Responses 006 (May 2013)

#6 says: Can we know when to trust our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge? Consider history and one other area of knowledge.

It might seem obvious, but the question is not "Can we trust our emotions... ?" but "Can we know when to trust... ?" This is not as easy as it seems.

On one level, the "Can we know... ?" kind of question is somewhat facetiously answered all the time, by people who should know better, with "No, of course not, how can anyone know that they know anything?" On a slightly higher level, the point of asking a 'can I know' question is so that one can argue whether or not one has a reasonable chance of knowing something — it's not a 'will I know' question either.

To extend the idea further, let's ask this: "Can we know when to trust X in the case of Y?" It's a question about the reliability or validity of the approach, and there are two main ways of trying to answer it.

The first is inductive, a historical-legal approach based on the evidence of precedents and antecedents. Supposing that trusting X has always led to success or truth or knowledge in the case of Y. Then clearly we can know when to trust X — it's whenever Y is the case. But the problem of the inductive approach is that at any time, a 'black swan' might appear — a fluke that happens and shows that prior performance is no guarantee of future success. How much can you trust something based on its history? Does the 100% reliability of the past continue into the future?

The second is deductive, a philosophical-logical approach based on reasoning. If Y is such that Y is susceptible to success when using X, then we can always trust X based on the nature of Y. Then we clearly can also know when to trust X — it's whenever Y (or something with the X-related properties of Y) occurs. However, the problem of the deductive approach is that it depends on our first assumption or axiom being true. If we think Y is such, but it isn't, then all our subsequent reasoning is flawed. How much can you trust something based on logical conclusions that are worked out based on an assertion that might not be valid?

Now let's consider 'pursuit of knowledge... history and one other AOK'.

History can be defined as the construction of a narrative based on verifiable events in generally chronological order, so as to explain the present in the light of the past. History should make no attempt to predict the future; it is a sense-making exercise based on things that have already happened and are far enough away that we can begin to gather a fairly comprehensive collection of evidence concerning those things. (You can probably find useful definitions of other AOKs elsewhere in this blog.)

So how would we know when to trust our emotions when in the pursuit of historical knowledge? Clearly, the evidence must be verified by sense and reason to a large extent. But the pursuit of historical knowledge consists of different types of evidence: witnesses and reports, archaeological finds, ideas from the other human sciences (sociology, anthropology etc) about how humans normally behave.

Some of those kinds of evidence require us as humans to respond as humans — to try to understand by empathy and emotion why people did things. This is what emotion as a way of knowing is all about — it is the body's complex physiological and biochemical response to incoming material, giving us a sense of how other humans might feel about it and thus altering or forming our psychological perspective on it. We then interpret what we see in the light of what we feel. In this way, the history we then construct therefore makes more sense to our readers and may be closer to a true explanation of why humans did something. How do we decide WHEN to trust emotion in this way? If we can decide at all, that's the answer to part of the original question.

And that's the beginning of the argument you need to construct. Enjoy!

Velikovsky Redux

In Steven Shapin's review of The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe by Michael Gordin (LRB Vol 34, No 21, 35-38, 8 Nov 2012), he concludes:

A rule of thumb for sound inference has always been that if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. But there’s a corollary: if it struts around the barnyard loudly protesting that it’s a duck, that it possesses the very essence of duckness, that it’s more authentically a duck than all those other orange-billed, web-footed, swimming fowl, then you’ve got a right to be suspicious: this duck may be a quack.

I think this is great advice for students attempting to collar a few books, collate the ideas therein, and collectivize them into an extended essay or two. Beware the self-proclaimed big ideas that claim to unify or to apotheosize existing ideas. And remember Velikovsky, who was probably better-read than you, had greater scope than you — and was likely more of a duck than you.

Scotland the Brave

It struck me, just as it must have struck Sir Alex of footballing fame, that Scotland might legitimately be a contender for the country that did most to make a modern world. Not Greece, not India or China, those pillars of the human imaginary of the ancient world, but Scotland — a country on the periphery of the ages of man.

I will only mention a few names here, from a pantheon of noble pioneers longer than the list of the Greeks at Troy:

Adam Smith (economic philosophy), James Watt (effective steam engine), James Clerk Maxwell (theory of electromagnetism), Alexander Graham Bell (telephone), Alexander Fleming (penicillin), John Napier (logarithms), John Baird (television), John McAdam (tarred roads), John Shepherd-Barron (auto-teller machines), William Thomson (thermodynamics — he's better known as Lord Kelvin)...

