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Friday, September 16, 2022
Lyceum Friday
LISTEN. We're pleased, finally, to be bringing Professor Tadd Ruetenik of St. Ambrose University (in Davenport Iowa, south of the Field of Dreams and home of the lovely Quad Cities ballpark) to campus this afternoon for his Lyceum lecture (originally scheduled for March 2020 but canned by the pandemic) on "Sports: The Flywheel of the Military Industrial Complex" (5 pm, COE 164, followed-- as our friends at TPA always say-- by a spirited off-campus reception... (continues)
Thursday, September 15, 2022
To the library
The World Is Waiting to Be Discovered. Take a Walk.
…Study after study after study have proved what we feel, intuitively, in our gut: Walking is good for us. Beneficial for our joints and muscles; astute at relieving tension, reducing anxiety and depression; a boon to creativity, likely; slows the aging process, maybe; excellent at prying our screens from our face, definitely. Shane O'Mara, a professor of experimental brain research in Dublin, has called walking a "superpower," claiming that walking, and only walking, unlocks specific parts of our brains, places that bequeath happiness and health.
I have no beef with any of this, but I believe we have it backward. We are asking what we can get out of a walk, rather than what a walk can get out of us. This might seem like a small distinction, a matter of semantics. But when we begin to think of walking in terms of the latter, we change the way we navigate and experience — literally and figuratively — the world around us...
The Search for Intelligent Life Is About to Get a Lot More Interesting
"…after 2,500 years of people yelling at each other over life in the universe, in the next 10, 20 and 30 years we will actually get data."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/magazine/extraterrestrials-technosignatures.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Wednesday, September 14, 2022
MEETING THURSDAY for Library instruction in LIB 264a
It's not easy being a librarian these days...
With Rising Book Bans, Librarians Have Come Under Attack
…Addressing book challenges has always been part of the job, but efforts to ban bookshave spiked in recent months, reflecting a clash over whether and how to teach children about issues like L.G.B.T.Q. rights and racial inequality. The library association tracked 1,597 books that were challenged in 2021, the highest number since the organization began tracking bans 20 years ago… nyt
==
Singular Ray
LISTEN. We had a serious and sober conversation in Environmental Ethics yesterday about the difference between living longer vs. living better, between a life of many years vs. a life of completion and earned satisfaction. I was encouraged by the maturity and wisdom of the young people in the room, whose acceptance of mortality stands in striking contrast to that of futurologist/transhumanist Raymond Kurzweil... (continues)
Will machines ever say "I think, therefore I am"?
Something to consider when we talk about Descartes...
We had a serious and sober conversation in Environmental Ethics yesterday about the difference between living longer vs. living better, between a life of many years vs. a life of completion and earned satisfaction. I was encouraged by the maturity and wisdom of the young people in the room, whose acceptance of mortality stands in striking contrast to that of futurologist/transhumanist Raymond Kurzweil.
Ray's the guy who pioneered optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology etc., and then went to work for Google to help Larry and Sergei figure out how to conquer aging and the biological restrictions of mortal life. He's the very antithesis, in this regard, of Wendell Berry.
I first became aware of Ray when I read his The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, which audaciously and (we should see now) prematurely, if not ludicrously, predicted that we'd have self-conscious machines "before 2030"... We'll talk about this in CoPhi soon, when we turn to Descartes.
Descartes’s famous dictum “I think, therefore I am” has often been cited as emblematic of Western rationalism. This view interprets Descartes to mean “I think, that is, I can manipulate logic and symbols, therefore I am worthwhile.” But in my view, Descartes was not intending to extol the virtues of rational thought. He was troubled by what has become known as the mind-body problem, the paradox of how mind can arise from non-mind, how thoughts and feelings can arise from the ordinary matter of the brain. Pushing rational skepticism to its limits, his statement really means “I think, that is, there is an undeniable mental phenomenon, some awareness, occurring, therefore all we know for sure is that something—let’s call it I—exists.” Viewed in this way, there is less of a gap than is commonly thought between Descartes and Buddhist notions of consciousness as the primary reality. Before 2030, we will have machines proclaiming Descartes’s dictum. And it won’t seem like a programmed response. The machines will be earnest and convincing. Should we believe them when they claim to be conscious entities with their own volition?
