Critique of the Social Contract

What justifies the state? For some philosophers it is the “social contract”, or contract theory. But what is a contract? Is it not an agreement? But what is to say that the contract is binding? It would seem that the contract requires something external to it self to give it meaning. Indeed the very notion of “justifying the state” indicates that there is a principal of justice external to the state to which it must answer. It would then seem to be the nature of this external principal that should be the focus of our study if we are to truly justify the state.
Unfortunately, Thomas Hobbes did not seem to grasp this. He supposed that we all start out as a bunch of troglodytes hitting each other (free for all) over the head with clubs, until some of the troglodytes get together and form a state by agreeing to accept its authority. But what validates this agreement? It cannot be the state, for the agreement must be valid in order for the state (or any principle there of) to be formed. So for the state to validate the agreement it would have to be and not be in the same time and in the same relationship, which is a rational absurdity.
John Locke proposed a means around this problem with the concept of natural moral laws. These laws being external to the state can thus be used to determine if the state is legitimate. The state is then just if it upholds and adheres to the natural law, and unjust if it does otherwise. So far so good. But then Locke had to go and drag democracy into the matter. You see according to Locke it is the majority that ratifies the interpretation of natural law. But this is leading us right back to the problem with Hobbes. If the majority is a product of the state, how can it validate that which is prior to the state? Or another way of looking at it could be through physical law. The speed of light is 300,000km/s if 99.999% of the population said it was 25km/h it would not change the speed of light 1m/s (although I suppose you could say it would etymologically change the meaning of kilometer and hours).
Jean Jacques Rousseau had a somewhat different approach. To him “man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains”. How can this be? In a rather interesting philosophical maneuver Rousseau proposed that man actually freely submitted to the chains to increase his freedom. This is done through a sort of collective enterprise. Take a man living alone on a desert island. He may be totally free in a certain sense, that is he does not have to trouble about other humans. But he is not free to travel to the moon, or go to a ballet. For these he must surrender some of his freedom to a collective that then will have the freedom each individual lacks. Rousseau viewed society as operating under a similar principle. The individual gives up some freedom so that the whole can enjoy a greater overall freedom. Still it is relying on something external to itself to make it valid. It presumes that the freedom of the individual is theirs to give to the collective for its greater overall freedom. This may be but it is not demonstrated by the theory itself.
In the end all contract theories have the same problems, they assume contracts should be kept and that man has the initial moral capital to enter such contracts. Neither proposition is proved by the contract itself and thus requires something else to do so. It would then be that something else that would then be ultimate grounds of legitimacy for the state.

Are we alone?