These are only the engineers and scientists (of which there are a veritable and verifiable host). The explorers and other seekers after knowledge whom I've not named have done disproportionately much more for such a geographically small nation.

So yes, maybe Scotland.

Family Fortunes

Wealth does not redistribute itself naturally. It behaves like water (hence Newton referring to it as 'currency') and it can be transferred within tight groups that make more of it by rent-seeking and bulk-gambling behaviours. The only things that really redistribute wealth are onerous taxation, mass death, and bloody revolution.

These are the lessons of history.

It's therefore very hard to see how much redistribution will occur as a result of NOT doing any of these things. But modern ethical thinking is such that these things are unthinkable. Hence, modern ethical thought supports (although it does not condone) continued inequity and inequality in terms of wealth distribution.

There are other mostly-theoretical redistributors with limited historical validity, of course.

One such is a strong moral reform campaign premised on individual desire to give away one's wealth to those who are poor. It can happen. But there are few who will succumb to this admirable lust.

This is why Jesus said, "The poor you will have with you always."

Of late, I've seen many atheists or anti-religionists tell off theists and religionists for not practising their own preaching and solving the problems of the world. Well, two thoughts here. One: 'practise what you preach' cuts both ways. Two: what prevents the former class of discussants from nicking the loot of the latter? If they stand to profit from it, that's a clear conflict of interest — and if they want to, this won't stop them either.

Here are some old thoughts on inequality.

The Atlantean Myth (Part V): The Kobold's Tale

The Kobold just passed on his gun-carriage way, old beyond his years, pleasant beyond his early nature, just another nonagenarian gone to seed and dust. So little of his story is known, and yet so much. His was a contrary nature, and a sharp-edged one.

He was there at the beginnings of the Third Age; it was he who held the Hammer of Might as the Thunderer was confirmed in place as the First Among Equals. And few noticed who sat in the chair, who deputised, who querulously grumbled about the cold and yet wielded colder powers. For the Kobold was master of iron and steel, as are most of his kind, and his ways were those of the dark arts and the academic life.

My revered ancestors worked with the Kobold. Like a lizard, he would sun himself cold-bloodedly on the metaphorical sundial or lawn and pronounce judgement on those he felt were lacking. In those early days, he was the main purger of the heretics, the heterodox, the insufficiently rigorous. Indeed, my near ancestor was nearly purged himself, save for the intervention of the Gnome.

The Kobold was steel to Golden Mountain's concrete, was iron to Black Diamond's diplomatic charm. His was not the art of compromise, although in later days he mellowed. He railed against the Thunderer's excesses, as all smiths will against the warlords who use their tools.

Like a Lear, he let drop the reins of power, and found no leverage to take them back. He had seen the Thunderer dissolve in tears, he had put courage into the heart of the Gnome. But all that was taken from him, and he descended into obscurity, scattered moments and a wheelchair.

I used to greet him, mornings or evenings. He had become gracious, relaxed as he contemplated the end of a story that had dragged on too long. Very few caught any glimpse of the dragon, the iron chancellor, who had wielded the sword and lash over the temples of the Book in the bad old days. I remember him both ways. But morning and evening pass, and thus the day is done.

=====

Note: For other mythic discursions into this modern Atlantis, see here. Yes, some of you might have noticed, this was Toh's day.

Steve Jobs (1955-2011) — Coda to the 20th Century

Historian Eric Hobsbawm insisted that the period 1789-1914 be called the 'long 19th century', spanning the era between the French Revolution and the Great War. It's a Eurocentric perspective; I would have included the American Revolution and made it 1776-1914. Perhaps he felt a 40-year extension to be too much.

Hobsbawm then went on to compound his assertion by saying that the period 1914-1991 should be called the 'short 20th century', spanning the era between the start of the Great War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He thus cleverly made two centuries out of the period 1789-1991, evening things out a bit.

I think he was wrong, though. The 20th century perhaps indeed began with the machine gun and the mass slaughters of the Great War. It certainly could have begun with the death of Victoria, the Queen and Empress who had presided over the greatest empire of modern times and the greatest advances in human enterprise and technology in history at that time. The antagonistic royals of the Great War were all her offspring (see this article).