Ask that again when they make that claim. If they do.
At least Ray has inspired entertaining films like Her, Ex Machina, Transcendence...
But his desperate quest to "live long enough to live forever"-- see the Wired Magazine feature story on Ray,wherein it was revealed that he'd daily been popping upwards of 200 pill supplements and downing oceans of green tea every day in hopes of beating the Reaper (lately he's cut back to just 90)-- really does look sad and shallow, alongside the mature view we've explored in The World-Ending Fire and that I was gratified to hear echoed by my fellow mortals in class yesterday.
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Questions SEP 15
Montaigne, Descartes, & Pascal-LH 11-12. FL 13-14, HWT 14-15 MEETING TODAY for Library instruction in LIB 264a
1. What state of mind, belief, or knowledge was Descartes' Method of Doubt supposed to establish? OR, What did Descartes seek that Pyrrho spurned? Was his approach more sensible than Pyrrho's? Do you think it's possible to achieve the state of mind Descartes sought?
2. Did Descartes claim to know (at the outset of his "meditations") that he was not dreaming? Do you ever think you might be?
3. What strange and mythic specter did Gilbert Ryle compare to Descartes' dualism of mind and body? ("The ____ in the ______.") Does that specter seem strange or silly to you?
4. Pascal's best-known book is _____. Do you like his aphoristic style?
5. Pascal's argument for believing in God is called ________. Do you find it persuasive or appealing?
6. Pascal thought if you gamble on God and lose, "you lose ______." Do you agree?
7. (T/F) By limiting his "wager" to a choice between either Christian theism or atheism, says Nigel Warburton, Pascal excludes too many other possible bets. Is that right?
2. Did Descartes claim to know (at the outset of his "meditations") that he was not dreaming? Do you ever think you might be?
3. What strange and mythic specter did Gilbert Ryle compare to Descartes' dualism of mind and body? ("The ____ in the ______.") Does that specter seem strange or silly to you?
4. Pascal's best-known book is _____. Do you like his aphoristic style?
5. Pascal's argument for believing in God is called ________. Do you find it persuasive or appealing?
6. Pascal thought if you gamble on God and lose, "you lose ______." Do you agree?
7. (T/F) By limiting his "wager" to a choice between either Christian theism or atheism, says Nigel Warburton, Pascal excludes too many other possible bets. Is that right?
(See Montaigne questions below*)
HWT
1. What familiar western distinction is not commonly drawn in Islamic thought?
2. According to Sankara, the appearance of plurality is misleading. Everything is ____.
3. The Islamic concept of unity rules out what key western Enlightenment value, and offers little prospect of adopting modern views on what?
4. What Calvinist-sounding doctrine features heavily in Islamic thought?
5. What deep philosophical assumption, expressed by what phrase, has informed western philosophy for centuries? To what concept did Harry Frankfurt apply it?
* BONUS QUESTIONSAlso recommended: (How to Live, ch1); LISTEN Sarah Bakewell on Michel de Montaigne (PB); A.C. Grayling on Descartes' Cogito (PB); WATCH Montaigne(SoL); Descartes (HI)
- Sarah Bakewell says Montaigne's first answer to the question "How to live?" is: "Don't worry about _____."
- What was Montaigne's "near death experience," and what did it teach him?
- Montaigne said "my mind will not budge unless _____."
- What pragmatic American philosopher was Descartes' "most practical critic"?
- (T/F) A.C. Grayling thinks that, because Descartes was so wrong about consciousness and the mind-body problem, he cannot be considered a historically-important philosopher.
- What skeptical slogan did Montaigne inscribe on the ceiling of his study?