SETI (the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is searching for something for which there is (as yet) no material evidence and in fact may not exist. They are searching for creatures fundamentally like humans, who happen to be from other star systems. Their instrument of choice is the radio telescope. But there is another search for extra terrestrial intelligence, it has been going on longer and makes only passing use of the radio telescope. Its object is not merely extra terrestrial, but extra cosmic, and it is not a creature but Creator. This Being is commonly referred to as God.
For philosophers the instrument of choice for seeking God is the mind. The Philosopher St. Anselm demonstrated this with his ontological argument. It states “God is that which no greater can be conceived”. Thus one cannot conceive of God as not being, for then one could conceive one that is greater, the God that Is. Is this evidence for God’s being? Well I for one cannot conceive of Being as not being, but then my powers of conception may be limited. Indeed is not Anselm limiting God by our powers of conception? At any rate this is not material evidence, for that we must turn to St. Thomas Aquinas’ cosmological argument. According to it God put the cause in cosmos. That is every thing in the cosmos has a cause and those causes have causes etc. Going back to the cosmos itself which itself must have a cause, God being the “first cause”. The cosmos itself thus becomes evidence for God’s existence. Is this true? It avoids an infinite regress of finite causes, by giving us finite regress to an infinite One. But important, is this One necessarily a theistic God, that is, is It a conscious, intelligent, being? To answer this question it looks like we must turn elsewhere.
The teleological argument (as the name suggests) seeks to verify that the cause of the cosmos (God) is purposeful and intelligent by pointing out characteristics that show evidence of design. William Paley made the comparison of the cosmos (particularly biological entities) and a pocket watch. But can we compare the design done by humans in a certain paradigm with creating the cosmos out of nothing? God did not merely have to design the eye, He had to design light. Paley’s watch may keep time, God had to create time. So can we glean anything of the mind of God from his creation? There one thing at least. All these fundamental characteristics do seem to be “finely tuned”. That is if they were but slightly different this cosmos would not be accommodating to life and intelligence, as we know it. So this could be seen as evidence for some One that is a purposeful Intelligence at the helm in the initial creation.
But if God tuned the cosmos this precisely, could He have not done even better? If the cosmos has a purposeful, intelligent, Creator, why is there evil? St. Augustine tried to answer this by pointing out that the creation is necessarily inferior to the Creator and thus lacks pure goodness. It is this necessary lack of pure goodness that leads to evil, or as Leibnitz put it “we are living in the best of all possible worlds.” But is this not rather unsatisfying? How can we be living in the best of all possible worlds if we can imagine a better one? Or can we? John Hick suggested we really try to imagine this world and follow it to its logical conclusions. Suppose my neighbor and I had identical houses, identical cars, identical possessions, even identical wives (not just looks but disposition etc) would there be any meaning in the proposition “I”? Furthermore suppose we could not be hurt either by each other or anything else, so that our actions became meaningless. Would this really be an improvement? And what of our thoughts in such a world, would they still be free? Could hate my neighbor (though there would be no cause) divorced from any consequences? Would this be good?
Man has been striving for such a world little be little since the industrial revolution, yet even as early as the nineteenth century the existentialist Søren Kierkegaard was wishing to return to the “Old Testament” when being a human meant something. And the existential leap of faith had more immediate consequences.
Similar to the existential “leap of faith” is William James’ “will to believe”, where he postulates that when we are faced with a living, forced, momentous choice, for which reason gives us no conclusive guidance, then we must choose based on our non rational of “passional” assets. Indeed one could say that the choice to use reason is such a choice.
One such extra-rational asset may be the mystical or numinous experience. The numinous experience is not irrational but it cannot be communicated through normal rational means because of the lack of a common reference point. It is as if the released prisoner returning to Plato’s cave tried to explain color to those who had seen only gray scale shadows. He simply would not have the tools to do so. Even if they wanted to understand what he meant, his words would be gibberish to them, or convey no real understanding. You have to experience it for yourself. But is even the numinous experience a direct experience of God? Perhaps it is just a slightly higher floor in an infinitely tall building.
Or perhaps we are looking at wrong as Paul Tillich suggests. Perhaps God is not at the top of the building but is its foundation, even the building itself. God is not a Being, according to Tillich, but the ground of being. So we cannot have a direct experience of God because God is the ground of experience. Or does this mean that every experience is a direct experience of God? Is the ground of inelegance Itself intelligent? What does it mean to be the ground of being? Getting back to Anselm, if God is that which no greater can be conceived, then I am clearly not God for I can conceive of greater, and that greater, being greater than me can conceive of one still greater. Is God then the ultimate conceiver? Would this be what Tillich means by the ground of conception? Or are we just making monkey noises about what for use is ultimately inconceivable?

