Monday, 30th of December, 2002

Here’s an interesting paper by Tamler Sommers (who I’ve never heard of before, by the way) that challenges both the logical basis and the rhetorical power of various philosophical thought experiments aimed at disproving materialism. Assumptions about the concept of “logical possibility” and the related concept of “that which is conceivable” are fruitfully brought into question.

For the uninitiated, materialism in philosophy of mind is a position (one which I hold) that distinguishes itself from dualism in asserting that everything that is(*note), including minds and suchlike, is material. There is no mysterious mind-substance, nor some immaterial (yet existing) soul… There are also no ghosts, spirits, gods, etc. Materialism is often attacked via arguments about qualia, that is, the ineffable yet distinct sensations that we have in our conscious lives. The colour red, the sound of a major triad, and you can go on as you wish, all seem to have real properties which don’t seem explicable in terms of relationships between the elements of a physical system (namely our brain/nervous system/physical body).

Anyone who believes that humans have evolved from other animals, and previously from replicating chemical chains and simple molecules, ought to believe that we are nothing more than matter that has learned to think for itself (so to speak), but a lot of people find something deeply unsettling about being told that their minds are not immortal souls, that there isn’t something transcendent about consciousness and sensual experience. Various terribly clever thought experiments have been devised with the aim of undermining the assumptions of materialism, and I think that the essay I’ve linked to does a good job of explaining what’s wrong with those thought experiments. At some stage when it’s not the day before New Year’s Eve, I’ll add my own thoughts, in particular an argument aimed squarely at Frank Jackson’s “Mary” thought experiment (which will, of course, require telling you just what that little story is first! - and I shall do so with pleasure).

I’ve stuck this blog entry in mainly to remind me to do just that, because I’ve been formulating this particular philosophical argument for a while. It’s not exactly or even closely related to the argument in Sommers’ paper, but Sommers articulates very clearly a problem I’ve had in general with thought experiments for a long while. Sommers’ argument is particularly encouraging in that it strikes quite a blow at David Chalmers‘ “hard problem” argument against materialism.

*note: “Everything that is” is clearly a little problematic. How about abstract concepts? Numbers? Musical compositions (they’re obviously not the same as the paper-and-ink that they’re written down with)? How about “goodness”? “Fairness”? We can go on. However, I think the only people who would believe that there is a concrete embodiment of “goodness” would be religious fundamentalists of some sort… And mathematical Platonism isn’t that compelling even for many (or most) mathematicians. I think it’s fairly clear what I mean by “everything that is”, and I’m willing to debate how these abstractions fit into a materialist picture of the world.
*Additionally, I should point out that being a philosophical materialist in this sense by no means implies being a materialist in the political/economic sense of believing that all that matters is material things - and believing thus that possessions are in effect all that matters. This simply doesn’t follow at all. Of course, pain and suffering exist, of course aesthetic considerations are important and all these other higher-level things are important. This by no means contradicts my insistence that these things don’t have some transcendent existence independent of our materially-existing societies, and the physical people and objects in them, and the memories and personalities physically stored within those people, and finally through the biological and chemical levels to the brute physical existence of inconceivably huge amounts of subatomic particles arranged in inconceivably complicated ways…
*So there. Discuss.

As far as webpage conversion engines go, the Snoop Dogg Shizzolator is perhaps the best yet.

Wednesday, 25th of December, 2002

I am very proud of myself for managing to add a little “last updated” tag to my right-hand column, so you people can know how recently I’ve posted music or book reviews. Saves you from missing out if you neglect to check the “reading” section… It turned out to be very simple, when I thought about it, to get MovableType to list the date of the last entry in each category. Still, I’m proud of myself for doing it simply and elegantly… You’ll note I highlighted the dates with a pretty colour too, so it’s even harder to miss!

Joe Strummer’s dead. Dead at 50, suspected heart attack. What a shock.
Don’t know what else to say.

Monday, 23rd of December, 2002

I hereby apologise for the continuing delay in the new website going up. It’s at least partially my fault for not getting together the last bits of content that Richard needs… I’ll get there soon. I’ve updated the “Coming Up” section of the website at least.
And no wise-ass comments please. I’ve been busy.

Oh what an inventive title for a post that is! Yet strangely appropriate…

Last night Ange & I went to a preview showing of Michael Moore’s new film, Bowling for Columbine. It really is an extraordinary movie. We knew exactly what to expect, but it was still shocking, amusing and moving. We learned just how fucked up America really is, how cute and cool Canada seems to be, what an asshole Charlton Heston (president of the NRA) is, etc etc. I don’t have anything particuarly eloquent to say, but it’s an essential movie everyone should see at least once.
I will say, though, that both the movie site and Mike Moore’s site (both linked above) are choc full of information that ought to politicise any who read it them.

Amusingly, my friend Jordan (FourPlay’s manager) and his girlfriend were freakishly at the same showing, and not only that, but when Ange went to find a seat with her friend Nicole, she happened to sit in the same row as him… I was trying to buy popcorn but the queue was too long - so Jordan passed his huge carton along.