FL
1. Conspiratorial explanations attempt to make what kinds of connections?
2. What was the Freemasons' grand secret, according to Franklin?
3. What conspiracy did Abe Lincoln allege in his famous "House Divided" speech in 1858?
4. Why did many northerners think the Civil War went badly for them early on?
5. What did the narrator of a popular 1832 work of fiction say about the slaves?
Questions Sep 13
Machiavelli, Hobbes-LH 9-10. FL 11-12, HWT 11-13.... MEETING THURSDAY (not Tuesday) for Library instruction in LIB 264a
1. What did Machiavelli say a leader needs to have? Do you agree? Is it important to you for our leaders to be reliably honest, with exceptions only for instances of national security and the nation's best interests?
2. Machiavelli's philosophy is described as being "rooted" in what? Does your own experience confirm his appraisal of human nature and what's "realistic"?
2. Machiavelli's philosophy is described as being "rooted" in what? Does your own experience confirm his appraisal of human nature and what's "realistic"?
3. The idea that leaders should rule by fear is based on what view of human nature? Do you respond more positively to politicians who appeal to pessimism and fear, or to those who appeal to hope?
4. Life outside society would be what, according to Hobbes? Do you think your neighbors would threaten your survival if they could get away with it?
5. What fear influenced Hobbes' writings? Do any particular fears influence your political opinions?
6. Hobbes did not believe in the existence of what? Do you? Why or why not?
HWT
1. How do eastern and western philosophies differ in their approach to things, and what is ma? Which do you find more appealing?
2. An interest in what is much more developed in eastern thought? Do you share it?
3. What is dukkha?
4. What is Sakura?
5. What takes the place of religion in China? Do you know people here who have found religion-substitutes?
6. Chinese thought does not distinguish between natural and ____, focusing on what?
7. What is the famous story of Zhuangzi? What's your reaction to it?
8. The Japanese fascination with robots reflects what traditional view? Are you similarly fascinated?
FL
1. What was Arthur C. Clarke's 3d law regarding technology, and what's its converse?
2. What was the original "alternative medicine" and what is its "upside"?
3. What national craze of the 1830s relied on a "totally bogus extrapolation"?
4. Who was Mary Baker Eddy and what are her followers misleadingly called?
5. Who was Dr. William A. Rockefeller?
6. What did Mark Twain say about history?
7. How was the California Gold Rush an "inflection point" in how Americans thought about reality?
8. What did de Tocqueville say was "the chief or secondary motive in everything Americans do"?
Philosophy tutor
The philosophy tutor, Matthew Thomas, will begin tutoring next week (September 12 - 16). The tutoring will be via Zoom, at the following times:
TTH 5:00 – 6:30
During the weeks of Fall Break and Thanksgiving Break, he won't be available. The last day of availability for the semester will be Study Day, December 1.
Schelling
“There is a reason the iconic photograph of earthrise taken during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 has become one of the most influential images in history and has been hailed as the beginning of the environmental movement…” https://t.co/9XHk4OFX59
— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) September 13, 2022
As darkness settled over the small German town of Jena in the late winter of 1798, large groups of young men rushed to the town university's biggest auditorium to listen to their new philosophy professor. They jostled for seats, took out ink and quills and waited. At the lectern, a young man lit two candles. He most likely couldn't make out the students' faces, but they saw him bathed in light.
There is a "secret bond connecting our mind with nature," the professor, Friedrich Schelling, told the students. His idea, that the self and nature are in fact identical, was as simple as it was radical. He explained this by pointing to the moment when the self becomes aware of the world around it.
"At the first moment, when I am conscious of the external world, the consciousness of my self is there as well," he said, "and vice versa — at my first moment of self-awareness, the real world rises up before me." Instead of dividing the world into mind and matter, as many philosophers had done for centuries, the young professor told his students that everything was one. It was an idea that would change the way humans think about themselves and nature.
To me it seems that we sometimes forget that we're part of nature — physically of course, but also emotionally and psychologically — and this insight is missing from our current climate debates. As a historian, I have looked at the relationship between humankind and nature, and I believe that Schelling's philosophy of oneness might provide a foundation on which to anchor the fight for our climate and our survival...
