Don't Sh#t Where You Eat

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P.2 Zen and the Art of the Joke

Sinning Against the Load

Last weekend I took my son and daughter to Dairy Queen. For the record my son is 5, or will be 5 at the end of the month here, and my daughter 8. We sitting in the back eating, and in comes this huge guy; by huge I mean fat. I didn’t really pay a whole lot of mind to it, but as he was approaching the register my daughter leans forward and says quietly to me, “That guy must come here a lot.” At the moment I honestly didn’t know what she was talking about until she pointed it out. Then of course I laughed and said, “Kylie, that’s not nice. Just because he’s overweight doesn’t mean he eats here a lot.” Then I said something along the lines of, “You never know, maybe he’s eating off the low fat menu.”


I’ve been thinking about that incident with my daughter on and off for the last week now. Did I say the right thing? I don’t want her laughing at overweight people everywhere she goes, pointing and snickering. Should I have told her that it wasn’t funny at all? Then what? Should I be telling what’s funny and what’s not funny? Somewhere mid week the words of Joseph Campbell rang in the form of a musing on Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra”. I went as follows:

In a kind of parable, Nietzsche describes what he calls the three transformations of the spirit. The first is that of the camel, of childhood and youth. The camel gets down on his knees and says, "Put a load on me." This is the season for obedience, receiving instruction and the information your society requires of you in order to live a responsible life. But when the camel is well loaded, it struggles to its feet and runs out into the desert, where it is transformed into a lion -- the heavier the load that had been carried, the stronger the lion will be. Now, the task of the lion is to kill a dragon, and the name of the dragon is "Thou shalt." On every scale of this scaly beast, a "thou shalt" is imprinted: some from four thousand years ago; others from this morning's headlines. Whereas the camel, the child, had to submit to the "thou shalts," the lion, the youth, is to throw them off and come to his own realization.
And so, when the dragon is thoroughly dead, with all its "thou shalts" overcome, the lion is transformed into a child moving out of its own nature, like a wheel impelled from its own hub. No more rules to obey. No more rules derived from the historical needs and tasks of the local society, but the pure impulse to living of a life in flower.

I imagine many people in that situation would have just said, “That’s not funny!”. Then add something along the lines of, “It’s not nice to make fun of people that way.”. Now we’ve just packed a load on our child’s back, without even knowing we did it. It seems to me there’s a fine line between packing such a load and allowing them to be themselves. But of course in this instance (and others like it) Nietzsche’s reflection shines through with a blinding light. He’s quite right, and perhaps the line isn’t so thin after all.

We don’t even realize that we’re essentially conditioning our children to find certain things funny, while at the same time find others not so funny. By the time they’re adults they’ll be walking around with so much baggage we’ll be unable to tell the difference between their social laugh and their real one, and neither will they. As a sort of example; every so often it’ll happen that I tell a joke (suppose it’s at work) and there’s always one individual who will instinctively give an initial half chuckle, then immediately there after regain control and finish with a sort scoff and departure that says, “That’s not funny. How dare you deceive me like that.”. In effect they’re mad at me because I brought to the surface their true laughter. More importantly it was revealed to me, and anyone else present, that they find something funny which represents a load they’ve been carrying around, something they’ve been told by parents, teachers, clergy, etc. not to laugh at, and now I’ve just caused them to “sin against the load”. Hm, it’s not me keeping you from yourself. If they just would have laughed maybe they would have seen a little glimmer of something.

So therein lies the paradox; to find oneself, or to stay true to convention. It’s interesting that that which leads to knowledge of oneself also stands as a sin against god, or a sin against convention. It’s not enough to understand Zen by just laughing at the joke, you have to at the time be laughing at yourself, and indeed ourselves… The very thing we’ve been told not to all these years….

P.1 Zen and the Art of the Joke

There’s a saying out there somewhere that I haven’t bother to look up, nevertheless it sticks in my head as it sort of catches me for one reason or another. It goes something along the lines of, “The world is a comedy for those who think, and a tragedy for those who feel.” I’m definitely on the comedic side of that spectrum, which isn’t to say that I’m funny (maybe I am), only that I find humor in most things as apposed to tragedy.

I have a tendency of overusing sayings such as a particular Koan, or some other seemingly ambiguous statement that contains obvious signs of mysticism, whether it be from the bible, Buddhism, Hinduism, or just some random yokel. Then it occurred to me, “You know what, Andy, a joke is only funny the first time around. Sooner or later people are going to stop giving you the curtsy laugh and just tell you they’ve herd that one before…” Quite right, Andy, quite right.

So with that in mind I’m going to start off with something I’ve use before:

The Zen master Mu-nan had only one successor. His name was Shoju. After Shoju had completed his study of Zen, Mu-nan called him into his room. "I am getting old," he said, "and as far as I know, Shoju, you are the only one who will carry on this teaching. Here is a book. It has been passed down from master to master for seven generations. I also have added many points according to my understanding. The book is very valuable, and I am giving it to you to represent your successorship."

"If the book is such an important thing, you had better keep it," Shoju replied. "I received your Zen without writing and am satisfied with it as it is."

"I know that," said Mu-nan. "Even so, this work has been carried from master to master for seven generations, so you may keep it as a symbol of having received the teaching. Here."

The two happened to be talking before a brazier. The instant Shoju felt the book in his hands he thrust it into the flaming coals. He had no lust for possessions.

Mu-nan, who never had been angry before, yelled: "What are you doing!"

Shoju shouted back: "What are you saying!"

I feel your pain, Shoju… Somewhere in a box in my basement under the stairs there is a “Yo Mamma” snaps book. You know, “Your mammas so dumb she took a donut back because it had a hole in it” type of shit. It’s probably 10 years old and in like new condition. I mean come on, I was 24 years old, still a bit confused. I’m pretty sure I bought it along with Brian Greene’s “The Elegent Universe” when I was going through my layman’s physics stage. Sure, Brian did a pretty good job, but does anyone really understand any of that shit? Anyway, the reason that book sits packed away is for two reasons. 1.) I’ve already had my laughs, and 2.) let’s face it, it’s just plain embarrassing. “Gee Andy, I can’t help but notice that tucked between Nietzsche and Quine on the shelf here is, well let me see, oh it’s James Percelay’s best seller “Double Snaps”.” Some conversations just aren’t worth having, I mean maybe I’m not really embarrassed about it, but it’s not as though I’m going to be using it as a reference any time soon, so let’s just leave it in the box shall we.

I digress... Let’s imagine someone tells a joke – my guess is one of four things happen:

A.) It immediately grabs you and you laugh uncontrollably.
B.) You’ve heard it before, and give your best courtesy laugh. Or maybe you just come out with it and say, “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.”
C.) You just plain don’t find it funny.
D.) You don’t get it at all, but laugh like you do. I mean, everyone else seems to be laughing.

Let’s consider “D” for a moment. Suppose you go away thinking about the joke and what it means, and where you became lost in the whole thing. You spend some part of your day thinking about it, and finally get the mechanics of the joke. i.e. you understand the underlying metaphor/analogy that gave the joke it’s comedic appeal. Unfortunately at this point, whatever initial humor there was to be had has been exhausted in your search for the underlying meaning of the joke. Maybe it’s no worse for you though, because now you can retell it and perhaps enjoy it vicariously through others; it’s always good to have new material.

Still though, if you don’t understand a joke, no amount of thinking about it is going to give you that initial pleasure that is the point of the joke in the first place. In this way you have to consider that “thinking” about a joke and its meaning sort of misses the point. If you didn’t get it strait away, you’re never going to capture that which everyone else did. In essence, eventually “getting it”, isn’t anything like immediately “getting it”. To put it another way, trying to comprehend the underlying form of a joke, as apposed to immediately grasping its surface appeal, never makes it funny.

