Philosophy Blog

May 8th 2013 00:04

I'm not a religious person, but I used to approach art with veneration. So, the equivalent of a church for me was a movie theatre or an art gallery.

But I don't know now that there's anything spiritual, ultimately, about art. I reason: the spiritual is timeless and universal, but art is about the "human, all-too-human" -- about pressing buttons to elicit emotions, about culturally specific patterns. And rather than being grand and mysterious, art's effects often seem explicable in terms of psychology, biology, evolutionary theory, etc.

(Perhaps the first premise is wrong -- could something can be spiritual, and yet not timeless or universal? Maybe "spirit" is always changing...)

At any rate, if you start to see the human side of art, then you start to see how often it's a lie. The universe does not answer to human notions of beauty: the universe doesn't care about us.

And yet, it is difficult to avoid seeing God in a perfect photograph (in the same way that it's difficult to avoid seeing God in a perfect equation) -- when you happen to be in the right place at the right time with the right framing -- when everything lines up.

Perhaps "God" is simply the name humans give to this sort of coincidence.

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Posted By: Nonymous - Category: Aesthetics

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Quick note on madness

March 19th 2013 20:00

Best way into this whole can of worms is to look at some debatable "mental illnesses". Homosexuality, pedophilia. Are these, or are these not, mental illnesses?

And once you ask that question, you're led on to further questions, one of which is trifling, but troubling. Are "mental illnesses" misnamed in the first place? A bodily illness is usually (but not always) something like a virus getting into your body and replicating. You can classify the illness by its cause, it has defined phases, and you can relate it to biology -- you can see it under a microscope. Many (but not all) mental illnesses, in contrast -- you don't classify by cause, but by symptoms; there aren't defined phases; and you can't relate purely to biology, but have to also talk about behaviour, society, environment and even things like feelings and thoughts.

So, there's reason to think that "mental illness" or " mental disease" are often misleading terms. "Mental condition" might be improvement, but, ironically, doesn't cut it when the condition is in fact more process-like, like a bodily disease.

Anyway, that's by the by. Yes, there might be problems with language, but most people would probably agree that there is something here that we need to talk about -- that, for practical purposes, we can't get by without a theory of mind and a theory of broken minds. So, onto the next question -- what's in and what's out? What counts as a mental illness, and what doesn't?

The instinctive response is to appeal to what's normal. If it's not normal, then it's a disease. But then: (a) some abnormal behaviours/conditions are regarded as good, not bad -- like virtuoso ability at piano; (b) some abnormal behaviours/conditions are regarded as neither good nor bad, like a love for fixing old grandfather clocks.

So, if you can't appeal to normality to define disease, maybe you can appeal to good functioning. If you're not functioning properly, there's something wrong with you, and if it ain't bodily, then it's mental.

But how to define good functioning?

If you presume to define it according to some standard like "human nature", then there's plenty of people who will quibble with you. Any time you make a claim about what's natural and what isn't, people are going to argue with you. Human beings are multifaceted, evolving, adaptable.

But if, on the other hand, you define good functioning in terms of how the individual wants to function, then it seems disagreeably subjective -- like anything could be "mental illness". If the individual wants to kill people, but has feelings of empathy that inhibit this, are these feelings an "illness"? (The example is not that unrealistic: German soldiers were advised in WWII to ignore their emotions and do what they intellectually knew was right.)

So what counts and what doesn't count as mental illness? Seems irreducibly subjective at the end of the day; it's not pure science, it's values and agreement.

And all these problems pertain to bodily "disease" as well...

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Posted By: Nonymous - Category: Science

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Genetic guilt

January 23rd 2013 09:19

Last year of high school, and qualification for any university course depended on what mark you got from a set of final exams; the previous 12 years didn't matter.

An acquaintance said, with just a hint of bitterness, "You guys --" meaning you guys who score well -- "are lucky. You can easily get the marks you need."

Well, high school is rote learning; and rote-learning was no problem for me. Bullshitting for essays was also no problem for me. Night-before preparation was enough for exams and assignments. University, in contrast, was much tougher.