But the breaking-up of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (how many still remember that dread acronym?) was a comparatively bloodless end-of-history that proved not to be any such end. Instead, the growing chaos just continued to grow. The one thing that held humanity together was increasing communication capacity, and the increasing ubiquity of widespread and speedy data transmission.

Steve Jobs was a prophet of this change. In a 1985 Playboy interview, he said, "The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it into a nationwide communications network. We're just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people — as remarkable as the telephone."

He was right. And he spent his life ramming this vision artistically into the established wisdom of the world. Of all those who made and lost computer fortunes and established computer legacies, his was the most important: he was the Doctor Strangelove who taught us how to stop worrying and learn to love computers. He made them accessible, not just cheap plastic tools of high utility in the workplace, but companions and associates for the burgeoning chaos of the new millennium.

(I am quite certain that those who show their disdain for Apple's pretty machines as opposed to more robust and powerful systems are subconsciously working out their misplaced anger that so much power could be given to people who don't know anything about computer programming or have not 'earned' such power. These angry people might be Linux users, for example. Or those who assemble their own machines. The same people will probably vilify and/or disparage Jobs after his death.)

Steve Jobs's last 20 years, from 1991 to 2011, were the missing coda of Hobsbawm's 'short 20th century'. In those years, he spawned the new Apple way that forced competitors and colleagues to dance to his rhythm. For many, it was hard to decide if that rhythm was more like Chesterton's drumming "...in the hills half-heard, where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred" or the ominous thrill of Auden's drumming. But it was an unmistakable sound.

It was the sound of one aspect of the future. Not for us the flying cars and colonisation of space, but the future which meant tricorders and thinking machines. Jobs made us give names to our electronic aides, much as Asimov did for his positronic androids. Jobs did more than any other lord of the electronic realm to put power in our pockets and data in our hands.

That is why 2011 is a good year for the dying tail of the 20th century. Steven Paul Jobs is dead, and the way ahead transits with him into uncertainty.

Goodbye, Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

And also, goodbye to the 20th century that has finally passed on a decade after it was scheduled to go. But I'll get to that in a while.

Meanwhile, goodbye, Steven P Jobs. I was a personal friend of his computers; more accurately, a friend of his personal computers. I grew up in an age where the Apple icon was valued as trend-setting, even if sometimes mocked and sometimes treated like a soon-to-be-dead loony relative in the family of information technology. I never knew Mr Jobs as much; he was just the god behind the machine.

My school's computer room had some of those Apple machines. It also had NEC PCs and Windows-running clones. To me, the Apples (the ][, ][+ and ][ europlus) with their boxy monitors were more fascinating than the high-resolution NEC monsters.

It was the triumph of my youth when my first Apple finally came home, a ][e which I had cajoled my parents into buying. I cannot remember exactly what relatively lunatic arguments were marshalled before the duumvirate of my skeptical parents, but they carried the day with minor provisions and I (and my siblings) had the computer I (we) wanted.

And so began the cavalcade of Apple machines — Ancient Eric, Adam, Calvin, Percy, Judith, Cami, Mackie, Nemo... they all had names. As with cats, dogs or horses, you had to name your faithful servants and companions. It was a sign of affection, something you didn't show to most of your other tools.

I raise a first glass to the memory of Steven Paul Jobs who made us name our machines as friends. In doing this, he was a direct heir of Isaac Asimov — and Jobs had to do without the advantage of the android form.

As the first glass falls into the fireplace, its last fuel scattering into green flames, I raise a second glass. Mr Jobs made us believe in the personal computer, not just the PC. But he also made us believe in the computer as a consumer necessity (or at least, object-of-desire), not just a focus for geekish techno-shamanism.

My third glass is for practicality. My Apple machines last. Not one has failed me except by old age; all have lived at least five years. I type this on a PowerBook G4 which is about 8 years old, and still my main machine and desktop companion.

Mourning is not a Jobsian kind of phenomenon. This is an Irish wake for an Armenian boy who turned out to be genetically Syrian/German. And here, abruptly terminated, and with many things unsaid, I say goodbye to Steve Jobs and go on to the death of the 20th century.

The century just past was Steve's century as well as the century of much that defines our world. We split the atom, broke the speed of sound, reached the moon, made thinking machines and machine guns. It was the age of machines; the British invented the first commercial mainframe computer (Ferranti, 1951), the first commercial aircraft (Comet, 1952), the first commercial nuclear power station (Colney Hatch, 1956) and the first commercial supersonic jet (Concorde, 1976) — and the Americans and Russians raced ahead to get us into space and to the moon.

