Month: July 2010

The ‘Stickiness’ Metric

'Stickiness' is a measure of the average length of time a reader remains at a website.  Personally, I am more impressed by the 'stickiness' of a site than its raw traffic (measured in unique visitors and page views).  Here at TaxProf Blog is  a ranking of the 'stickiest' law prof blogs.  (Via Legal Insurrection.) Ladder Man will no doubt gnash his teeth over the fact that Volokh Conspiracy is in the number one slot handily beating out his two blogs.  It comes as no surprise that Instapundit is first in traffic but last in 'stickiness.' 

Why is Ladder Man so-called?  Because he is a status-obsessed careerist, a  social climber, given  to ranking things.  You won't find much by way of content at his academic gossip site. 

A Cantorian Argument Why Possible Worlds Cannot be Maximally Consistent Sets of Propositions

A commenter in the 'Nothing' thread spoke of possible worlds as sets.  What follows is a reposting from 1 March 2009 which opposes that notion.

…………….

CANTOR_OCT20_G_290w_q30 In a recent comment, Peter Lupu bids us construe possible worlds as maximally consistent sets of propositions.  If this is right, then the actual world, which is of course one of the possible worlds,  is the maximally consistent set of true propositions.  But Cantor's Theorem implies that there cannot be a set of all true propositions. Therefore, Cantor's theorem implies that possible worlds cannot be maximally consistent sets of propositions.

1. Cantor's Theorem states that for any set S, the cardinality of the power set P(S) of S > the cardinality of S. The power set of a set S is the set whose elements (members) are all of S's subsets. Recall the difference between a member and a subset. The set {Socrates, Plato} has exactly two elements, neither of which is a set. Since neither is a set, neither is a subset of this or any set. {Socrates, Plato} has four subsets: the set itself, the null set, {Socrates}, {Plato}. Note that none of the four sets just listed are elements of {Socrates, Plato}. The power set of {Socrates, Plato}, then, is {{Socrates, Plato}, { }, {Socrates}, {Plato}}.

Is Rhode Island in Violation of the Supremacy Clause?

Rhode_island%20coin Rhode Island is already doing what Arizona is fixin' to do come the end of this month. As William A. Jacobson, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Cornell Law School,  reports over at Legal Insurrection, ". . . Rhode Island already has implemented the critical piece of the Arizona law [S.B. 1070], checking the immigration status of people stopped for traffic violations where there is a reasonable suspicion, and reporting all illegals to federal authorities for deportation."

Will Eric Holder and colleagues at the DOJ be going after Rhode Island?  If not, why not?  I'm not legally trained, but isn't there supposed to be something wrong with selective enforcement? Isn't there something objectionable about suing Arizona for a violation of the Supremacy Clause of the U. S. Constitution while turning a blind eye to Rhode Island, not to mention those sanctuary cities such as Los Angeles which are, because of their sanctuary laws, really in violation of the Clause in question?

One gets the impression that the reasons adduced in the complaint are just a smokescreen to hide venal and  'political' motives.  A need to curry favor with Hispanics in order to stay in office?  A desire to flood the country with potential Democrats so as to secure a permanent victory for the Left?

Actually, the latter is what this is all about to anyone astute enough to penetrate the thick veil of liberal-left mendacity.  Obama and the boys have no desire to control the border or solve the problem of illegal immigration. This is why they mouth and hide behind the vacuous phrase 'comprehensive immigation reform.'  Like 'change,' it means nothing definite.  To them, that is a virtue allowing as it does for maximal obfuscation.


Gallup Poll: Americans Oppose Federal Suit Against AZ Immigration Law

Here.  The notion that the Obama Justice Department would waste millions suing  a state for passing a law that mirrors the content of a Federal law is absurd on the face of it, especially when the same Justice Department turns a blind eye to sanctuary laws which actually do violate the Supremacy Clause; but also from a purely political standpoint the suit is idotic harming as it does the Dems' chances in the November elections and beyond.

