Saturday Night at the Oldies: Youth, Fast Cars, and Death

JamesWe are coming up on the 60th anniversary of the death of James Dean.  When the young  Dean crashed his low slung silver Porsche Spyder on a lonely California highway on September 30, 1955, he catapulted a couple of unknowns into the national spotlight.  One of them was Ernie Tripke, one of two California Highway Patrol officers who arrived at the scene.  He died  in 2010 at the age of 88.   But what ever happened to Donald Turnupseed, the driver who turned in front of the speeding Dean, having failed to see him coming?  His story is here. In exfoliation of the theme that "speed kills" I present the following for your listening pleasure:

Jan and Dean, Deadman's Curve (1964).  But it is not just boys who are drawn to speed, little old ladies have been known to put the pedal to the metal.  Case in point: The Little Old Lady From Pasadena.

Johnny Bond, Hot Rod Lincoln (1960)

James Dean, Public Service Announcement

James Dean, The 'Chicken' Scene

Beach Boys, Don't Worry Baby

Ike Turner/Jackie Brenston, Rocket 88 (1951).  The first R & R song?  With footage of Bettie Page.  'Footage' indeed.

Billy Joel, Only the Good Die Young

James_dean_died_here

Public Service Announcement.

Slow down, speed kills.  You'll die soon enough.   And stop tail-gating.  And turn off that bloody cell phone.  Or I kill you.

Like Aaachmed the Terrorist.  Trigger warning!  Not for liberals. 

 

 

 

Evidence and Actuality: A Modal Punch at W. K. Clifford

Clifford, W. K.W. K. Clifford is often quoted for his asseveration that "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."  Now one of my firmest beliefs is that I am an actual individual, not a merely possible individual. A second is my belief that while there is an infinity of possible worlds, there is exactly one actual world and that this world of me and my world mates is the world that happens to be actual.  (Think of the actual world as the total way things are, and of a merely possible world as a total way things might have been.  For a quick and dirty primer, see Some Theses on Possible Worlds.)

But not only do I have insufficient evidence for these two beliefs, it looks as if I have no evidence at all.  And yet I feel wholly entitled to my acceptance of them and in breach of no plausible ethics of belief, assuming there is such a subject as the ethics of belief.

Consider the following argument that I adapt from D. M. Armstrong, who borrowed it from Donald C. Williams:

1. Exactly one of the infinity of possible worlds is actual.

2. This world of me and my mates is a possible world.

Therefore, very probably,

3. This world of me and my mates is merely possible.

This is an inductive argument, but a very strong one.  While it does not necessitate its conclusion, it renders the conclusion exceedingly likely.  For if there is an infinity of worlds, how likely is it that mine is the lucky one?

And yet the conclusion is absurd, or to be precise: manifestly false.  Is it not perfectly obvious that this world of ours and everything in it is actual?  I am convinced that I am actual, and that all this stuff I am interacting with is actual.  I am sitting in an actual chair in an actual room which is lit by an actual sun, etc. 

But how do I know this?  What is my evidence?  There are no facts known to me that are better known than the fact that I am actual (that I actually exist).  So my evidence cannot consist of other facts.  Is it self-evident that I am actual?  You could say this, but how do I know, given the above argument, that my actuality is objectively self-evident as opposed to merely subjectively self-evident?  Subjective self-evidence is epistemically worthless, while objective self-evidence is not to be had in the teeth of the above argument.  No doubt I seem to myself to be actual.  But that subjective seeming does not get the length of objective self-evidence.  I now argue as follows:

4. If it is wrong to believe anything on insufficient evidence, then it is wrong to believe anything on no evidence.

5. I have no evidence that me and my world are actual.

6. It is not wrong to believe what is obviously true.

7. It is obviously true that I am actual.

Therefore, contra Clifford,

8.  There are some things it is not wrong to believe on insufficient evidence.

This is not a compelling argument, but it is a very powerful one.  Not compelling because the Cliffordian extremist could bite the bullet by denying (7).  He might say that the ethics of belief enjoins us to suspend belief on the question whether one is actual.  

Now this is psychologically impossible, for me anyway.  But apart from this impossibility, it is surely better known that I am actual than that Clifford's extreme thesis is true.

