Category Archives: Philosophy

Philosophy, Social Commentary, Space History

The Burden Of Things

12 Comments

A post from Lileks with which I can strongly identify:

…what of the objects? You know, the things to which you apply Meaning simply by owning them for a while? That’s another issue. You have to realize that the meaning changes when you no long own them, which is a kind way of saying “it’s wiped clean when you die, mate.” There are some things whose previous meaning I can infer; my Grandma had a little metal container for pins, with 1893 Columbian Exposition engraved on the cover. It was regarded as junk, I guess, but my mom kept it, and then it passed to me. It’s possible my great-grandfather went. He got out of town from time to time. The fact that it sat on her dresser for seven decades was enough to infuse it with meaning, but that’ll be lost after me; daughter didn’t know her, never saw the farm, never saw the sleek 30s Sears bedroom-set dresser on which it sat. Daughter may see a corner of that dresser in an old photo, because I inherited it. But that’s the end of the chain – after that, it’s a series of facts, not a sequence of memories and emotions.

I’m a pack rat. I keep (and don’t organize) too much stuff. Every time we move, the books are a problem. We’ve been back in California over a year, and they’re still not quite unpacked and shelved. And movers charge by weight. I’m not sure what we would have done if the company hadn’t paid for the move. And I know that there’s not enough time in my allotment, sans dramatic life extension, for me to reread them. But I can’t bring myself (so far) to get rid of them. They contain too many remembrances. Accumulated stuff is the external memory of life, and I feel as though they’re a part of me and my sense of self. When I lose old email in a disk crash I feel partly lobotomized and amnesiac. At some point, though, I have to rationalize my possessions.

I had dinner with Leonard David Wednesday night, and we often talk about his collection of tchochkes and media bags that he has collected over the many dozens of space conferences he’s attended over the past few decades. They’re historically significant, and I doubt there are many people with as extensive a collection as his, but where to keep them all? I have the same problem, on a smaller scale. Someone needs to set up an archive to which such things can be contributed, assessed and put into context, but it takes money.

Philosophy, Science And Society

Monkey Self Awareness

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I continue to be baffled by research such as this:

It was once thought that only humans could pass the mark test. Then chimpanzees did, followed by dolphins and elephants.

What I continue to not understand is why they don’t think that (e.g.) cats are self aware. My cats recognize each other, so they clearly recognize cats. When they see themselves in a mirror, they don’t treat it like another cat — they basically ignore it. Is there any other explanation for this than they recognize it as themselves? What am I missing here?

According to Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal, the new findings fit with his work on capuchin monkeys who don’t quite recognize themselves in mirrors, but don’t treat the reflections as belonging to strangers. “As a result, we proposed a gradual scale of self awareness. The piece of intriguing information presented here may support this view,” he said.

However, de Waal cautioned that “many scientists would want more tests and more controls” — a warning especially salient in light of a high-profile controversy involving Marc Hauser, a Harvard University evolutionary biologist who appears to have overstated the cognitive powers of his own monkeys.

“What you’re seeing in the videos is subject to all kinds of interpretations,” said Gordon Gallup, a State University of New York at Albany psychologist who invented the mirror test, and has administered it with negative results to rhesus monkeys. “I don’t think these findings in any way demonstrate that rhesus monkeys are capable of recognizing themselves in mirrors.”

It seems to me that, for whatever reason (Homo Sapiens chauvinism?), some scientists go out of their way to deny the obvious. It reminds me of the arguments during Descartes’s day that animals couldn’t feel pain, and the even more absurd ones that babies couldn’t, either, used as an excuse to not have to use anaesthesia to operate on them.

[Update a while later]

I should add that there is no definitive test for self awareness. There is no way to know for certain that anyone other than yourself is self aware.

Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Old Age

7 Comments

…is it a cause of death?

There will be unintended consequences (good ones, in my opinion) of making it one. It implies that aging is itself a disease, and one that should be fought directly, rather than coming up with palliatives for individual symptoms of it (e.g., hypertension, muscle degeneration, senility, etc.), which would mean that the medical establishment would have to take gerontological research a lot more seriously than it currently does, both in terms of interest and resources. It also flies in the face of the deathist belief that we shouldn’t seek longer life, because it’s not “natural” (the naturalistic fallacy).

Philosophy, Political Commentary

The Glenn Beck Rally

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Instapundit has a roundup of links, including a good sampling from ReasonTV. I have to say that, not being religious (in either worshipping God or the State) it’s not my cup of tea, and I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to attend, but neither can I imagine that I would have felt in any way uncomfortable there.

I agree that it was Tocquevillian. Much as my fellow non-religionists want to get upset about it, the fact is that this is a fundamentally (though not fundamentalist) Christian nation in its history and culture, and when the political class pushes too hard against those core values — the golden rule, thrift, virtue, self reliance — there’s going to be a revolt. That’s, finally, what we’re seeing this year. I’m sort of glad that McCain didn’t win, because he wouldn’t have turned up the heat under the pot anywhere nearly as quickly. With Obama, Pelosi and Reid, the frog finally noticed that things were getting a little too warm.

[Update a few minutes later]

Commenter “John” has it right:

That is most of America. Most of America is not attractive or cool. Most of America is white and older. Most of America is patriotic and religious. Unless and until Libertarians figure out a way to talk to these people, they will always be a fringe movement.

Yup.

[Monday morning update]

I can see November from the Washington monument.

And it’s not a pretty sight, if you’re a Democrat and/or statist.

Business, Economics, Philosophy, Political Commentary

Economic Liberty

3 Comments

…taking it seriously:

…James Madison, one of the chief architects of both the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, echoed Coke’s words: “That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations.” Similarly, Rep. John Bingham (R-Ohio), the author of the first section of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which applied the Bill of Rights and other unenumerated rights to the states, said that the 14th Amendment included “the liberty…to work in an honest calling and contribute by your toil in some sort to the support of your fellowmen, and to be secure in the enjoyment of the fruits of your toil.”

So what went wrong? According to Sandefur, the blame falls largely on the Progressives of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who believed that government action should be the primary agent of all social change. To that end, the Progressives enacted a mountain of new legislation that touched on every aspect of human life, from workplace regulations and antitrust statutes to alcohol prohibition, racial segregation, and eugenics.

How “progressive.” Maybe we need a new amendment.