Along the way, we learnt the use of non-ferrous metals in construction and engineering — especially aluminium and titanium; we learnt to use plastics, those ubiquitous offshoots of the petrochemical industry; we mass-produced food and food packaging. Behind the rise of the information age were less obvious heroes. And one of those heroes was the driven and perceptive Steve Jobs. (How many glasses so far? Better start on the coffee soon. A man's gotta work.)

I sense that we are teetering now on the cusp of revolution, but with a lot less fire in the hole and passion in the heart. This is not the age of big projects, as financial pessimism damps the clamour of progress. The space shuttle has returned to Earth. Mr Jobs has died.

Life will go on. But the mood at present is a post-20th century one. We walk into a world quantised and bereft of meaning by that quantisation. How fortunate are we who are in the world but not of it!

Goodbye, Steven Paul Jobs. You left the world a much more colourful and interesting place. You didn't define your age, but you gave it a brighter and sharper definition. Rest in peace. May you find yourself in the Isle of Apples, where also lie Arthur and other symbols of human hope.

Figureheads

It's always bemused me when people think of figureheads as something or someone that is 'only for show'. A hundred years before the word first came to mean 'leader without real authority', it meant the ornament at the prow of the ship which symbolised the mission of its crew, their deity or source of moral guidance. It was the pre-literate version of a mission statement.

Even before this, sailors have always had superstitions about their figureheads. It was always unlucky to change one if the old one had not been lost to natural causes. It always had to be something the crew felt comfortable with, and a captain who chose an unlucky or ill-omened figurehead was not one that a seasoned crew would want to sail with.

If I had had to choose a figurehead in those pre-literate days, I'd choose one which gave my ship a sense of dignity, of beneficial omen, and of calm guidance. The reason that these ship ornaments were called figureheads is because, at the very least, such ornaments bore heads with clearly marked eyes to find the way through the dread and danger of the wine-dark sea.

The Anglo-Chinese State

I was recently informed that I had been working for the East India Company for the last few years. It was not as much of a shock as you might think. 'John Company' has been, in its necromantic post-mortem days, very much a part of life in the city at the Gate of the Dragon's Teeth.

Today, I head towards yet another reunion of sorts. This time, I intersect with the wings of the raptor, the third and often unmentioned element of the Wyvern heritage. That omission is sad, because without those wings, often said to resemble the soaring excellence of the Spirit of God, the Mission would not have begun in 1885.

And here, we begin on yet another mission. It will be most exciting. Truly, when God kicks you out of the nest, it is because He wants you to fly.

Off to See the Wizard

Tomorrow afternoon I am off to see the Wizard in the Palace. I hear that we are launching a book which is already in the bookstores. This is the 'lite', coffee-table-ish, version of the story of the Gnome. And it will, I suppose, have a 'lite', coffee-table-ish, launch at tea in the Palace.

It amazes me, thinking about the story behind this story's publication, that we have survived as long as we have while evolving as a state through such peculiar and unnatural processes. And the people involved! Oh dear, the people involved...

Historical Events

An event is something that erupts, that vents like a gust of wind. That is the Latin sense.

Meanwhile, I have been writing history, conscientiously sifting through 125 years of records and clippings, pictures and books. And yet, there always seems to be a new and interesting chapter in view. Sometimes, you marvel at what is yet to come; always, you trust that the best is yet to be.

There have been times though when, with the Psalmist, one cries out, "How long, O Lord?"

And yet, one must be an historian, and chronicle events and try to interpret them as best as one can. Life is not as bad as it seems; sometimes it can be very good.

A Hazy Shade

"Look around, the leaves are brown now; and the sky's a hazy shade of winter," says the old Simon & Garfunkel song. It's an autumnal song, and somewhat unsuitable for the day just past, which was my brother's 40th birthday.

One of the main points of the conversation over dinner was his account of how his new students were unable to say why, precisely, a 'non-traditional security threat' was 'non-traditional'. After all, as he pointed out, piracy and plagues are historically not uncommon.

I laughed and said, "The main thing is that you can't use traditional agencies of state, soldiers and police, to deal with these things, right?"

"Exactly!" he boomed. "But how is it that these young people can't get it?"