There are other obvious problems with the thesis.  Any tyro in philosophy should see right away that it is self-vitiating.  If it is wrong to believe anything on insufficient evidence, then it is wrong to believe Clifford's thesis on insufficient evidence.  But what conceivable evidence could one have for it?  None that I can see.  It is not only a normative claim, but one stuffed with universal quantifiers.  Good luck!  If you say that the thesis needn't be taken as applying to itself, then other problems will arise that you can work out for yourself.  Why do I have to do all the thinking?

Note also that if you take Clifford's thesis to heart you will have to suspend belief on all sorts of questions outside of religion, questions in ethics, politics, economics, climatology, etc., questions you have extremely firm opinions about.  The practical upshot, if one were consistent, would probably be a full retreat into Skeptic ataraxia.  At least until the political authorities came to put you in prison.  Then you would begin believing that some things are just and some are not, etc., and damn the insufficiency or nonexistence of the evidence for the contentious beliefs.

Our doxastic predicament is a bitch, ain't she?  Well, what do you want for a Cave?

The Decline and Fall of American Political Debate

A good article by John Daniel Davidson.  Excerpt:

For years it’s been remarked that we no longer have one American culture but many, that we’ve become Balkanized into a dizzying array of interests and identity groups separated by race, ethnicity, religion, and much else.

But we’re also separated, increasingly, by the news and commentary we read and watch. To the extent that it informs us of what’s going on, and why, and what to expect, our fragmentation and insularity has reached a dangerous tipping point: we no longer agree on what’s real.

Davidson illustrates his point by analysis of three recent examples: Ahmed Mohamed the Clock Maker; Carly Fiorina vs. Planned Parenthood; the invasion of illegals from Central America.

But what makes Davidson's article especially good is that he provides historical context by suggesting that the current mess had its origin in 1968 in a rancorous exchange between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal.

Buckley and Vidal met ten times over the course of the two conventions and spent most of their time attacking one another. Much of the debate footage is online, but the documentary plumbs the motivations of each man and the profound consequences of their televised battle. Of Vidal, Heritage Foundation historian Lee Edwards said, “I don’t think he was really interested in conducting a debate about the issues, or about the parties, or about the policies, or about the platforms of the two parties. What he wanted to do was to expose Bill Buckley.” In this Vidal succeeded, but not quite in the way he’d hoped.

The infamous moment came while they were debating the Vietnam War. Buckley compared opponents of the war to Nazi appeasers. Vidal, an opponent of the war, responded: “The only pro- or crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself.” Back then, calling someone a Nazi was taboo (unlike today, when it is mostly ridiculous). Buckley lost his temper. He leaned toward Vidal, shaking with anger, narrowed his eyes and said: “Now listen, you queer, quit calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.”

That moment, together with all the rancor and ad hominem attacks that had led up to it, inaugurated a new era in American media: the end of the old, sober centrism and the beginning of open ideological warfare. It didn’t happen overnight, but ABC’s success—the Buckley-Vidal debates propelled them to No. 1—didn’t go unnoticed, and on-air political debates between liberal and conservative pundits gradually became a regular feature of TV news programming: “The McLaughlin Group,” “Capital Gang,” “Crossfire,” and all the rest. The personal, vituperative tone of the Buckley-Vidal debates became the now-familiar register of political punditry.

We are now one step further into the cultural sewer:

Instead of shouting each other down the way they did on “Crossfire,” the new pundits are more apt to sneer and mock in the style of Jon Stewart. There’s little to be gained in arguing with an opponent but much to be gained by mocking him. What this means in practice is that we tend to seek out news and commentary that more or less reflects our own opinions back to us. Reading the news becomes an exercise in confirmation bias.

Related:  Pessimistic Thoughts on Political Discourse in America

A Case for Voluntary Segregation

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A Warning

Apropos of my last entry, a warning to those may be thinking of heading for the desert.  The following observation from a November 2009 post, "Demons of the Desert."

The desert fathers of old believed in demons because of their experiences in quest of the "narrow gate" that only few find. They sought to perfect themselves and so became involved as combatants in unseen warfare. They felt as if thwarted in their practices by opponents both malevolent and invisible. The moderns do not try to perfect themselves and so the demons leave them alone.