Eliza Fletcher
“Tragedies will always garner public interest. That’s just human nature. But tragedies should never be reduced to tweets and talking points or turned into a narrative to justify a political agenda.” This medium in particular does seem built for reduction. https://t.co/l0RtnfuaB2
— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) September 12, 2022
Writing is a physical act
LISTEN. In Environmental Ethics today, I need to re-assert my general admiration for Wendell Berry after last class when we went outside and I raised my voice to be heard over those obnoxious Peck Hall blowers. I didn't want to shout my challenge to what I see as his reductively binary approach to Two Minds, I just wanted to put it out there for our consideration. I just think we need all kinds of minds, and need all kinds of minds to make room for the consideration of other kinds.
So let me quickly agree with Wendell (in his 2004 essay "Quantity versus Form") that "the ideal of a whole or complete life" is not replaceable by the "ideal merely of a long life." Quality matters. "Ripeness is all." (continues)
Monday, September 12, 2022
Ends and means
Calvin sounds like (Thomas) Hobbes describing the state of nature. Hobbes (the tiger) behaves like Machiavelli's Prince. (And check out Hobbes, Machiavelli & others in Existential Comics...)
Saturday, September 10, 2022
About time
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Why you should read fiction
Do books serve a moral function? How so?
Novels can serve a moral function by enabling us to enter the lives of others imaginatively. It is an ekstasis in which we step outside the self, leaving it behind, and embrace a different perspective — realizing, for example, the attractions of evil at the same time as we are made to recoil from it. Novels force us not only to face but to experience the terror of illness, sorrow, poverty and infirmity. They enhance our compassion by compelling us to feel with others, taking us out of the comforts of solipsism... Karen Armstrong
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A novel recommendation, on the heels of our discussion of cosmic philosophy: Bewilderment, by Richard Powers...
The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain…
With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?
“They share a lot, astronomy and childhood. Both are voyages across huge distances. Both search for facts beyond their grasp. Both theorize wildly and let possibilities multiply without limits. Both are humbled every few weeks. Both operate out of ignorance. Both are mystified by time. Both are forever starting out.”
“Every belief will be outgrown, in time. The first lesson of the universe is to never reason from only a single instance. Unless you only have one instance. In which case: find another.”
“Nine is the age of great turning. Maybe humanity was a nine-year-old, not yet grown up, not a little kid anymore. Seemingly in control, but always on the verge of rage.”
“Oddly enough, there’s no name in the DSM for the compulsion to diagnose people.”
“...everyone alive on this fluke little planet was on the spectrum. That’s what a spectrum is. I wanted to tell the man that life itself is a spectrum disorder, where each of us vibrated at some unique frequency in the continuous rainbow.”
'... if some small but critical mass of people recovered a sense of kinship, economics would become ecology. We’d want different things. We’d find our meaning..."
“It came from Buddhism, the Four Immeasurables. “There are four good things worth practicing. Being kind toward everything alive. Staying level and steady. Feeling happy for any creature anywhere that is happy. And remembering that any suffering is also yours.”
What John Donne Knew About Death Can Teach Us a Lot About Life
…Confronted with the thought of death, many of us perform the psychological equivalent of hiding in a box with our knees under our chin. But Donne saluted death; he wrote it poetry, he threw it parties. He had a memento mori that he left to a friend in his will, "the picture called The Skeleton which hangs in the hall." For Donne, that we are born astride the grave was a truth to welcome…
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/10/opinion/john-donne-death.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Mary Oliver, Epicurean
…From the time she was young, she knew that writers didn't make very much money, so she sat down and made a list of all the things in life she would never be able to have — a nice car, fancy clothes, and eating out at expensive restaurants were all on the list. But young Mary decided she wanted to be a poet anyway… WA
(Cousin Mary also has great advice for how to make time to write, even if you think you don't have enough.)
Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction | Quentin Skinner | Talks at Google
https://youtu.be/CKGuzJ6GwHM
Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu
👣Solvitur ambulando
ðŸ’Sapere aude
Friday, September 9, 2022
Achieving Perspective: Trailblazing Astronomer Maria Mitchell and the Poetry of the Cosmic Perspective (David Byrne Reads Pattiann Rogers) – The Marginalian
"Mingle the starlight with your lives, and you won't be fretted by trifles."