That's the problem with the current educational system. Having holy scriptures in the form of the 'Dominant Narrative' (which sounds like The Lord's Prayer, etymologically) of local history, and the 'Ten-Year Series' (which sounds like an analogue of the Decalogue), students don't know things and don't think about ideas that fall outside the spotlit magic circles of their learning. They aren't academics, but pragmatics — doers who do thinking, rather than think.

Of course, there are always exceptions. But these prove the rule (which means they challenge the rule, not that they provide evidence that the rule exists), and in a city-state with a dominant rule, such proving is a perilous task; the tendency to essay such a task is often scythed down by well-meaning friends, relatives and teachers.

Perhaps this year signals a new start. Perhaps those who prove the rule will show it is not proof against criticism. And perhaps we will once again have learners who learn, and thinkers who think.

Otherwise, "Look around, the leaves are brown; there's a patch of snow on the ground."

The True History of the RFC Triangle

It is always with amused but slightly sour displeasure that I read of the 'dominant narrative' of the founding of the city-state that sits at the tip of the Kra Peninsula. It is dominant only because it serves certain entrenched purposes for a certain elite population, and not because it is the solid historical bedrock that it is touted to be.

Here then, I shall provide links which the uninformed can access so as to enhance their range of historical perspectives. Let me take you to a gateway between two oceans, and I shall introduce you to three men of Britain: R, F and C.

Here is the history of R: [1] [2] [3] [4]

Here is the history of F: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Here is the history of C: [1] [2] [3] [4]

Examine the sources, O reader. And try, if you will, to answer the question: Who is the founder of that which is founded? Or does the task confound?

Re-Entry (Part II)

I've come to realise that perhaps a lot of people who might read this have no idea why it should describe a re-entry. Was there an exit that was missed somehow, like the one you miss on an expressway and notice too late that you have missed?

No, not quite. The mission launch was described in five parts: [we] [were] [good] [to] [go]. The point which apparently caused the Grand Inquisitor to foam at the mouth was this one. My last day in residence was here. All of that is ancient history, now.

Yesterday, I walked into a strangely-familiar conference room at Lady Wisdom's home. It had been the venue of an aborted launch, many years ago. I remembered being assistant mission controller for that event, and was pleased to see some also-familiar faces looking positive this time round.

I have high hopes for this old-new high frontier, though. Things are fresher, perspectives clearer. We've all learned much from previous failures, even those who won't admit to them. Perhaps the lessons I have brought home from the high frontier might be useful. When they recovered my re-entry module from the red ocean, what made me glad was the idea that the data would finally be put to good use.

There was a lot of ground to cover. I think I covered it well, but I know I could have done better. Nevertheless, we're on the way to yet another launch, with God to guide the way. I trust that as long as we remember it is all for the children, in the service of heaven and to the glory of the Highest, it will succeed.

History of Religion

Today I was watching a young person sidetrack a discussion on religion by pointing out the uses to which it could be put (enthusing an army, controlling the people, directing the social order etc). It was amusing in its own way.

But the main thing about religions is that they are the formal structures set up once the fluid narrative of life has begun to set. Just as young trees develop woody structures and young animals develop hard bones, so too does the protoplasm of human experience develop as attempts at some sort of rigour are made.

For a book to be the word of a god, symbolic representation of words must be invented. Writing and the reading of what is written must be developed. The oral tradition must become ossified, fixed as canon. And so on.

Much of this has nothing to do with the uses to which religion might subsequently be put. In fact, one might argue that you need a long lead time, historically speaking, before any religion can be used on the scale of armies, city-states and social movements.

That's not to say, on the other hand, that such uses never existed. The historical evidence tells us that such use has been plentiful and pervasive.

Religion can be self-policing, but about 80% of it is policed badly and leads to effects other than intended. I estimate this is true because of the amount of time spent in religious texts admonishing the faithful against such practices; obviously, these must have been a problem even then, right at the point of codification!

The problem is that deep probing shows that all human thinking tends to act this way, and even more so if it is democratic or scientific. That's because adherents of such otherwise rational philosophies can hide behind two potent defences: the defence of the majority and the defence of the reasonable.

After all, everyone knows that what the majority agrees to must be good, right? Hoho... modern religiosity.

Wheelruts

On the home page of the Online Etymology Dictionary, which many of you will know I explore with alarming frequency, is found this statement: "This is a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English. Etymologies are not definitions; they're explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago."