How about “B”? Suppose you hear a joke and you’ve heard it before. Do you laugh? Perhaps you do, but it’s not the same as the first time around. What was initially funny about the joke has become not so much lost on you, but more importantly, it’s now become some intellectual piece of mumbo jumbo that resides in your mind somewhere. It’s a piece of information that perhaps you can use on others, but it’s no longer useful for the purposes of arousing a sense of your own personal laughter.

“A” and “C” we can take together. If you get the joke and immediately find it funny, your disposition is instantly transformed. It’s like suddenly being punched in the face and taken from one state (being comfortable) to another (extreme pain) in the snap of a finger. You can’t control it, you can’t stop, it has suddenly and from nowhere consumed you. If you don’t find it funny, well, what the heck, you don’t find it funny.

I find that understanding Zen is much like the Art of the Joke. There’s nothing intellectually [per se] to be grasped about Zen, and if at once one try’s to grasp it as such, it immediately slips away. What was there to be gained is lost in your thoughts on the matter, in much the same way your ponderings over a joke never brings about the laughter. To be more specific, Zen is not philosophy, nor is any mystical tradition. (Let me make a special note here to say that when I use the word “Zen”, I’m using it in a rather generic way to refer to that which lies at the foundation of any mystical tradition, whether Christianity in the west or Buddhism in the east.) To at once ask what the sound of one hand clapping is, is to tell a joke. However, these words don’t contain the essence of understanding or the path to a solution any more then a joke contains within it, and at its foundation, the essence of humor.

The words and patterns of a joke, along with the sayings of mysticism are a catalyst, a path that can only be traveled down once. Again, as Zen is not a philosophy, neither does it, or the comedian for that matter, claim to have some secret formula that aims to tap into some eternal fountain of laughter and enlightenment. Quite naturally one doesn’t expect to be able to carry around an old joke to maintain one’s laughter any more then Shoju could be further enlightened by his master’s old book of sayings – that’s dogma. It’s akin to a comedian hopelessly repeating his routine to the same crowd over and over again. If the humor was in the words, the crowd would forever laugh, although I think the poor comedian will find that soon enough the crowd will be leaving.

The path to enlightenment is like the path to laughter. It’s never anything we arrive at, rather it’s something that comes upon us when we’re willing to be amused.

No God

If someone comes to you and asks your help, you shall not send him off with pious words, saying, 'Have faith and take your troubles to God!' You shall act as if there were no God, as if there were only one person in all the world who could help this man - only yourself.

~ Rabbi Moshe Leib ~

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I think a good point to made is that "believing in God" is not the same as "believing God exists".

Legendary Pitchmen

There’s always a lot of smoke and dust in the air throughout internet chat rooms and blogs about so-called religious fundamentalists and their irrational beliefs, their circular logic, their contradictions, etc. An perfect example of such a character that gets his fare share of bashing is Eric Hovind and his imprisoned father Kent.

I don’t take issue, necessarily, with the idea that people should take a stand against them, I simply think the charges and methods are rather peculiar. It seems to me people are focusing too much on what they think these people believe instead of focusing on what these people are actually doing - so what you end up seeing are heaps of personal attacks that probably don't link up to what the person actually believes. What they believe is entirely irrelevant, especially against the backdrop of Kent’s offenses – “Since November 2006 Hovind has been serving a ten-year prison sentence in the Federal Correctional Institution, Edgefield in Edgefield, South Carolina, after being convicted of 58 federal counts, including twelve tax offenses, one count of obstructing federal agents and forty-five counts of structuring cash transactions.” – certainly we can see that in the Hovind case (and many others like him) his behavior is not a reflection of what he claims to believe. Although I can hardly jump to such a conclusion, I leave it as said.

If we just make the shift to focusing our attention on behavior, we can see these people for who they really are, Pitchmen. They’re Vince Shlomi with the “Slap Chop”, they’re Anthony Sullivan with the “Turbo Snake”, or Billy Mays with “Hercules Hooks”. Just take one look at hovind’s videos and you can see the same sorts of themes and bullshit in action.

Good afternoon folks, it’s Kent Hovind here with Creation Science Evangelism! I’m here to tell you about the new Jesus Christ Superstar. He-dies-for-lives he-prays-he-saves, he was God’s-only-son-on-the-run and his mamma-was-a-virgin halleluiah! Have you ever been feelin’ down, blue, didn’t-know-what-to-do, well let me tell you what I have for you here today. Our new Super-Saver Sole-Tastic repair kit will get you back on track to a new life, that’s right folks, I said a new life. And all you gotta’ do is act now, that’s right I said act now, right now because the time is drawin’ in and satan is on our tails. All you gotta’ do is pick up that phone right now and buy my book and instructional video tape. But wait folks, just wait, because if you act now by the grace of God we’ll send you TWO books and TWO tapes for TWO easy payments of only $19.95, halleluiah-and-God-be-praised. What do you have to lose folks, except your lives in the screamin’ pit of hell, that devils on our heals with wheels-a-steel ready to shake-bake-and-rake you into non-existence…

(do I have to note that this isn't an actual Eric Hovind quote, but rather my own nonesense?)

I think all would agree that there’s no sense in evaluating what the Pitchman actually believes, because most of us grant that he probably thinks everything he’s saying is nonsense (Although George Costanza did say, "It's not a lie, if you believe it"); nonetheless I think we can say with some confidence that there isn’t a “Slap Chop” in Vince’s cupboard. Oh, and it’s probably worth noting that Vince has also taken a trip to the slammer, for battering a hooker. Of course I’m not suggesting that all pitchmen are slime, I’m merely saying that they're not looking out for your best interests, and they're behavior is not necessarily a reflection of what we'd presume them to believe.

To summarize and repeat: don't bash the Pitchman for being irrational or believing in irrational things, it's pointless and fruitless - he's just performing a role, doing a job, and rakin' in the doe. To put it another way, one doesn't launch personal attacks against Anthony Sullivan because we think the guy is full of shit, some bold faced liar, or that he's completely irrational (again, we should already know that). Rather what we do is go after the product he's selling, we point out that it doesn't really do what he says it does. Or, in the case of the Swivel Sweep, perhaps it does do some of the things he says, but we later find out that it's shortcomings existed within the things he failed to mention, but was nonetheless there for one to observe all along had one thought about it at the time (e.g. it's small dander holding capacity render it a poor buy overall. It seems you'd be dumping the thing constantly).

On the other hand, it should be noted that in the case of Evangelical Pitchmen, they're really pitching a product to be used in a way that it wasn't really intended - like using the Swivel Sweep to bash your neighbor over the head. Once again though, the product is there to be evaluated outside of the Pitchman's pitch.

A Slice of Cake and a Side of Representation

A quick thought before moving on:

Quoting Rorty again, "Contingency Irony and Solidarity" Pg. 5:
We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that truth is out there. To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states. To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human Languages are human creations.

Truth cannot be out there - cannot exist independently of the human mind - because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world ii our there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own - unaided by the describing activities of human beings - cannot.

The suggestion that truth, as well as the world, is out there is a legacy of an age in which the world was seen as the creation of a being who had a langu4ge of his own. If we cease to attempt to make sense of the idea of such a nonhuman language, we shall not be tempted to confuse the platitude that the world may cause us to be justified in believing a sentence true with the claim that the world splits itself up, on its own initiative, into sentence-shaped chunks called "facts." But if one clings to the notion of self-subsistent facts, it is easy to start capitalizing the word "truth" and treating it as something identical either with God or with the world as God's project. Then one will say, for example, that Truth is great, and will prevail.

I’m starting to get the feeling that this is all Pragmatism really needed to do in order to satisfy its urges – just replace truth. Notice that statements like, “That car over there is silver.” whether you have a proclivity for truth being in the world, or truth being just a product of language, our propositions stay the same. For example the pragmatist doesn’t say, “wait, we shouldn’t say it like that, because that suggests that that’s actually true of the world.” But one doesn’t.