After talking Cosmic Philosophy in class yesterday, the world's preoccupation with the passing of a 96 year-old figurehead does seem a bit trifling.https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/02/18/achieving-perspective/
Thursday, September 8, 2022
Melding minds
Long day ahead, Curriculum Committee meeting at 8:30, regular classes 'til 5:45, the MALA Experience class 6-9, all book-ended by the usual long commute. Better get in the right frame of mind... (continues)
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
Questions SEP 8
Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas-LH 6-8. FL 9-10, HWT 9-10
LH
1. How did Augustine "solve" the problem of evil in his younger days, and then after his conversion to Christianity? Why wasn't it such a problem for him originally?
2. What does Boethius not mention about himself in The Consolation of Philosophy?
3. Boethius' "recollection of ideas" can be traced back to what philosopher?
4. What uniquely self-validating idea did Anselm say we have?
5. Gaunilo criticized Anselm's reasoning using what example?
6. What was Aquinas' 2nd Way?
FL
1. How did Enlightenment values advance in America in the 19th century?
2. What fantasy about 1776 has been accepted as fact by Americans across the religious spectrum (and Ronald Reagan) ever since?
3. How was religion in America, unlike Europe, non-binary?
4. How did Thomas Jefferson characterize America's religious differences in the north and the south?
5. What happened in Cane Ridge, KY in 1801, and how did a Vanderbilt historian describe it?
6. Who was Charles Finney, and what did he understand about American Christianity?
7. What did de Tocqueville say was different about religion in America, compared to Europe?
8. Who was William Miller and what beliefs did he help revive?
9. Who was Joseph Smith and what is the most interesting thing about him?
HWT
1. What fundamental and non-western sense of time has underpinned much of human history?
2. What is "dreamtime" and how is it alien to the modern west?
3. The universalism of western universities implies that what is unimportant?
4. What does John Gray say about the idea of progress?
5. Karma originally concerned what, and lacked what connotations now commonly associated with it?
6. What western ideas have displaced karma, for many young Indians?
Discussion Questions
- [Add your own DQs]
- Would the existence of evil equivalent to good, without guarantees of tthe inevitable triiumph of the latter, solve the problem of suffering?
- Why do you think Boethius didn't write "The Consolation of Christianity"?
- Do you think you have a clear idea of what it would mean for there to be an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good supernatural being?
- Do you think knowledge is really a form of remembering or recollection? Have we just forgotten what we knew?
- Is there a difference between an uncaused cause (or unmoved mover) and a god?
- Which is the more plausible explanation of the extent of gratuitous suffering in the world, that God exists but is not more powerful than Satan, or that neither God nor Satan exists? Why?
- Are supernatural stories of faith, redemption, and salvation more comforting to you than the power of reason and evidence? Why or why not?
- What do you think of the Manichean idea that an "evil God created the earth and emtombed our souls in the prisons of our bodies"? (Dream of Reason 392)
- Do you agree with Augustine about "the main message of Christianity...that man needs a great deal of help"? (DR 395). If so, must "help" take the form of supernatural salvation? If not, what do you think the message is? What kind of help do we need?
- What do you think of Boethius' proposed solution to the puzzle of free will, that from a divine point of view there's no difference between past, present, and future? 402
- Did Russell "demolish" Anselm's ontological argument? (See below)
- COMMENT: “The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.” Carl Sagan
- COMMENT: “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.” Carl Sagan
- If you were falsely imprisoned, tortured, and scheduled for execution, would you be able to achieve "consolation"? How?
- Can the definition of a word prove anything about the world?
- Is theoretical simplicity always better, even if the universe is complex?
- Does the possibility of other worlds somehow diminish humanity?
- How does the definition of God as omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good make it harder to account for evil and suffering in the world? Would it be better to believe in a lesser god, or no god at all?
- Can you explain the concept of Original Sin? Do you think you understand it?
- Is it better to embrace (or renounce) religious faith early in life, or to "sow your wild oats" and enjoy a wide experience of the world before committing to any particular tradition or belief? Were you encouraged by adults, in childhood, to make a public profession of faith? If so, did you understand what that meant or entailed?
