Filosofia

Zeno of Elea - Motion Is Impossible

2011-02-18T22:11:00.001Z

Let me just say before we start that I don't agree with Zeno. Motion is impossible? This is some different definition of motion than the one we use in everyday life, yes? But I also have to say that, although I don't agree with him, Zeno's famous paradoxes have always held an irresistible fascination for me.

Zeno apparently did believe that all motion is impossible, and that therefore it follows that what we see or experience as motion must necessarily be an illusion. I have no idea how Zeno died, but it's just possible he died of starvation. Since motion is impossible, a trip down to the local food store would have been an adventure that was fraught with cosmic impossibility. Therefore it would hardly have been worthwhile to make the attempt. So we can thus imagine Zeno wasting away, while the steak and fries waited a short distance from his doorstep, philosophically unreachable.

Not much is known about Zeno. None of his writings have come down to us, and we only know of his existence from the writings of other philosophers, some of whom may have been opponents. He was said to be a pupil of Parmenides, who was himself a philosopher who believed the world was stuck.

Zeno's most famous paradox concerns Achilles and the Tortoise. The two agree to have a race. Because Achilles is an athlete, he gives the tortoise 100 metres start. Achilles runs 10 times as fast as the tortoise, so you would expect him to easily overtake his opponent.

But not so, says Zeno.

BANG! goes the starting gun and both runners are off. Achilles runs 100 metres, to arrive at the place where the tortoise began. But the tortoise is now 10 metres ahead. So Achilles runs 10 metres, but the tortoise is still 1 metre ahead, so Achilles runs 1 metre, only to find the tortoise is still 0.1 metre ahead.

And so on. You get the picture. This proves the athlete can never overtake the tortoise, and so we have a paradox. Therefore, motion is impossible.

I like this paradox. The great thing about it is that you know it can't be right, but you can't really fault its logic. Many have tried. Most counter-arguments fall into some absurdity or logical trap. Or, even worse, bluster! To refute it is not as easy as you might think it would be. That's one reason why I like it so much.

Once I asked a Math professor to give a refutation of Zeno's Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, upon which he started to drone on about infinite seqeunces with a finite limit, and Leibnizian calculus. This may indeed have been very dull, but probably it was about as close as you will ever get to a refutation of Zeno.

We Create Our Own Universe

2010-11-03T18:29:00.000Z

The information we receive from the universe is in the form of millions and billions of pieces of sense-data. This is clearly too much data for us to process without confusion. So we filter out that which we do not require.

Thus the world "out there" that we experience is partly given, and partly constructed by our brain's filtering process.

So then, if I choose to ignore the colour red, for example, does that mean there will be no reds in my universe?

Democracy - Is It Good or Is It Bad?

2010-11-02T20:06:00.000Z

This is a philosophical article, not a political one. I detest politics, and I wish to have nothing to do with the subject. The argument here is purely theoretical.

If you were to ask people in the street, probably over 90% would say democracy is good, but would they be right? Are they expressing a considered opinion, or have they been mentally conditioned (brainwashed?) to accept democracy without question?

Democracy, or "majority rule", is the accepted method in the so called "free" countries of the West. One of the most devastating arguments against democracy is to point out which television shows get the highest ratings, that is, are chosen by the majority. They are usually among the worst and most pointless shows. This tends to cast doubt on the wisdom of a system which bases its policy on the choices of the majority.

And of course, we have to remember that the majority doesn't actually rule. What the majority does is vote, it is still a minority that does the ruling.

Democracy was invented by the ancient Greeks, but in their system you could not vote if you were a woman, or of a different race, or if you were a slave, or you were young, or you didn't own land. So it was rule by what we would call a minority. However, the "show of hands" was the key element that made it democratic. They used to gather in the forum, and discuss policy at great length, and then decide. Even though the electorate was "intellectual" (meaning they didn't watch TV soaps) they still managed to come up with some abysmally idiotic and disastrous decisions.

Have you noticed how many of the most totalitarian communist states describe themselves as "Democratic Republic" or "People's Democratic Republic?" What do the people living in them think of that? Do they inwardly rebel against the misnomer? Or perhaps they are led to believe that their country really does have a democratic system? We in the West tend to smile at their naivete in falling for such a simple trick.

But if you examine closely some of these states, you will see that in fact they do have elections, in which candidates run for office, and one is voted for by people in his local area, and takes a seat in a parliament. Surely this is democracy? Is this democracy or not?

Some would say no, it is a sham, because people's votes can never change the system, because the totalitarian government stays in power, regardless of the change of faces of the deputies, which is merely a cosmetic change. So it's not real democracy, is it?

So we infer that the people living under those regimes may well be under a delusion that they live in a democratic state.

It was when I reached this point in the argument that a sudden thought occurred to me. We who live in the "free" democracies of the West are different because we really do have a free democracy, don't we? But if it was in fact a totalitarian regime disguised as a free democracy, how would we know?

In other words, how can we, in the "free" democracies, ever know for sure that we are not in exactly the same situation in relation to the ruling power as are the inhabitants of the "People's Democratic Republics?"

The Uniformity of Nature

2010-11-01T18:35:00.000Z

The Uniformity of Nature is a presumption that the future will be like the past. If it is conceded to be a true reflection of reality, it can form the basis of inductive reasoning. Thus, we can make plans to get up and go to work tomorrow morning, because we can make the reasonable assumption that today will be the same as yesterday, or at least as much like it as to render it unnecessary to consider the differences. Actually in this example, it would be more accurate to say that tomorrow will be the same as the corresponding day last week. But the principle is the same.

When one considers this presumption closely, there seems no particular reason why it should be so. Why should nature not undergo complete and radical changes every five minutes? When the laws of nature and even the names of the days of the week change beyond all recognition? Someone might argue that, if this were to happen, we would notice it happening. However, that argument does not stand, because if our brains and sensory capacities, being part of nature themselves, underwent the same radical changes, our perception of reality might well have the same relational connection to natural events and processes as they have before. So we would be unaware that anything had happened.

There's another objection also. It is called Goodman's Paradox of Induction. I make no claim to understand it fully, but essentially it says that although we experience Nature as a uniformity over time, it is undeniably true that individual, particular objects do undergo changes. Now if we examine an object and then try to predict its state of being at some future specified time, there is equal support for the hypothesis that at that time it will be the same as now, or the hypothesis that it will be different from now.

Therefore the presumption of the Uniformity of Nature is not really as helpful as most people would like to think, since the only time it is fulfilled is when it works, and it is unfulfilled when it doesn't. Which leads the philosopher to the following aphorism:

Don't bother trying to predict the future.

Hermeneutics is Not Easy

2010-10-31T18:14:00.000Z

Today I was intending to say something more about the debate on free will versus determinism, but I got sidetracked by a discussion about hermeneutics. Then I was asked by a "dear friend" to postpone the treatment of free will/determinism until some later time.

The "hermeneutics" difficulty was caused by the attempt to understand what exactly it was in the first place, since the definition I found merely said it was the science of textual interpretation. I would have said that every time we read anything, we are involved in interpretation, so that the question arises as to how we can ever speak of a "separate" science or discipline of hermeneutics. How can we isolate an activity as being distinct from that which we do all the time?

Besides, and once again, we find the word used to mean several different things. In theology, it refers to the interpretation of sacred texts, many of which are about as obscure and cryptic as it is possible to be, and furthermore, since they are usually old, they are subject to the suspicion of falsification either by deliberate means or by copyist's errors. This seems a reasonable definition of hermeneutics as a distinct activity.

But apparently, the word "hermeneutics" can also be used to describe the attempt to interpret human behaviour and the workings of human institutions.

As if that were not bad enough, it is also in some accounts mentioned as being used by existentialists to denote the activity of examining the purpose of life.

It could be argued that this overloading of a single word with so many different meanings is such as to render it almost useless, particularly as the meanings themselves are anything but sharply defined.

Perhaps my time would have been better employed if I had, after all, concentrated on the free will/determinism debate. If it had not been for the intervention of my "dear friend" I would have done so today. But I shall return to it, perhaps tomorrow.

Is A Single Definition of Reality Too Much To Ask For?

2010-10-30T17:59:00.000+01:00

Reality: if regarded from the empirical perspective, this refers to the ordinary world of nature; if regarded from the transcendental perspective, it refers to the transcendent realm of the noumenon.

from http://www.philosophy-dictionary.org/

I just found this definition of "Reality" and it's just about as helpful as it could possibly be. Did I say helpful? Of course I meant unhelpful. I don't mean this as a criticism of whoever was the anonymous lexicographer who wrote it. Only that it is not one definition, but two masquerading as one. It seems ironic that this should be so. We associate the world reality with solidness, lack of ambiguity, and all those other straightforward qualities - and yet it seems we are not to have the luxury of a single cosy definition.

Which one to choose? Most people I guess would choose the first. Naturally I would choose the second, and more especially because of that very reason. If most people choose a particular way of viewing reality, that seems an excellent reason to reject it. After all, if you look around, it hasn't done them much good, has it?

The real world is the world that exists beyond appearances. The observer is the creator of the universe. That is an axiomatic statement. If I had to climb down from that position, I would only descend as far as to say that the observer is the co-creator of the universe.

Who is the partner in this co-creation? This is difficult to answer, not because there is any difficulty in formulating the notion, but because most of the words used to describe it are so heavily loaded with historical accretions of meaning as to render them almost useless for rational debate. Many of my readers will remember the ruckus that ensued after I used the word "God" in this context. For this reason I always avoid using the word whenever possible, unless my interlocutor demonstrates a clear understanding of its use in a Berkeleyan sense.

Well, not exactly a Berkeleyan sense, although not far away.

But such a situation is all too rare.

What is Dialectic?

2010-10-29T18:54:00.000+01:00

dialectic (n): discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation.

This is a very famous philosophical technique. I say philosophical, but it would be more accurate to describe it as a literary technique, since it is used by philosophers for the writing of philosophy, rather than for actually doing it.

It's famous because it was used by Plato all the time in his many books, which have since become the cornerstone, or perhaps you could say, virtually the entire edifice, of Western philosophy.

Plato's main character, Socrates, disputes with a selection of rival philosophers, and invariably wins. For this he uses the so-called "Socratic technique" although it could just as aptly be called the "annoying technique." He cunningly questions his opponents, pretending to be ignorant, in order to reveal fatal flaws in their thinking.

One wonders how these people fell for it every time.

And after Socrates had begun to work his method, the opponent all too often surrendered meekly, but was then forced to go the distance.

For example, in the Republic, Glaucon, after making a fairly bright start and putting across his opinions at great length, gets reduced, in the latter two-thirds of the book, to a rather pathetic figure, whose only contribution is, "Yes, Socrates," "No, of course not, Socrates," or "Undoubtedly, Socrates." It's true that Socrates views and analysis are definitely of the killer variety, but you would hope that Glaucon could have put up a bit more of a struggle. After all, this was his one chance in history to be in the spotlight.

Of course, it's always possible that he really did exactly that, but Plato, being naturally biased towards his teacher, censored it out, after Glaucon had provided the raw material which Socrates could then rip to pieces.

Philosophy, like history, is written by the winning side.

Why Bother With Meta-Ethics?

2010-10-28T18:39:00.000+01:00

meta-ethics Branch of philosophical ethics concerned with the meaning of moral propositions and the grounds upon which moral judgments are to be justified. Meta-ethical theories typically offer an account of moral language and its uses together with an explanation of the logical relations between assertions of fact and value. from http://www.philosophypages.com/

For me, the addition of the prefix meta- to virtually any word is always going to cause a lot of excitement. It presupposes that we will be transported from the everyday world to take up at least a temporary residence in a far more interesting realm that exists beyond the appearance of the humdrum life of our daily routine.

I would like to live there forever.

Meta-ethics is an enormously important subject. One might even say THE most important of all branches (or meta-branches) of philosophy.

For how many times every day, every hour, every second, do we see two or more fools arguing about what is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong, and never realizing that their entire discussion is utterly futile. Why is it futile?

Because they have not taken the trouble to notice that each of them has a different interpretation of those words, good, bad, right, wrong, and so they will perpetually be, by definition, arguing at cross purposes. Their arguments will never meet, they will never engage.

However, this foregoing fact is not always enough to prevent the disputants from engaging, in the sense that they come to blows over their absurd excuses for argued debate. And we've seen that happen often enough too.

We are of course not talking here about politicians, who are nearly all crooks, and of whom the majority (close to all of them) are beneath contempt. At least we are talking about people who have some measure of sincerity, albeit of the foolish kind.

