Abraham the Hierarch

Over the last few days, I've been listening to people who tell me that Abraham the Hierarch's theory is only a theory, and not empirically true. It has caused me to recoil in horror and then look very carefully at what they've said and why they've said it.

First of all, empirical observations are empirical by definition. You see things. If your perceptual apparatus is biased or otherwise returning false data, then those observations are empirical to you but untrue. But based on what normal human beings do, it is quite clear that biology tends to trump sociology or theology for the majority of us. It is the rare human who spends more time praying than eating (not that there aren't such people, of course).

Secondly, even Maslow admitted that his theory needed greater scrutiny, as it was only a generalisation based on his observations of selected people. But there is very little opposition to his theory; about the only serious contenders are a) Max-Neef's theory of fundamental human needs, and b) the somewhat arbitrary idea that there is no real hierarchy at all.

The reason that this issue is important is that there's been a lot of attention paid to 'human rights' — women's rights, gay rights, the rights of the poor and the sick and infants and children and students and teachers and unfortunate burglars and so on. But in order to think usefully about human rights, one has to ask how those rights arise.

There are a lot of theories about that, but I find myself standing back-to-back with Maslow's hierarchy when thinking about the priority one should assign to various rights. I've not said much about these things before, but I remember that in this post I related the rights issue with the idea of professional roles, and in this post I wrote about law and government with respect to basic rights.

The key idea is that a right (whether you're with Maslow or Max-Neef) stems from the ontological condition of being human. From a biological and developmental perspective, some rights are potential to begin with and conferred by the state of being a human in a human society (e.g. the right to communicate freely), while some rights are actual from the beginning and created by the fact of being a living organism (e.g. the right to have adequate sustenance and the right to have protection from environmental hazards). These rights are not granted by natural laws (that is, there are no physical laws which prevent you from starving or being hit by lightning) but are based on the 'given adequate resources, we should maintain these' principle.

If you're a starving artist, I think I would prefer to feed you before you starve if I had to choose between giving you food or art materials. In fact, if I had only one choice or the other, and I chose to give you the latter, most societies would consider me a little negligent. A minority would argue that art is more valuable than life. Well, it seems true enough for some people, but I don't think it is true for a majority. That's not just opinion; the empirical fact is that humans (even little kids in the mall) fight about food more than about art. People who fight about art are almost always at least at subsistence level for food.

One comment I read was this: "At the end of the day, when it comes to the crunch, what really drives and motivates life are values and causes. Entire civilisations have come and gone because of them. Our continued survival on this planet depends on them."

I found this dubious. I think food and physical resources are primary motivators. Values and causes are secondary. Empire-building is tertiary. You're welcome to disagree, of course, but I suspect when you get hungry and tired enough, you will prefer to eat or sleep instead of argue with me.

Human Rights & Government

Having a chat the other day with the Hierophant, we went over some old ground. I realise that I've not actually explicitly said much about basic human rights, except perhaps in places like here, where the context was how human professions cater to the support of human rights.

Let's apply some simple reasoning based on human politics. This isn't new, and many people have wandered down these roads before, so bear with me (and that includes Wolfberry, whose study of the law is related). I'm not considering moral issues via a religious perspective per se.

All political states consist of people and subsist in people. Without people, there would be no state. Since the first implicit duty of a state has to be self-preservation (or it wouldn't exist to have any other duties), the state has a duty to preserve its people. The main duty of law is to regularise and/or formalise the transactions between people for the good of the state.

This means that basic laws deal with the support and maintenance of basic rights. As I've said before, one plausible definition of a basic human right is the maintenance of a condition that, in general, all humans are born with and that a human would be considered deficient if born without. The most obvious right, and the most basic, is therefore the right to supported life outside the womb. If life exists on birth, the right to have it continued is paramount.

This is why there are laws and social barriers against killing in general, indiscriminate killing, and deliberate killing. There should also be laws against negligence or other behaviours that result directly in death.

The next step down is to have laws which protect the individual against physical incapacitation. The individual can't really be protected against the state of which he is a part, but the state can be protected against individuals who have become renegade elements. Law, after all (and in the long-term view), is created and sustained not by individuals, but by social groups (and at the political level, states).

At some level however, the choice becomes one between protection of all individuals and discrimination between some individuals and others. This was the choice that faced Athenian democracy — pure democracies discriminate as little as possible, while republican democracies discriminate 'for the greater good'. In the former, a distinguished physician would be treated with the same weight as a peon; in the latter, the rights of the physician would be considered to some extent superior to the rights of the peon, or might be better defended, or might have laws defending certain things the physician might be able to do (or not do) as opposed to the things a peon could do. There are no pure democracies.