- Does the concept of a never-ending struggle between good and evil appeal to you? Does it make sense, in the light of whatever else you believe? Would there be anything "wrong" with a world in which good was already triumphant, happiness for all already secured, kindness and compassion unrivaled by hatred and cruelty?
- Do you find the concept of Original Sin compelling, difficult, unfair, or dubious? In general, do we "inherit the sins of our fathers (and mothers)"? If yes, give examples and explain.
- What kinds of present-day McCarthyism can you see? Is socialism the new communism? How are alternate political philosophies discouraged in America, and where would you place yourself on the spectrum?
- Andersen notes that since WWII "mainline" Christian denominations were peaking (and, as evidence shows, are now declining). What do you think about this when you consider the visible political power of other evangelical denominations? Are you a part of a mainline traditon? If so, how would you explain this shift?
Platonic love
Platonic love is one of the most widely misinterpreted concepts in Plato's philosophy. It has transcended the realm of philosophy, becoming widely used across culture — and has strayed from its original meaning throughout the process...
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https://greekreporter.com/2022/09/07/platonic-love-greek-philosopher-plato
View the article + more on Flipboard.
https://flip.it/uboT.z
(null)
https://greekreporter.com/2022/09/07/platonic-love-greek-philosopher-plato
View the article + more on Flipboard.
https://flip.it/uboT.z
Frank Drake, Who Led Search for Life on Other Planets, Dies at 92
Frank Drake, who pointed a radio telescope at a pair of stars in 1960 hoping to find alien civilizations and thus kindled a continuing endeavor called the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, died on Friday at his home in Aptos, Calif. He was 92...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/science/space/frank-drake-dead.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Cosmic perspective and overcoming fear of death
In the spirit of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot (which I'll be discussing with my MALA class tomorrow night, and in my Experience class next semester)...
By Neil deGrasse Tyson
...The cosmic perspective flows from fundamental knowledge. But it’s more than just what you know. It’s also about having the wisdom and insight to apply that knowledge to assessing our place in the universe. And its attributes are clear:The cosmic perspective comes from the frontiers of science, yet it’s not solely the province of the scientist. The cosmic perspective belongs to everyone.
- The cosmic perspective is humble.
- The cosmic perspective is spiritual—even redemptive—but not religious.
- The cosmic perspective enables us to grasp, in the same thought, the large and the small.
- The cosmic perspective opens our minds to extraordinary ideas but does not leave them so open that our brains spill out, making us susceptible to believing anything we’re told.
- The cosmic perspective opens our eyes to the universe, not as a benevolent cradle designed to nurture life but as a cold, lonely, hazardous place.
- The cosmic perspective shows Earth to be a mote, but a precious mote and, for the moment, the only home we have.
- The cosmic perspective finds beauty in the images of planets, moons, stars, and nebulae but also celebrates the laws of physics that shape them.
- The cosmic perspective enables us to see beyond our circumstances, allowing us to transcend the primal search for food, shelter, and sex.
- The cosmic perspective reminds us that in space, where there is no air, a flag will not wave—an indication that perhaps flag waving and space exploration do not mix.
- The cosmic perspective not only embraces our genetic kinship with all life on Earth but also values our chemical kinship with any yet-to-be discovered life in the universe, as well as our atomic kinship with the universe itself.
Absent such curiosity, we are no different from the provincial farmer who expresses no need to venture beyond the county line, because his forty acres meet all his needs. Yet if all our predecessors had felt that way, the farmer would instead be a cave dweller, chasing down his dinner with a stick and a rock.
During our brief stay on planet Earth, we owe ourselves and our descendants the opportunity to explore—in part because it’s fun to do. But there’s a far nobler reason. The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us. In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource-hungry people and nations would be prone to act on their “low contracted prejudices.” And that would be the last gasp of human enlightenment—until the rise of a visionary new culture that could once again embrace the cosmic perspective.
An excerpt from Neil's upcoming book 'Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization.' Should we live forever? What happens to us after we die? What is the statistical probability of being alive? Taking a cosmic perspective on civilization not only helps us understand where we are but shows us the path forward.