Notice how we gave simple words as the examples - good, bad, right, wrong. People mistakenly believe it to be the complicated words that give trouble, but this is not so. In fact, it is almost always the simple words that give trouble in this context, because everyone believes they know what those words mean.

Even if, all too frequently, they don't.

Nature or Idealism

2010-09-24T06:31:00.000+01:00

I had been involved in many distractions, and was either unable or let's just say reluctant to write. School has of course taken up a great deal of time and of attention but there have been some adventures also. Perhaps I will get around to relating some of them at some later time, but not now I think.

It really is a question of how the writing goes when once it begins. With this kind of writing exercise or should I say project, one never knows at the beginning how it will turn out in the end. Decisions are made as and when they occur. For example, I have just been thinking that it might be a good idea to avoid as much as possible the use of punctuation, which tends to interrupt the flow of the message, and lead to a jerky prose style. However, naturally, one should never deliberately flout the rules of good grammatical style for a mere idea.

This leads on to the main point of this article. The conflict between nature and idealism. As many of you will know, I am a firm believer in nature over idealism. Of course, this needs to be explained, and again, of course, this is partly what this blog is all about, in its totality.

The reason it needs to be explained is because the words nature and idealism have almost as many different meanings as the number of people who use them. Fortunately however, there are not too many people who actually do use such words, because most people do not think. I mean they do not think at all. They react, they do as they are told, they follow the herd. This is an observable fact.

Back to the dichotomy. Nature/idealism. Actually, some one might argue that instead of nature it should be named naturalism, but I hate that word, I detest it. So nature/idealism. Now those readers who have any kind of background in the religions which revere the Book, that is, the Bible, as it's often called, will be aware that the foundational creation myth in that tradition is that of a Garden, wherein mankind, embodied in the persons of Adam and Eve, lived a life of pure joy and simplicity and innocence in a beautiful natural garden that was tended and cared for by God. However this was not to last, because of the introduction of ideas. Their idealism, their belief that they could think for themselves, their independence was what caused all the problems that came later. So mankind's idealism is the cause of all the world's woes. The placing of an idea above the teachings of nature.

As Europe descends once again into civil war, this time maybe the last and most enduring one of all, and America is on the brink of ceasing to exist as a nation, and these things happening as a result of the crass incompetence, treachery and stupidity of politicians in what are fondly believed to be "democratic" countries, it is a legitimate question to ask, is it not now time for each and every person to make the decision in their own life to return to nature, and to abandon once and for all the destructive adherence to ideas and ideologies which has led us to the situation we now are in.

Freedom of Choice - Does It Exist?

2010-05-17T08:21:00.004+01:00

I was asked to write something about the subject of "Freedom of Choice." I have taken rather a long time to get around to doing it, though, so I guess the original request is now forgotten, but here it is anyway.

This whole question of Free Will and Determinism has been discussed many times throughout the centuries since it was first debated and codified by the great philosophers of Ancient Greece. So I won't waste time rehearsing the different arguments pro and con. These can easily be found by googling Free Will Determinism. All I will say is that I believe the Ancient Greek thinkers were wrong since they based their argument on a false premise. No, I need to change that. The Ancient Greeks were not wrong, since they were talking about the appearance of things (how it seems to us that things are) but those who followed the ancients, who interpreted their thinking, are the ones who got it wrong, and distorted the sublime Greek view into the mundane "flat-earth" reduction that we have today as our basis for our viewpoint of reality. It is this distortion which causes the pathological problems which are all too often the accompaniment to any examination of the debate, and indeed many or even most of the ills of our society (wars, economic disasters etc) are the result of this wrong-headed thinking about free will.

In one sense, then, there is and can never be any free will. By the same token, there can never be any determinism either. It's like when you see a character in a play on stage or in a movie. The character appears to have free will, as he or she makes choices, but in reality the character's choices and words and actions are completely fixed and determined beforehand by the writer of the script. Every time the play or movie is run, the words are the same.

So there is no free will, only determinism? No, because the choices have been made by the writer. The character has their every move determined by the writer, and the character is in a sense, a projection of the writer. The writer is wearing a mask. This is the persona. The mask is assumed by the writer, who thus creates his/her own reality.

Thus, everything that we do or be or are, is the determined result of our own free choices. But it is only a cause of confusion when or if we ourselves absurdly to choose to confuse the ego self (the persona) with our real self (our inner being).

Comments in Chinese

2010-05-15T19:19:00.002+01:00

I've been getting quite a few comments on this blog recently that are written in Chinese. This seems strange to me, because the blog posts are written of course in English, so you would expect the comments to be posted in the same language.

Not that I mind really. People are entitled to post in any language they want, so I don't wish to curtail that freedom. It just seems odd.

Presumably whoever it is doing the commenting is able to read English, so it begs the question of why they don't comment in kind.

Am I missing something?

I could put it into Google Translate, but I can't really be bothered. Besides, the experiences I've had in translating Chinese into English have usually left me feeling none the wiser for taking the trouble. I'm told that the Chinese language is somewhat pictorial, and the rendering in English looks very strange.

Is it spam? Maybe...

The Power of Authority

2010-04-12T08:46:00.004+01:00

Many of us do not have a clue what to think.

Not so very long ago there was a widespread belief that the Moon was made of green cheese. Then this was dispelled when American astronauts went there, at enormous expense, and brought back some rock. So we believed that it was not made of green cheese after all, but of rock. Because they brought the rock back, that was a proof.

Simple, isn't it?

Well, not quite. I don't know about you, but I've never actually seen the rocks they brought back with them. I've seen pictures of them. That's not quite the same thing, is it? And even if I did see them, how do I know that these rocks I see were in fact the ones that came from the Moon? Or even that there were any at all?

This brings us to the Power of Authority. You could ask, why should I disbelieve that the rocks are real? Well of course, they are real rocks, but the question is, are they real moonrocks? Perhaps I should not disbelieve they are real. After all, they were brought back by NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, a respectable organisation of the United States government. They would not lie to me, would they? Why should they lie?

This argument is very powerful. Why indeed should I be skeptical? The scientists at NASA have a professional duty to tell the truth about their findings, so why should they lie?

But I think we now see that the situation is not as simple as we may have imagined. Because my acceptance that the rocks in question actually came from the Moon, hinges on one thing only. My trust in the organisation NASA and its team of scientists. Their integrity. Only on belief and trust, not on proof in any rigorous sense of that word.

Nothing has been proved to me by science. I have not been given access to the Moon rock, to conduct any analyses of it. And most of us would be unable to perform any analysis even if we had. So we accept the authority of the scientists.

Accepting the authority of the government and of the scientific community is something that we are all constrained to do, for that reason. And it works fine, doesn't it?

Until we find out that those authorities have told us even so little as only one lie.

As soon as that happens, then everything the government and the acientists have told us is thrown into doubt. The Power of Authority is lost.

The Decline of Religion in the West - Should We Be Worrying About It?

2010-04-03T18:34:00.007+01:00

Anyway, to the actual discussion of a religious theme.

I was struck recently by a discussion, or more accurately, a whole raft of discussions of the type which surface from time to time, in which some people were lamenting the decline in the moral compass and the ethical leadership of the church (or Church, depending on how you want to describe it).

The argument goes that, at least in the West, the breakdown of social and moral values is a result of the failure of the church, not only to keep its congregations in their seats, but also to offer clear guidelines of behaviour etc to the ignorant populace (that's us) based on the revealed truths of scripture and the wisdom handed down by tradition.

It's a great shame the church does not get its act together, because if it did, there would not be so much trouble in the world.

According to another school of thought, there is a slightly massive flaw in the above argument.

If we suppose God to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all those other all-things that have been attributed in the past, then, in one sense, it doesn't matter at all what we do or think or say, because it will all work its way into God's Divine Plan anyway. And even if it didn't, at any point in history, God can simply say, "Right OK, that's enough. Stop whatever you're doing, because from now on, we're doing it my way!"

So there's no mileage to be gained in worrying about declining congregations or declining moral values in society, since it's not up to us anyway. The True Believer, then, can just get on with the business of rejoicing about the fact that, however things may look, the world we see is the absolute perfection of the best of all possible worlds.

Followers of the first view would respond that maybe that is so, but that's not what God intended us to do at all. We're supposed to work towards bringing about the Kingdom of Heaven through the exercise of our own free will, and if that means we have to worry a bit, that's just the way things are.

Of these two factions, I have to say I lean rather towards the second one (don't worry about it), but only because I enjoy just having a good time rather than getting into a major stress all the time. But I do accept that's not a particularly defensible philosophical viewpoint.

As to which one of the above two factions is correct, I don't really have a clue, so I'll leave it for you to decide.

Philosophy of Religion - Meta-Discussion Following Extreme Hibernation

2010-04-03T17:51:00.009+01:00

The Official Line is that I've been hibernating, in case you wanted to know. And yes, I know that the -hiber- part of the word hibernating gives the unmistakable clue that it takes place in the winter, and it's now well and truly into spring, at least in my part of the world.

I guess I'm just a late riser.

Hope you all didn't miss me too much. And if you did, well, your waiting is now at an end. I'm writing again. As to how long I'll continue to write... that's, as they say, in the lap of the gods.

Speaking of which, and as it's almost Easter Day, I thought I would have another go at a religious theme for a blog post.

I have to say that I approach this task with a deal of trepidation, because the last time I tried this, I found myself in the centre of a massive storm debate on BlogCatalog where there was lots of ranting and raving (not, I hasten to add, by me) and accusation piled on accusation etc etc between the proponents of Creationism on the one side, and those of Evolution on the other. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing was about the extent of it, if memory serves.

Anyway, what happened was that the discussion got so huge and ponderous and rather personal amongst some of the combatants, that the moderators at BlogCatalog lost patience with the whole business and zapped the entire thread into instant oblivion! Such is the internet. Now you see it, now you don't.

Of course, this led to some people posting on other threads about how the hosts were abusing their power, suppressing free speech etc etc but by this time everyone was more or less played out and exhausted so they didn't really get anywhere with their protests.

If I remember rightly, it all started with me writing a re-hash of the Ontological Argument of St Anselm or some such old philosopher of the Middle Ages,and posting the question, "Does God Exist?" A fair question you would have thought, but apparently too emotive for modern minds to wrestle with and at the same time avoid the kind of explosions which can bring an entire community to the brink of civil strife.

You might have imagined it to be such an impossibly and hopelessly dull subject, completely disconnected with anything much in the real world (or should I say, the "real" world) that nobody much would have been tempted to join it, at least with any great degree of enthusiasm. But apparently this was not the case, and a more exciting and indeed violent debate could hardly have been wished for.

Until its sudden destruction. A metaphor for our times, perhaps?

But I digress.

What We Can Learn From A Goose

2009-09-13T19:27:00.000+01:00

I've just been for a walk in the park. While I was there I sat for a while at one of the picnic tables, and decided to spend some time watching the geese and the ducks.

Not much was happening. They were all sitting dozing or preening on the grass near the water's edge. The geese (as I discovered later from Google - I'm not very well-versed in types of animals!) were Canada geese and the ducks were all Mallards. They are extremely tame and accustomed to the proximity of humans so I was able to sit quite close to them without alarming them.

It occurred to me that some people might think of them only as a rather pleasant choice for lunch, but then wiser counsels prevailed when I remembered that there is a very high quality supermarket within 100 metres of the spot, where you can get duck or goose or anything you want, ready to cook. That would seem the obvious choice, at least for most of us who live in the so-called "civilised" world, for whom the thought of having to kill and pluck their own goose would be quite a gruesome prospect.

While I was pondering on this, I noticed something I had never known about before. As you are probably aware, the Canada goose has very dark, almost black, colouring on its head, and the eye, which is also dark, does not make a great contrast with the rest of the head. However, when the goose shuts its eye, for example to doze off, the situation changes quite dramatically. It is the lower eyelid that moves, which looks strange enough, but the astonishing thing is that the eyelid is a pure white colour. This makes a marked contrast with the rest of the face. I can think of no reasonable explanation for this, except maybe that it is for the protection of the goose against predators. Perhaps when the eye is shut it looks like it is open, which might possibly make a predator hesitate for a minute. I just don't know.

I noticed also that the Mallard duck has the same eyelid arrangement, although not so strikingly as the Canada goose.

This led me on to thinking about what it must be like to actually BE a goose or a duck. I spend a lot of time wondering about what it is like being something or someone else, so this is not completely surprising. I would certainly miss being able to scratch my ear (do geese have ears?), or ride a bicycle. And when was the last time you heard about a goose logging on to the World Wide Web (though they DO have webbed feet - ha ha sorry about that one!) But anyway, a goose would not miss those delights, never having experienced them.

