Miscellany

Empathy

2012-04-12T08:54:00.000-04:00

In a very real way we are each in this life alone,
yet we are capable of empathy.
Through it, we can make others feel they are not alone at all.

This is the greatest gift you can give another:
the feeling that they are not other.

Opportunity

2012-04-11T16:37:00.000-04:00

A door. The inside, the outside, and no observer.

Automatic Visual Poetry

2011-12-20T17:35:00.000-05:00

A cloud of words, their sizes proportional to their frequencies. This one made from the RSS feed for Miscellany. It's interesting to me, as the author, to see the emphasis on certain things.

Much easier to read in the bigger version...

Because it is generated from the RSS feed, it is also time-constrained, so ideas in time. Make your own, here. It's a Java applet.

Knowing without Understanding

2011-12-16T15:08:00.001-05:00

Let's imagine that the Materialist philosophical theory is true. What does this mean? Does it mean that believing it is true makes you better able to understand the events of the world?

"I refute it thus..."
I would say that such a belief is obviously wrong. It is grand conceit to imagine you understand what the implications of a Materialist solution to the nature of the world means in terms of your own experience. It is only ignorance of the true extent of the complexity of the world that allows anyone to think they've sussed it.

So, even if you believe that Materialism is the right approach, and even if you are right, you have no foundation for acting in any particular way on account of it. You aren't that smart, no one is. I assert that the only thing you can reasonably act on is your experience, and, if you imagine that you've figured that out you are building false worlds. The very greatest neuroscientist in the world has no better tools for understanding human experience than any of us. Physics isn't you, even if you are an emergent phenomenon of it.

Look Inside

2011-12-13T08:20:00.000-05:00

The world outside is an infinity of complexity and chaos.

The world doesn't care about patterns, about cause and effect, about meaning.

Inside our mind is an infinity of pattern and meaning.

There are two worlds, the one outside is meaningless without the one inside.

Foolish Wisdom

2011-11-16T06:58:00.001-05:00

Between you and I stands my mind.
Terribly smart, I find distinctions.
When I become foolish,
I lose my mind,
and forget I am more important than you.

Ignorance is Bliss

2011-10-04T08:19:00.001-04:00

See an effect and label it "cause".
Rules describe, they have no force.
Punishment is always after the fact.

It's not a Compromise...

2011-09-16T06:16:00.002-04:00

The demand for purity is much more destructive than accepting the admixture that is the best we can do.

It's a Shocker, I know...

2011-09-13T06:13:00.001-04:00

Sometimes, people understand you but still disagree.

Could you be wrong?

Snark is the New Black

2011-09-01T10:36:00.004-04:00

Cynics are often idealists, who, upon getting a stain on their all-white clothing solve the problem by getting an all-black wardrobe.

An Emendation...

2011-08-21T09:55:00.003-04:00

Never assign to intention what can be explained by incompetence, unless incompetence is the less likely explanation.

When actions seem out of line with stated goals figure out what goals the actions do achieve. Arguing about efficacy in the face of duplicity is damfoolish.

Concerning ourselves with malice is generally counterproductive. The conspiracy theories to which this aphorism is most often applied do not require malice as a driving force. Self-interest is the almost universal force behind conspiracy and it makes conspiracies self-organizing affairs.

The key is the "intention" of the entire system and not that of any particular actor. Can a system have "intention"? Yes, a system of human beings has the aggregate intention of the choices made by each person participating.

Be Joyful

2011-08-21T07:51:00.001-04:00

There is a difference between having fun and joy. We have fun with our bodies, joy encompasses all of who we are. Joy unburdens our hearts and elevates us. When we experience joy it is like taking flight. It lifts us up and makes us generous and loving to every creature. Joy is why you are here.

Words, Words, Words...

2011-08-21T07:48:00.000-04:00

A lot of what I write involves clarifying concepts through honing words. I am concerned with creating precision so that certain ideas can be communicated. When I assert a distinction between one word and another, I am trying to create a clear usage. Consider such posts entries in a Yaakov Lexicon. I think there are things to learn from them beyond that, but at the least understand that I am defining my usage.

When I was younger I often read the dictionary. It was very interesting to me to see all the words and all the usages. At some point I learned that the dictionary is only valid as a descriptive text. Prescriptive dictionaries are silly undertakings. While my lexicon might look prescriptive, I would never argue with someone using a word I have defined one way in the ordinary sense they see around them. I do it because I want a compact way to communicate to those who wish to read what I write.

I also hope, I will confess, in my vanity, to create a usage through reflexivity when I am able. Of course, I believe I am correct in the sentiments I express through these definitions but I am also ready to hear cogent arguments against them. I will not accept diffuse and purely destructive ones, though; these I will reject without scruple. A sharp and heartfelt disagreement will always get my consideration.

Or, You Can Sacrifice Yourself...

2011-08-17T14:42:00.000-04:00

Sacrifice the ideal to the optimal and live.

You have a limited time on this planet, don't spend it in an imaginary world.