Distracted from your distractions, you may get more than you bargained for, phenomenologically, if not really.

My Time Away: Where I Was and What I Did

A reader sent the following about half-way through my digital fast and blogging hiatus.

. . . I was hoping that when you emerge from it you might have some practical wisdom on how you went about it. What has your daily schedule been like? Have you struggled with the nagging urge to check everything all the time? I have been thinking a lot about the issues you raised both in The Big Unplug post and in your post on Mass Media and Spiritual Deterioration . . . . Thanks for reading this and for the writing you have contributed over the years – it has truly been  signal amidst a great deal of noise.

How did I go about it?  I got as far away as practicable from the hype and hustle and hyperkineticism of the modern world.

From July 26th to August 30th I lived in a hermitage on the grounds of the most remote monastery in the Western hemisphere in a place of great natural beauty.  I have decided not to post any photographs or reveal the identities  of any interlocutors in keeping with the monastic spirit of silence, solitude and seclusion.

An average day went something like this.  Up at my usual time of 2:00 AM. (The monks arise at 3:30.) Instant coffee.  I drank no good coffee for five weeks as part of the self-imposed discipline.  Spiritual-philosophical reading until 3:00: Bible, Garrigou-Lagrange, Edith Stein, Theresa of Avila, et al.  Formal, seated meditation until 3:30 in the hermitage.  Then a 10-15 minute hike through a dark and spooky canyon to the oratory for Vigils at 4:00.  This is the first hour of the liturgia horarum, the liturgy of the hours.  It lasts one hour weekdays, one hour, twenty minutes on Sundays.  Some of the 'little hours' are as short as ten minutes.  The liturgy, chanted by the monks, is essentially psalmody with Christian elements interspersed.  After Vigils, a light breakfast outside the monks' refectory. Then back to the hermitage for study and writing.  I usually attended three of the seven hours per day and meditated on a 'regulation' Zen cushion and mat three times per day.  I gave myself the rule, "No pray, no eat."  So I attended Vigils before breakfast, Sext before the main meal, taken with the monks in the refectory, in silence of course, with one of the monk doing a reading, and Vespers before supper.

Did I struggle with the urge to check my 'devices' all the time?  Not at all.  I brought only a laptop computer for writing, but there was no wi-fi at the hermitage.  For that I had to hike to the monastery proper where I could tap into a weak wi-fi signal.  I did that a grand total of four times in five weeks, and only to check e-mail.  The only other device I had with me was a primitive cell phone which was useless to me in the remote location.

From my journal:

Here in the hermitage I stand naked before my own conscience.  Its penetrating power is enhanced by the exterior and interior silence.

No Escape.  And now it is night.  Alone in the hermitage which is itself alone and off by itself under stars undiminished by light pollution.  Dead silence.  No distractions of the usual sort: other people, pets, television, radio, Internet.  Just me, my books, and my past — and the spiritual dimension that the silence and solitude allow to approach.  The hour glass of my existence is running out, which is why I am here to repent of my sins and prepare for death.  The hour of death is the hour of truth when the masks fall, and evasions evaporate.

Modern man, distracted and diverted by endless self-referential yammering, firmly entrapped within the human horizon, is so deluded and lost as to be incapable of even raising the question, seriously, of whether anything lies beyond that stifling horizon.

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Strawson’s Vacuous Materialism

In Does Matter Think? I wrote:

. . . I don't dogmatically claim that matter could not have occult or hidden powers.  Maybe the meat between my ears does have the power to think.  But then that meat is not matter in any sense we currently understand.  And that is my point.  You can posit occult powers if you like, and pin your hopes on a future science that will lay them bare; but then you are going well beyond the empirical evidence and engaging in high-flying speculations . . . .

I now add that I am using 'thinking' in the broad Cartesian sense that covers all intentional or object-directed experiences; but I also hold that non-intentional experiences are unintelligible to us on the basis of current physics.  My thesis is that, given what we know about the physical world from current physics, it it unintelligible that the phenomena of mind, whether intentional or non-intentional, be wholly material in nature.