Plato’s cave

What is Plato’s cave meant to teach us about philosophy? Perhaps a good place to start is
The more fundamental question, is Plato’s cave meant to teach us about philosophy? And
If so, how do we know that?
To answer this question we must ask yet another question, what is philosophy? The standard definition is, of course, that it is the love of wisdom. But what is wisdom? As you can see we are standing on the brink of an infinite regress, with each new definition leading to a proposition which itself begs a definition. Let us then cut the proverbial knot and propose a proposition of fundamental transcendent absoluteness. Let us call this necessary proposition truth, wisdom then being knowledge of truth. Now we have working definition of philosophy. Still we may wish to understand it further before continuing. Truth, it seems, must come to us through a medium, what we might call reality. Reality that is closest to truth we can call ultimate reality, or metaphysics. To get us from where we are to our goal (truth) we need a vehicle. That vehicle is epistemology. Finally we need to be able to apply truth to our medium. For that we will need teleology and ethics.
Now armed with these definitions and categories let us return to the cave and see how they may be applicable.
As metaphysics has primacy, let us start with it. So what does the “cave” teach us about a theory of truth? It is not like the dialogs of Euthyphro and Thrasymachus where truth is pursued through dialectical means (yet still remains ever illusive). It is instead a story or parable where there is no dialog outside the narration. Therefore if it deals with truth, truth must be represented by something within the story. As it turns out there is something in the story that appears to represent truth – light. The light is clearest and most direct in the world above, as one descends into the cave it becomes dimmer and more mediated. Till we come to the fire, barely a weak parody of the light above, and at last the shadows on the wall themselves. The light at this point is highly mediated, but importantly it is still light. The prisoners are not in total darkness. Here, I believe, Plato is trying to teach us that truth, however mediated and inferior to less mediated truth, is still infinitely better than no truth.
So how about epistemology? The “cave” does appear to have a strong epistemological current running through it, but it is a rather ironic one. The released prisoner’s experiences are definitely empirical, his joints ache, his hurt, etc. But is it empiricism Plato is advocating? No. If that were the case the prisoner would not have been lead to the surface but merely to more caves with more shadows. The light is the light of reason. The released prisoner is enlightened not because he has more data or even “better” data but because he has a means by which to understand the data.
This brings us to ethics. At first glance we might say that the “moral” of the “cave” is that people should not be kept chained in the cave when they can more directly access the light of truth. But how do we know that? Did not the prisoner have to suffer for his wisdom? Who is to say that the truth is worth the trials? Perhaps the chains are there for our protection. To answer this I think we must turn to teleology. Is it the purpose of man to be in the “cave”? No. It is clear that if the prisoners belonged in the cave they would not be men, they would be something else. For men have legs that can stand and hands that can grasp and heads that can turn. So, just as man’s body is designed to walk upright in the world above, looking around even up and seeing things in depth and color. So also, I believe what Plato is telling us, is man’s mind is not meant for the “cave” but for wisdom. Therefore we ought to pursue philosophy and if our humanity is not to atrophy, we must.

What is human nature?