I don’t know how much work other people were or weren't putting into studying, but I knew that in my own case he had a point. It was unfair. I didn't do nearly as much work as he did; so, from that perspective, I didn't deserve it as much as he did. And, after he said that, giving me an insight into the stress and stress he must be under, I did feel a little guilty.

I wonder if this is a common feeling. How many people feel guilty for their position in life? If you're born with good genes for basketball, and that leads you to a basketball scholarship, do you feel guilty about it? If you're born into a wealthy family, do you feel guilty about it? If you're in a well-paid job, with good conditions, do you feel guilty when you think about all the people who are struggling to make a living, working as virtual slaves? If you're sitting at home, comfortable, watching on the news as cyclones sweep houses away, do you think there is any sort of injustice in the fact that you live in a safe part of the world, and those people on TV don't?

Do you, moreover, feel the need to atone – to punish yourself or to lessen your position in life to somehow make things more fair?

I think one thing that's interesting is that it seems to be appropriate to call this feeling "guilt" -- even though you didn't do anything wrong. The ethics here isn't an ethics of free will, responsibility and action, where you should regret when you do bad things and be proud when you do good things. It's rather about a sense of fairness and an idea of what the world should be like. It's the same sort of thinking as when Grandpa Joe says to Charlie in Willy Wonka that he deserves the golden ticket more than other people because he wants it more.

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Notes

-- A friend once said to me he felt guilty that he was living on land taken from Australian Aborigines. To me, this is an extension of everyday wrong-action guilt; you may not have committed the wrong yourself, but you're enjoying the fruits of it -- blood money.

More interesting to me is feeling guilt as something or other. Feeling guilt or shame as a German for what your grandfather did. Feeling guilty as a human for this or that atrocity, or for what Adam did. Connected with a way of thinking where the actions of a person, for good or for bad, redound to the honour of an entire family, clan or nationality? Where your grandfather in some sense is you.

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Posted By: Nonymous - Category: Ethics

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A dozen notes and quotes #16

January 18th 2013 19:07

Poor ants stuck in an old cobweb. The spider had long since died, so their death did nobody any good.

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Posted By: Nonymous - Category: General

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Free speech and dissonance

December 10th 2012 10:15

Why is Mill committed to free speech? He offers a number of justifications, but ultimately it boils down to:

-- (1) utilitarianism (the imperative to maximise happiness), and

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Posted By: Nonymous - Category: Politics

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Creating gods

November 29th 2012 23:50

In Fred Saberhagen's Swords books, the Olympian gods exist and are worshipped. But these books are set in our world -- thousands of years in the future. It seems that, over the space of aeons, the gods have arisen from the collective dreams of humanity. And, likewise, at the end of the series, they fade away as humanity's dreams turn elsewhere.

To make a quick, obvious point: is it not the same way for us? Do we not create our gods? And do these concepts not arise and change over time, a mirror of us, and dependent on our dreaming? The god of 2012 AD is a lot more liberal than the god of 2012 BC; and its ideals, wants and priorities are different

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Posted By: Nonymous - Category: Metaphysics

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Acting on reasons

October 10th 2012 02:10

You have no rational basis for believing in ghosts. But a certain room in a certain house fills you with extreme dread. Should you force yourself to ignore that feeling?

Put more generally: I can't give you a reason why I feel X. Does this mean I should not let my feelings influence my actions? Should one only do or not do where there is a reason

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Posted By: Nonymous - Category: Epistemology

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About limiting free speech

September 20th 2012 04:01

Is free speech just a culturally-specific value? -- Of course it is. But with some rational basis as well.

What are the bases

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Posted By: Nonymous - Category: Politics

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On Innocence of Muslims and free speech

September 19th 2012 02:48

Incommensurable positions. Uncompromising commitment to free speech on the one hand, and uncompromising commitment to religious limitation of free speech on the other. Is this really the picture of the world?

But, of course, most non-Muslims' attitude to free speech is already compromised in many ways

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Posted By: Nonymous - Category: Politics

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A dozen notes and quotes #15

September 16th 2012 21:10

The "consolations" of philosophy. But what is a consolation? A bedtime story, a lie you tell yourself, a mantra you repeat to yourself, to be able to function or to succeed.

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Posted By: Nonymous - Category: General

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