However, if you were a goose, you would have one truly amazing skill that maybe would make up for your lack of opposable thumbs. You would be able to FLY - under your own power and control! And you would be able to land on water! Think of that. Now, be honest, wouldn't that be absolutely awesome?

Why am I writing this? Well, as I am a philosopher I think it is great if we can learn something from any experience, so here are some things I learned, and maybe they will be useful to you as well.

1. Canada geese have pure white upside-down eyelids.

2. It is worth taking the time and trouble to REALLY look at things.

3. We probably focus too much on the things we cannot do, especially when we compare ourselves to other people. Instead we would do better to focus on the amazing things we could do, if we only tried.

4. If you want to survive in this world, it is a good idea to try to avoid being tasty when eaten. If you cannot manage this, then try to live somewhere where they have a decent supermarket nearby.

Moral Philosophy Can Get You Into Trouble

2009-07-16T07:16:00.003+01:00

My favourite branch of philosophy is metaphysics. For those who do not know, metaphysics can probably without too much oversimplification be described as the study of how our perception and knowledge of the universe comes to us. Physics is the study of the physical world - how it works, what it is made of. Metaphysics looks at what is behind the perceived reality. Or more accurately, what is beyond it, since the prefix meta literally means beyond.

There are many different theories of metaphysics, some of them quite weird. Most people are not in the least bit interested in metaphysics. And I have to admit that even though I like the subject, I can not really blame them for thinking as they do. Some of it is quite difficult to get your head around. Triviality can be so much more fun, and more immediately satisfying.

So when you interact as a philosopher with other people, you find yourself straying more and more into the realms of moral philosophy. Such questions as "Is it ever right to tell a lie?", or "Should we allow children in Africa to starve?" are more interesting to most people than, for example, "Does our perception of the world subsist in a priori or a posteriori data?"

For me it is absolutely clear which are the most interesting questions.

Besides, moral philosophy can often get you into trouble. People tend to read their own agendas into what you are saying. This happens particularly in discussions on the internet. People try to "read between the lines", in other words, they try to find out what your underlying, unspoken reason is for saying what you say, or for bringing up a question. Maybe you are even doing that now? Maybe you are thinking, Why is filosofia talking about this? What is her ulterior motive?

Usually people conclude that you must be trying to sell them something, and that you are at any moment going to start your "pitch". Or even worse, especially in moral philosophy, they sometimes think you are going to start trying to convert them to your religion. Even more if you actually happen to mention the words religion or god, which, after all, are sometimes likely to crop up when discussing issues of morality.

It then can happen that a person replies in the discussion, not to what you actually said, but to what they thought you said, which can lead to some amusing and quite heated, but ultimately pointless, exchanges.

I usually say to people, let's try to just concentrate on the words that are said, and not look for hidden meanings all the time. But a lot of the time it does no good. People think you mean something by it.

So that's why I prefer metaphysics.

What Are You Like?

2009-07-13T12:51:00.005+01:00

Some have asked me what I am like, by which they no doubt mean the kind of surface attributes and "facts and figures" that are considered so important by many people. The question is a foolish question. A person's true identity is their inner self, which they may choose or not choose to show. It is revealed to a great extent in what they say, in their philosophy, if you like.

The Philosopher is able to maintain control over revelation. Thus the Philosopher is able to allow us to see only so much of her true nature as she wishes us to perceive. The rest of us, to a greater or lesser extent, allow our true self to be perceived by default.

Those who ask about superficial qualities reveal instead their own superficiality.

But I can reveal that when I was young, I was like Alice. There are many different images of Alice, so you may have invoked in your imagination one of the images an artist or film-maker of the past invoked in HIS imagination. But there was a REAL Alice, and she it is, and there is a picture for you to see.

Now we must be clear that this blog is about philosophy, yet I have been talking about books. I do not intend this blog to become a book blog, but I have to mention a book sometimes. Besides, my last post was about "NOT a book" so in the interests of balanced reporting, we must now have a post about a book. More accurately, two books, since we want to have books in credit, not overdrawn. As they sometimes are from the library. No, that's not overdrawn, but overDUE.

Therefore for those who want to know what I am like, I will tell you about two books (novels) which I think are beautiful in their different ways. They are not necessarily my favourite books but they could be. They are certainly not my exclusive books, but they might suffice at a pinch. They will show you that which I think is beautiful, but they are two among many beautiful things.

If you are in any way a similar person to me, then you will probably love them. But you know I don't do book reviews? So you have to read them to find out anything at all about them, other than that you can trust me you can read them confidently.

And also this clue: One of them is about someone who is like me, and the other one is about someone who I like.

They are:

In A Good Light
by Clare Chambers

The Crimson Petal and the White
by Michel Faber

This Blog Did NOT Come From A Book

2009-07-12T19:07:00.003+01:00

Some readers have said they are reminded when they read this blog of a book called Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. In the book, a 14 year old schoolgirl called Sophie one day begins to receive letters from a man she has never met before, teaching her about philosophy. They begin a secret relationship and the book develops from there.

If you think I am going to tell you the whole story you are mistaken. You will just have to buy the book and read it for yourself!

The time has come to say that I myself have never received any secret letters about philosophy. Not from anyone, male of female, old or young. So I am not like the girl in the book, at least in that respect. But I do love philosophy. (In some ways, the previous sentence contains a redundancy, since the word philosophy means love of knowledge [or wisdom], and so the sentence is saying, I love love of wisdom. But you know what I mean!)

The other thing I need to say is that I had not even read the book, before someone mentioned it in a comment on this blog. That's funny isn't it? I have since read it and found it enjoyable. The reason I had not read it was because I believed it to be yet another of the seemingly endless number of novels set in World War Two. Which I have already had quite enough of at school.

Within or Without The Rules

2009-06-09T17:46:00.003+01:00

This is intended to be a very short post, since I have no idea how long the WiFi network (of which I am currently a parasite) will remain up.

I would like to present my heartfelt and sincere apologies for my recent indolence and silence, which has prompted some commenters to speculate on the possibility of my actual lack of existence (as opposed to the virtual lack of existence which is of course the birthright of the true Philosopher.) Thank you for your kind and fascinating comments. Some of these appeared during my lengthy absence, and I have only now had the opportunity to publish them. I hope you will forgive the fact that they were in Googlesque limbo for so long.

As some of you may know by now, my place of residence is the United Kingdom. Recently we have witnessed a political corruption scandal involving members of the national parliament. All the major parties were implicated in the scandal, not only the government representatives. Many of my readers will have learned that I have little interest in politics, and even less in economics, so let it suffice to say briefly that the corruption involved MPs expenses claims. There were some outrageous examples, such as one member who put in a claim for the taxpayer to refund the expense of having his moat cleaned (yes, moat - as in castle!)

Some of the culprits argued that the claims they put in, while morally unacceptable, were nonetheless within the rules. Of course these rules had been made by the MPs themselves. The idea behind them is that the MPs should be allowed to claim the expenses for a second home, since their own home may be a long distance away from Parliament.

Anyway, if you want to know more about the facts, you only have to consult some of the recent newspaper stories on the issue, on the relevant websites. The reason I mention it is because what struck me most about the scandal was that the public seemed surprised that politicians should descend to such degrading money-grubbing behaviour. Is that not indeed what the word "politician" means?

People who live in other countries will no doubt marvel at the fact that the British seemed to be so totally unaware of this basic fact of life. Not only that, but the British seem to have very short memories too. There have been corruption scandals aplenty throughout UK history, on a par with those of almost every other country in the world. Could it be that the British are just too trusting of those who have power over them, or do they just enjoy living in a dream world of wishful thinking?

So now we come to the question: If some contemplated course of action is within the rules, does that mean it is always right? And if it is against the rules, does that mean it is always wrong?

How To Get The Best Out Of Internet Forums

2009-01-19T12:45:00.005Z

I've been spending quite a lot of time on forums lately. I'm beginning to wonder why, really. They are a monumental waste of time, if you stop to think about it. But at the same time they are kind of addictive.

I don't know about you but i'm a serial forumist. What does that mean? Well it means that I join a forum and then start to get deeply involved with its discussions. Spend hours of each day on that one forum, to the exclusion of all else, even other forums. Then I seem to get a backlash where I begin to detest that one and all it stands for. Then I find another one and the same cycle begins again. See what I mean, serial forumist.

Or perhaps the phrase should be "serial monoforumist" to distinguish me from the other kind. The "polyforumists". These are the people who will probably go on to be extremely successful in later life. They can organise themselves so that every day (in every way) they visit each one of a systematic portfolio of different forums, make a small but deeply significant contribution, and then leave. I am of course full of admiration and envy of these people but I haven't got the smallest chance of ever emulating their feats of endurance. I would just find it dreary in the extreme, going through all those links, waiting for each one to open, etc etc. And then forcing yourself to leave just when things are getting interesting! No, I wish I could, but it's just not me.

Now tell me, what type of forumist are you?

Should Rich People Give Away Money, and How Much?

2008-12-29T19:30:00.005Z

Many wealthy people give vast sums of money away to charity. From a moral point of view, are they doing something worthy? Should we applaud them and praise them for this?

There is no doubt that the large amounts given away by such people as Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet (who I've never heard of, but someone said he gives lots away) or historical figures such as Carnegie or Rockefeller, can go a long way towards relieving the suffferings of the poor, and providing them with opportunities in life. And these acts of charity get a lot of attention from the media. But we are here concerned with the moral aspect. How worthy are these acts of charity by these fabulously wealthy men?

I want to try a philosophy thought experiment. Before I do, maybe it should be said that, often, a wealthy person can trade off a charitable gift against a tax break, so his loss is not really as much as it seems. But to keep things simple in the thought experiment, let's allow the rich men to have their tax break and just look at it in simple terms?

A Thought Experiment

You have ten dollars. I have ten billion dollars. We each give $1 to charity. Our contributions are exactly the same amount. From a moral point of view, which is the most worthy?

Yours. You may need all your $10 dollars to feed your family, so $1 is a big sacrifice. I will not miss $1, I won't even notice it.

Again, you have ten dollars. I have ten billion dollars. You give $1, which is 10% of your total wealth. I give one billion dollars, which is 10% of my total wealth. So we have given the same proportion of our wealth away. I have given away ONE BILLION DOLLARS, a staggering amount of money! From a moral point of view, surely now, my contribution is more worthy than yours? Or at least, it's equally worthy, isn't it?

No. Because you have only $9 left to feed your family, but I have $9 billion. I think I'll probably manage OK on that.

Again, you have ten dollars. I have ten billion dollars. How can I make a contribution to charity that will, from a moral point of view, be the equal of yours?

Could it be that, in order to equal in worthiness your contribution of one dollar, I have to give $9,999,999,991?

Yes, because, in a charitable contribution, what really counts is not how much you give, but how much you have left. If I am left with only $9, I will feel the same pain and worry as you, so only then will I have made the same sacrifice as you.

So the acclaim that is given to rich men by the newspapers and the network news channels, when they give away minute portions of their fortunes, is totally misdirected. I'm not saying they should not give money away; I think it's good that they do. I'm not saying either that they should leave themselves with only nine dollars. What I'm saying is that it needs to be put into perspective. When they make these admittedly huge gifts, they should not praised and acclaimed as though they were especially virtuous and worthy men, as though the size of their giving made them automatically worthy of praise.

Patience Does Not Seem to Be One of the Seven Virtues

2008-12-28T17:48:00.007Z

Here are some random thoughts that have arisen from the discussion that started on my previous post about whether or not patience is a virtue, as the saying goes.

First thought: As I hinted in the other post, the word virtue comes from the Latin vir, meaning a man. So, for the ancient Romans, the good qualities of a person that we now call virtues were those qualities which go to make a good man. Women, of course, had no place in society, no vote, no rights, and they were legally deprived of citizenship, being subject entirely to the whim of their father or husband. So the qualities were those of an honourable man, and that is why the word has come to us as "virtue".

The notions of honour in Roman society were actually quite similar to those of the Samurai, which many people in the present day seem to admire, often at the same time criticising the honour system of the West, which comes to us from the Romans. But that's another matter altogether.

In the first few centuries of the Common Era, when Christianity was spreading fast across the Roman Empire, it began to be accepted that there were just seven virtues. They were:

Prudence
Temperance
Justice
Fortitude
Faith
Hope
Love

The last three were considered to be religious virtues, and the first four were called cardinal virtues. Why cardinal virtues? Because there were those who enjoyed the idea of a system, and would look for all kinds of correspondences in everything. So they associated each of the four virtues with a point of the compass, North, South, East, and West. The four virtues also were associated with the elements Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Also each of them was associated with three of the star-signs of Astrology, and further with certain of the cards in the so-called Major Arcana of the Tarot pack.