A thing’s nature might be defined by what it does, i.e. the nature of light is to travel at 300,000 km/s. On the other hand a thing’s nature could be defined by what it is. Light is that which travels at 300,000km/s. Thus the ancient debate between Parmenides and Heraclites. So is humanness something we do or something we are? Plato attempted to answer this question by giving us a synthesis, or rather making us a synthesis. According to Plato, we are a rational mind (which is immaterial and eternal) and a sensing, emotive, material body, which acts. This paradigm is generally known as the traditional western rationalist view. It is basically dualistic in that it proposes that man is both a material and nonmaterial entity. Aristotle, though a student of Plato, was not an epistemological rationalist. He did however; broadly accept Plato’s dualistic view of humanity. He said “Man is by nature a political animal.”, and his basic political unit is the individual; a sovereign rational mind ruling a subject body. Building upon this principle, Aristotle concluded that the material world was meant to be ruled by rational minds, and less rational minds by more rational minds. The purpose of the mind being to rule all of nature.
Later philosophers such as Saul of Tarsus would hold a similar dualistic view. He wrote, “The spirit strives with the flesh, so that the good I would do, I do not” His writings heavily influenced St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Augustine held that the body was not merely a subject to be ruled by the mind/spirit but is actually inherently corrupt. Thomas Aquinas furthered the concept of mind ruling matter with his thesis that God (the supreme mind) can be known through nature (the material realm). Aquinas also proposed that just as the body is subject to the mind, so should the lesser mind be subject to the greater as all is subject to God. True happiness, he concluded, comes from knowing and loving God and thus submitting to His purpose, just as it is to the greatest good of the body to obey the mind. This is the traditional religious view.
One of the fundamental questions raised by these traditional views is, if the purpose of the mind is to control the body, how does it do it? The modern philosopher Rene Descartes approached this problem by first asserting the primacy of the mind “cogito ergo sum” and briefly it seemed as though he might break into a pure rationalist monism, denying the material world entirely. But in the end he accepted dualism. He proposed that the mind might be able to influence some very sensitive matter and through it the entire material world. I must say, as a fan of Descartes, he should have known better. Looking at it mathematically, no matter how small a number, you still cannot reach it from zero. Using only multiplication, even infinity times zero still equals zero.
This difficulty with dualistic rationalism opened the door for critics such as Thomas Hobbs. Hobbs suggested that the material world is all there is and that the “mind” is merely a function of the body. This view (not too surprisingly) is called materialism. According to Hobbs, the mind/body is a material machine, receiving material data and producing a material response. Sigmund Freud who proposed that the mind or psyche could be studied and predicted like any other natural phenomena advocated this view. Moritz Schlick added that even though the pattern may be complex, the mind is always seen to be aggressively perusing its own gratification, pleasures and desires; that is, the mind serves the body.
Much of this draws on the theories of Charles Darwin, who proposed that all life is the product of random mutations accumulated over time through natural selection. How then could a material process produce something nonmaterial? And if these mutations are truly random how could any of it have any propose?
Of course many traditional rationalist do not believe that the mind is produced by the body, but belongs to a separate realm entirely. If contact between these realms is actually possible (perhaps through a particular configuration of matter or such) then there is no reason why it could not be stumbled upon “accidently” by random mutation. As for purpose, surely matter that is utterly without mind can have no purpose, and virtually every rationalist would agree with that. But if there is such a thing as mind, then the process of evolution through random mutation can be seen as an epic journey of unguided matter seeking its master guided by the only glimmer of eminent divinity, natural selection.
There is, however, a school of thought that proposes that the body does produce the mind, or at least precedes it, the philosophy of existentialism. The existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said man is “condemned to be free” meaning that man can look to neither God nor society for absolutes or values. Even his own identity and nature is a matter of choice. But if this is the case, then the defining predicate for humanness is choice, made presumably with the mind. How then can one’s humanity precede one’s first choice, which is his essence? Sartre further undermined his own position by using ethical language such as “responsibility” and “bad faith”. Responsible? For what, to who? Presumably not God or society if they have no authority over us. Also, how can any choice (even the choice not to choose) be better or worse than any other choice if there is no objective standard by which judge?
More contemporary materialists have suggested the “Identity theory of mind”. This theory proposes that states of the physical brain are identifiable with states of the mind. At first glance this may seem more sophisticated than Hobbs, but under analysis we see that it brings nothing really new. It has always been known that when the eye (a physical organ) looked at something blue, the mind had a perception of blueness. Even Descartes would have agreed that the brain is probably involved in the transfer and that its methods are likely at least as consistent as the states of the external body. The question is, how is the observer contacted/generated? It would seem that studying neurons and synapses can get us no closer than studying eyes and limbs.
The problem of a material body being able to produce an observer (even if it is just “watching a movie” as the mechanistic view asserts) has proven so vexing that some materialists have suggested simply eliminating it. This is called “eliminative materialism”. This view claims that there is no observer, we are simply deluding our selves into thinking we exist. So who is deluding what? Or what is deluding who? Are our brains incapable of producing a thinking mind but somehow capable of producing a non-mind which is capable of thinking it is a mind? If this makes sense to you, perhaps you have been disillusioned and achieved a state of true mindlessness. For me it is still just a bunch of nonsense.
This brings us back to dualism. Perhaps it is our understanding of matter that is flawed. Perhaps advances in M theory or some new theory will give us new insights in this area, or perhaps not. In the mean time how about a quote from Thomas Hood,
“What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind. What is the soul? It is immaterial.”

The Numerator

Division by zero is undefined, all math text say so, but why? The typical view of division is simple, how much of the denominator can you fit the numerator? So how many noughts can you fit in a number, say 1. The answer is really no more undefined then how many 2s go into 12. You could say 2 or 3 I suppose, but the correct answer is six. Likewise though you may say we could fit 10 or 20 or a 1,000 0s in 1, the correct answer is infinite.