I grant that what is unintelligible to us might nevertheless be the case.  But if such-and-such is unintelligible to us, then that is a fairly good reason to believe that it is not possibly the case.  A theological example may help clarify the dialectical situation.  Christians believe that God became man.  Some will say that this is impossible in the strongest possible sense: logically impossible, i.e., in contravention of the Law of Non-Contradiction.  For what the doctrine implies is that one person has both human and divine attributes, that one person is both passible and impassible, omniscient and non-omnisicent, etc.  One response, a mysterian response, is to say that the doctrine of the Incarnation is true, and that therefore it is logically possible.  The fact, if it is fact, that the Incarnation is unintelligible to us — where 'unintelligible' means: not understandable as possibly true in a broadly logical sense –  does not show that the doctrine is impossible, but that it is a mystery: a true proposition that we, due to our limitations, cannot understand.

A materialist can make the same sort of move in one of two ways.  He could say that our understanding of matter at present does not allow us to understand how conscious experience could be wholly material in nature, or he can say that our understanding of matter will never allow us to understand how conscious experience could be wholly material in nature.  Either way, conscious experience, whether intentional or non-intentional, is wholly material in nature, and falls entirely within the subject-matter of physics, whether a future physics achievable by us, or a physics which, though not achievable by us, is perhaps achievable by organisms of a different constitution who study us.

If I understand Galen Strawson's view, it is the first.  Conscious experience is fully real but wholly material in nature despite the fact that on current physics we cannot account for its reality: we cannot understand how it is possible.   Here is a characteristic passage from Strawson: 

Serious materialists have to be outright realists about the experiential. So they are obliged to hold that experiential phenomena just are physical phenomena, although current physics cannot account for them.  As an acting materialist, I accept this, and assume that experiential phenomena are "based in" or "realized in" the brain (to stick to the human case).  But this assumption does not solve any problems for materialists.  Instead it obliges them to admit ignorance of the nature of the physical, to admit that they don't have a fully adequate idea of what the physical is, and hence of what the brain is.  ("The Experiential and the Non-Experiential" in Warner and Szubka, p. 77)

Strawson and I agree on two important points.  One is that what he calls experiential phenomena are as real as anything and cannot be eliminated or reduced to anything non-experiential.  The other is that there is no accounting for experiential items in terms of current physics.

In the Comments Vlastimil V. asked:

But, what exactly, according to you, is matter in the sense we currently understand? And does matter so conceived really exclude, a priori, that it thinks? About this the physicalist would love to hear more details.

It is matter as understood by current physics.  And yes, one can know a priori that matter so conceived cannot think or feel. Note that I am not saying that matter anyhow conceived can be known a priori to be such that it cannot think or feel.  I admit the very vague, very abstract, epistemic  (and perhaps only epistemic) possibility that God or some super-intelligent extraterrestrial or even human being far in the future could get to the point of understanding how an experiential item like a twinge of pain could be purely material or purely physical.  But this is really nothing more than an empty gesturing towards a 'possibility' that cannot be described except in the vaguest terms.  It is nothing but faith, hope, and hand-waving. 

An experiential item such as a twinge of pain or a rush of elation is essentially subjective; it is something whose appearing just is its reality.  For qualia, esse = percipi.  If I am told that someday items like this will be exhaustively understood from a third-person point of view as objects of physics, I have no idea what this means.  The notion strikes me as absurd.  We are being told in effect that what is essentially subjective will one day be exhaustively understood as both essentially subjective and wholly objective.  If you tell me that understanding in physics need not be objectifying understanding, I don't know what that means either.

As Strawson clearly appreciates, one cannot reduce a twinge of pain to a pattern of neuron firings, for such a reduction eliminates the what-it-is-like-ness  of the experience.  And so he inflates the concept of the physical to cover both the physical and the irreducibly mental.  But by doing this he drains the physical of definite meaning.  His materialism is a vacuous materialism.

Strawson frankly confesses, "I am by faith a materialist." (p. 69)  Given this faith, experiential items, precisely as experiential, must be wholly material in nature.  This faith engenders the hope that future science will unlock the secret.  Strawson must pin his hope on future science because of his clear recognition that experiential items are incomprehensible in terms of current physics.

But what do faith and hope have to do with sober inquiry?  It doesn't strike me as particularly  intellectually honest to insist that materialism just has to be true and to uphold it by widening the concept of the physical to embrace what is irreducibly mental.  It would be more honest just to admit that the mind-body problem is insoluble.