I mention these purely as historical curiosities. If anyone wants to believe that these associations are valid, you are more than welcome to, but personally I think they go just a little bit too far!

The last one of the "religious" virtues, Love, needs some explaining. It used to be known as "charity", but this came from an over-literal translation in the King James Bible of the word caritas. This word means love, in a caring sort of way, note the similarity. Our word charity means alms-giving, and this sense of alms-giving is not really present in the Bible passage in question, which is from 1 Corinthians 13. This is the passage that a lot of people get read out at their wedding.

It's not only that last one that needs explaining though. All the others, in one way or another, need to be examined carefully if we are to decide whether or not we are leading the virtuous life by keeping to them...

The thing is, I'm running out of time on this post, so if anyone else would like to start the ball rolling, so to speak, feel free!

Maybe could start by wondering why is it that PATIENCE does not appear on the list?

Patience - is it really a virtue?

2008-12-26T19:49:00.004Z

Patience is a virtue,
Possess it if you can,
Seldom found in woman,
Never found in man.

I found this quote on Google. It's anonymous, as far as I know. Sounds ok, doesn't it? But is it true?

Most of us nowadays, when we consider doing something, like buying a product, joining a club, trying a new diet, or maybe cultivating virtue, tend to ask ourselves: What's in it for me? (Be honest now!) So perhaps we should look at exactly what virtue means before going any further...

The word virtue comes to us via Old French, from the Latin virtus. This word in Latin means manliness or courage, and it in turn is from the word vir, which means a man. Our word virile is from the same source. The word virtus also has the meaning of "effectiveness" and we see this use in the word virtual. As in "virtual reality", giving the sense of something that has the effect of being real.

Ok so far? For the Romans, someone who showed manliness or courage was automatically a good sort of person, so the word virtue came to be applied to those qualities that a courageous and manly fellow would have.

If you look at the quote at the top though, it seems that patience is a virtue that men don't have at all.

Looking a bit further into this, if you look at the word patience, you find something even more interesting. It again comes from Latin, patientia, with the original meaning of "endurance". If we look a bit closer we find that the word passion comes from the same root word. Also the Greek word pathos (suffering) is from the same root meaning, and this one comes into words like "sympathy" (suffering together). The word passion tends to have a sexy sort of meaning for most people today, but in former times, it meant suffering. So for example, there was the Passion of Jesus on the cross, meaning the suffering.

I found another quote, this time from someone called Lyman Adams (who I have to confess I never heard of before), which goes, "Patience is passion tamed." This seems a bit absurd now. Rather like saying "Green is green".

Here's another quote I found. "Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it."

(I think that's enough quotes for one day.) But the question is: Why should you bother to acquire patience?

Well first, there are many situations where you just won't get what you want right this instant, or even this year. So why stress about it? Have patience!

Sometimes, to keep a good relationship going, you need to practise the art of forbearance, not getting angry with your partner or parents or children, even when you have good cause to. Have patience!

Or when you see the events in the world not really going the way you think they should? Do whatever you can, and hope for the best to come. Have patience!

All these situations have got something in them for you to gain if you have patience in them.

So what do you think? Patience really is a virtue then?

Just one more quote, and this is the last one, I promise!

"Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in the one ahead."

Attributes of God - A Philosophical Discussion

2008-12-25T12:37:00.004Z

Someone asked on a blog discussion forum: "What are the attributes of God?" Needless to say, I joined the discussion, and the following is a partial attempt at an answer to the question.

To make sure that no-one misunderstands, I should just say that I'm not here arguing in favour of any religion over any other, and I'm not trying to evangelise or convert anyone. I'm treating the question NOT as a religious one, but as a philosophical one.

As usual, it starts with semantics.

The word "attribute" refers to a property or characteristic of an object. Many people would argue that the question is meaningless, since God is necessarily beyond all attributes. They would then refer to God by saying all the things that God is not. For example, God is not green, blue, red etc etc, and also God is not colourless and so on. The problem with this approach is that it's a bit negative, as it doesn't say what God actually is.

It seems logical to assume we can say (if God exists at all) that God is alive. Some would also say that God is love, although there is a problem with this, due to the slight double meaning of the verb "to be" which can be used to refer to an attribute, or to an identity. If it's the latter meaning, then you can also say "Love is God" which has far-reaching effects in terms of one's religious belief. Best I think to use the phrase with care.

The reason why it's necessary to try to avoid attributing any properties to God, is that these will impose a limitation on God, reducing God to the level of a created being. (Of course, it wouldn't actually reduce God, but would reduce our conception of God, or in other words, it would lead to the creation of an idol.) The important point is that God is free from all "earthly" limitations.

The interesting part of all this for me, is that the God who is followed by Christians, a very large proportion of the population (and many of them do not seem to be aware of this), chooses voluntarily to accept limitation, in order to share in the sufferings of humanity, by being born on earth in the form of a man, Jesus, an act which is being celebrated all over the world on this very day!

Relativity and Quantum Theory - How to Fit Them Together

2008-12-20T18:26:00.005Z

Many people take the view that quantum theory is somehow weird or impossible, and why do they do this? Because the theory predicts that sometimes a particle will act like it's a wave, or conversely, a wave will act like a particle. This would seem to be a good reason to think of it as a weird theory. That is, until we look a bit closer at what is going on.

By the way, we should get rid of the unfortunate inference that people sometimes draw from the apparent weirdness of quantum theory: that because it is a bit strange, it is somehow all right to associate it with any weird speculation you feel like having. Before you know it, you have imported all kinds of stuff which properly belongs in the fairground or the travelling show.

Anyway, to summarise the situation of physics, or at least to try in a few words, we are used to the idea of energy travelling from one place to another as a wave form. Anyone who has been to the seaside will know about this. The energy of the sea is transmitted as waves. And what are they waves of? Why, of water, naturally. The water is what scientists call the medium of the waves. The waves cannot exist independently. This is important. To talk of a wave without it being a wave "of" something, is like asking what has happened to my fist when I open up my hand. Or, what is the sound of one hand clapping?

A long time ago, scientists found that light and heat and other forms of energy, like radio waves, exhibited wave-like properties. Or, in other words, properties that were best explained by thinking of them as waves. These forms of energy are called electromagnetic radiation. But they asked, what is the medium of these waves? The waves of the sea wave in water, sound is a wave in air, so...?

They came up with a substance called the "ether", a mysterious substance more subtle even than air, which necessarily had to exist even in a vacuum (to carry light waves across space). They tried for years to detect the ether, without success. But the ether HAD to exist, or what could the waves exist in?

Finally the famous experiment of Michelson and Morley proved beyond any doubt that the ether did not exist. A crisis ensued in the scientific community until Einstein, inspired in part by Michelson-Morley, published his theory of relativity. However, this in some ways made the crisis even worse. At around the same time, the quantum theory was being developed, which showed that electromagnetic radiation consisted of quanta, or bundles of energy, which in a way corresponded to the peaks and troughs of the waves, but instead of being continuous like waves, they were discrete (separate). In fact, in some situations, the behaviour of these quanta of energy was almost like that of particles.

Obviously this was a problem. How could energy be, at the same time, a wave AND a particle?

But it got worse. Some particles of matter were discovered that behaved exactly like energy bundles, and vice versa. Among the many problems this caused was that relativity predicted that matter cannot travel at the speed of light. But if you have a particle that behaves like it is light, you have a contradiction.

I've over-simplified this a lot, of course (because I don't really feel up to writing an entire book tonight) but essentially this is how it was. The two theories, relativity theory and quantum theory, while both true and complete universal theories, nevertheless contradict each other. Einstein, who had worked on the development of both of them, dreamed that one day they would be reconciled in a single Unified Theory, and he hoped to find it, but he never did.

Now to come to my point in writing this. Many people have become confused by experiments like the Double-Slit experiment (in a well-known film) into believing that the observer somehow has an influence on the outcome. This has led many to believe that all you need to do is wish for it, and you will have gold beyond your wildest dreams of avarice. They are encouraged by reports (for example, in this very blog right here) of Schrodinger's unfortunate Cat, where the observer decides the cat's fate.

These people are taking it all too simplistically. It just does not work like this. The true reason for the contradiction is much more to do with the inadequacy of the models, than with the observer choosing what they want to happen. Note well that Schrodinger, when he opens the box, is a necessary part of the experiment, but he does not CAUSE the cat to die or live.

Those who have read Hegel (maybe not many people, I suppose) will perhaps recognise in the opposition of the two theories the workings of the Dialectic, that mysterious truth of metaphysics, which inevitably will lead to the higher Synthesis in the course of time.

In the meantime, it's probably best to be patient, and ever so slightly sceptical, and to allow that, as yet, however it may seem, we actually know very little about the universe.

"It is better to confess you know nothing than to pretend you know everything."

Ethical Relativism

2008-12-19T16:35:00.007Z

Many people nowadays assert that the moral sense is completely subjective, that there are no absolute ethical values, that it's all purely a matter of opinion.

Opponents of this view have raised a number of objections.

1. We tend to judge actions by our own moral code, and we can also find ourselves judging one moral code to be better than another, as for example, someone might say that the Buddhist morality is better than the Israelite one.

The relativist would reply that when we do this, we are comparing those moral codes with our subjective on, and then judging the one which is most similar to our own subjective code to be superior.

2. If no moral code is superior to another, it is logically impossible to speak of a moral progress or a moral decline. Yet many people do actually speak in those terms.

3. Again, if there is no superiority in one code over another, and therefore no such thing as moral progress, then there is no point in moral effort.

Relativists might reply that a person should strive to be true to their own moral code. But this still begs the question as to why anyone should bother to do so.

4. The logical outcome of ethical relativism is that no one person is better than any other, since there would be no absolute standard to judge them against. Thus a murderer could not be regarded as morally worse than anyone else, since one code would be as good as any other.

The ethical relativist might reply that this is not a fair inference from their theory. They deny the existence of an absolute universal code of morals, but they accept that there may be a code of moral standards that apply to a limited group of people, although there are still problems with this reply, in that there appear to be no adequate criteria for defining the limits of such groups, and also no particular reason why the group should contain more than one person.

The philosopher says that there is indeed an absolute standard of moral behaviour, although how it has come to us, or where it originated, are questions which are still being strongly debated. The fact of the absolute standard is something that can be seen every day, when people talk about what someone else did or said, or what they themselves did, in a certain situation. Time and time again, an appeal will be made to some or other moral precept, which the speaker invariably expects there listeners to know about and share their opinion about.

Certainly there are differences, but these are usually very minor ones, and by and large, there is general agreement that this or that action is right or wrong. This cannot just be explained away as the code of a particular country or race. The practice is accepted worldwide, as, for example, when a country invades another country, there is general acceptance of the view that such an action is wrong if the motive is to seize power in the invaded country, but right if the motive is to help the invaded country remain free from oppression.

So the standard appealed to is a universal one. As to whether it is absolute as well as universal may still be open to question, but the difference between the two could be said to be too subtle to be of any value in practice.

No, I Haven't Lost It

2008-12-16T18:49:00.004Z

I've been involved in a discussion about the law of attraction! Have I taken leave of my senses? Well maybe not quite yet. Let me tell you how it all started...

I did a post on this blog a little while ago called More Lives Than a Cat, which was a follow-up to an earlier post, The Doomsday Device. These two posts were intended to be an opportunity for me to examine some of the aspects of quantum theory and the scientific inferences and thought-experiments that arise from the theory.

Much of it was pretty weird, though it was, and this is the point, a scientific look at quantum theory. It isn't long before you find yourself talking about the role of the observer, and things like consciousness.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I noticed that the Adsense near the post had switched to an ad for quantum theory law of attraction. I was intrigued by this. So I went on to Blog Catalog and asked a general question about it. The discussion that came out of it was rather fascinating.

I still can't understand how anyone can say that quantum theory and law of attraction are in any way connected (it's a bit like saying that weather forecasting and fortune telling are connected) but the discussion gave me some ideas, which in turn led to some insights, which I'll tell you about in the next post. The insights are about science (not fortune telling!), or rather, about the philosophy of science.

The Key Words of a Discussion

2008-12-14T19:12:00.006Z

I participate in quite a lot of forum discussions, and I really enjoy them. People there have (I think) got used to me going on about having clear definitions of key words in the discussion. Anyway, I make no apology for doing this. I'm a philosopher (or anyway, a trainee philosopher) so it's what I do.

Let me explain to you what I mean about defining terms. Let's say you and I decide to have a discussion about oak trees. Now you know what an oak tree is, you have seen them before, you know a lot about them. Now, on the other hand, when I was very young, my parents took me to see an apple tree, and they said, "There, you see that? It's an oak tree." (I don't blame them for this, by the way, they didn't know any better.)