Tuesday, September 6, 2022
For me at least...
School Days are Bicycle Days
#BikeToSchool https://t.co/UUwhRIblOD
(https://twitter.com/CoolBikeArt1/status/1566652345655631872?s=02)
A fine comedy
What a fine comedy this world would be if one did not play a part in it!--Denis Diderot
(https://twitter.com/tpmquote/status/1567286532192493571?s=02)
Peter Singer
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Sunday, September 4, 2022
Not Too Late
#NotT00Late is a project to invite newcomers to the climate movement, as well as provide climate facts and encouragement for people who are already engaged but weary. We believe that the truths about the science, the justice-centered solutions, the growing strength of the climate movement and its achievements can help. They can assuage the sorrow and despair, and they can help people see why it's worth doing the work the climate crisis demands of us...
https://www.nottoolateclimate.com/
https://www.nottoolateclimate.com/
Saturday, September 3, 2022
the philosophy of love
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And other scholars recommend books on love and relationships...
And the classic Platonic dialogue on love (Plato makes Socrates defend a Higher Love), The Symposium ("beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal")...
No philosophers here are issuing parking violation tickets
FYI, in case anyone overheard Ashley's query at the end of class Thursday: my colleague Dr. Bombardi, who teaches next door, assures me that he is not moonlighting with Traffic & Parking. It was a funny image, though, he's the last guy in the world I would ever expect to be working for The Man (if you don't count all those years when he was chair of our department).
A new Holocaust memoir
Survivor Tova Friedman's new memoir reflects on life as 'The Daughter of Auschwitz'...
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Friday, September 2, 2022
The oldest VR holodeck technology
…A shelf of books is a shelf of many lives and ideas and imaginations which the reader can enjoy whenever he wishes and as often as he wishes. Instead of experiencing just one life, the book-lover can experience hundreds or even thousands of lives. He can live any kind of adventure in the world. Books are his time machine into the past and also into the future. Books are his "transporter" by which he can beam instantly to any part of the universe and explore what he finds there. Books are an instrument by which he can become any person for a while—a man, a woman, a child, a general, a farmer, a detective, a king, a doctor, anyone. Great books are especially valuable because a great book often contains within its covers the wisdom of a man or woman's whole lifetime. But the true lover of books enjoys all kinds of books, even some nonsense now and then, because enjoying nonsense from others can teach us to also laugh at ourselves. A person who does not learn to laugh at his own problems and weaknesses and foolishness can never be a truly educated or a truly happy person. Also, probably the same thing could be said of a person who does not enjoy learning and growing all his life...
Gene Roddenberry
https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/i-consider-reading-the-greatest-bargain?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios
Gene Roddenberry
https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/i-consider-reading-the-greatest-bargain?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios
Pyrrho faces reality
It's hard to take the legend of Pyrrho seriously.
"Rather appropriately for a man who claimed to know nothing, little is known about him..."*
Pyrrho
First published Mon Aug 5, 2002; substantive revision Tue Oct 23, 2018
Pyrrho was the starting-point for a philosophical movement known as Pyrrhonism that flourished beginning several centuries after his own time. This later Pyrrhonism was one of the two major traditions of sceptical thought in the Greco-Roman world (the other being located in Plato’s Academy during much of the Hellenistic period). Perhaps the central question about Pyrrho is whether or to what extent he himself was a sceptic in the later Pyrrhonist mold. The later Pyrrhonists claimed inspiration from him; and, as we shall see, there is undeniably some basis for this. But it does not follow that Pyrrho’s philosophy was identical to that of this later movement, or even that the later Pyrrhonists thought that it was identical; the claims of indebtedness that are expressed by or attributed to members of the later Pyrrhonist tradition are broad and general in character (and in Sextus Empiricus’ case notably cautious—see Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.7), and do not in themselves point to any particular reconstruction of Pyrrho’s thought. It is necessary, therefore, to focus on the meager evidence bearing explicitly upon Pyrrho’s own ideas and attitudes. How we read this evidence will also, of course, affect our conception of Pyrrho’s relations with his own philosophical contemporaries and predecessors... (Stanford Encyclopedia, continues)
Questions SEP 6
Epicureans and Stoics, LH 4-5; FL 7-8, HWT 6-8
ALSO RECOMMENDED: De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) Cicero's dialogue between a Skeptic, a Stoic, and an Epicurean... & JMH's smart commentary on it in Doubt: A History*... LISTEN (Sep '21)... Natalie Haynes on Lucretius and Epicurus (BBC radio podcast)...LH
1. According to Epicurus, fear of death is based on what, and the best way to live is what? Are (or were) you afraid of death, or of dying? Are you more afraid of losing others?