So why then does Pragmatism dump the idea of representation and the appearance/reality distinction? A representative statement for a Platonist (one who sees truth as existing in the world) is a truth about the world itself. However, representative statements about the world for a Pragmatist is a truth that exists only in language – following above. The only distinction that needs to be made between the two sorts of representation (if we keep it on both sides) is between the idea that one discovers truth (for the Platonist) and the idea that we create truth (for the Pragmatist). In another way, from a Pragmatist point of view the shift between different representative characters (i.e. the idea that a given metaphor represents a certain fundamental idea) isn’t to say that we’re saying something fundamental about the world in itself, but a suggestion to shift between certain ways of thinking about concepts because a different way has more “cash value” and/or allows us to obtain more predictive power - on the one hand anyway.

In this way it’s fair enough to say (for example) that people have fundamental affective states, and that things we say and do are reflections of those affective states. To make the argument that this sounds like Platonism would beg the question as to why one would not consider the belief that, “That car over there is red.” is also Platonism because both can rightly infer that one believes that truth to be true of the world in itself. All we need though, is the statement above from Rorty to make the proper distinction (or simply the idea that Truth transcends language, but I’ll get back to that later). In this way our talk about these affective states gains it’s cash value not in the truth it speaks about the world but in the cash value we gain from the predictive insights we may or may not gain from having that sort of dialogue.

In summary:
All we’re really saying is that it helps to think of people as having affective states (and whether they do or whether they don’t is not something one can prove), and it helps to speak and behave as though they do, even if it means implying that certain metaphors are representations of those states (refer back to my post “Hierarchies of Thought”). To say that that’s true (again, from a Pragmatic perspective) is not to actually say that that’s True of people.

Of course this all raises other interesting points in my mind that I’ll tare apart in a post to proceed.

Evolution Explained!

Rorty Needs a Hug

From the album, "No One's First, and You're Next"

In the beginning of Richard Rorty’s “Contingency Irony and Solidarity”, Rorty sets about the task of defining his core purpose, which is, building the philosophical framework for his “Liberal Utopia” – although, note that “philosophical framework” isn’t really fare to say, but I leave it as said. Of course, you can’t have a Utopia without some people, so Rorty draws us a picture of the sort of human being that would inhabit this utopia – the sort of person that would naturally bring to light the type of environment Rorty would like to attain. This person he calls the “Liberal Ironist”. It’s important then, to note just what it means to be a Liberal Ironist in the first place. Here, Rorty borrows his definition of a liberal from Judith Shklar who said:

“Liberals are people who think that cruelty is the worst thing we do.”

On the other side of that phrase, he uses “ironist” to:

“…name the sort of person who faces up to the contingency of his or her own most central beliefs and desires – someone sufficiently historicist and nominalist to have abandoned the idea that those cenrtal beliefs and desires refer back to something beyond the reach of time and chance. Liberal ironists are people who include among these ungroundable desires their own hope that suffering will be diminished, that the humiliation of human beings by other human beings may cease.”

Let me suggest, following this definition, that in order to acknowledge this sort of disposition, one must first acknowledge that other human beings have the ability to feel and suffer in the same manner oneself does. To put it in another way, one acknowledges that other human beings have cognitive and affective states which are to a high degree the same as ones own. i.e. we have feelings of love, pain, grief, sorrow, etc. This doesn’t mean that it has some justifiable basis, or that we can have certain knowledge of it, only that we in some manner acknowledge or grant it upon reflection. Rorty offer’s no examples of possible justifications, he only says:

“For the liberal ironist, there is no answer to the question, “Why not be cruel?” no non-circular theoretical backup for the belief that cruelty is horrible.”

Taking all of this together, I see Rorty as either being highly calculative for some dubious purpose, extremely shortsighted, or both. I see him as taking advantage of the fact that 99.99% of his readers will rightly grant that and say yes, you’re right, we should not be cruel, and move on from that proposition - now (again) granted he doesn't suggest that we don't use our own justifications, but he certainly doesn't supply us with any beyond the proposition. It sort of reminds me of SyeTen B’s proof of a moral absolute by asking the question, “Would child rape be ok under any circumstance?” Here Sye went to an extreme case where 99.99% of people would agree with him. Next, they would likely not recognize a condition where such a thing would be OK, and conclude right along with Sye that morals are absolute. However, Rorty’s aim is different then Sye’s, and quite frankly Rorty was a highly intelligent and important figure of the 20th century, and Sye is just some d-bag. Nevertheless, I do see Rorty as taking advantage of us here – he seems to intentionally avoid any idea that he might believe other people to have cognitive/affective states. I say he’s short sighted because he’s ignoring the fact that prior to accepting his proposition we’ve already been conditioned to accept it, but not as a mere proposition. The problem comes down to the manner with which we’re conditioned to accept it, and Rorty avoids contact with those conditions.

Let me here offer an anecdote. One of the great things about being a man in my position with my interests is that I have two absolutely wonderful specimens to experiment on (well, that’s probably not the right way to put it, but we’re working for effect here), namely, my 4 year old boy and 7 year old girl; soon to be 5 and 8. You see the boy, who’s thoroughly male, will for whatever reason (perhaps he’s not getting the desired effects he’d like, or perhaps he’s conducting some sort of bizarre experiment) take his “Little Tike’s” hammer and blast his sister upside the head with it. Of course this produces the assumed effect, and from the other room all I here is complete silence, followed by my crying daughter. Oddly enough the one who comes crying into the room is NOT my daughter, but my son; the crying is always completely contrived. Following shortly is my little girl, and I ask, “Alright, what happened?” The boy will say, “I hit Kylie….” “And why did you do that?” I’ll respond. Now, often times he’ll just say, “I don’t know.” But sometimes he’ll actually come up with what he thinks is some valid justification, nevertheless I’ll tell him, “You don’t hit your sister.” being as stern as possible without showing anger. I poop you not he used to say, but doesn’t anymore, “Why?” The first time he said that, and subsequent times for that matter, I actually laughed; I mean come on, WHY?

Now at this moment I could rightly say, “Because we’re not cruel to other people.” But that would go over with, “Why?” yes, indeed, great question. You see with kids this age the same treatment has the same desired effect, and that is, always answer with a question of your own – you know, take the Socratic rout on his ass. So I say, taking the Little Tike’s hammer from his hand, “How would you feel if I hit YOU in the head with this hammer….?” He whimpers, looks down (has the look of defeat all about him) and typically doesn’t respond (it’s worth noting that my daughter always answers this question). To my son I generally fill in and say, how do you think your sister feels? And he’ll respond, with a whimper, “Mm-hhm.” Then I’ll tell him to go give her a hug, and tell her you’re sorry. The point here is simple; it’s fair enough to tell me as a conditioned presumably mature adult that we don’t be cruel, but I’m in some seriously hot water if I’m going to think my 4 year old will blindly accept such a notion. If I rather proceed with the assumption that my son has cognitive/affective states, and behave in a manner that causes him to reflect upon his experience (by asking, “How would you feel if….?”), he always understands what it is I’m getting at and as a result, certain behaviors don’t need to be corrected through punishment or authority. i.e. his short time in reflection is enough to correct his behavior, well, at least in the short term. Give a boy plastic power tools and he’s going to destroy everything in his path – it’s the cancer of being born with testicles I suppose.

So again, the whole idea that cruelty is the worst thing we can do is a fine enough proposition to hold to – and understanding that there is no noncircular justification is good enough as well. Certainly I should grant that Rorty never asks us not to say that (for example) our kids have cognitive/affective states for the purposes of getting them to reflect, but (again) he certainly stays as far away from those suggestions as he can. I say he’s calculating because if he were to make such a functional assumption, we could paste on him the idea that either, A.) Language is then a representation of those cognitive/affective states, or B.) Language is a reflection of those cognitive states. But I see no reason why that belief has to be any less functional then his simple proposition that we not be cruel. Functional, in this case, is exactly what his suggestion looks like – function based on prior condition of course. But in Rorty’s case, his suggestion doesn’t come packed with an understanding of why, from the standpoint of (at least) personal reflection (granting its circularity), but is just thrown out there for a certain function that is to this point undefined. It doesn’t care or take into account how someone may feel, it only cares about the environment that might be created as the result of adhering to such a belief. In this way, I find it a bit blind and short sighted and I’d be quite curious, had Rorty had kids when he was alive (maybe he did) what he would have told them.