The Dawkins Hustle

Karl White sends us to this Spectator article and provides this summary:

For $85 a month, you get discounts on his merchandise, and the chance to meet ‘Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science personalities’. Obviously that’s not enough to meet the man himself. For that you pay $210 a month — or $5,000 a year — for the chance to attend an event where he will speak. . . . But the $85 a month just touches the hem of rationality. After the neophyte passes through the successively more expensive ‘Darwin Circle’ and then the ‘Evolution Circle’, he attains the innermost circle, where for $100,000 a year or more he gets to have a private breakfast or lunch with Richard Dawkins, and a reserved table at an invitation-only circle event with ‘Richard’ as well as ‘all the benefits listed above’, so he still gets a discount on his Richard Dawkins T-shirt saying ‘Religion — together we can find a cure.

The website suggests that donations of up to $500,000 a year will be accepted for the privilege of eating with him once a year: at this level of contribution you become a member of something called ‘The Magic of Reality Circle’.  I don’t think any irony is intended.

Just as religion is a hustle for some, anti-religion is for others.

Kolakowski on the Catholic Church

I hope the Church is not about to commit 'suicide by pope.'  Pope Francis might do well to meditate on the following truths from the pen of the agnostic philosopher, Leszek Kolakowski.  The following from an interview:

It would be silly, foolish, to object to the Church on the grounds that it is "traditionalist". The whole strength of the Church is that it is faithful to its tradition – otherwise, what is the Church for? If the Church is going to become a political party which merely adapts its beliefs to changing opinions, it can be safely dismissed altogether, because there are political parties doing such things. If the Church is there to sanctify and bless in advance every change in intellectual and moral fashion in our civilisation, then again – what is the Church for? The Church is strong because it has a traditional teaching, a spiritual kernel, which it considers its immutable essence. It cannot just yield to any pressure from people who think that whatever is in fashion at the present moment should immediately be adopted by the Church as its own teaching, whether in the field of political ideas or of daily life.

I think the Church is not only right in keeping its historically shaped, traditional identity. Its very role, its very mission on earth would become unclear if it did not do that. And so I would not be afraid at all, and I would not take it as an insult, that critics describe the Church as traditionalist or conservative.

There must be forces of conservatism in society, in spiritual life, by which I mean the forces of conservation. Without such forces, the entire fabric of society would fall apart.

[. . .]

In my view, there is no way in which Marxist teaching could be reconciled with Christianity. Marxism is anti-Christian, not contingently, not by accident, but in its very core. You cannot reconcile it.

There is no Christianity where no distinction is made between temporal and eternal values. There is no Christianity where [the word 'where' is wrong; should be UNLESS] one accepts that all earthly values, however important, however crucial to human life, are nevertheless secondary. What the Church is about essentially is the salvation of human souls, and the human soul is never reducible to social conditions.

There is an absolute value in the human person. The Church believes that the world – the social world, the physical world – is merely an expression of the divine, and as such it can only have instrumental or secondary value. Without this, there is no point in speaking about Christianity.

I don't want to hear the pope talk about  global warming or capitalism or any other topic he knows nothing about.  Let him stick to faith and morals.  Let him show that he understands that Christianity is not just another load of secular humanist claptrap.  Let him demonstrate that he understands Kolakowski's point that this world has only instrumental or secondary value.  Let him preach on the Last Things. 

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A Note on a Common Misunderstanding of Hypocrisy

I once heard a radio advertisement by a group promoting a "drug-free America." A male voice announces that he is a hypocrite because he demands that his children not do what he once did, namely, use illegal drugs. The idea behind the ad is that it is sometimes good to be a hypocrite.

Surely this ad demonstrates a misunderstanding of the concept of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is a moral defect. But one who preaches abstinence and is abstinent is morally praiseworthy regardless of what he did in his youth. Indeed, his change of behavior redounds to his moral credit.

A hypocrite is not someone who fails to live up to the ideals he espouses, but one who does not attempt to live up to the ideals he espouses. An adequate definition of hypocrisy must allow for moral failure. An adequate definition must also allow for moral change. One who did not attempt to live up to the ideals he now espouses cannot be called a hypocrite; the term applies to one who does not attempt to live up to the ideals he now espouses.