So I got home from work, Mum had marinated some lamb and I was to stir-fry, make sauce etc… And just as I lit the stove, the lights and everything went out. Went to check the fuses but I could already tell it was a blackout for the whole area…
So anyway, I tried to find out how long the blackout would go for. And because our fucking electricity has been privatised, I had to work out who supplied the electricty for our part of Sydney before I could work out the number to call - this in the dark of course… Joy! It was going to take 3 hours, so we got out the candles and I found a great torch with a strip-light on it, and made dinner by torchlight.
So we had YUMMY Mongolian lamb by candlelight (had to boil some rice on the stove too - thank the lawwwwwd for natural gas, hey) and all was fine. Makes ya think though - my laptop stayed on of course, having batteries, but the cable modem and router need electricity, so my net connection died straight away. Had to read by torchlight (I basically don’t watch TV, so I could still entertain myself!)
Oh, we love the modern world.
And we do. In all its fragility. What a web of contradictions!

;)

Thursday, 19th of December, 2002

I picked up this album while in Auckland NZ, and I must say it’s an amazing find. It was playing in this second-hand record store called the Record Exchange on K Rd (shortening for, er um… Karanghape Rd - it’s a famous strip that intersects the top of Queen St, the other main road in the city… hey, check it out - a road with a website!) Annnyway… So there’s this CD playing, a cool swing-meets-ska type number with biting lyrics. And the songs keep on being great, so I have to ask. There’s this CD with a cracked case, a duo I’ve never heard of, and the CD’s from 1989. But I look on the back of the insert, and there’s a face I can’t help recognizing: Neill Duncan, an amazing multi-instrumentalist who played sax and percussion in the Jews Brothers (New Zealand’s premiere (and indeed probably only) klezmer group) and lives now in Australia, married to the sister of a friend of Ange’s. Hm. Neill is truly amazing, and there he is playing in “The Six Volts”, backing most of the tracks on this album.

So I just had to buy it. It got left in amongst all my purchases in NZ & Melbourne (you just don’t want to know how much Ange & I got. Me in particular. Don’t ask) and I finally pulled it out recently. Fuck me dead, it’s just the most honest and exquisite collection of perfect folk-pop, and despite all this backlog I have to blog it up right away! Think Whitlams (but remember this came out in 1989 - Tim and the rest were perhaps doing the Olive Branch, maybe), think the Clouds (who were maybe recording the gorgeous Cloud Factory EP, just), think folky stuff from the ’60s, think Jacques Brel, think the Squirrel Nut Zippers if you like. All of this comes to mind. This is hugely evocative music, beautifully crafted, compact songs that grab you and make you giggle, or catch your nostalgia-neurons. Stories of small-town life and tragedy (think of Perth’s great Triffids, or Tim & Stevie’s Whitlams again), it’s bowled me over, all in just 10 songs (two “sides”, cute! Probably was released on vinyl too).

I’d tell you to go get it, but I suspect this is one CD that’d be impossible to find, especially in Australia. Just take my word for it. If I can contact them and ascertain it’s out of print, maybe I can do a burn or two, just because people need to hear this lovely unassuming stuff. YAY!!

Addendum: Now I’m home, I’ve found some links. Here we discover that Don McGlashan, one of the duo, is now in the Mutton Birds, a rather better-known NZ indie band. And there was a second album called (wait for it) More Songs from the Front Lawn… A judicious Google search (try songs from the front lawn) will probably turn up some opportunities for purchasing. Bonza mate, as they say in Aussieland.

I came across the extraordinary Cosma Shalizi on the net ages ago - via some links we shared or something, or maybe an email list. We had some brief email correspondences, and were much taken by how much we had in common. In his cute little Notebooks FAQ, for instance, check this out:

3.3 How come you read so much trashy genre fiction, and so little respectable mainstream literary fiction?

I mostly read either for instruction or escape. (Who was it who said “Only jailers object to escapism”?) I find genre-fiction much more likely to be intelligent, absorbing and well-written that the respectable rump of contemporary literature. (Exceptions are, of course, eagerly received.)

Do you know someone else who seems to concentrate on genre fiction and non-fiction? *grin* And for pretty much the same reasons…

Anyway, Graham drew my attention to a Notebook entry of Cosma’s on Intellectuals, in which he explores concepts of intellectualism and its relationship with the political left (where he, like I, would like to position himself). It’s interesting reading, bearing in mind that Cosma’s Notebook entries are exactly that, not-quite random thoughts, complete with sentence fragments and no concrete answers ;)

Anyway, what fun to re-discover a kindred spirit! I should write more random musings… I think I feel like I think this stuff all the time and it’s not worth scribbling down in half-eaten form. Ah well…

Tuesday, 17th of December, 2002

Gulf Wars - Episode II

I guess it’d be fun to try and do a best of 2002 list sometime soon. I shall put up some blog-reviews of some more music, and then start looking around. Oh what a year it was! There’ll be heaps.

Well there’s an interesting discussion starting up under the previous blog entry. Why don’t you join in?

Monday, 16th of December, 2002

Here’s a passionate article in defense of science in response to a book called Why Religion Matter. Being on kuro5hin.org, it’s followed Slashdot-style by a bunch or mostly unilluminating responses. Once I’ve properly read the article I’ll try and find the time to put up some of my own views on why Religion is not the answer to anything. I think a secular morality is hugely important, and being a lefty I think that a left-wing/Green politics that takes science seriously and understands it too is hugely important. cf: A Darwinian Left, by Peter Singer. Link forthcoming ;)

Saturday, 14th of December, 2002

We’ve all seen some of these before in unsolicited forwards, but anyway… I think some of the ones here are great:
link!

Thursday, 12th of December, 2002

Well here I am at work and I’ve just worked out how to stop my popup windows (for comments etc) from being unresizable in Mozilla/Netscape. For some Microscummy reason, they were resizable in Internet Exploder anyway, but I have just made them resizable in general I hope. I’d hate to impose my window sizes on my dear readers ;)