One of the problems I've found with young people (by which I mean people aged 25 or so and below) arises from the fact that they were born in the mid-1980s or later, were tiny tots as 9 Nov 1989 passed by with a whimper and a bang, and conveniently missed most or all of the excitement of the Cold War, which they read as historical stuff akin to the rise of Mesopotamian city-states. The problem is that they are thoroughly post-modern.

They think of states as primitive geographical features that somehow arose with the Treaty of Westphalia; they think of societies as pre-Marxist, Marxist and post-Marxist; they have no idea what democracy really is, or why republicanism ought (but isn't) to be a more civilised (Latin) or politic (Greek) form of it. This leads to ludicrous arguments in which they argue that globalisation will destroy the very idea of statehood simply because the physical barriers are easily overcome by technology.

That's a bit like joining Aldous Huxley in predicting that the very idea of parenthood will be destroyed simply because the physical acts of becoming a parent and then parenting are easily overcome by technology. It can be imagined, but it isn't likely unless humans overcome their natures and become post-humans.

Will that happen? Perhaps, it might. But my sincere belief is that if we ever become post-humans of the kind our ancestors might have worshipped, armed with sub-attotechnology and wielding the raw forces of coloured gravitonics and suchlike, we will only be like the gods of ancient Assyria and Achaia and other such old powers.

We will just be humans writ large and strange (or small and stranger), but still humans, attempting to bootstrap our way out of humanity and still being tightly shoelaced via leather to our soles. Or souls, whichever.

In tracing our paths to the stars and the uttermost bounds (or boundlessnessess) of the universe, all we will be doing is extending the wheelruts of a cart drawn by aa tired ox through a dusty, sparsely grassy, valley in the high summer of Mesopotamian hills long gone.

Secret Histories

Powers: Secret Histories is of course the title of John Berlyne's most excellent bibliography of Tim Powers's complete works. It is hard to get copies these days, so if you find one, hang on to it.

The whole idea of secret histories seems to date back at least to the Secret History of the 6th-century historian Procopius, a rather explicit account of the reign of Justinian Imperator. Procopius was, by accident of history, the last major historian of the ancient world.

Last night I sat in the lofty atmosphere of a rooftop reunion and absorbed the details of more secret history. We live in an age of hugely entangled information networks. So, once it is known that a certain history exists, it becomes hard to keep it secret. And that is what has happened to a specific secret history that has lain hidden in the depths of a certain scholastic institution.

It appears that some possibilities of human behaviour seem so at odds with conservative ideas of human behaviour that they become unbelievable. This is not an indictment of what liberals call a 'conservative mindset'. Rather, it is a fact that human thinking is inherently conservative. When things happen to challenge those conceptions, cognitive dissonance is produced; when that is resolved, learning occurs.

So it is with secret histories. From morning to night, I learnt many things which fit well with my own carefully compiled institutional history. The term 'principal researcher' has taken on a new meaning, these days.

But some will argue, why keep secret histories? Why not just bury the facts or expose them all?

The thing about deadly facts (such as how to make a doomsday device) is that to keep them safe but not forgotten is better than to have them forgotten and accidentally misused, or to have them widely disseminated and deliberately abused.

The behaviours of individuals may taint an institution, but that should not always detract significantly from the reputation of that institution. As a wise man once said, "All houses have privies, but that does not make the houses privies."

We keep the secret places secret and honoured, because that is what some things are meant to be. By analogy with the human body, most humans do not insist that there are only two states of being: fully covered or fully exposed. Most of us resort to partial coverings, and many of us cover up the same places.

Now all that remains to be done is to clear up the mess that has been left behind. Of which, more will be made clear in the days ahead.

Man Is Born To Trouble

Given that every one of us experiences life in a different way, is it not strange that there are strong commonalities between us all? We can discuss so much, having experienced so little of it in common.

It is the same with states and cities, countries and domains. We think there are bases for comparison, and that what works for the goose will work for the gander. And yet each place has its own history; what is acceptable in one place might not work at all somewhere else.

Still, humans hanker after what they never had, strive to obtain things that others have, make comparisons which seem in abstract useful but in practice are not at all. They do this regardless of historical or social or geographical context?

In the last few days, people have compared Atlantis to Cuba — after all, both are islands, are they not? — and to New York — both are cities, are they not? — and to Cambridge — both were once small swampy places, no?