Continuing on, Rorty says the following about creating a Liberal Utopia:

” It [a liberal utopia] is to be achieved not by inquiry but by imagination, the imaginative ability to see strange people as fellow sufferers. Solidarity is not discovered by reflection but created. It is created by increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of the pain and humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people. Such increased sensitivity makes it more difficult to marginalize people different from ourselves by thinking, "They do not feel it as we would," or "There must always be suffering, so why not let them suffer?"”

Ahh, the sound of a scratching record in the morning – suppose I unpack. This seems like quite a careful piece of rhetoric that Rorty has crafted here as well. If solidarity is not “discovered by reflection” but created; is it perhaps “created by reflection”, or “created as the result of reflection”? How can it be created by increasing our sensitivity without some sort of reflection (I mean, aren’t we sensitive based on our own reflections)? Just what is Rorty skirting here? Again, he seems to be avoiding all prior conditioning on these matters, and taking advantage of the fact that his audience consists of adults who have prior assumptions. To paraphrase Rorty, He seems to be saying that we create solidarity by imagining that other people are fellow sufferers (i.e. suffer as we do), more specifically through that imagination we become aware of said suffering therefore our increased sensitivity to others needs and interests (as our own) reaches a point where it becomes difficult to marginalize them. But again, what he seems to have removed from the equation is the recognition of others suffering through reflection on ones own plight. In order to imagine that others suffer as you do one must reflect upon ones own suffering and ask, “how would you feel?” Sure enough solidarity is created, and not “discovered though reflection”, however one cannot pave the way for the creation of solidarity without first reflecting or imagining that people suffer as you do. From there I think it easily follows that solidarity is indeed created in the manner that Rorty would like to see it.

On the other hand, must we see that other people have cognitive/affective states, feelings and experiences as our own? To remove the idea that the recognition of suffering comes not from reflection, but from imagination, begs the question as to where this imagined idea comes from in the first place and why we should (or should have) imagine[d] it at all; although Rorty does in fact admit that there is no non-circular justification as to why one should not be cruel. Nevertheless, how could one ever hope to imagine such a thing if it was not first recognized in oneself?

On the one hand I do agree with the position that stays away from ideas like, “other people fall in love just as we do.”, all the while referring to the cognitive or affective condition of love – of course in this way we’re pulled into the appearance/reality distinction, and granting that behind our language is some sort of essence. Rorty simply stops at the statement, “we think that cruelty is the worst thing we can do.” without any further justification. Of course I agree with that, but my instincts (which I’d just assume do away with in this case) push towards the epistemological position which says “I know that that is true because I see it in myself.” Rorty may say, maybe that made sense (at some time and place), but try thinking about it this way. On the other hand (again), I could simply take the same functional position and state, “I believe that other people feel as I do, therefore I recognize that cruelty would the worst thing we can do.” I could then state that I have no non-circular justification for this claim and leave it at that. You could then still see may behavior, through language and action, etc. not as representation, but as certain habits of actions (in a specific case, between me and my boy)

I must say that I am somewhat resigned to the idea that we accept Rorty’s notion that cruelty is the worst thing that we can do, with no non-circular justification as to why that should be the case, but I’m suspicious of taking the statement on site. Between mature adults it’s fair enough to grant that we both pragmatically adhere to this belief, but you’re in a hopeless condition with your child if you think that sort of reasoning is going to fly. Simply teaching your child to grant such ideas is tantamount to ruthless church or state authority – granted though, I’m sure in Rorty’s case he wouldn’t rightly speak that way. Teaching your child to reflect upon their experiences is an important part of life.

To conclude, I don’t think it’s enough to simply say, “cruelty is the worst thing we can do”, as it short sights the conditions under which we may have accepted such a notion. Namely, it short circuits the idea that as people, we come to reflect on our own experiences, and grant (in a question begging way) that other people have cognitive and affective states. In believing this, we can still follow Rorty’s suggestion that beliefs are habits of action, and see our behavior (language and action) as manifest of this. I also think we can rightly hold to that thought without the muddy waters of certainty, Platonic distinctions etc.. We can easily state that as a result of that belief, it gives us tools to communicate in ways that affect others behaviors in a positive way, going beyond the mere suggestion of a proposition and avoiding any authoritative tone.

Let me jump ahead:
At Pragmatism and Atheistic Hope I found myself butting heads against Matt over the regurgitated mysticism of Joseph Campbell, specifically the idea that Truth (capitol “T”) transcends language. I’m almost embarrassed at this point to direct ones attention to the thread, but it can be found HERE. My initial contention was against the idea that the pragmatist should part ways with Campbell because the idea that Truth transcends language has implicit within it (or in the least can be philosophically turned into) the appearance/reality distinction – in other words this statement isn’t to suggest that standing behind language is some great Truth to be accessed. I had simply said, one shouldn’t in this case turn the metaphor into a metaphysic – which is a suggestion given by Campbell (quoted here) and made popular to my mind by Sam Norton. Specifically I stated:

“I don't think it would be right to consider Campbell a realist in this way, or to interprit him as wanting to access a fundamental underlying reality behind language per se. He quite agrees with the statement that one should not mistake the finger for the moon - which I believe is a call to not mistake the finger as representing. i.e. to take the finger for the moon, is to consider that the finger represents the moon. Or to put it another way, Campbell (as an idealist) would see words as tools, just as the pragmatist.”

But, Matt would counter:

“Because in regards to Andrew's defense of Campbell as no metaphysician, I have to grant that Campbell was not a philosopher, and therefore had no metaphysics to offer (not quoted above was a statement from me that indeed Campbell was NO philosopher, which is one reason we shouldn’t read him that way). However--that's not the question. As Andrew emphasizes, Campbell is all about metaphor and the question of his metaphors should be our very legitimate question. And in that case, I have to side with Leela that some of Campbell's metaphors are misleading. Suggesting metaphors that you can easily build a metaphysics off of (e.g., metaphors that lend themselves to the appearance/reality distinction) has to be pointed out as bad, whatever the intention of the producer. Campbell can cry foul all he wants, our only job is to wish he'd been a better poet.”

It should be noted that this really made me more frustrated then it caused me sit back and think – shame on me. Ideally I’d simply like to respond to this by saying; that it is misleading because it implies a Platonic distinction is going against the very idea of not taking the metaphor for a metaphysic. But the conversation didn’t really go that rout, and one can feel free to delight in the horror for oneself as I’m not going to quote any further.

The bottom line was, I wanted to keep my statement about Truth transcending language as a useful metaphor that; if understood correctly not only leads to the conclusion that what one finds is nothing, and that it’s just that “cognitive” realization that’s found (special note of the quotes). i.e. “when you’re done cutting wood, put down the saw and pick up the hammer.” Zen is life, and language is just one part of life, just one tool we use while traveling along its path. In this way, the statement that Truth transcends language couldn’t be more anti-Platonic when seen in the light of this personal realization…. But now I’ve just caught myself in a snare or two. On the one hand (using Rorty) I may be implying that language is expansionist (which is to say Romantic), i.e. that language as metaphor is “strange, mystic, wonderful” etc.. I could be seen as in effect saying that language has the capacity to “express a hidden reality that exists within us.” But that is not what I’m doing, exactly.

It’s important then, to draw out a few points relative to the metaphor/literal distinction made by Rorty:

“we need to see the distinction between the literal and the metaphorical in the way Davidson sees it: not as a distinction between two sorts of meaning, nor as a distinction between two sorts of interpretation, but as a distinction between familiar and unfamiliar uses of noises and marks. The literal uses of noises and marks are the uses we can handle by our old theories about what people will say under various conditions. Their metaphorical use is the sort which makes us get busy developing a new theory.”