After Jeb Bush admitted to smoking marijuana during his prep school days, Rand Paul called him a  hypocrite on the ground that he now opposes what he once did. 

This accusation shows a failure on Paul's part to grasp the concept of hypocrisy.

Diana West on Dr. Ben Carson’s Muslim Comment

Here is what Diana West says verbatim:

A reporter just asked me if Dr. Ben Carson was correct to rule out a Muslim in the presidency. Below is my reply — the short version. No caliphate, no jihad, even. First things first.

Is this the first time the media have focused directly on such a question regarding Islam? It feels that way, which, in itself, is an astonishment.

***

Your question: Do I support Dr Carson’s comments on a Muslim in the presidency? 

Yes, I do, and resoundingly so — as I assume anyone familiar just with the intractable differences between the U.S. Constitution and the tenets of Islam would agree.

Let’s look at just a couple of the basic contradictions. 

1) We have freedom of religion under the Constitution. 

Under Islamic law (sharia), there is no freedom of religion. Jews and Christians live as “dhimmi," without equal rights (and with many burdens which may include the “jizya” tax and other humiliations).

Also, renouncing or leaving Islam  (“apostasy”) is a capital crime according to Islamic law (sharia). 

2) We have freedom of speech under the Constitution. 

Under Islamic law (sharia), there is no freedom of speech: indeed, criticizing Islam constitutes apostasy, which, again, is a capital crime in Islam.

To take another stunning example of the differences between Islamic and American law, women and non-Muslims {“dhimmi”) are not equal to Muslim men before Islamic law (sharia). 

Thus, if by “Muslim” we mean someone who has not renounced Islamic teachings and laws (sharia), we are describing a person who would be unable to fulfill his presidential oath “to preserve, protect and defend" the U.S. Constitution without simultaneously betraying his faith.

And, more importantly for the country, vice versa. It’s a little like considering the qualifications of a committed pacifist as leader of the armed services; or a vegan as steak-taster. The creed and the mission are diametrically opposed.

Dr. Carson is correct because the teachings of Islam, which define being a Muslim, are not compatible with the presidential oath of office. 

The simple fact is, Islam outlaws the very liberties the president is sworn to protect.

Exactly right.  Now what would prevent someone from understanding these simple truths?  One factor is political correctness which includes the notion that all religions say the same thing and that they are all equally conducive to human flourishing.  Obviously false on both counts.

Memo to Pope Francis: Capitalism is the Solution, not the Problem

I mean if he is serious about reducing poverty.  Stephanie Slade in a very good Reason article:

He has been called the "slum pope" and "a pope for the poor." And indeed, it's true that Pope Francis, leader to 1.3 billion Roman Catholics, speaks often of those in need. He's described the amount of poverty and inequality in the world as "a scandal" and implored the Church to fight what he sees as a "culture of exclusion."

Yet even as he calls for greater concern for the marginalized, he broadly and cavalierly condemns the market-driven economic development that has lifted a billion people out of extreme poverty within the lifetime of the typical millennial. A lack of understanding of even basic economic concepts has led one of the most influential and beloved human beings on the planet to decry free enterprise, opine that private property rights must not be treated as "inviolable," hold up as the ideal "cooperatives of small producers" over "economies of scale," accuse the Western world of "scandalous level[s] of consumption," and assert that we need "to think of containing growth by setting some reasonable limits."

Given his vast influence, which extends far beyond practicing Catholics, this type of rhetoric is deeply troubling. It's impossible to know how much of an impact his words are having on concrete policy decisions—but it's implausible to deny that when he calls for regulating and constraining the free markets and economic growth that alleviate truly crushing poverty, the world is listening. As a libertarian who is also a devout Roman Catholic, I'm afraid as well that statements like these from Pope Francis reinforce the mistaken notion that libertarianism and religion are fundamentally incompatible.

I'm a conservative, not a libertarian, but the above is basically on the right track.   Read it all.  When I say capitalism is the solution, I mean, of course, capitalism under the rule of law.  It is curious that neither capitalism nor the rule of law fare well under administrations like the current one in the USA.