By the way, did you see Sarah Palin on The O'Reilly Factor tonight?  Mr. Bill did a good job grilling her and exposing the shallowness of her thinking about illegal immigration. She has obviously given little thought to the problem of the 12 or so million illegals already in the country, many of whom stay out of trouble, have jobs, and have children who are U. S. citizens.

Terry Goddard

He is the Arizona Attorney General.  I just watched Greta van Susteren ask him repeatedly whether the DOJ should drop the inane lawsuit against the state of Arizona anent S. B. 1070, and he would not answer the question.  What a weasel! Of course, he's a Dem.  Perhaps the weasel should replace the jackass as the emblem of that sorry party.

Could There Have Been Just Nothing At All?

10_nichts No doubt, things exist. At least I exist, and that suffices to show that something exists. But could it have been the case that nothing ever existed? Actually, there is something; but is it possible that there have been nothing? Or is it rather the case that necessarily there is something? Is it not only actually the case that there is something, but also necessarily the case that there is something? I will argue that there could not have been nothing and that therefore necessarily there is something. (Image credit.)

My thesis, then, is that necessarily, something (at least one thing) exists.  I am using 'thing' as broadly as possible, to cover anything at all, of whatever category.  If I am right, then it is impossible that there have been nothing at all.  The type of modality in question is what is called 'broadly logical' or 'metaphysical.'

Note that Necessarily something exists does not entail Something necessarily exists.  I am not asserting the second proposition, but only the first.  The second says more than the first.  In the patois of possible worlds, the second says that there is some one thing that exists in every possible world, whereas the first says only that every possible world is such that there is something or other  in it.  The first proposition is consistent with the proposition that every being is contingent, while the second is not. So the first and second propositions are logically distinct and the first does not entail the second.  I am asserting only the first.

What I will be arguing, then, is not that there is a necessary being, some one being that exists in all possible worlds, but that every world has something or other in it: every possible circumstance or
situation is one in which something or other exists. That is, there is no possible world in which there is nothing at all.

You can think of merely possible worlds as maximal or total ways things might have been, and you can think of the actual world as the total way things are. My thesis is that there is no way things might have been such that nothing at all exists.  But if you are uncomfortable with the jargon of possible worlds, I can translate out of it and say, simply, that it is impossible that there have been, or be, nothing at all.  As a matter of metaphysical necessity, there must be something or other!

The content of my thesis now having been made clear, I  proceed to give a reductio ad absurdum argument for thinking it true.

1. Let S = Something exists and N = Nothing exists, and assume for reductio that N is possibly true.
2. If N is possibly true, then S, which is true, and known to be true, is only contingently true.
Therefore
3. There are possible worlds in which S is false and possible worlds in which S is true. ( From 2, by definition of 'contingently true')
4. In the worlds in which S is true, something exists. (Because if 'Something exists' is true, then something exists.)
5. In the worlds in which S is false, it is also the case that something exists, namely, S. (For an item cannot have a property unless it exists, and so S cannot have the property of being false unless S exists)
6. Every proposition is either true, or if not true, then false. (Bivalence)

Therefore
7. Every world has something in it, hence there is no world in which nothing exists.
Therefore
8. N is not possibly true, and necessarily something exists.

If you disagree with my conclusion, then you must either show that one or more premises are either false or not reasonably maintained, or that one or more inferences are invalid, of that  the argument rests on one or more dubious presuppositions.

And Yet Again on the God of the Philosophers: A Summing Up

This topic is generating some interest.  I 've gotten a good bit of e-mail on it.   Herewith, a summing-up by way of commentary on an e-mail I received.  Joshua Orsak writes:

I wanted to email you to tell you how once again you have elevated the medium of the Internet blog with your recent threads on "The God of the Philosophers" and "The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob". As a minister, a person interested in  mystical experience, AND with a keen interest and even passion for philosophy, I have always found myself perplexed why we have to bifurcate our heart-based and mind-based encounter with the world like that. Personally, I've always thought of philosophy (of religion) and religion as encountering the same Divine reality in different ways. In philosophy we study God as an object, in religion we encounter Him as a subject.