Attention Anglers!

RW is your fishy speech headquarters!

1 : RW claims that President Obama has never denounced single payer heath care, nor threatened to veto any reform that might lead to it.

2 : RW claims that President Obama has not threatened to veto any heath care legislation that funds abortions.

3 : RW claims President Obama has not called on controversial speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to steep down on account of her incompetence and divisiveness.

You should immediately report these abominable rumors to the White House Office of Fishy Speech, so they can be cleared up.

Attack of the fallen…or whatever.

When was the last time a sequel was better than the original? Bells of St. Mary’s, is all that comes to my mind. At any rate Transformers 2 is certainly no threat to that pristine record.
For starters the Title seems to be courtesy of the same source as "Attack of the Clones", namely the one brain cell that Lucas and Spielberg now have between them.
Of course on the surface it only looks insipid, not completely inane. But then they had to go and try to surprise us. At first glance one might have presumed that revenge of the fallen, referred to Magatron. Who did after all fall in combat and had reasonable reason to seek revenge one the humans and autobots. But that would be what we would suspect, and would make more or less sense…so of course that could not be what it refers to. It in fact refers to some strange proto decepticon, who is called “the fallen” because…well because he is basically the cybertonien version of Lucifer. And he is seeking revenge because, because “return” is reserved for good guys and he is a baddy so it had to be revenge.
The script is a morass of trite often cringe worthy dialog, over the top “they fight” a few lost opportunities, plenty of cinematic stereotypes; solders are brave and clever, commanders are wise and of course communication officers are incredibly cute (As far as I am concerned all you fan boys can have Princess Lea. I want the girl who transfers lunch control to the viper pilots…lunch when reedy!).
But aside from all this is the clumsy and ill-advised attempt to transform the whole mythos into something, well Biblical.
Optimus has transformed from a leader of a ragtag but heroic group of solders into a - last of a once noble race - messiah. And just incase Prime’s is too subtle for you, before Sam can save all humanity he hast to be deemed worthy by dying and being resurrected.
So in the end, with all the Cube shards and mystical keys used up, all the critical characters must be alive. Magatron and Starscreem (who has reverted to being the winniest of winy lutenets) slink off into the shadows. Some how they resisted saying “I’ll get you next time Prime!”.
In the final analysis we must remember that Transformers is a franchise based on a line of toys, if the first movie allowed us to forget this momentarily ROTF certainly does not.

Miss interpreted

California is a big state and it has many daughters. I have known California girls that were very nice, and some that were pretty dippy. I can only hope that Miss Prejean belongs to the former group. But the real question is, is a question about homosexual marriage legitimate in a competition called “Miss USA” in the first place?
Gender and gender relations is something that is deeply entrenched in Indo-European languages (and probably almost all other languages on the planet).
In France a women might be either a Madame or a Mademoiselle, in Germany she might be a Frau or a Fraulein, depending on her marital status, and in England its Miss or Missis. It is interesting that English gives the maidens the shorter title, but then English is not known for its conformity, but, it does agree with the others on one thing, there is no distinction on the masculine, Monsieur, Herr, Mister. This philological principle seems to convey a simple understanding; there is a changer and a changed. The very proposition of a Miss suggests linguistically the transformation to Missis via a Mister.
There of course is the rather enigmatic accolade “Ms.” (pronounced mezz) used primarily for women of undetermined or compromised marital status. However, I checked the official website today, and it is still calling itself the Miss (not the Ms.) USA pageant. So the question of homosexual marriage in that context is simply a linguistic absurdity.

This I believe.

I believe in Truth. I believe that It is objective and manifest and available to all who seek It. I believe that it is accessible to the human mind by way of reason, not that Truth is bound by reason, but the human mind being an engine of reason is bound by reason and thus must use this path to reach Truth.
I believe in moral absolutes, as they are the offspring and hand maiden of reason, our guide to Truth. And like Truth Itself, they are both validated by reason and objective. For any morality that is based on subjective opinion is not morality at all but merely an aesthetic preference - like preferring blue to red.
I believe in the primacy of consciences and the mind as the foundational principle of all ontology. For even the proposition “external reality” must, like all other propositions, be filed in the mind and thus is dependent on it. It is the mind alone that has true being. Those things that are perceived by the mind but lack any conciseness of their own have only contingent being lent them by the being that perceives them. To be is to perceived, for only a mind can say with meaning “I am”.
And it is only through these principles of Truth, conciseness and morals that I can say of anything, This I believe.