Now our discussion might go like this:

You: Ah the oak is the most majestic of trees!
Me: What? No, it's quite a small tree really.
You: No, you're quite mistaken, it's very tall.
Me: Oh well anyway, it's nice to have an oak in the garden. And the fruit is so good to eat.
You: What?? You actually eat acorns?
Me: Of course I do. Doesn't everyone?
You: No certainly not, what a disgusting idea!
Me: Well everyone I know eats them, they're delicious. You really should try them, you know.
You: Ugh, what a strange person you are. Nothing would induce me to try them! Acorns would make you ill.
Me: It's you that's strange! We make them into pies mmmmm! And there's a tasty drink you can make from them too.
You: Aaaargh!

And so on. Eventually, we might come to blows, or go off and form some armies and fight a war over this issue. Or we might realise we're talking about a different meaning of the key word of our discussion, and then we might start to agree.

You see what I mean? Often, people have discussions in which words like truth, beauty, goodness, knowledge, existence, proof, reality, God are used. These words are all highly charged with meaning and association. It's only to be expected that they will have different associations for different people. But people don't seem to take this into account, and they argue with each other. The arguments are often a waste of time and energy and stress, because, like the two people arguing about the oak tree, they are using the same word but meaning different things.

That's why I always want to have the important terms of the discussion clearly and exactly defined before joining the discussion. I think if everyone did that, then we could really get somewhere.

Moral Law as a Law of Reason

2008-12-12T17:10:00.005Z

In the previous post I looked at what some philosophers say about how feelings are the ultimate determiners of our setting of aims. Some would go so far as to assert that morality itself depends on the feelings of the person making the moral judgement. Other philosophers react against this, with the view that the moral standard is a law of reason.

If these philosophers are correct, then moral standards are fixed and unchanging. The moral law would then be a law of nature, comparable to, but not identical with, such laws as the law of gravity. One form of this theory is that good actions are necessarily consistent actions. Thus a bad action would be a denial, and a good action an affirmation, of the real state of things.

For example, if a man steals a car and drives away with it, it is a bad action because he is not thinking of the car as being what it is (someone else's car), so he is denying things as they are, and contradicting the law of reason. The thief is affirming a falsehood. Again, they have argued that a man who beats is wife is in a way denying that she is his wife.

Some philosophers go further than this. They agree that it is true that the bad action is one that is inconsistent, but it is inconsistent not with an objective fact but with an ideal. Under this view, stealing is wrong not because it is a denial of an objective fact about the stolen property, but because the action is inconsistent with an ideal relationship between human beings.

The philosopher Kant held that when a person does a bad action, the inconsistency lies in the fact that they are acting according to a principle which they are not willing to allow others to follow as their principle. Under this definition, a person who only performs good actions is one who is at all times prepared to let others act on the same principles.

The philosopher says: In the lower forms of goodness, the actions of an individual form a coherent whole among themselves. In higher forms of goodness, they form a coherent system with the actions of one's own society. In the highest forms of goodness, they form a coherent system with all other acts of willing in the universe.

Reason as a Motive to Action

2008-12-07T12:16:00.006Z

Aristotle was of the opinion (Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6) that the aim or end of the process of willing is set only by our desires, and that reason is required to discover the means to achieve those ends. This was echoed by David Hume, who wrote, in Treatise on Human Nature, that "reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions". Thus the ends at which we aim are determined by our innate instincts and preferences, leaving reason to assist only in finding the best ways to attain these ends.

This view has in the past been challenged in a variety of ways.

1. Sometimes the desire to act in a consistent manner and avoid contradiction - as it is sometimes called, to behave rationally - may override other desires. Thus a thief may feel a pang of pity for his victims, but he would very likely pull himself together by arguing that he should not allow his emotions to get in the way of pursuing his professional calling.

2. When there is a choice of desirable options to aim for, then reason will be called on to choose between them, so in that sense, reason could be said to be setting the aims in this situation.

3. A strong criticism of the theory is that it makes an artificial distinction between reason and desire which does not exist in practice. The mind exists and operates as a unity, with the "component" parts of it working together in a seamless manner.

4. Reason and reflection may suggest a course of action, and if this is later accompanied by a desire the action may be put into effect. Some might argue that desire is still the determining factor, but here, reasoning has also played a part.

5. Introspection (a reasoning process) may lead us to suspend our judgement, and leave the execution of a desirable course of action until a later time, after which it may happen that other considerations have arisen which will influence our desires. For example, if I write an angry letter to someone, it may happen that if I do not send it immediately, but perhaps wait until next morning, I may discover some rational considerations which make the sending of the letter seem less desirable.

These objections (and others) can lead us on to the possibility of our actions being determined, not so much by our desires and instincts, as by a "sense of duty" or conscience.

Socrates, who is often celebrated as the founder of Western philosophy, held that knowledge is virtue. In his view, a clear understanding of what is good would inevitably overcome all our other tendencies to action and thus would lead to right conduct.

The Soldier's Dilemma

2008-12-02T17:55:00.007Z

Yesterday I was in the library and I found a book of philosophy which contained the following thought experiment. I can't remember the name of the book, but if anyone knows it, please tell me so I can give the name on this post.

Anyway I thought I would post it up, so I could see what the views of the Blogger community would be. It's a dilemma of morality.

A soldier is ordered to rape and murder a female prisoner. His first instinct is to refuse to obey, since rape and murder are wrongful acts. His superiors have no right to order him to commit these crimes. He knows, however, that if he does disobey the order, he will be shot, and the task will be given to another soldier. The prisoner, then, is doomed to die, and the only foreseeable consequence of the soldier's disobedience would be that he will die too.

It occurs to him that if he obeys, and commits the rape and murder, he will have the power to make the prisoner's death an easier one, and to minimize her suffering. Whereas it is likely that if he refuses, the prisoner's death may be more unpleasant and violent.

So if he obeys, he will commit crimes, but he himself will survive, and he will be able to decrease the suffering of another.

If he disobeys, he will not commit any crime, but he himself will die, and he will very likely condemn another person to greater suffering.

These two options seem to be the only ones he can choose from. I can't think of any others.

What should the soldier do?

The School of Filosofia

2008-12-02T17:11:00.008Z

Some of you may realize by now that there is no sofia, or at least, that there is no person whose given name is sofia. This is because filosofia is a team, or more accurately a school. The word school here is used in the same sense as the school of the prophet Isaiah, or the school of the philosopher Pythagoras, or of the poet Homer.

Of course, there is one editor in chief, and perhaps many people have assumed that she is sofia filosofia, but in fact her name is Aimee. The name sofia filosofia is intended to embody a system of beliefs and thought and philosophy, brought together by a meeting of minds, and original writing, to make up the collection of filosofia. Aimee is in full editorial control, but that does not mean she is the sole author, as may possibly be clear from a stylistic analysis of the different posts this blog contains.

The school members are free to express their opinion on any topic whatever, subject to her editorial ratification. filosofia is currently in the process of considering whether to invite applications to join filosofia school, and there will be more news about this as soon as it becomes available. Meanwhile, any views of readers can as ever be written into the comments section.

If you have been addressing your comments to Sofia, as to a person, then please feel free to continue doing that.

A Discussion Entitled "Is Atheism A Religion?"

2008-11-30T13:28:00.004Z

This post was first published by me as a comment on a discussion on BlogCatalog. The discussion was entitled "Is Atheism A Religion?" For reasons which you will probably guess, I decided to copy it here as a back-up, just in case the BlogCatalog people decide to obliterate the entire discussion. I thought this post was worth keeping.

I don't usually have a lot of time for religious discussion, except when there is a philosophical angle, since religious discussionists are often the most stupid of all. Yes even worse than the trivialists (How many comments a day do you get on your blog? You know the kind.) Religionists (and atheists) tend not to listen to each other but just bang on with their own pre-programmed spiel and damn the other side to eternal perdition.

But this here discussion DID interest me, for two reasons. First, because I really do think that atheism has certain characteristics normally associated with religion. Second, because I think a lot of the problems and disagreements over religion that I mentioned above are, in large part, caused by the semantic laziness which I talk about in the following post.

So without further ado, I'll now let you read it!

Sorry to keep going on about semantics, but I feel I have to because, in so many of these religion discussions, people don't take the trouble to accurately define the meanings of the words they are using. This can lead to people arguing about different things but calling them by the same word. In turn, this leads to misunderstandings, bafflement, the giving of offence, or even to fights breaking out!

Maybe what I'm going to say has already been said a bit further up (I haven't had time to read every post) but anyway I'll say it.

Someone further up said that the word religion means "reverence for God". Well it may mean that for some people, but only by association. The root meaning of the word is the Latin "religare" which means "to bind, or to bind up". It's quite interesting that the word "yoga" has a similar root meaning of binding.

In this pure definition of the word "religion" it may well be possible to say that atheism is a religion, but only when applied to those who are, as it were, active exponents of atheism. In other words, those atheists who attempt to convince others of the rightness of their belief. Some would argue that atheism, (or should we say Atheism?) is a credo, since the atheist is professing a belief in a proposition that is not susceptible of proof, any more than a belief in God is susceptible of proof. We can twist words around all we want, but the atheist is probably saying, "I believe there is no god."

There are some thought-systems that are given the label of religion, with the meaning of the word in the pure sense we have just defined, in which it is not necessary, nor is it even considered desirable, to believe in God. Buddhism is the most obvious one that springs to mind here. This is one of the criticisms sometimes aimed at Buddhism by adherents of other religions, that Buddhism is fundamentally atheistic. This does not, of course, apply to all branches of the faith, which is vast and fantastically varied. But some sects of Buddhism do allow the worship of a deity or deities, largely it seems because people like to worship something or someone.

I think the Buddhist would reply to an accusation of being atheistic by saying that she/he neither believes nor disbelieves in God. But I'm only guessing about this, since I am very far from being an expert on any religion, atheistic or otherwise.

What is the Definition of a Person?

2008-11-18T19:20:00.002Z

A very dear friend of mine, one of the best friend's I have online, asked me to define a "person". This was a philosophical question, connecting to the whole subject of identity. It links up with the great question of who, or what, we "really" are?

Instantly loads of ideas came flooding into my head, so many that it would take a long time to write them down in one little shoutbox message. So I thought I'd do a post on Blogger.com.

Then it occurred to me that it might be nice to try it as a discussion, where I start the ball rolling, and readers contribute their ideas in the comments section? Then we all discuss them, and maybe finally come up with a consensus, even one that has never been done before!!!

How cool would that be?

This blog doesn't get a really huge amount of traffic, but I always think quality is better than quantity anyway. Maybe it won't work, but it's an experiment, so that's ok either way.

Here is my first thought: I think it's very interesting that the original meaning of the word "person" is the Latin persona, which was the name for the mask which was worn by actors in ancient times. The mask represented the role they were playing in the action.

Do Leprechauns Exist Or Not?

2008-11-10T16:57:00.003Z

A few years ago, we went on a visit to Donegal, in the Republic of Ireland. It's a really nice place.

We went for some long walks in the countryside. The landscape and country is so quiet and slow somehow; it's very green of course, and there's a timeless quality about it like it hasn't changed much since the Middle Ages or even the Stone Age.

Of course the roads are paved and everything, but even so, you seem to get a sense that in Donegal, in some way, there's a very thin veil between our world and a world of magic and legend. You almost feel that you could just step through. If a leprechaun jumped out from the hedge and started talking to you, you wouldn't be particularly surprised. When you're there, it's easy to believe they might exist.

Then when you get back to the noise and bustle of London, somehow it's harder to believe in them.

The point I'm making is that, if certain places make you feel like you believe in magic and other places don't, could it be that the decline in belief in such things could be caused simply by the fact that most people nowadays live in cities? That would make everyone less inclined to think they were true.

So the question is: Do leprechauns exist - or not?

The Over-Heated Discussion

2008-11-09T07:50:00.002Z

The following post is a reprint of a post of mine on BlogCatalog. It mentions a discussion thread "Does God Exist Or Not?", started by me, which had attracted a large number of replies and comments. One fine Sunday morning, we woke up to find the thread had been suddenly and summarily deleted! Needless to say, someone started a NEW thread to discuss the deletion, and the post below is my little contribution to the new discussion. Some might say that I'm being too apologetic, some might say I should apologize more, but I've tried to express my true feelings about it. Why have I made a copy of it on this blog? Maybe you can guess the answer...

It was me that started the thread in question.

First of all I'd like to make a sincere apology for any trouble that the thread has caused. It was never my intention for that to happen.

