%, which is around the natural level. Therefore government is performing well.

Philosophically speaking, I have no problem with proceeding from the fact that unemployment is around the natural level to the conclusion that government is performing well. It doesn't seem reasonable to assess the government is underperforming if in fact unemployment is both low and normal.

Unfortunately, this argument quickly unravels when the true structure of (for example) Australian unemployment is understood. Rather than displaying an evenly distributed distribution, the great majority of incomes are in fact closer to the low end. Unemployment levels are not distributed evenly across various social groups. The unemployment rate fails to capture many people who are working part-time but would like more work, or are disabled, or for other reasons are not included statistically.

It is very easy for a good philosophical argument to reach poor conclusions based on even quite subtle untruths. Philosophical arguments are subject to chaos theory - a butterfly flapping its metaphorical wings can result in quite outrageous conclusions.

Similarly, many philosophical theories are developed not from a factual basis, but a theoretical one. One can often make a claim in the pursuit of one virtuous principle, only to discover that when applied to a factual example, the claim becomes farcicle in light of its other effects on the situation.

Failing to deal with the "But That's Just Stupid" argument is, I think, the primary reason for the sidelining of academia in this country. Well, that and their introverted nature and distance from the ordinary man. Let's just say it's a major reason. Academics have failed to overcome the bullshit detectors that we were all given at birth.

However, just because some arguments are vulnerable to this kind of attack doesn't mean that all arguments are vulnerable to this kind of attack. The challenge, as I see it, is to deal rationally and respecfully with people's cynicism. Rather than pursuing the most controversial elements of a doctrine, philosophers should concentrate on identifying theories which are robust.

As many philosophers are quick to point out, just because a theory doesn't fit the facts doesn't mean it can't help identify particular principles to which one should aspire. Being able to separate the argument from the facts can frequently help you to discover whether, for example, a person is merely *mistaken* in making a particular claim, or whether they are arguing poorly or pursuing a hidden agenda.

Similarly, identifying the difference between ignorance and difference can be important. Belief in a God is the kind of thing which involves a difference of faith, whereas the impact strength of a motor vehicle is not. Using the tools of philosophy it should be possible to be clear and explicit about these issues. Very often, I feel, people on two sides of a debate cannot even understand how it is that they can discuss their positions.

Let us return to our unemployment example -- is the real problem with unemployment one of personal empowerment, or is it rather an economic one?

For each person who is supported through the state, that money could potentially be used for saving lives medically. An argument commonly run is that recieving unemployment benefits should be a fundamental right -- that we owe it to them as humans. One counter-argument is that we don't owe it to them as humans. But there are many others, such as conflicting needs for the resources required to support a large unemployed population.

This is not the place to do a detailed dissection of the arguments commonly run, their clarity and knowability and so forth. Rather, it is an easily identified real issue where people frequently argue past eachother, or use a moral argument to oppose an economic one for example. It is philosophy which can give use the tools to make our meanings more explicit.

Philosophy's chief value is in allowing people to understand their own arguments.

Cheers,
-MP

A Change of Direction

2005-07-04T13:46:00.000+10:00

MelbournePhilosopher

Today's post represents a change of direction for MP.com. It is felt that unless one moves the goalposts every now any then, one will simple get sick of kicking the same old goals. This site has now been up for around 8 months, and in that time has attracted a little over 5000 "visits", has recently seen a marked increase in the number of commenting readers (which is just fantastic to see), although the visits per day has dropped slightly. I'll take quality over quantity any day, of course!

To emphasise the "content makeover" I have also updated the template, just to mix things up a little. Over the coming week I will be posting primarily on the topics of how to bring fresh ideas to the site, what value blogging over the long term might have, the importance of connecting with a readership, and also connecting with ones own motivations.

Some of the things I am planning to include are :
* Posts of email correspondence arguments on philosophy
* Guest interviews (expert)
* Guest interviews (social)
* Photographs and other multimedia

On the other hand, I have decided to abandon a few things alse :
* No essay blog competition - this was intended primarily to be a driver of research among social philosophers, however it is felt that the interest is not there to support this. Instead, short article-based interaction and/or email based interaction is preferable.
* Daily posting - I will simply post when I feel like it, most probably around 3-4 days per week, as I am in fact doing now. Rather than posting daily as a training exercise, I will concentrate on keeping each post "on mission" instead.

I welcome any comment!

Cheers,
-MP