“Davidson puts this point by saying that one should not think of metaphorical expressions as having meanings distinct from their literal ones. To have a meaning is to have a place in a language game. Metaphors, by definition, do not. Davidson denies, in his words, "the thesis that associated with a metaphor is a cognitive content that its author wishes to convey and that the interpreter must grasp if he is to get the message. In his view, tossing a metaphor into a conversation is like suddenly breaking off the conversation long enough to make a face, or pulling a photograph out of your pocket and displaying it, or pointing at a feature of the surroundings, or slapping your interlocutor's face, or kissing him. Tossing a metaphor into a text is like using italics, or illustrations, or odd punctuation or formats. All these are ways of producing effects on your interlocutor or your reader, but not ways of conveying a message. To none of these is it appropriate to respond with "What exactly are you trying to say?"

(CIS, Pg. 17 & 18)

First and foremost, I do in fact agree with this position on metaphor. What is key for me is the statement from Davidson that a metaphor does not have associated with it a cognitive content that an interpreter must grasp in order to get the message. After all, if we grant a metaphor such a reality, then we’re granting that behind language is some underlying essence and we’re right back to Platonic distinctions.

Rorty puts it best on page 19:

“The Platonist and the positivist share a reductionist view of metaphor: They think metaphors are either paraphrasable or useless for the one serious purpose which language has, namely, representing reality. By contrast, the Romantic has an expansionist view: He thinks metaphor is strange, mystic, wonderful. Romantics attribute metaphor to a mysterious faculty called the "imagination," a faculty they suppose to be at the very center of the self, the deep heart's core. Whereas the metaphorical looks irrelevant to Platonists and positivists, the literal looks irrelevant to Romantics. For the former think that the point of language is to represent a hidden reality which lies outside us, and the latter thinks its purpose is to express a hidden reality which lies within us.”

Of course, I do find it a bit peculiar that Rorty nails the Romantic for the use of the mysterious faculty called imagination, when above he says, “It [a liberal utopia] is to be achieved not by inquiry but by imagination, the imaginative ability to see strange people as fellow sufferers.” I digress…

That it is important to note that we should not see metaphor as having a cognitive content, does not mean that we cannot see it as having a cognitive effect (much like the cognitive effect it may have had on ourselves), like a slap on the face, or kiss on the cheek, so on. That we can at once say that, “Truth transcends language”, and to understand that in this instance that we should not turn this metaphor into a metaphysic, i.e. as Davidson states, “To none of these [this] is it appropriate to respond with "What exactly are you trying to say?" is to offer onto someone a moment of reflection, a moment for realization, a point of distance between themselves and what it is they aimed to grasp, a chance to put down the saw and pick up the hammer.

That Rorty accepts what Davidson is saying in the manner that he does, gives further force to the idea that he skirts recognition or use of the cognitive/affective. Which doesn’t mean that behind his insistence that we imagine people are fellow sufferers is his own personal reflection (held in recognized circularity) – but he certainly doesn’t seem to want to say it. To say with Rorty that beliefs are not representations, but rather habits of action; and to say that words are not representations, but tools, fits well with the idea that we believe cruelty is a bad thing (as seen by our actions), and well enough with the idea that we believe other people to be cognitive affectional creatures as we see ourselves – at the moment I’m not entirely certain that you can even separate the two. Seeing that the later is true doesn’t have to imply that we think our words are reflections or representations of our belief. Further, if we accept the later as a pragmatic stance, we can still see the light in the language of the mystics – we can see it’s use not as some reflection of our inner self of representation of something to be found, but as (perhaps) a suggestion to reflect upon ourselves, a moment to be alone – after a slap in the face, you may like a moment to savor the pain.

For the sake of summary and rephrase:
my main contention is simply; whereas I have no issue with Rorty’s suggestion that we take cruelty as the worst thing we can do, and that there is in fact no non-circular justification for that, I find it curious and to a certain degree dubious that he refrains from at least offering some suggestions. His attempt to steer clear of these suggestions (and in particular the idea of reflection) looks like an attempt to stay away from Platonism and Romanticism, but in turn makes him appear myopic and suspicious. I’d like to continue this in another post, and consider just what are the consequences (from a pragmatic stance) of believing the proposition “that other people have cognitive/affective states”. In what way can we consider this notion, all the while staying clear of Platonic and Romantic distinctions? In my post, “The Two Horns of Realism and Non-Realism”, I grappled with the idea that statements like, “I’m feeling spiritual”, or, “God gives me the feeling of…”, or, “I have a sense of the mystical” simply don’t make any sense from the Non-Realist perspective as they have no behavioral content save the stating of the metaphor itself. There as well, the statement implies the idea that what’s happening is a reflection of ones cognitive or affective state, i.e. that those states stand as an essence behind the metaphor – but such privileged access claims are hopelessly meaningless to me and others who are more interested in what that means in terms of ones behavior. At the end of that post I concluded:

“Does the non-realist position ignore the mystical component?” or is it that the mystical component is merely irrelevant? In other words calling ourselves mystics (and having mystical experiences) infers certain behaviors… Short of deeds and habits of action, saying that one has great faith, belief, and mystical connections is completely meaningless to anybody and everybody but oneself – as a result one should only consider it relative to deeds. What else do we have?
To suggest that there is something more to the mystical beyond a habit of action is almost to suggest that the morally upright atheist who donates money and volunteers his time is somehow feeling different then the faith based Christian who does the same…”

Short of personal statements about ones state of affairs, this still doesn’t cover the ground of mystical statements like, “Truth transcends language”. Does this imply a cognitive “getting it”, i.e. a content that must be grasped; a content which stands beyond language in some Platonic realm? Or can we say that it’s merely meant to produce an effect – an effect that is perhaps no different then asking my boy, “How would you feel if...”? Neither of these statements requires an answer either. As an effect, in time through thought and reflection, will bring one into adulthood and into a condition where questions like, “What is the Truth”, “What is the meaning of life” will no longer make sense and thus ceased to be asked. And reflections as in, “God gives me strength”, will be seen as merely conditions of that former recognition, and be coupled with behaviors that reflect those conditions – as in the absence of any ultimate questioning. Of course, that begs further questions that I’d like to explore further.

---------

Can we functionally propose that people have cognitive states, without the implication that language represents or reflects those cognitive states? This is mighty sticky, and I see why Rorty avoids it. Not to mention, I’m wading through the waters of my old dilemma.


I’ll leave this hanging here for the moment, and pick it up in another post.

ANON

I'd really appreciate it if the individual posting advertising crap on my posts would cut it out. I don't give a shit, and the few people who stop here from time to time don't give a shit either.

More Bullshit from Sye TenB

LINK (HERE) for the historical argument

Through a twist of presupposed fate, I ran into Sye again (HERE/scam.com). Against my better judgment, and in the face of my own sanity, I chose to thrash him another time.

I'm not going to re-hash what I've said in the past, one can (if one would like) use the link above, or go to the site I linked (scam.com) and see how I summarized it there. either way I only want to lay out here what can only be described as (WHAT THE FUCK?).

I will state very briefly a few precursory things:
One should know (via the link) Sye has an argument for God that follows TAG - the Transcendental Argument for God (link to site in the link above). He has a premise, and a conclusion. His first premise which everything rests upon is that absolute truth exists. He attempts to demonstrate this by asking the bull shit question, "Does absolute truth exist". Of course you know where the question leads if answered out right. Bottom line the question presupposes absolute, and takes advantage of the fact that many other people do to.

In response to that, I refuted the legitimacy of the question and showed it to be invalid. Rather then object to the argument as it was, point out inconsistencies, fallacies etc., he proceeded to.... Ask questions, which were as follows:

A.) "where is anything that you say true, and how do you know this?"
B.) "Is what you say only true in your personal system now, or is it true everywhere at all times?"