I started the thread originally just to advertize a little post on my blog, which was looking at an ancient argument of "proof" of the existence of God by St Anselm of Canterbury. Thus you could say that my motives were mixed! One, I wanted to encourage an academic discussion, and two, I wanted some visitors to a blog that was new.

Imagine my surprise when the thread got hundreds of comments! I did not realize before that the existence of God or not was a subject of so much controversy. I had thought it was a dry-as-dust academic point.

As to the posts that were "nasty", I don't know what those were really. One post said that the ontological argument was aleph null stupid, which didn't seem to be an entirely well-considered counter-argument, but as it was not a long way from the truth, it was OK, I thought. There did seem to be a lot of bantering between people who clearly knew each other, and were continuing conversations they'd already had. But if there were any personal attacks, I must have missed them, because I didn't see any.

I did, however, read some very well-written posts arguing for one side or the other, and it's a real shame to lose them like that. Maybe I'll get deleted for saying this, but I think it's a worrying feature of the internet that your work can be deleted instantly, without any chance of appeal, by someone who doesn't like what you've done or said.

One of my main interests is in the phenomenon of misinterpretations. This is when you say one thing, but the hearer interprets your words in a way you hadn't thought of, and so believes you've said something else entirely. It's one of the main themes of Shakespeare's Hamlet, by the way! I'm fascinated by how a quite heated discussion can arise from one of these little misunderstandings. This is why I think it's so important for everyone to do philosophy, which among other things stresses the need for a precise definition of each word before it is used in a discussion.

I say this because its possible that a post of mine may have been the cause of the deletion. If so, it's because I may have expressed myself badly and caused a misunderstanding. The thing is, the thread seemed to have gone dormant, with no replies for the previous 5 days, so I thought I'd add a little last word, where for the first time, I actually gave my own view on the question! This was purely for my own pleasure, as I didn't think anyone was interested in the thread anymore, and would never see it. There was no nastiness intended in that last post, but it's possible that, as I just said above, it might have been misinterpreted, I don't know.

I don't want people to be nasty to each other. I like to hear both sides of an argument, and it's a good thing when they are strongly felt, but I believe that people should respect their opponents and learn from them.

Anyway sorry guys.

The link to the new discussion is http://www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/there-are-threads-being-deleted-again-instead-of-just-being-locked

The post on this blog that I was trying to advertize was http://filosofia08uk.blogspot.com/2008/10/ontological-argument-for-existence-of.html

The irony in all this is that the original thread was about a philosophical question, not about religion as many people assumed.

Why Does Writing Run Away With You?

2008-11-08T18:15:00.008Z

When I started to write this post, my intention was to write something completely different from what came out! It was meant to be about a philosophical point, which will now have to wait until a later time. As I was writing it I noticed something happening which, for me at least, happens all the time. So I decided to go with it, and it became the post you see below. Not on the original philosophy subject, but it's still a philosophy post, I think...

This is (I hope) going to be only a short post! I know that sometimes I tend to ramble along in what seems like a bit of a random way, but I do actually have a plan. It's just that I don't always keep to it! I'll be writing about something, and while I'm in the act of writing, something else occurs to me and I think, yeah OK that's relevant, so I should put that in as well, and then before you know it, there's a couple of hundred words suddenly on the page that were not, repeat NOT part of the original plan!

There's also another thing that happens to me when I write. It's the tendency of words to somehow take on a life of their own and start running away with what you were wanting to say. Sometimes you actually find that it's become impossible to say some of the things you were wanting to say, because in some way, the words you've just put down somehow preclude the ones you want to say! By this I mean that to say them would involve back-tracking right to the beginning to make a kind of NEW preamble to what you want to say, and this would make the piece become too long, and maybe even a bit boring.

Writing is HARD to do!

I am actually quite pleased to find out that I'm not the only one who finds this happening to them. I've read a few other writings from people who, especially in blogs, notice a similar effect.

So then, my question is this:

To all writers, does this happen to you, or doesn't it? Any comments will be gratefully received...

More Lives Than A Cat? The Quantum Theory of Life

2008-11-01T16:29:00.005Z

I was just reading about some things to do with quantum theory. The theory is way beyond my comprehension, but it gives rise to some interesting speculations and thought experiments, and those I CAN understand.

One of the thought experiments is about multi-dimensional universes. This is based on the idea of Schrodinger's Cat (see the Doomsday Device post). We say that the actual status of the cat is fixed by the observer, in other words, the consciousness of the observer CREATES the status of the cat. In a similar way, as you go through your day, your year, your life, you meet thousands and thousands of instances of having to make a choice. Do I go upstairs or downstairs? Do I take this job or stay in my old one? You have to decide which way to go, and whatever you decide, your consciousness follows the consequences of that decision.

It's a bit like the camera in a movie. Your consciousness, in a sense, CREATES the reality of what you see and experience. The other possible consequence is made to be non-existent because your consciousness has not followed it, has not MADE IT REAL. Up until the time when you make that choice, both of these separate realities have an equal chance of being real. They both have a probability existence, like the cat before you open the box. This gives rise to the idea of an infinite number of universes, branching off from each other, each one coming into existence each second or each millisecond as your consciousness makes the choice to observe it.

The idea of the Doomsday Device brings up another interesting idea. The Doomsday Device experiment tells us that the outcome which leads to no consciousness of any event just cannot happen, it would be impossible. This seems to indicate that there can be no such thing as death, at least as we understand it in its usual sense, because it would cause a PARADOX of having to be conscious of not being conscious, or being aware of having no awareness. So the logical conclusion is that, however things may appear to be, we are immortal, since every outcome of every branching probability is one which leads to conscious awareness. To life, in other words.

But how can this be, since we see and hear of death happening every day? Some have speculated that the event that we call death is the beginning of the event we call birth. They argue that your consciousness at the time of "death" immediately begins to have the experience of birth, and so life continues without a break. If you think this sounds a bit weird, just compare it with the paradox in the previous paragraph.

Some speculations come from this idea. What kind of life would this new one be? Some would speculate that it is the same life as before, but with the capacity to differ from the former one because consciousness may make different decisions at certain points, thus creating an entire different universe of experience. One can visualize this repeating itself endlessly over an infinite time, so that your consciousness eventually experiences everything possible. Under this model of the universe, or Universe of universes, life would not be dull.

Credit must here go to Nietzsche, who was probably the first to speculate on the idea of a cyclic model of conscious existence. But Nietzsche did not have the predictions of quantum theory at his disposal, so the best he could come up with was to say that when you repeated your lives over and over again eternally, each one was EXACTLY the same as all the others. A bleak prospect, and one that would indeed be dull.

A consequence of the consciousness-chooses-life philosophy is that, since you are immortal, it follows that you need have no fear. One imagines that if the idea became a widespread belief, there would be even more people taking up sports like sky-diving or drag-racing than there are at present.

The Doomsday Device

2008-10-18T19:04:00.007+01:00

There is a branch of philosophy called Idealism. We think of that word to mean having noble thoughts and ambitions, but that is not quite what it means when a philosopher uses it, though it can include those things. In philosophy, it means the school of thought that considers reality to be in the mind rather than in matter or things. Idealism is thus the opposite of Materialism.

The Idealists are concerned with how information reaches us from the outside world. They maintain that the only way we can know anything at all is through the medium of the five senses - sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch. Anything that is in your mind apart from these sense-data, say the Idealists, must have its origin in your mind and not outside it. They say that a person who was born without any of the five senses would have no knowledge of the world at all.

One of the most famous Idealists of the past was George Berkeley, who was from Ireland. He said that nothing existed in our minds except what had already come into them in the form of sense experiences. The concepts we have in our thoughts, come from our experience. So we can only have the concept "cat" because we have seen a cat. Now, Berkeley went further, and said that the sense-data are all that you can ever know. So when you look at a table, you have the sense-data of the table but that's all. You can't know anything about what it really is, apart from what your senses tell you. This led Berkeley to say that to all intents and purposes, matter does not exist. The only existence it can have is in the mind of the observer.

So someone might ask, "What if I close my eyes, so I can't see the table? Does the table cease to exist?" A complete Idealist would say, yes it ceases to exist. But obviously this is a problem! The way Berkeley solved it was by believing in God, so when you shut your eyes, the table continues to exist, because God is observing it. In this way, the universe as described by Berkeley consists of God and the observer, who receives the sense impressions given by God.

This philosophy is what gives rise to speculations like: "If all that I can know about the world is through sense-data, how do I know that the information coming in is correct?"

Or: "How do we know we're not living in a virtual reality, like in the film, The Matrix?"

Or: "If a tree falls to the ground in a deserted forest, and no-one is there to hear it fall, does it make a sound?"

In space, there is no sound, because there is no air to carry the sound waves. But even when there is air, the movements caused by the falling tree only become sound when they reach an ear. So if there's no-one there, how can the tree make a sound? We think of the world as something outside and independent of us, but in fact, so much of "reality" depends on the observer.

This idea comes into the "thought experiment" called Schrodinger's Cat. Imagine an air-tight box with a lid, and inside the box is a cat. The box also contains a device which can release a deadly poison. (Sorry if you like cats, but this is only a THOUGHT experiment). The device has a random generator so it has an even chance of going off as not going off. Is the cat dead or alive? You can't know. The cat's existence is in a "probability-state" at the moment. The only way to find out is to open the box. Then the probability state ends and the status of the cat is determined, dead or alive. So it is the observer who has made this happen, before that the cat was in a state of probability. It's only by the process of observation that the cat is now dead (or alive).

A similar thought experiment is The Doomsday Device. This was in the writings of an astronomer, but I can't remember his name, so if anyone knows, please leave a comment? Imagine a Doomsday Device hovering above Planet Earth. If it goes off, it destroys everything on the planet, including humans and all life, with nothing surviving. If it doesn't go off, we survive. The Device has a random generator, like in Schrodinger's Cat. So we have an even chance of survival or total obliteration. What happens?

The astronomer says that we must survive. Even though it is an even chance, the Doomsday Device can never go off. Because, if it did, there would be no consciousness to observe it happening, and so it could not happen. Like the tree that makes no sound, or the cat which is only dead or alive because it is observed to be so, the Doomsday Device could not go off, because we would never know it had happened.

Ideas from Ancient Greece

2008-10-17T18:02:00.009+01:00

Two philosophers of the past I just read about are Heraclitus and Parmenides. They both lived a long long time ago, and their writings are for the most part lost, so that all we know about them is from what other philosophers wrote about them. They both lived in ancient Greece, not far from each other, but their thinking was about as opposite as could be.

Heraclitus was a recluse because he didn't really like people very much, and he believed society was corrupt. He believed that the universe and everything in it is in a continual state of flux and change. He is believed to be the first person to say that you can never step into the same river twice. He believed that even though we see things around us that might appear to be solid and fixed, in reality this solidity is just an illusion. Everything is in a constant process of becoming something else. His ideas are said to have had a lot of influence on modern science.

Parmenides was a bit more sociable. He ran a philosophy school, called the Eleatic school, because it was in the city of Elea. He believed that the universe and everything in it is fixed and unchanging. Everything is made of the same basic stuff and it never changes. Nothing is capable of changing into anything else, because to do that, it would have to become something that doesn't exist. When we believe that we see change or movement, that is an illusion. His ideas are said to have had a lot of influence on modern science too!

Parmenides had a famous pupil at his school. This pupil was called Zeno of Elea. He wanted to prove that all movement and change were illusions, so he invented over 40 paradoxes for this purpose. One of them "proved" that you can never reach the finishing line in a race, because first you have to reach the halfway point, then the point halfway through the second half of the race, then the point halfway through the final quarter, and so on for ever. He also imagined an athlete called Achilles, racing against a tortoise. He said that Achilles can never overtake the tortoise, as he must first run to where the tortoise is, but in that time the tortoise has moved on. Every time Achilles runs to where the tortoise is, it will have moved on a little bit more, so the tortoise will always be ahead.

Of course we know that you can run a race, and Achilles can overtake the tortoise, but Zeno would say that was just an illusion. He also said that an arrow shot from a bow can never reach the target, because it can never move from where it is to where it is not. Zeno said that if the arrow moved to somewhere where it was not, it would cease to exist.

You may well be thinking that Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Zeno were a bit stupid and cracked-up, and that it would be easy to knock down their ideas and paradoxes. But the argument against them is not as obvious as you might think, and, if you are up against a real philosopher, they will easily defend them against the most obvious objections. Even if a philosopher doesn't agree with them, he or she can do that. The refutation of Zeno's paradoxes uses very technical logic, based on maths - at university entrance level - so I'm not going to try to write about that.