It isn't Theoretical

2011-08-11T09:27:00.000-04:00

Honesty in public discourse is a moral obligation of the highest order. The lack of humility which brings a person to self-deception is also the direct cause of untold human suffering.

A World of Opposites

2011-08-11T09:11:00.005-04:00

Thinking, I mean really thinking, is hard.

While a minority of people enjoy mental effort, most of us prefer well-worn tracks. Even those people who enjoy things like logic puzzles and advanced math often have a narrow domain in which they mentally exert themselves.

The world is complex. Seriously complex.

Complexity is a problem for people that do exert themselves to find solutions to problems, if they even bother to consider it. But even among those folks who seek to systematize the world (or perhaps specially among them), complexity is pushed aside as, well, too complex.

Simplification is good. Or, is it?

There is no doubt that simplifying a problem is an important step in solving it. Breaking it down into pieces more easily understood is a necessary analytical device for most of us. In this way, simplifying is good.

But, by way of analogy, consider the difference between salt and gold. No matter how far down I divide gold, it remains gold^[1]. I take smaller and smaller pieces and even down to single atoms, I have gold. This is a simple problem. It's one thing, self contained. It is reducible to the atomic level.

Take salt^[2]. At first, we can divide it down into smaller pieces. Then we get to the molecular. If we stop here, all is well, but, if we continue we no longer have salt. Salt doesn't have an atomic existence. Does salt share some essential identity with sodium and chlorine? No. Salt is irreducible, just as every interesting or important problem in life is.

Irreducible complexity^[3] is the hallmark of an interesting problem. That is not to say that all problems must be taken as the result of the entire system in which they exist rather, it is an acknowledgement of a critical feature that interesting, important human problems do not have: duality.

The world is not black and white, it is grey.

Black and white, hot and cold, here and there—these all arise only in relation to each other. They don't exist on their own. This is something people notice as soon as they start to think. What they often don't notice, and what leads to confusion and even human tragedy, is that just because they see something as black it doesn't make some other thing white.

Those who do see this make demands for purity. We must be perfectly white, without a blemish, because that's what makes us just. Of course, this is impossible for human beings and so you end up with a lie. That lie is used to attack everything not pure white which now, perforce, is black.

This is the problem of false dichotomy. It is pervasive. I am right, so if you disagree with me, you must be wrong. No chance for each of us to be both. It leads to ideological abuse of other people and no ideology is immune to this. They just each make their biggest mistakes in the places where they are most weak.

So, start listening to your own arguments. When you notice a dichotomy, step back. Imagine there could be a third, imperfect and unclear way to see the situation. Don't try to take a statistical average, or its moral equivalent, and then reject that. That's just a "trichotomy", and the middle position is a straw man. Instead, imagine something that doesn't lie on the spectrum you've invented. There's where you will find your way out of your dilemma.

—
1. Yes, of course I can destroy the atomic structure, that's not a real objection to the analogy.

2. Table salt, NaCl.

3. This is not a formal, technical use of the term. We are speaking philosophically.

I'm Y and I'm Proud

2011-08-11T07:25:00.001-04:00

There is a very common class of argument that follows this basic pattern:

We should do X.

If you do X you are a Y.

That's not true!

The dictionary definition of a Y is someone who does X.

Of course, many of you spot the problem with this argument right away, but, even those who can see this in the abstract fall prey to the compelling nature of such argument when they employ it themselves.

Broadly speaking words have two sets of meaning. Denotations, which are direct and literal, and, connotations which are various degrees of hidden but just as powerful if not more so. Some words in the dictionary have the nature of their connotation(s) spelled out with labels like vulgar.

So let's deconstruct our argument, above. The advocate for X is labeled Y on account of her statement. X could be any number of things—"lower taxes", "stay home with our babies", "make union organizing easier", "legalize marijuana"—you get the idea. Her opponent responds with the label, Y and our advocate denies it.

Why? What is behind each person's behavior.

The person arguing against X would like to dispose of the idea as easily as possible. It is a challenging idea and probably complex. The advocate may well have a reasonable argument for it but the denier is ideologically opposed and doesn't want to be challenged.

The advocate objects to the label, Y. Why should she? Simply this, Y is selected not to describe but to discredit. Y admits of no nuance in the position of the advocate. Once labeled successfully as Y, our advocate can be dismissed out of hand.

Each party is paying much more attention to the connotations of Y than what it denotes. If someone has the terrible misfortune to be forced to kill in self-defense, Y can be "killer". While killer clearly denotes one who kills it also has negative connotations. If someone uses it in this context they intend to bring those connotations. If the labeled person objects they are not objecting to what it denotes but to the intended connotative content.

Arguments cannot actually be resolved with a dictionary (save those that are about attributes and content of the dictionary). However the dictionary is an excellent shield for those who would not be challenged by what is actually going on. "Words mean things" is a vapid retort to those who would prefer to deal with the intent of the speaker than with some orthodoxy that demands we own the connotations of words just because that happen to also denote something that matches. Worse, these same people will complain about neologisms. In other words they seek to control the content of our world by limiting the vocabulary available to describe it to an arbitrary authority.