Continue reading “And Yet Again on the God of the Philosophers: A Summing Up”

The Empty Suit Suit: U.S. vs. Arizona

The ridiculous lawsuit the DOJ is bringing against Arizona could be called the 'empty suit suit' inasmuch as  behind it are a bunch of empty suits in line behind the Empty Suit in Chief. See Lawrence Auster, The Gravamen of the DOJ's Case Against Arizona.

It is nice to know that not everything in The Arizona Republic, the local rag of record, is liberal-left buncombe.  See Chuck Coughlin, Secure Border Can Provide Big Dividends.  But the journalistic crapweasels of The AZ Republic really do deserve our contempt.  How many weeks did it take them before they began correctly reporting the content of S.B. 1070?  Like Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano, and Obama, they apparently believed that one can speak responsibly about something about which one knows nothing.  But I do admit that the aforesaid journalistic crapweasels have cleaned up their act somewhat.  One wonders what goes on in the J-schools around the land.  I'm not sure I want to know.

While I'm on the illegal immigration topic, let me draw your attention to Heather Mac Donald's The Illegal Alien Crime Wave.  Here is but one of her astute observations:

But however pernicious in themselves, sanctuary rules are a symptom of a much broader disease: the nation’s near-total loss of control over immigration policy. Fifty years ago, immigration policy might have driven immigration numbers, but today the numbers drive policy. The nonstop increase of immigration is reshaping the language and the law to dissolve any distinction between legal and illegal aliens and, ultimately, the very idea of national borders.

That's certainly right: the numbers now drive the policy.  And it may be  too late to stop the illegal immigrant juggernaut which is of course aided and abetted by the intellectually irresponsible elision of the legal/illegal distinction by its  liberal-left enablers.  

Feds Sue Arizona Over S.B. 1070 and the Etymology of ‘Shyster’

Here is the full text of the complaint.  Dive in if you can stomach it.  It lends credence to Martin Luther's "Reason is a whore."  But these days, with the upgrading of prostitutes to 'sex workers,' the saying should go, 'Reason is a lawyer.'  Pay them enough, and they will argue anything.

The complaint alleges that S.B. 1070 violates the Supremacy Clause (article VI, paragraph 2) of the U. S. Constitution.  How's that for a legal stretch?  Said clause  reads as follows:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. U.S. Const. art. VI, Paragraph 2.

Under the Supremacy Clause, everyone must follow federal law in the face of conflicting state law. It has long been established that "a state statute is void to the extent that it actually conflicts with a valid federal statute" and that a conflict will be found either where compliance with both federal and state law is impossible or where the state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress. Edgar v. Mite Corp., 457 U.S. 624, 631 (1982).  

Since 1070 essentially mirrors Federal immigration law, I suppose the argument will not be that 1070 is  in conflict with Federal law but that its enforcement will somehow interfere with the enforcement of Federal law.  Good luck with that, government shysters. 

I've often wondered about the etymology of 'shyster.'  From German scheissen, to shit?  That would fit well with the old joke, "What is the difference between a lawyer and a bucket of shit?'  "The bucket." I am also put in mind of scheusslich: hideous, atrocious, abominable.  Turning to the 'shyster' entry in my Webster's, I read, "prob. fr. Scheuster fl. 1840 Am. attorney frequently rebuked in a New York court for pettifoggery." 

According to Robert Hendrickson, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, p. 659:

Shyster, an American slang term for a shady disreputable lawyer, is first recorded in 1846.  Various authorities list a real New York advocate as a possible source, but this theory has been disproved by Professor Gerald L. Cohen of the University of Missouri-Rolla, whose long paper on the  etymology I had the pleasure of reading. Shakespeare's moneylender Shylock has also been suggested, as has a racetrack form of the word shy, i.e., to be shy money when betting.  Some authorities trace shyster to the German Scheisse, "excrement," possibly through the word shicir, "a worthless person," but there is no absolute proof for any theory.