If you were an ancient Greek philosopher, would you be Heraclitus, would you be Parmenides, or would you be Zeno?

The Head-Tailed Cat

2008-10-14T20:13:00.009+01:00

I was reading today in a book of philosophy (yeah I know, what else?) and I want to share some of it with you.

The philosopher was saying about cause and effect, and it was part of this entire big discussion about whether it's true that we humans are separate from the rest of the universe or if the same energy is flowing through us as is flowing through everything else. He was saying that it is the illusion of separateness that makes us feel so depressed a lot, and so cut-off from the world and alienated by it all.

So anyway, he is talking about all this, and then he mentions this cat, and I like cats so I start to pay attention a bit more. And he says:

We believe that every thing and every event must have a cause, that is, some other thing(s) or events(s), and that it will in its turn be the cause of other effects. So how does a cause lead to an effect? To make it much worse, if all that I think or do is a set of effects, there must be causes for all of them going back to an indefinite past. If so, I can't help what I do. I am simply a puppet pulled by strings that go back into times far beyond my vision.

Again, this is a problem which comes from asking the wrong question. Here is someone who has never seen a cat. He is looking through a narrow slit in a fence, and, on the other side, a cat walks by. He sees first the head, then the less distinctly shaped furry trunk, and then the tail. Extraordinary! The cat turns round and walks back, and again he sees the head, and a little later the tail. This sequence begins to look like something regular and reliable. Yet again, the cat turns round, and he witnesses the same regular sequence: first the head, later the tail. Thereupon he reasons that the event head is the invariable and necessary cause of the event tail, which is the head's effect. This absurd and confusing gobbledygook comes from his failure to see that head and tail go together; they are all one cat.

The philosopher says that this is a bit like how we see the world, as a collection of bits. He says we have the type of conciousness that is narrow, that can focus on one thing at a time, and blank out everything else. It's a bit like when you are in a darkened room and you look at things using a very narrow beam flashlight.

The philosopher says: The truth is that in looking at the world bit by bit we convince ourselves that it consists of separate things, and so give ourselves the problem of how these things are connected and how they cause and effect each other.... We do not see that the world is all of a piece like the head-tailed cat.

This comes from The Book On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts

A Philosophy Story

2008-10-13T12:39:00.004+01:00

Once upon a time, a biologist, a physicst, and a philosopher were going for a walk on an island. All of a sudden they saw a black sheep.

"Ah, look at that!" exclaimed the biologist. "We can infer that the sheep on this island are black."

"No, no, no," said the physicst. "All we can infer is that at least SOME of the sheep on this island are black."

"No, we cannot infer even that," said the philosopher. " All we can infer is that on this island, there is a quantity, not less than one, of beings with the appearance of sheep, of which at least one appears to be black on at least one of its sides!"

ps. hop u lyk da filosofi storee :)
pps. yeah i know the picture don't relate to the story, but I thought it was nice.

The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

2008-10-12T20:10:00.005+01:00

This argument (the ontological argument) comes from St Anselm of Canterbury, who lived from 1033 to 1109. He said that the existence of God can be deduced from just the idea of God. Just because we can think about God proves that God exists. It goes like this:

- By definition, God is that being greater than which none can be conceived.
- God can be conceived of as just a thought in your head, or as really existing.
- It is greater to exist than not to exist.
- Therefore, God must exist.

A monk whose name was Gaunilo replied to this by saying that you could use this to prove anything at all. For example, you could have the idea of a perfect pizza, "greater than which none can be conceived". Therefore such a pizza must exist, because if it did not it would be less great. As this is ridiculous, it shows that you cannot infer that something exists from the IDEA of its being perfect.

St Anselm replied that the ontological argument does not work for pizza (or anything else); it only works for God, as the relationship between God and perfection is a unique one.

Anselm distinguished here between "accidental" properties and "essential" properties. A pizza might or might not have the property of being the greatest conceivable pizza. It's an accidental property, not an essential one. But if God exists, then God must be by definition the greatest conceivable being. It is an essential property of God. But to actually BE the greatest conceivable being, God must exist.

Who Are You, Really?

2008-10-11T15:06:00.005+01:00

One of my Blogger friends, Maddie, recently wrote about her experience of having her blog flagged by the Blogger robots, who thought she herself might be a robot. It must be a very unsettling experience - just think, how do you PROVE you aren't a robot?

It's not quite such a simple question as it sounds. Of course, you know that you are NOT a robot (don't you?) but how do you demonstrate it? Recent developments in technology make it possible to program a machine to make responses to questions or comments which are what we would expect from a human. The kind of randomness that we associate with human behaviour can be built in to the program. The responses (and initiatives) of the program can be adjusted to take account of attributes, so you can make a robot program respond in the characteristic way depending on age, nationality, occupation etc. These are what people are thinking of when they talk about a person's identity, but if attributes can be programmed in, then identity can also be programmed.

I have seen advertised on the web some softwares that claim to be able to "spin" articles, that is, to take some existing articles (or blog posts?) and spin them into a thousand new articles, all unique in the eyes of a search engine robot, and all LOOKING like they were written by a human. I have no idea if the claims are true, or just advertising scams, but if they are - well - how do you REALLY know that this post, for instance, is not written by a robot?

The classic robot filtering device in use on the net is the word verification box. This seems to work quite well, but who knows? The next thing is a voice recording, or a live audio convo, or a photo, or a video. But all of these things can be manufactured.

Let's assume you have found out that someone is human, not robotic. The next question you ask is, who are they? This is a question about attributes again. (Age, nationality, race, education, industry, occupation, interests.) But these are the wrong questions.

Another friend of mine did a brilliant post about racism. It highlights the stupidity of making a judgement about people based on their skin colour. It's a pre-judgement, a prejudice. But in the same way, people make all kinds of pre-judgements based on the attributes of a person. Thus, a 14 year old female is expected by some to only be interested in pink fluffy things. If she then expresses an opinion, or spells words correctly, or uses words of more than one syllable, people may suspect she is not really what she says she is. Look at Meghna's blog for evidence of this kind of question.

But suppose you find out they have the attribute they claim. Then you say, ah yes, well they must be a brainy type. And so then you are surprised when you find they really do like pink fluffy things as well! This is because you are stereotyping them, trying to make them fit your prejudice idea, so that you don't have to go out of your comfort zone. The reason there is so much of this going on is because so many people allow themselves to conform to the stereotypes put on them by other people. But it doesn't have to be that way. Break out of your stereotype!

Many many times, people say, how can you possibly know that at your age? The answer is: read! But the question itself is demeaning. It's saying, what right have you to behave out of character, to act in a way that destroys my carefully nurtured prejudice about you, to take me out of my little comfort zone?

An interesting philosophy topic is to ask, how do we know that anyone else exists at all outside ourselves? Again, this is not such a simple question as you may think. Let's suppose you ask your friend, or your teacher, or even your mother: Do you exist? They will obviously reply, yes, (or even no, as a joke) but as you know, a program inside an organic matrix that looks like a human body can do that too. Any response could be programmed. So whatever you ask that person, their response follows the expected pattern. This branch of philosophy is called the Theory of Knowledge, and it contains many problems that are still unsolved, but are even now being highlighted by current events in technology.

And how can I possibly know all this? Well, of course, I read about it!

The Two Great Thinkers of China

2008-10-10T19:00:00.006+01:00

The two great thinkers of China are Confucius (K'ung Fu Tzu) and Lao Tzu; they represent the two main areas of Chinese thought, the two great aspects of the Chinese character, two great gifts from China to the world.

Amazingly, they lived in the same era, and are believed to have met each other. By all accounts, they did not get on all that well.

Confucius

The feudal system was degenerating and there was considerable political unrest. Confucius deplored the moral decadence of the politicians, and proposed that the solution was a return to the values of the past. He believed in rituals and music as a way of promoting social harmony.

He worked as a teacher, and he would teach any committed student, regardless of their social background or status. He taught from the classic literature of the past, often singing verses from ancient texts, accompanying himself on the zither (an early type of guitar.)

He argued, particularly in his famous book The Analects, that rulers should be selected on merit, rather than inheritance, and that they should have devotion for their subjects, and that they should be of virtuous character to earn the respect of the people. The subject has a duty to obey the ruler, but the ruler also has a duty to listen to criticism.

He became active in politics and he was promoted to be the Minister of Justice. Under the reforms he introduced, it is said that crime was virtually eliminated.

Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu believed that the interest in right and wrong and the focus on ritual and custom shown by Confucius was misplaced. His ideas, as expressed in the Tao Te Ching, focus more on the personal spirituality of the individual. The Tao, or Way, is the underlying principle of life and the universe. Any description of it falls short of its true nature, since it is itself the principle by which everything else is defined. If we try to grasp the Tao using our intelligence, we are doomed to failure.

Lao Tzu maintained that thinking is the cause of all our problems. He advocated that we should avoid the pursuit of goals and just let the eternal Tao flow through us. This he believed to be the skilful approach to life, known as wu-wei, meaning non-effort, or non-striving. This would put us all into harmony with the universe.

He is reputed to have said, "He who speaks does not know, he who knows does not speak," and "The Tao that can be talked about is not the eternal Tao."

When he was aged 80, he became exasperated with the ways of men, and disappeared into the western desert, never to return.

So here we have two different suggestions to solve the problems of society.
Confucius: Everyone should concentrate on preserving the rituals and customs of the past, with good manners and proper etiquette.
Lao Tzu: Everyone should do whatever they want, not trying too hard, but just going along with the flow.

If you were a Chinese philosopher, would you be Confucius, or would you be Lao Tzu?

Do The People Know What's Good For Them?

2008-10-08T18:59:00.006+01:00

One of my good friends on Blogger, Anadroid, made a great comment on my post about punishment, called Should The Cane Be Brought Back in School?. She said, "yeah I wonder who wants the cane back? Surely not someone who was caned as a child at school? Or maybe that is who wants it back cos' they think it helped them somehow or they are a sadist or they want revenge or something....It's a strange old world."

Strange indeed, as a glance at the comments under the original post at timesonline will show. All the floggers came out to play! This morning me and my friends debated the question, and we decided the following: Those people probably don't care about school discipline, but they're frustrated with what they see as social breakdown. As long as they know that someone, anyone, is getting their ass whipped for it, they're happy.

It's the classic knee-jerk reaction of unthinking people, when they see an example of chaos, or deliberate flouting of authority. They want to exert more and more control until the undesirable elements finally step into line. These kind of people, if they did but know it, are probably only one step (or goose step?) away from Nazism. All they need is a Hitler to lead them.

But it does not end there...

A teacher pointed out that, according to a survey, the majority of the population of England believe that capital punishment for homicide should be re-instated. Not for all types of homicide, only the worst ones such as terrorism, or killing a policeman or a child. Now you may ask, if England is a democracy, why doesn't the Parliament bring back hanging?

Because the representatives believe that the people have got it wrong. Do you think they are acting rightly to set aside the will of the people who elected them? If so, what does that tell us about democracy as a form of government?

The Members of Parliament see themselves as better qualified to judge what is the right action on such an important issue. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato took this idea one step further. He rejected democracy altogether, and proposed (in the Republic) a state ruled by philosophers as a model for the perfect society. Everyone would have their place in the social order, and the elite ruling class would be given a rigorous training regime from an early age, to prepare them for philosophic government. In particular, they would be trained to discern the nature of the Good, so that the people would not need to decide what was good for them. Any form of dissent would be ruthlessly put down. But Plato believed that this system would bring about stability of government and general happiness. A similar proposal can be seen in the writings of Confucius in China.

But are these models of government, sophisticated as they are in their description, really any different from the knee-jerk flog 'em reactions of the ordinary joe in the street?

The education system of training for excellence advocated by Plato, was later adopted in Renaissance Italy, and also in Britain in the elite "public schools", where it served as a model for the American school system, which in turn has influenced the schools of many other countries around the world.

Anyone got any opinions?

Why Boys Always Tell Lies (And Girls Always Tell The Truth)

2008-10-07T14:07:00.005+01:00

If it really was that simple, it might be easier to solve this problem. But it is not that simple of course, and so life becomes more interesting. The fact is that not all boys tell lies all the time, and not all girls tell the truth all the time.

Few would deny, however, that the balance is not level. Boys tell lies perhaps one hundred thousand times more than girls do. Why is this?

There is a saying that goes: There are a billion lies, but only one truth. What this means is that to tell the truth, all you need to do is remember what is real. But once you tell a lie, you have to keep on telling more of them, to keep your story straight. And it's easy to forget the lie you told yesterday, so you sometimes get caught out, and often the way out of this is to construct ever more complicated webs of lies. So lying is very hard work.