Of course, all of my complaining just "semantics"...

semantics |səˈmantiks|

1. The branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. There are a number of branches and subbranches of semantics, including formal semantics, which studies the logical aspects of meaning, such as sense, reference, implication, and logical form, lexical semantics, which studies word meanings and word relations, and conceptual semantics, which studies the cognitive structure of meaning.

2. The meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text

Maybe You are Wrong...

2011-08-09T21:56:00.001-04:00

If people don't agree with you it's probably not because you aren't yelling loud enough.

The Litmus Test

2011-08-09T09:01:00.005-04:00

When a superior man hears of the Tao,
he immediately begins to embody it.

When an average man hears of the Tao,
he half believes it, half doubts it.

When a foolish man hears of the Tao,
he laughs out loud.

If he didn't laugh,
it wouldn't be the Tao.

— 老子 (Laotse) (b. ~604 BCE) in 道德經 (Tao Te Ching) Verse 41

The Myth of the Ancient Palace

2011-08-07T20:24:00.003-04:00

In a city of great antiquity there was an ancient palace, so old that no one alive could say with authority who had built it. Many people had opinions about who the builders were. This lead to a great deal of argument with much heat and little light. It was a massive building, built on a great outcropping of rock, and beyond the means of the people of the city to reproduce. It had many rooms. Some ordinary: bedrooms, halls for dining, servants quarters and the like, some mysterious rooms of obscure purpose.

On the walls of the rooms were tapestries of fine handiwork and great beauty. Some were abstract patterns, hanging mostly in the obscure rooms, the others, in the ordinary rooms depicted scenes invoking narratives of epic battles between great kings and the doers of evil, magnificent cities gleaming, beautiful women sacrificing themselves, and heroic men bravely seeking their fortunes. The stories these tapestries told were explained from generation to generation.

The stories changed over time as stories do. At first each tapestry was perfect but in each generation people noticed, and talked about, how the pictures in the tapestry didn’t look quite as real, how the people weren’t shaped quite right. At first there was general agreement on the facts of the stories, but over time this became a point of contention—some folks believing one thing, some another. Sometimes, one side would prevail and the story would change for everyone.

Then, there arose a man who looked at the tapestries very differently. He thought deeply and saw that the tapestries kept people thinking one way. He spent his days in the palace arguing with the elders who kept the stories. He told his own stories, different ones, that denied what the tapestries had to say. This made the elders angry, they threatened to bar him from the palace. After a while, he stopped arguing about details.

He began to say the tapestries were fundamentally false and couldn't be fixed by interpretation. The man gained many followers. The anger of the elders turned to fear. The followers spent time working on new tapestries with the new stories on them. When they were satisfied with their work they felt strong and invulnerable. They marched to the palace, and by force they replaced most of the old tapestries with their own. All of the ordinary rooms got new hangings, and a few of the obscure rooms received them. "We have begun anew", said the man, "We have removed the old order and established a new one!"

At this time there was an exceedingly old merchant who travelled the world from place to place to earn his living. He'd been to the city of the palace many times. He'd seen the palace from the outside every time but only once had he gone in and seen the tapestries. He agreed they were beautiful, and interesting, but not so nearly as important as the elders or the people seemed to think.

A few weeks after the old tapestries had been replaced the old man entered the city. He saw the familiar palace, stately and in place. It’s four towering spires reaching to the sky, it’s great courtyard, the formidable walls and moat for protection. He saw the familiar roads and paths of the city all in their places. He recognized many people. He went to the market place and set about his business.

He visited a regular customer and they agreed on a transaction. When it was complete he set down to drink coffee and talk as was his habit.

His customer spoke, "So you must have been surprised at the great change since your last visit!"

"Great changes?", asked the merchant puzzled, "what do you mean?"

"Oh, surely you noticed the changes to the palace!"

"The palace? When I came into the city I saw it and it looked just as it always did."

"Oh, no, it's completely different!"

"Now maybe I missed something... it still has its four spires, the grand courtyard is there, the walls, the moat...”

"Oh no!", said the customer, "it's all different now, they've changed the tapestries, they are all new."

Thanks to KP

The Road Not Taken

2011-08-05T20:21:00.001-04:00

photo ©Neil Jones, some rights reserved

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

—Robert Frost (1874–1963) from Mountain Interval (1920)

Excellent Advice I Ignore...

2011-08-04T13:32:00.000-04:00

Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.

—H.W. Fowler

~~For you, though, esteemed reader, I will embark on a program of reform.~~

I am going to fix it.

Denying Reality

2011-08-04T09:15:00.000-04:00

The lust for generality is one of the deadly sins of the age of science. It is the mother of false worlds and the assassin of important ideas.

Zen Bro Wisdom

2011-08-01T12:40:00.001-04:00

The frenemy of my frenemy is my frenemy.

I ♥ Crepuscular Rays

2011-07-31T18:42:00.002-04:00

The morning view in the parking lot, mostly unprocessed.