DOE!
(SPECIAL NOTE: it would behove one to play the song below as you read along with the text. I've found that it increases the experience by at least 10fold... Just a suggestion.)


A few twists and turns aside, Sye tries to accuse me of dodging his questions, apparently assuming there was some burden on me to do so in the face of the argument I already layed out quite nicely for him. So, I responded accordingly:

-----

Sye,
lets get a couple things out of the way first.

i.)I notice you dropped “B” in your response, granting what I’ve said about it.
ii.)You accuse me of “Dodging the question”, when as has been shown I have an argument that refutes yours, and rather then address it, you’re trying to address me – but we’ll get back that.

So, let’s recap, being more efficient and effective this time. You had two questions, in full.
A.) “Where is anything that you say true, and how do you know this?”
B.) “Is what you say only true in your personal system now, or is it true everywhere at all times?”

“B” was rejected as I said, because it presupposed the absolute (which I already refuted), and you dropped it accordingly within your latest response. So we have that cleared up.
(NOTE: it should be noted that the question here is a false dichotomy which says, "its' either absolute, or only true in your system now.". Of course my argument refutes the absolute and never makes any claims to being "only true in my personal system. The reality is that "B" is neither.)

Question “A” actually comes in two parts, as follows:
1.) “Where is anything that you say true…?”
2.) “…how do you know this?”

I rejected the first part of your question as it’s restated in question “B”; i.e. “is what you say true in your personal system now”,AND, “or is it true everywhere at all time”. This is the where that presupposes the absolute, which, I’ve already refuted.
(NOTE: One could say it's true via logic, or true in the aruement, or shown in the argument, but all attempts to point this out in the past have fallen upon deaf ears)

What we have then is question “2”:
“…How do you know this?”

Let me first unpack this. For those who don’t know it (and for you too, Sye, as you seem rather philosophically challanged) this is an epistemological question. i.e. The study of knowledge and how we know things, simply put, epistemology is a theory of knowledge. In the context of what you’re asking me (all questions in whole) you’re essentially saying that I owe you a justification that accounts for the epistemological certainty of my argument, and I presume that for whatever reason you feel that an argument is contingent upon this certainty (but I’ll get to that). i.e. what you’re doing (and this is why you are often called dishonest) is changing the conversation from one that’s about the validity of a logical refutation (a premise and conclusion), against your logical argument (which was shown to be fallacious based on the premise and conclusion), to a conversation about whether or not one is certain about it, as if that’s relevant to the argument.

So here’s the deal, Sye, my argument has nothing whatsoever to do with epistemological certainty (that’s not the conversation we’re having), as a matter of fact, it’s completely irrelevant. i.e. my argument does not stand or fall based upon whether or not I have a basis for knowing it and being certain about it (having epistemological certainty), as a matter of fact it doesn’t even matter whether or not I’m committed to it. I may offer up the argument simply because it’s a good refutation, and may in fact think its complete BS. On the other hand, I could have typed some nonsense into my computer, and in response it generated (completely at random) the argument that you see in the above thread; and of course, the computer that generated it can neither account for, be certain of, or say how it knows what it just displayed – after all it’s just a computer (of course, we could argue AI, but that’s another conversation entirely). That being the case, and the lack of a response from the computer regarding certainty, it doesn’t cause the argument it gave to suddenly be irrelevant, arbitrary and/or fallacious (we could of course argue that it “arbitrarily gave a response”, but this doesn’t mean that the response it gave has fallacies within it as a result). i.e. an argument stands and falls on it’s own merit, not relative to the certitude of the giver regarding it. Which is to say simply that the logic involved can be easily evaluated without a “certain” bases at it’s foundation – yet in another way, we can evaluate the premise all the way down to the conclusion and find fault in it (or not) with or without the certainty of the provider. In that way, your question is completely baseless, irrelevant, dishonest, conversation changing, and tactic for dodging the argument before you.

The point is this, Sye (AGAIN), that there IS an argument before you that refutes your claim to the absolute, and demonstrates the fallacy contained within. Without even addressing my argument and your blatant fallacy, you change the conversation from one of logic, to one of epistemology, thereby dodging (YOUSELF) answering for the inconsistencies and BS in your own argument. Even though you accuse me of it, go figure.

Bottom line, epistemological certainty is irrelevant. You have boldly stated that my argument (BY ITSELF) is a fallacy, but of course you have yet to point out where that is the case, even though I’ve already pointed out yours. I owe no burden to you to demonstrate certainty in the face of what I’ve said. That’s a claim that you make (implicit within your question and changing the conversation), even though you have offered no basis for this.

So then, Sye, quit YOUR dodging (I’ve addressed your argument). If you want to have a philosophical debate on the nature of epistemological certainty, we can certainly do that, but before we get there, there is the business of your fallacious claims to the absolute, and your bootless contention about God.

-----

I thought that was clear enough, but Sye responds:
"....See that's the thing Andrew, you think that you have a point, but all you do is avoid my questions... in a vain attempt to conceal that fact"

-----

WOW! I'm completely beside myself... Perhaps I can help him out a bit though:

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Let me try and spell this out for you, Sye. As it’s almost as though you didn’t even read my second to the last post – so I’ll make this short.

You have put forth an argument to prove the existence of “X”, it looks like this:
1.) Premise
2.)……
3.) Conclusion: “X” exists

In turn, I put forth an argument that looks like this:
1.) Premise
2.) …..
3.) Conclusion: Sye’s Premises is false

You have an argument, I have refuted it as it is. If you feel that the refutation fails [as it is], or that it contains a fallacy, then by all means, point that out in the argument before you. If you’re not willing to address the argument (as I have yours), then forfeit, say no, and we can be done with the conversation.

-----

I wonder what he said in response to this?

-----

"Andrew, just answer the questions."

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Dancin' douche' bags Batman!

At this point I repeated myself, and he just kept saying, "Just answer the questions". Which I should add, I'm more then happy too. Actually, I'd quite love to have the conversation, and have nice answers to both questions, but at this point in the conversation, it isn't relevant...

-----

So I leave with an analogy - good or bad, it is what it is.

Consider, that we are engaged in a game, which we’ll call the game of logic. This game is not unlike (let’s offer) the game of chess, in that both are governed by rules. In order to play the game, there is typically agreement amongst the players before hand as to the nature of the rules, and in both cases, we actually do have rule books at our disposal. For example, in the game of logic the rule book dictates that one cannot “beg the question”, and in the game of chess, one cannot move a Pawn like a knight (i.e. better stated, a pawn can only move forward one space or left and right one space, per turn).

Now, in the game of logic we make moves just as we do in the game of chess. In the case of chess, those moves come in the form of moving a given piece to a given place on the board. The goal of course, is to put the other player in check. In the game of logic, on the other hand, the goal is to prove, or perhaps disprove a certain thing “X”. One does this by laying out a premise (which is much like moving a chess piece/s on a board). The game of logic, however, doesn’t have a board, so one can say whatever it is one likes in an effort to prove a given thing “X”, however one has to do so according to the rules. For example: Suppose that within one’s premise one “begs the question”. This doesn’t in and of itself mean that what it is you’re trying to prove [X], is false, it simple means that one’s argument is invalid (not made according to the rules of logic) and therefore, the players of the game do not accept the argument and therefore reject the conclusion. Again, it DOES NOT “NECESSARILY” mean that the conclusion is false, it merely means that it has not been shown through the argument.

So here’s the analog:
Suppose (in the case of Sye and I), that we have our chess pieces spread throughout the board, some of mine are gone and some of his are gone (of course, consider that this doesn’t have to be the case, it could in fact be his very first move of the game, but it matters not either way). Let’s further suppose that I’m one play away from placing him in check, no matter what play he makes, and it’s his move. Consider that he takes a Bishop, and moves it as one does a night, placing it in such a strategic location that would put me in check mate. Now, relative to how the pieces currently sit on the board, I’ve lost as can clearly be seen.