But you could say that sometimes telling the truth is painful, so telling the truth is hard work too. It's at times like this that everyone is tempted to tell a so-called "white lie", a lie that is supposed to be for a good, unselfish reason. But we are talking here about the lies boys tell for selfish reasons, not the white lies.

If it is such hard work, why do they do it? There are two possible reasons: physical and environmental. This is because, if we are comparing the truth habits of girls and boys, the cause must logically be in the gender difference. The physical reasons would be innate (what you are born with) and the environmental reasons are learned. So the two main areas of difference are: sexual and social.

Everyone knows about the different approach of boys and girls to dating. The boy is interested in sexual conquest, the girl in relationship building (yes this is over-simplified but true in general.) The conquest mode of thinking involves ideas such as deception, trapping of prey etc etc which associate with hiding of the truth. Relationships work best in a surrounding of openness and honesty. Also, boys often feel uncomfortable talking about emotions, and would rather lie their way out of those situations. It seems there is a link between libido and lying. My grandfather, who is now very old and so is not interested in sex at all, never tells a lie. He does say, though, that in his younger days, he used to lie all the time. Could there be a connection?

The other cause of boys lying is the example of other boys, who in turn are learning from their fathers. There is pressure from these peer groups to tell lies, and many boys are told that to succeed in business, they will have to tell lies to their boss, their workmates, and their customers. Many top sportsmen are shown on television, quite openly trying to deceive referees and umpires, when it's obvious to a million viewers that they are lying. These social examples give many lessons to boys to practice untruthful behaviour.

What Can We Do?

Boys and men must be encouraged to tell the truth at all times. The best, though again rather over-simplified, way is to make clear that telling the truth is not going to cause trouble or emotion scenes, or will not be a threat. Girls need to be calm and assertive about saying this. But you do need to draw a line somewhere, so if they still keep lying to you, then I suppose you have to just as calmly dump them.

Syllogisms Can Help The World

2008-10-06T18:58:00.004+01:00

The cause of many of the most major problems in our lives is when people commit a logical fallacy.

Let me tell you what I mean.

The study of logical inferences, or the drawing of conclusions from a starting statement, known as an premise, using logic, hinges on the idea of a syllogism.

Here is a classic syllogism.

A. All men are mortal
B. Socrates is a man
I. Therefore Socrates is mortal.

The two statements, or premises, A and B are combined together to make the logical inference I. This is the basis of philosophical logic; it is the building block upon which the entire edifice of philosophy is founded. But as we shall see - also of everyday life. A poor understanding of the workings of the syllogism can lead us to make disastrous decisions, affecting not only ourselves, but others too.

Another syllogism:

A. All cats look grey in the dark
B. Felix is a cat
I. Therefore Felix looks grey in the dark

The first syllogism cannot be disputed, because the logic is faultless, AND the premises are true. In the second one, we could dispute it, not because there is anything wrong logically, but because we might disagree with one of the original premises (all cats look grey in the dark.)

What about this one?

A. All grass is green
B. My eyes are green
I. Therefore my eyes are grass

Can you see what is wrong with this one and how it is different from the correct one at the top of this post? If you can, then your logic is better than that of the Education Ministry of a small, populous and influential country on the north-west fringe of Europe. Their argument went like this: A survey of schools where students get consistently high grades shows that all of them set homework. So if the schools in the inner-city sink areas and in the ghettoes start to set homework and enforce it, then they too will have high grades. Yes, these people really did believe that! Their error can be seen in a simple syllogism.

A. All successful schools set homework to their students
B. Drug Street High School has started setting homework
I. Therefore Drug Street High School will start to be successful

This a bit like saying my eyes are grass. There's an episode in Alice in Wonderland where they had mistakenly planted white roses which were supposed to be red, so they painted them red. But sadly, this is the way governments work.

Another kind of logical fallacy, and one which is very dangerous in our society, leads people to fear those who are different in some way. For example, in their skin colour. An illustration of this fallacy is:

A. All the black men I have heard about are criminals
B. John is a black man
I. Therefore John is a criminal

When we write it in this way, the mistake becomes more obvious.

Perhaps if people took more notice of syllogisms in their thinking, the world would be a happier place.

Just to finish, here is a paradox syllogism:

A. All the men of the island of Crete are liars
B. I am a Cretan man
I. Therefore I am lying

If he is lying, how do we know that either of statements A or B are true? And if they are not true, how do we know that it's true that he's lying? And if it is true that he's lying, he must be telling the truth, so he's not lying, so it's....

AAAAh, no, I can't get my head round this!

Mind and Matter Interaction

2008-10-05T18:12:00.006+01:00

Many people have tried their hand at solving the puzzle of mind and matter. What are they? Are they the same thing, looked at in two different ways? Or are they totally different from each other? If so, how do they interact? Or is their apparent separateness just an illusion?

Some people say there's no point in asking these questions because, how can any of the answers pay your rent? get you your next meal? find you a partner you can have children with? These people may be right, but the mystery has nevertheless fascinated some of the greatest thinkers.

An area of modern life which is directly touched by this branch of philosophy is artificial intelligence (AI).

When you think about it, don't you find it a bit amazing that you can just have a thought in your mind about drinking a cup of tea, and instantly things begin to happen in the world of matter outside you. Your arm begins to move, your fingers to grasp, the cup moves in an exact trajectory to reach your mouth. How can this happen? Or Beethoven just thinks about his Fifth Symphony, and that produces notes on a paper, and orchestras play, and people's ears vibrate, and the ideas of Beethoven are now in OUR minds when they weren't there before.

One of the most influential thinkers of all time was Rene Descartes. He it was who made the famous statement "I think, therefore I am." A lot of people maintain that he said it in Latin as "Cogito, ergo sum," which would have been quite cool, only he didn't. Actually, he said, "Je pense, donc je suis," because of course he was from France. The idea is that the only thing you can be absolutely certain about is that you are thinking something, so there must exist a thinker to do the thinking. After that, everything else is inferred from this first thought.

Descartes was a dualist, he believed that mind and matter both exist, but they are completely different entities, so he had to solve the problem of how they interact: how it is that you have a thought about a doughnut and pretty soon your body is moving to the doughnut store and joining up with a doughnut. Descartes decided that animals were pure automatons, like machines, but humans are different, in that they have a soul. He believed this soul was located in the pineal gland, a small organ in the brain (which is now believed to be a relic of evolution with no use whatever, like your appendix) and that this was where the interaction takes place. Apart from the fact that no-one believes the pineal gland theory anymore, this idea also has the disadvantage of introducing yet another entity, different again from the original two, making things more complicated rather than simpler.

Descartes' view, and those that are similar, are called interactionist theories. A successor of Descartes, Arnold Guelinex, proposed a theory of psychophysical parallelism. Imagine two clocks, each keeping perfect time, but you can only SEE clock A and HEAR clock B. Then every time you see clock A point to the hour, you will hear clock B strike, making it seem that one has affected the other, when in fact they are quite unrelated. So it is with mind and matter; body and mind are separately "wound up" by God at the beginning of creation, so when you get a desire to walk, at the same time, purely unrelated physical events happen in your legs to cause them to walk. Another theory is that when events happen in the material world, then God affects us so that we think we are being affected by them.

All these ideas make us out to be not much more than puppets, with God pulling the strings. Wouldn't it be easier to have created a world where mind and matter are the same thing, so they didn't need to interact? Spinoza tried to solve this by saying they didn't interact, but they were like two sides of the same coin. He actually believed that everything is God, so that mind and matter were just two different aspects of the Creator.

There are many other theories of mind and matter, but that's enough for one day.

Should The Cane Be Brought Back in School?

2008-10-04T18:44:00.007+01:00

See this item in the news. (links will open in new window)

We want to use philosophy to solve this problem.

A survey found that a fifth of teachers in the United Kingdom thought that the use of the cane as a punishment should be brought back into schools in Britain. Before looking at the pros and cons of this issue, we must look at a comment by the writer Sarah Ebner. She seems to think that the survey shows that teachers have lost the plot, and they are all wanting to go around with a big stick, whacking all the kids left right and centre. But the survey does not show anything of the kind. You have to remember that four fifths of the teachers surveyed, that's 80%, must have been against corporal punishment.

Another silly idea is that of the person who commented on the original item, when he thought a child would get caned in front of the whole class, and that would bring down their pride. But the reality is that, even if caning was brought back, it would only be served out by the head teacher or a deputy, and well out of sight of other children.

The two points made above are merely to put the discussion into some perspective, so it can be talked about logically, and free from crazy notions.

Those in favour say that discipline in English schools has become so bad, and the sanctions are so ineffective, that a return to caning as a kind of ultimate sanction is needed. They point out that in the "old days" when there was caning, there were far fewer problems. They think that there are some students who laugh at the discipline system in school, and laugh at the psychologists and "anger-management" specialists, and just play the system. The proponents of a return to caning also point out that many students are heartily sick of the disruptive elements in their class who are spoiling their learning opportunities, and that those students would also be in favour of it. Those in favour also argue that the alternative sanction - exclusion from school for a number of days - only makes it seem as though the wrong doer is getting an extra free vacation while the other children have to carry on working.

Those against caning say that in former days, people were more concerned to conform with rules and regulations, and that was why discipline was generally better, not because of the cane. They point out that society is different nowadays, and that there are also a lot more stresses on young people than there were in their grandparents time. These stresses, they say, make it more difficult for children to control their behaviour. There are many more learning disabilities now that were simply not acknowledged in those days. They also argue that many of the people who want to bring back corporal punishment have never themselves experienced the misery and shame felt by a child who is being beaten by adults, especially if it is an unjust punishment, as would sometimes happen. Furthermore, they say, the child may well become more defiant as a result of being punished in this way. They say that such a regime would give an unspoken lesson to young people that violence is an acceptable way to solve problems.

(One thing that should be remembered: physical violence of any kind inflicted on a child for any reason whatever, by an adult who is not their parent, is currently illegal under United Kingdom law.)

If you are a student, what do you think of the idea of bringing back corporal punishment in schools?

If you are a parent, would you be willing to allow your own child to be punished in this way?

If you are a teacher, do you think that caning would be an acceptable way of solving the problem of discipline in the classroom?

If you are none of the above, do you think that corporal punishment in school would solve some of our social problems?

Is Philosophy the Cause of the Financial Crisis?

2008-10-04T05:44:00.000+01:00

I was reading an article about the current financial crisis. The writer was making a point about Eastern philosophy and the ways it differed from that of the West. It was quite a well written article in many ways. At one point the writer drew the conclusion that the financial crisis was ultimately caused by greed, and I would concur with that, and also add that envy comes into it as well.

But the writer of the article seemed to point to Western philosophy as the culprit. He argued that it was the Western tendency to view ourselves as separate from everything we see around us that leads to this situation. I can't go along with that. I would rather argue that it is the technological power wielded by the West that has caused its greed and envy to be such a large and destructive force in the world. This has been around since the Industrial Revolution began in Western Europe around the 17th and 18th centuries.

I have been to many places in the world, and I have not noticed that greed and envy are any less prevalent in Eastern countries than in Western ones. I would say that greed and envy are more or less uniformly distributed throughout the world.

To my mind, the fault lies not in the philosophies of East and West, but in the widespread ignorance of those philosophies. We can learn from the philosophies of the East, there is a great deal of truth to be found in them. Many Westerners have followed their tenets, and have integrated them into their own way of life. But we can also say that much of Western philosophy is equally true, and equally adaptable to a satisfying life, in harmony with one's environment. The key to this is in how these truths are applied in one's own life.

There is one respect in which I would agree that the study of Eastern philosophy would benefit people in the West. When we study those philosophies, everything about them seems new and fresh to us, even though they have been in existence for a very long time. It is like finding a hidden treasure. This makes it possible for us to approach them without too many preconceived notions about them. The problem with the Western philosophies is that they are too familiar, or at any rate, they are expressed in terms that SEEM familiar, leading us to believe that we know all about them, so there is nothing we can learn from them. Such a notion is a mistake, but an understandable one.

This Blog Is About - What?

2008-10-04T05:27:00.000+01:00

This blog is about - what? All will hopefully become clear as the blog develops itself over the following days and weeks. At the moment it is merely an idea.

The idea is to use the blog to talk about philosophy. The focus of the blog is philosophy in relation to current events, so each time a blog post begins, it will use as its starting point an event from the news, and develop a philosophical argument from that.

It may contain a moral, that is, something we can learn from the news event, but not necessarily. The idea is not to stick rigidly to drawing a moral, but obviously if there is one to be drawn, then we will probably draw it.

The main idea of this blog, though, is to have fun, and to show the reader that doing philosophy can be fun, if you approach it the right way.