Crazy, this urge to compare what cannot be compared. And yet, do we not assume there must be universal standards? For example, from a moral perspective, we think killing is bad. Yet, for many reasons, every society will kill given the right conditions. Individuals might protest this, but there is always some line; perhaps only the Jains will try their best not to kill anything at all.

The countries that protest the death penalty the most seem to have the fewest scruples when it comes to gratuitously unleashing engines of death on other nations. Perhaps only the Scandinavians seem virtuous in this regard, in recent history. And yet, they too were once feared — we get 'berserker' and 'viking' from those northern lands after all.

The idea is that humanity has left its long adolescence and now rises towards moral adulthood. Many people have said this, in many places. Yet, is this possible at all? Or is it only something that we believe because it is more pleasant to believe it?

These questions trouble me. I know I can kill. I exterminate insects without qualms, and rub my hands in alcoholic gels to kill germs. In a world where otherwise sane people relegate humans to just another link in the natural order, why should there be special dispensation for complex brains? They too will pickle well in alcohol, after all.

Perhaps it is all human vanity. For who knows whether the spirit of man rises upward or that of the animal sinks downward to the earth?

These questions trouble me, but not as much as they should. And that too troubles me.

Responses 003 (2011-2012)

Question 3 of the list says: "Using history and at least one other area of knowledge, examine the claim that it is possible to attain knowledge despite problems of bias and selection."

This is certainly one of the most straightforward of the questions in the list. All that needs to be considered is how the idea of knowledge is framed — how do you know that something is knowledge, and how do problems of bias and selection act as obstacles to attaining it?

One paradigm I've always found useful is to think of knowledge as information that has found a purpose, and information as data (singular: datum) that have found a context. If you say that Sir Stamford Raffles founded Singapore in 1819, that's information. If you can find a use for that, it's knowledge.

The thing is that whether you approach knowledge this way or not, it is based on the methods by which we accumulate data and the means by which we structure the data into information. When we accumulate data, we almost always carrying out filtering processes in deciding what to keep and what to ignore — that's the 'selection problem'. When we do this such that it tends to provide a specific kind of direction or answer, that's the 'bias problem'.

If either of these problems arises, in any of the many ways they can, then the information space is compromised. It may have missing pieces, irrelevant pieces, missing but relevant pieces, relevant pieces that support only one side of an argument, and so on. When we purposefully act on the information we have constructed, we create knowledge, and when our information is compromised, so is our knowledge. Compromised knowledge... is that knowledge at all?

Consider the fable of the emperor with no clothes. All the evidence provided (interviews, first-person accounts) seems to say that that emperor is wearing perfect clothing. However, once selection and bias are dealt with appropriately, it turns out that there is actually no direct evidence for such a belief. The database, so to speak, is compromised. In fact, empirical research shows the emperor has no clothes at all (or prefers walking around naked even if he has clothes).

History, in particular, has got problems with selection and bias. It is a construct made with a clear purpose in mind — to tell a story, to prove a point, based on putting together evidence for past events. To that end, we select the contents of our database based on criteria such as relevance and what the preponderance of existing evidence seems already to show. We have our own ideas of what is reasonable, what is acceptable, and so on. Then we create a narrative.

But all historians are human agents selecting from a vast graveyard of bones to build perfect skeletons. We discard splintered bones and ambiguous artifacts where it seems convenient to do so. This may indeed give us the skeletons we seek. However, are those the real skeletons? Or are they merely what we think they ought to be?

The same is true to a lesser extent for the hard sciences and to a greater extent for the social sciences and humanities. That is where the person answering this question has to examine the claim critically, pointing out the differences between methods of knowledge acquisition and criteria for defining knowledge in each discipline.

Strangely enough, the vaguer the definition of knowledge, the less impact bias has on the outcome. After all, if we don't define knowledge sharply, errors to the database are less important. Look at the range of knowledge in the aesthetic disciplines for example, ranging from the hard technical aspects to the subjective evaluation of performance and style. It's easy to say whether a candidate has knowledge of the technical aspects; it's almost definite that a candidate who has created new knowledge cannot be evaluated correctly.

A Hundred-Years' War

It was only a few hours ago that I was transcribing from digital microfilm (yes, you heard me) a letter sent to the press by someone claiming to be a teacher. It was a very interesting letter, sneaking up quietly with elliptical sentences and suchlike before braining you with a couple of main points. With minor editing, I shall present the letter and you can decide what to make of it.