However, most certainly I object to the move and quickly say, “You cannot move a Bishop as one does a night. Therefore the move is invalid and indeed you have not won the game.”. Notice again, that as with the game of logic I have not stated that he is “wrong”, “false”, etc., I’ve merely pointed out the his move (or in the case of logic with his premise) is invalid according to the rules. To demonstrate this, I pull out the rule book and show him in the appropriate section the error in the move (which in this case is analogous to the argument I gave in refutation of the absolute). At this point has has two choices; he can agree that in fact he did make a move that was not consistent with the rules, take it back and make valid move; or, on the other hand, hee can forfeit the game (as a perfect 8 year old) and walk away.

However, he does neither of those things, but rather asks the following questions.
“Where is anything you say true, and how do you know this?”
“Is what you say true only true in your personal system now, or is it true everywhere at all times.”

Now, in my argument I’m pointing out the invalid premise, and in the game of chess I’m pointing out the invalid placement of the Bishop. The analog to the first question in the case of the chess game may look something like this:
“Where is the rule you say true, and how do you know this?”

Of course, in this case the rule is true in chess. We know this because it’s stated in the rule book. Now, Sye can either accept or not accept that, take his move back or forfeit. As for my refutation of the first premise (the absolute) the same applies; he can either accept my argument as true and following the rules of logic, or not accept my argument as true and following the rules of logic. If he feel that it is incorrect, contains a fallacy, etc., then he can surely point to that. I owe no further burden to show anything, and can simply leave myself at this point and walk away.

Looking at the second question (and still following the chess analogy) he asked:
“Is the rule you state true only in your personal system now, or is it true everywhere at all time.”

Of course, this question is complete cobblers. We’ve agreed to play a game with rules, it is not my claim (and never was) that the rules were mine, nor is it relevant if rules of chess change tomorrow, or stay the same. In the case of my refutation of the absolute, the question is seen as dichotomous. i.e. in the first place the second part of the dichotomy I refuted outright, and first part of the question I do not claim. My claim is not that what I say is true in my personal system now, it is simply that the first premise does not demonstrate the validity of absolute. If he were bright enough he’d figure that one out, i.e. the answer to the question is neither.

All that being the case, however, my initial statements about him changing the conversation stand, I owe no response to the questions, and for whatever reason he can’t seem to grasp that…..

Against the Absolute

I’m quite fond of arguing against the Platonist who holds notions of absolutes; whether those absolutes take the form of the essential character of God, or whether those absolutes take the form of logic, whose existence is natural and essential beyond and outside the normative character of the human.

What’s more, from the perspective of the atheist there’s a certain leap of faith that must be taken in order to even suggest that such a thing as absolute essence can exist. In this case the atheist will grant that, e.g. the Law of Non-Contradiction has some essential essence outside of the agreed upon contingent and/or temporal character of man. They may say that, even without mind, or for that matter without the sum total of existence itself the essence of these laws still hold. i.e. in the case of non-contradiction, nothing cannot both be nothing and not-nothing at the same time; thus this idea (thought experiment) becomes proof of some “transcendental” tautology. But then, of course, they’ve skewed the notion of tautology not simply to mean, “true for every possible interpretation”, but, “true for every possible circumstance”. This assumption being what it is, with a little Socratic questioning it always becomes apparent that no non-circular justification exists for this sort of thought, and thus the atheist is forced to admit a pre-supposition, or perhaps resort to a sort of “functional” argument”; which isn’t really proof of anything so much as it is a suggestion to grant something as true for the sake of some pragmatic functionality. That doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me.

My argument against absolutist thinking has always been to argue that truth is systematic, contingent, relative to a normative method of resolution. Further my insistence has been; there’s no reason to assume that outside human thought and cognition, that things necessarily are what we say they are. i.e. there’s no non-circular justification to suppose that Spruce trees are anything like Spruce trees outside of human cognition.

Now I’m not here to argue the things I’ve argued in the past as they can be found else where within my blog. What I’d rather like to do is highlight some interesting thoughts from Brandom’s “Making it Explicit”, that serve to bolster my previous thinking on the matter.

An interesting aspect which I’ve never bothered to argue is the whole idea that a person, or even a group of persons, can hold to certain beliefs that go completely against the laws of logic. They may be contradictory, question begging, etc.. Of course, this fly’s completely in the face of the idea that the Laws of Logic are in any way natural. If they were, then nature wouldn’t, indeed couldn’t, allow such an action to take place – one may be able to loosely see that this is analogous to suddenly, objects start falling to the sky. If we look at these, “coming to hold beliefs” from a naturalistic standpoint (and leave the rules and logic aside for a moment) we’ll see that:

(from “Making it Explicit” pg. 12)
“Such natural processes are no more true then false; they are simply processes, as an eddy in the water is a process. And if we are to speak of a right, it can only be the right of a thing to happen as they do happen. One phantasm contradicts another no more than one eddy on the water contradicts another. Contradiction, correct inference, correct judgment are all normative notions, not natural ones.”

So again, to place the Laws of Logic outside the human being as a sort of essence, is placing it in the realm of the natural. If this were true, however, it brings together two very distinct functions:
A.) The laws with which we actually draw inferences
B.) The laws of “correct” inference.
However, by bringing these two ideas together we could never, in fact, be wrong.

(from “Making it Explicit” pg. 12)
“What makes us so prone to embrace erroneous views is that we define the task of logic as the investigation of the laws of thought, whilst understanding by this expression something on the same footing as the laws of nature… So if we call them laws of thought, or, better, laws of judgment, we must not forget we are concerned here with laws which, like the principles of morals or the laws of the state, prescribe how we are to act, and do not, like the laws of nature, define the actual course of events.”

We haven’t yet sealed the deal here, but the idea is simple enough; that we should see the laws of logic, or correct inference, or leading to “right” conclusions in a normative sense. What is right, in terms of logic, is not the same as what is right with respect to causal compulsion. This distinction we should always bare in mind.

Robert Brandom "Making it Explicit"

Arriving in the mail today from Amazon.com was Robert Brandom's "Making it Explicit"... Upon observing the space the box took up in my mail box, I had assumed there was packaging material in the form of foam peanuts, bubble wrap (what have you) surrounding the book, acting as protection in shipment. Earlier this week (Monday) I had received two other books from Amazon, in this case Douglas Adams "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul", both were in bubble wrap packaging.



But, well... There wasn't any bubble wrap, and there wasn't any peanuts - I had just ordered "War and Peace", except that it was curiously titled "Making it Explicit", by Robert Brandom, not Leo Tolstoy.

Preface, Page XXII:
"This is a long book. It's length is a consequence of the demands made by its governing methodological aspirations: to eschew representational primitives, to show how content is related to use, and to achieve self-referential expressive completeness."

Perhaps I'll have to put my previous enterprise of talking about the QMS on hold in order to plow through, and rummage over my thoughts on this thing.

Man over board!

Silly Fundies

I’m pretty sick and tired of the radical Christians who claim that atheism and evolution are world views. What does it even mean for something to BE a world-view, what does that entail? Sounds to me like a “theory of everything”; a system of thought that governs one’s conception of the beginning, the behavior in the middle and the prophesized end. i.e. one has conceived of the nature of everything from beginning to end, and structures their lives according to that conception. Where does Darwin say anything about how the world was created, or how it's going to end? I though he was just talking about change and random variation?

I've said about as much about this topic as I care to, but...

Not only that, these so called fundies seem to continually conflate atheism with Darwinism, they’re one in the same they seem to think; which is only to say that one cannot be a Christian and believe anything Darwin said to be in any way true. On the other hand it also assumes that if one is an atheist, it necessarily implies that one is a Darwinist, which couldn’t be further from the truth – talk about a false dichotomy.