A little further research reveals that Professor Cohen's "long paper" is in fact a short book of 124 pages published in 1982 by Verlag Peter Lang.  See here for a review.  Cohen argues that the eponymous derivation from 'Scheuster' that I just cited from Webster's is a pseudo-etymology.  'Shyster' no more derives from 'Scheuster' than 'condom' from the fictious Dr. Condom.  Nor does it come from 'Shylock.' It turns out my hunch was right.  'Shyster' is from the German  Scheisser, one who defecates.

The estimable and erudite Dr. Michael Gilleland, self-styled antediluvian, bibliomaniac, and curmudgeon, who possesses an uncommonly lively interest in matters scatological, should find all of this interesting.  I see that the ASU library has a copy of Gerald Leonard Cohen's Origin of the Term "Shyster."  Within a few days it should be in my hands. 

 

Best Evidence of the Greatness of This Country

Keith Burgess-Jackson writes:

The best evidence of the greatness of this country is that people are clamoring to get into it. Almost nobody—including self-loathing progressives—wants to leave it.

It is also the best evidence of the failure of Communism and those socio-political schemes that are ever on the slouch toward Communism.   They needed walls to keep people in, we need walls to keep them out.  Hence the rank absurdity of the comparsion of a wall on our southern border to the Berlin Wall.  Now the leftists who make this comparison cannot be so obtuse as not to see its rank absurdity.  But they make it anyway because they will say or do anything to win.  They are out for power any way they can get it.

By the way, this lust for power by any means explains the fascination of leftists with Nietzsche, a fascination which would otherwise be difficult to explain given the German's social and political views.  Nietzsche's fundamental ontological thesis is that the world is the will to power.  Die Welt is der Wille zur Macht und nichts anders!  And because reality at its base and core is blind will to power without rhyme or reason, whose only goal is its own expansion, there is no place for truth.  Truth gets reduced, and in consequence of the reduction eliminated, in favor of ever-shifting perspectives of ever-changing power centers.  Perspectivism, accordingly, is Nietzsche's central epistemological doctrine.  It is of course incoherent and easily refuted.  But why should that matter to someone who does not care about truth in the first place?  Truth is a conservative notion since it points us to the way things ARE.  But progressives take their marching orders from Karl Marx: "The philosophers have variously interpreted the wotrld; but the point is to change it." (11th Thesis on Feuerbach.)  Die Philosophen haben die Welt verschieden  interpretiert; aber es kommt darauf an, sie zu veraendern.

What in these two central Nietzschean doctrines is there for a leftist not to love?  He finds sanction in them  both for his pursuit of power unchecked by any moral standard ("The end justifies the means") and for his propaganda and deceitfulness.   If there is no truth there is no limit to what he can say and do in pursuit of his ends.

This also explains the leftist's  belief in the indefinite malleability of man and society. If there is no way things are, no rerum natura, then there is no limit on what is possible.  And if there is no moral world order, then there is no check on what it is morally permissible to do. And so the leftist, foolish idealist that he is, embarks upon schemes the upshot of which  are of the sort documented in the Black Book of Communism.  But if you break 100 million eggs and still have no omelet, then you need to go back and check your premises.  Or, to paraphrase Aristotle, a little error in the beginning leads to a big bloody one in the end.

 

Meditation: Three Baby Steps

First, drive out all useless thoughts.  Then get rid of all useful but worldly thoughts.  Finally, achieve the cessation of all thoughts, including spiritual ones.  Now you are at the threshhold of meditation proper.  Unfortunately, a lifetime of work may not suffice to complete even these baby steps.  You may not even make it to the threshhold.  But if you can achieve even the first step, you will have done yourself a world of good.

The idea behind Step One is to cultivate the ability to suppress, at will, every useless, negative, weakening thought as soon as it arises. 

Amphiboly

Amphiboly is syntactic ambiguity.  "The foolish fear that God is dead."  This sentence is amphibolous because its ambiguity does not have a semantic origin in the multiplicity of meaning of any constituent word, but derives from the ambiguous way the words are put together.  On one reading, the construction is a sentence: 'The foolish/ fear that God is dead.'  On the other reading, it is not a sentence, does not express a compete thought, but is a sentence-fragment: ' The foolish fear/that God is dead.'

A good writer avoids ambiguity except when he intends it.