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LOCAL EDUCATION

We have, it is hoped, seen the end for 1910, of the frivolities attending the demonstrations attaching to the education of the rising local generation. Anyone who follows these intelligently, cannot but be struck by the note that pervades them all. The proceedings in all cases, some slightly more ostentatious than others, are the puerile decorations, the gathering of those interested, and, let it not be told in Gath, of those who are not.

A programme at the cost of much labour is prepared and unappreciated. Then follows the reading of the departmental report which is supposed to convey much information to the audience and apparently does so, but of which the writer is, in his heart of hearts, very doubtful. The manager of the establishment then contributes his quota which has been prepared with infinite misgiving, and, in fact, is largely listened to with much the same emotion, though courtesy veils any expression of it. Through the medium of the manager's report everything connected with the matter it deals with is presented in rosy hue, and is blindly accepted by those who possess the faith that removes mountains, though wearying to a degree to the enlightened portion of the audience who accept it for what it is worth.

Among these is, as a rule, to be found Sir John Anderson, who, good man, is by virtue of his official position, practically compelled to be there, though harassed and worried by a hundred matters, more important to the general community. He is, of course, accompanied by Miss Anderson, who graciously receives the eternal bouquet, wreathes her countenance with smiles and with suppressed yawns, follows the programme with heroic fortitude to the point of her ordeal, the "distribution" which she faces without flinching. Then Sir John extricates himself from the trying position as best he can.

What is quite apparent to the few, though unperceived by the many, is the obvious insincerity of it all. It ought not to be necessary to resort to such demonstrations. If education is making headway among the juvenile population, it will proclaim itself, and due credit will be given to those who impart it without the aid of these annual trumpetings. The soil, however, does not lend itself to the growth of intelligence except under abnormal conditions. This was realised a quarter of a century ago, when Sir Clementi Smith in a moment of sentiment felt that very unusual encouragement must be given to the youths of the place, if their dormant intellectual faculties were to be awakened, and involved the colony in an expenditure which has been a burden for a considerable time and finally cancelled.

The expense incurred in maintaining the "Queen's Scholarships" need not be regretted, as it has produced to the colony a number of able men, but it is disappointing to find, after such a lapse of years, that the object of Sir Clementi, which was to stimulate with a view to future self-exertion, has not been realised, and that the youths are now as much in need of a wet-nurse as in their time. Judging from a recent utterance of a manager of a large local educational establishment, it would seem that both teachers and pupils had come to look upon the "Scholarships" as a boon in perpetuity, and depended upon them accordingly. It does not speak well for local youths that it should continue to depend upon an aid intended solely as a temporary stimulant to intelligent self-effort.

Apropos of the subject, it will perhaps be easy to recall to the minds of your readers, a childish exhibition of elation manifested by a certain local school over another at an apparent momentary success at the last annual examination. The whole thing was farcical in the extreme and had it not been seriously supported by the [Vespucian] Consul and the Presiding Elder of the local [Vespucian] Mission, it might have been passed by as a boyish demonstration.

This is what happened:—The Inspector of Schools was said to have entered in his report that the result of the examination of Standard VII in the [Citadel of the Wyverns] occupied the first place. There was surely nothing in this to trumpet about. Perhaps, it is not known to the gentlemen who conducted this puerile performance that they gratuitously supplied the discerning public with a subject of much amusement.

It may be admitted that the [Academy of the Gryphons] has always maintained a fairly good reputation. Its masters in the past have been men of ability. Its chief is a university man, as was his predecessor. As long as it was under the management of a committee, it held the premier position. But recently it became solely a Government establishment, with the result that with the exception of the Headmaster, the best men on the staff have been sent to the Native States or have left the service. This explains how it comes about that the other school accidentally scored a point; but this will recur unless the Government maintains an efficient staff for the so-called higher education.

Practically speaking, local education is of a very elementary character and sadly lacks in the practical. If this were freely admitted the people would know the position and it would not be necessary to resort to artifice and subterfuge to cover the fact.

Yours, etc.,
TEACHER.

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I found it very amusing. This letter, describing events a hundred years ago, was a snarky attack by a miffed gryphon on a typically too self-congratulatory wyvern event. Things have not changed, except for the general literacy level of the overclass.