The next assumption generally made is that Darwinian evolution assumes a belief in the big-bang, or in some cases even contains it as part of the theory. I’m not even sure where they get this crap, since when was Darwin a physicist? Not only that but…

Darwin, theory of evolution: Our buddy Charles died in 1882
Lemaitre, proposed the Big Bang: Was born in 1894

WOW, I didn't realize it, do you see the connection here!

Consider that the date you get when you change the 8 and 9 around in 1894 is 1984. This is the date that the movie Back to the Future was made (not released, but made). In that movie, Doc Brown conceived of the Flux Capacitor in 1955, which added together gives you 20, 1882 added together gives you 19, which is one less. Now consider that the time machine was made out of a DeLorean that was manufactured in 1982. Do you see it, 1882 adds up to 19, 1982. To add even more fuel to this from my previous comment, if you take the difference of one and subtract that from 19 in 1982, you get 1882 yet again. This means that Marty Mcfly, (Michael J. Fox) must have traveled back in time to tell Darwin about Lemaitre’s big bang theory. Consider that Lamaitre was born in 1894, which added together gives you 21, that’s one more than 20. This means that, even though in the movie version he was never shown going back to see Darwin, that he must have gone back “one more" time, and they just didn’t make a movie about it.

IDIOTS

"Baby Boomer"

Introduction to QMS

The idea that quality is something to be achieved, that it is a goal to strive for, is fully entrenched within the industries that manufacture things. As a matter of fact, in most cases it’s made explicit that you shall have a goal, and you shall measure and monitor quality in order to achieve that goal. In the manufacturing world, most companies won’t even consider doing business with you unless you have some formal Quality system in place; in this case that formal system may be one of the following:

AS9000, for aerospace manufacturers
ISO/TS 16949:2002, automotive
ISO 13485:2003, Medical
ISO9001, I’ll call this general manufacturing

All of these systems differ in very specific ways, but as a dogma, they all have 5 main elemental requirements in common. Those requirements I’ll spend some time digging into as I travel along this path I’ve chosen. For now, understand that every time you board a plane, hop into a motor vehicle, use a medical device, crack open a bag of chips, drink a can of pop, play a video game, type on the computer, throw a Frisbee to your dog, squat over a urinal, cook over a stove, etc. you’re are using a product that was manufactured within a Quality Management System (QMS). This QMS is an industry standard for manufacturing “things”.

My path within the next few months (I’m hoping) is to demonstrate how this QMS has divorced us as human beings from what it is we do. It is the very essence of a QMS that quality is an object to be attained. But let me take a step back here and ask a question; “What does Quality mean to the QMS?” In essence it means that we (as a given organization) have delivered a product that meets the customer’s expectations with respect to legal and regulatory requirements, operating specifications, dimensional characteristics, surface appeal, etc. Further, that it was delivered on time to their request, and at a price that fits their needs and expectations. That’s Quality to the QMS; and it should be noted that it’s a future state.

If you work in a manufacturing environment, or have ever had the opportunity to tour a facility that takes pride in their QMS, you’ll often find posters or banners on the wall that preach this mantra. I’ve even seen companies that place a mirror at the entrance to their manufacturing floor which states (with some variations) “Quality Starts Here.” How flippin’ witty is that? Hey, isn’t that me in that mirror? Let’s put mirrors outside of churches that say something like, “Jesus loves…” or, “The face of a sinner…” or, “God lives here…” Of course, the QMS doesn’t agree with your mirrored statement, and it doesn’t care about you. It only cares about achieving its goal – but more on that later.

The fundamental issue that I hope to make clear is that, as the result of the QMS being goal focused, it sees itself as trying to arrive at something, rather then simply traveling. As a further result of this focus, it can never arrive without (again) continually traveling down the path of divorcing the human. So there’s a clear distinction to be made here:

A.)The QMS “arrives” at Quality as the result of traveling down the path of human alienation. i.e. divorcing the human from the process.

B.)The human “arrives” at Quality as the result of forging and developing a relationship with the QMS, and in this way never truly arrives at anything, but always achieves.

In the post to follow, I’d like to start by talking about what the QMS is. My argument will simply be that the QMS is the institutionalization of Quality. By that (Quality) I don’t simply mean the institutionalization of “making ‘good’ widgets”, but the institutionalization of capitol “Q” Quality itself.

I’ll end (here) with an anecdote that perhaps I’ve shared here before, as I think it sets my trajectory along the right path:

We buy assemblies from a company located in India, and as of late, we’ve been experiencing a rash of quality issues with them; partly because much of what they’re doing is start up, or rather, it’s simply the first time they’ve made a given part and they don’t have the experience. The representative of the company comes to visit us every so often, and on one occasion I had been looking forward to a face to face as the result of a specific issue I had been trying to have formally addressed. Essentially I had been looking for “objective” evidence that a particular problem they were having was fixed. i.e. I wanted updated procedures and control plans. For reasons I didn’t quite fully understand at the time, he continually skirted the issue (seemingly not wanting to provide the information) and he stated, “Andy, we don’t look at Quality as you do, we look at it as peace of mind.”

I can’t tell you how happy I was to hear that. You’ll never hear a western organization speak in such ways. It’s not that they didn’t have a QMS (they actually do, and it’s the same as ours) it’s simply that their focus is not on the demands of the system, but on their relationship to it… Peace of mind.

Back to Blogging Soon!

Andy L. Bauch (Andrew Louis) Receives ASQ-Certified Quality Engineer
Milwaukee, WI, December 14, 2009 — The Certification Board of ASQ (American Society for Quality) is pleased to announce that Andy Bauch has completed the requirements to be named an ASQ-Certified Quality Engineer (ASQ CQE). As such, Andy Bauch has reached a significant level of professional recognition, indicating a proficiency in and a comprehension of quality engineering principles and practices. Individuals who earn this certification are allowed to use “ASQ CQE” on their business cards and professional correspondence.

“ASQ provides certification as a way to provide formal recognition to professionals who have demonstrated an understanding of, and a commitment to, quality techniques and practices in their job and career,” explains Peter Andres, ASQ president. “This is a great accomplishment and represents a high level of peer recognition.”

A Certified Quality Engineer (CQE) is a professional who understands the principles of product and service quality, evaluation, and control. In order to sit for the CQE examination, a candidate must have at least eight years of training and on-the-job experience in one or more areas of quality, with a minimum of three years in a decision-making position. CQEs develop and implement quality systems, plan, control and monitor product and process quality, use reliability and risk management tools, and apply a wide spectrum of quantitative analyses to resolve quality issues.

Since 1968, when the first ASQ certification examination was given, more than 163,000 individuals have taken the path to reaching their goal of becoming ASQ-Certified in their field or profession, including many of who have attained more than one designation. To learn more about ASQ’s Certified Quality Engineer program, visit http://www.asq.org/certification/quality-engineer/.

ASQ, www.asq.org, has been the world’s leading authority on quality for more than 60 years. With more than 85,000 individual and organizational members, the professional association advances learning, quality improvement and knowledge exchange to improve business results and to create better workplaces and communities worldwide. As champion of the quality movement, ASQ offers technologies, concepts, tools and training to quality professionals, quality practitioners and everyday consumers. ASQ has been the sole administrator of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award since 1991. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., ASQ is a founding sponsor of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

My Morning Jacket, "Golden"

Wilco, "Theologians"

A Question?

A couple weeks ago a good friend of mine sent me a text message, which resulted in a healthy e-mail exchange that's been going on ever since - I'll post that later.

On the ride home from work my cell phone goes of (TEXT MESSAGE), and I get the following:
"Do you have a set of standards that you consciously live by?"

Yeah, some friend huh? Of course, he knew I'd give it some serious thought, and I have. On the face of it, it seems like a rather simple -if not obvious - question. However it soon became obvious that the catch word (perhaps not intended) which would throw me for a loop was, "consciously".

For now, I'm just going to throw this out there and let it gel.

Steven Pinker on Charlie Rose

An interesting discussion with Steven Pinker.

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