2. How is the modern meaning of "epicurean" different from Epicurus's? Do you consider yourself epicurean in either sense of the term?
3. What famous 20th century philosopher echoed Epicurus's attitude towards death? Do you agree with him?
4. How did Epicurus respond to the idea of divine punishment in the afterlife? Is the hypothesis of a punitive and torturous afterlife something you take seriously, as a real possibility? Why or why not?
5. What was the Stoics' basic idea, and what was their aim? Are you generally stoical in life?
6. Why did Cicero think we shouldn't worry about dying? Is his approach less or more worrisome than the Epicureans'?
7. Why didn't Seneca consider life too short? Do you think you make efficient use of your time? How do you think you could do better?
2. How is the modern meaning of "epicurean" different from Epicurus's? Do you consider yourself epicurean in either sense of the term?
3. What famous 20th century philosopher echoed Epicurus's attitude towards death? Do you agree with him?
4. How did Epicurus respond to the idea of divine punishment in the afterlife? Is the hypothesis of a punitive and torturous afterlife something you take seriously, as a real possibility? Why or why not?
5. What was the Stoics' basic idea, and what was their aim? Are you generally stoical in life?
6. Why did Cicero think we shouldn't worry about dying? Is his approach less or more worrisome than the Epicureans'?
7. Why didn't Seneca consider life too short? Do you think you make efficient use of your time? How do you think you could do better?
8. What does the author say might be the cost of stoicism? Is it possible to be stoical but also appropriately compassionate, caring, sensitive to others' suffering, etc.?
HWT
1. Who were the three great founders of American pragmatism?
2. When does philosophy "recover itself" according to John Dewey, and what should it not doubt according to Charles S. Peirce?
3. What did Richard Rorty say pragmatists desire?
4. As earlier noted in Kurt Andersen's Fantasyland, Karl Rove said what about "reality"? What do you say about what he said?
FL
1. The people we call the American founders were what?
2. Who was Jonathan Edwards and how was he like Anne Hutchinson?
3. Who was John Wesley and what did he demand of his followers?
4. Who was George Whitefield and what did he "implant" in American Christianity?
5. What did Thomas Jefferson tell his nephew?
6. What was Immanuel Kant's "motto of Enlightenment"?
More discussion questions:
- Have you experienced the death of someone close to you? How did you handle it?
- Do you care about the lives of those who will survive you, after you've died? Is their continued existence an alternate (and possibly better) way of thinking about the concept of an "afterlife"?
- Do you consider Epicurus's disbelief in immortal souls a solution to the problem of dying, or an evasion of it? Do you find the thought of ultimate mortality consoling or mortifying?
- How do you know, or decide, which things you can change and which you can't?
- Were the Stoics right to say we can always control our attitude towards events, even if we can't control events themselves?
- Is it easier for you not to get "worked up" about small things you can't change (like the weather, or bad drivers) or large things (like presidential malfeasance and terrorist atrocites)? Should you be equally calm in the face of both?
- Is it possible to live like a Stoic without becoming cold, heartless, and inhumane?
- What do you think of when you hear the word "therapy"? Do you think philosophers can be good therapists?
- Do you think "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" is an appropriate goal in life? Can it be effectively pursued by those who shun "any direct involvement in public life"?
- If the motion of atoms explains everything, can we be free?
- Is it true that your private thoughts can never be "enslaved"?
Feb 1 (more on Epicureans & Stoics)
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