Hearing is believing.

The other night I went to hear Chase Coleman play on the CCC campus. The piano recital was a prelude to some modern dance. The dancers were good, but still severely upstaged by Mr. Coleman's fingers. It was not so much that his fingers moved quickly and with agility (although they certainly did) but that they were visual representation of the music in the same way dance (ideally) is. Indeed I believe even without sound one could have felt the music simply by watching Mr. Coleman's fingers. Or even that the sound was the audio accompaniment to the music his fingers were displaying visually. So was the music in the vibrating strings of the piano? Mr. Coleman's fingers? The dancers’ bodies? Or rather something more ethereal? Some pure content beyond the grasp of our form addicted minds, to which our instruments of flesh and mettle are conduits, giving eminence to that which is truly transcendent? A machine can “hear” sounds but only a soul can, whether by ear or eye, know music.

Chucking it up

On Charles Darwin’s bicentennial I suppose we could do yet anther critique of “his theory”, analyze its originality (or lack there of) its merits, its open questions and its qualifications to even be classified as a true scientific theory at all. Or we could examine what sort of implications it might have on philosophical or theological matters (as far as I can tell, basically none). But instead I think I will look at what impact Darwin and/or his theory have had on humanity.
Hum….not much there either.
One could I suppose say Darwin had a hand in the cultural decadence of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But Thomas Huxley did not invent hedonism anymore than Queen Victoria invented prudery. If people wish to become slave of their lowest animal impulses, they do not need a scientific theory to justify doing so…and indeed evolution through natural selection does not.

Countdown 2012

"Well then by tomorrow we might all be dead, but than how is that different from any other day?" - Morpheus, The Matrix Reloaded

We are still a relatively long way from 12/21 2012, plenty of time at least for the History Channel to get a lot more mileage out of its Nostradamus shows. Its already got quite a bit out of the several it already has circulating. Of course when I say "several" I mean several different titles, Nostradamus revealed, Prophesies of Nostradamus, the Lost Book of Nostradamus, and of course Nostradamus 2012. However, all these "different" shows feature pretty much the same material. The same quatrains, the same crackpots, the same hand ringing "These prophesies are so accurate can we possibly escape the fate they predict?" Oddly enough though, one of the shows did feature a prophet (or rather prophetess) whose predictions were remarkably accurate, Mother Shipton. Her prophases not only seem to be rather accurate but (unlike Nostradamus') are specific enough to not be dismissed as probably just some drug induced 16th century ravings that happen to meet up with historical events now and then. Naturally enough I suppose accurate prophecies of future events brings up the question of freewill and determinism (at least if someone does not like the prophecies). But Mother Shipton's are interesting in that they do not involve asteroids or autocratic rulers but sometimes the actions of the general public...

"And now a word in uncouth rhyme Of what shall be in future time, For in the wondrous far off days, The women shall adopt a craze To dress like men and trousers wear And cut off their lovely locks of hair. They'll ride astride with brazen brow As witches on a broomstick now
Then love shall die and marriage cease, And nations wane as births decrease. The wives shall fondle cats and dogs And men live much the same as hogs."

This seems fairly precise and quite plane. Yet it required millions to cooperate of their free will in order for it to come true?
Perhaps the true seer is more akin to the scientist than the mystic. Observing events and making predictions based on patterns.
But whether it is an asteroid or social decadence one prediction seems pretty safe. It is not a lack of free will that will be mans undoing, it will be his lack of using it properly.

Enemies of Reason

There is a DVD out called The Enemies of Reason. It has Dick Dawkins ugly old mug splashed across the cover. This is probably appropriate as I believe he is the biggest enemy of reason I know of.