This means that the duty of government essentially is to enforce (and secondarily, maintain and/or support) interactions that are beneficial to survival of the state in a form which allows for continued enforcement of interactions that are beneficial to survival of the state...

The more private an individual's behaviours and the less they have to do with interacting with other people, the less important they should be to government. Reading a book of any sort should therefore not be as constrained by government as sharing the contents of that book in such a way as to provoke disruptive behaviour against that government. In this, I do not make any judgements about the type or kind of government involved; I am only saying that this is the perspective a rational government should have.

Following this logic, growing of cannabis sativa for personal research (and consumption) is a 10,000-year-old hobby that has had little negative impact on some states. However, the dissemination of the plant to others is a legitimate concern for some governments, since it is an interaction between individuals within the state. This is why the possession of small amounts of certain drugs for personal use is considered allowable or less of an offence than the possession of larger quantities beyond the typical amount an individual would be expected to use. Trafficking in such drugs is most definitely a province of government, whereas personal consumption is normally (but not always) only indirectly so.

That said, some governments also consider it their duty to protect individuals from themselves. This is probably based on the idea that not all humans are able to determine whether something is good for themselves or not. This is a terribly grey area. For example, what if the government of a state decides that any other form of government would be fatal to the continued optimal behaviour of the state? That opens the door to restricted participation in the governance of the state.

As you can see, once we stray away from basic human rights and start considering second- and third-order interactions and beyond, the law rapidly convolutes and metastasizes into something rich and strange. It is a wonderful world we live in.

Areas and Dimensions

I've been talking to a lot of students in the last few days, and it strikes me that many of them are telling me the same thing. Essentially, they are telling me that a lot of their teachers have never actually discussed what areas of knowledge are, and how they might be different from dimensions of knowledge. Apparently, this is especially a problem for teachers of English literature.

Why is this so? What exactly is the problem?

Let's begin with defining that difference. A dimension of knowledge is something a bit like a physical dimension. It is an approach to a body of knowledge that is essential to that body of knowledge but is 'orthogonal' in the sense that it does not overlap with other such approaches. An area of knowledge, on the other hand, can overlap with other areas of knowledge, and is quite often carved up and distributed around; it can also evolve into several related (and also overlapping) areas of knowledge.

Sometimes, a dimension in an area may be the part of another area that overlaps or coincides with that area. A mathematical example of this is the square of a triangle's hypotenuse. Both shapes share a common edge which helps to define each shape, but they are not the same shape; that common edge is a dimension of each area, but is not itself one.

Another example of this is the human rights dimension of ethics. While 'human rights' may plausibly be considered as an area of knowledge that overlaps ethics, the biological (or religious, or legal) basis of those rights comes from other areas outside ethics. In thinking about what human communities ought to establish as a common moral basis (i.e. 'ethics'), human rights are only one dimension to be considered. This becomes clearer when one realises that ethical standards are not necessarily anything to do with human rights — for example, cheating at cards or using elements of desire to enhance advertising might be considered unethical, but they don't necessarily have anything to do with human rights. At the same time, you can't remove that dimension without crippling the whole idea of ethics.

This is not the case with areas of knowledge such as biology, chemistry or physics, considered as sciences. These are not dimensions of science because it is quite clear that you can't completely define any of them in such a way that they have nothing to do with any of the others. At the same time, it's quite clear that these entire areas of knowledge fall completely within 'science'; if any part of them was 'not science', it would be a logical contradiction.

This brings us to one of the key problems with mathematics and language. Mathematics and language are essential tools in many other areas of knowledge, but it is obvious that they are also considered to be areas of knowledge in their own right. At the same time, it's also pretty obvious that most universities issue degrees in science or the arts, but not specifically in mathematics or language. It's very common to find a BSc in Mathematical Sciences or in Mathematics, or even a BA in Mathematics, but far less common to find a BMath. The same is true for language; it's very common to find a BA in English or a BSc in Linguistics, but you don't often find a BLit or a BLing. Mathematics is a key component of engineering, but graduates get a BEng. Mathematics and language have therefore been subsumed by other disciplines.

After a while, it becomes clear that some areas of knowledge are axiomatic; they generate their own stuff independent of other areas. These include language, mathematics, and aesthetics. At the same time, some areas of knowledge are more derivative than others — science for example cannot exist without drawing on history, mathematics and philosophy; literature must have language to survive.

The difficulties are now more obvious, but why is this a problem for some teachers? I suspect it has to do not with the nature of their primary discipline(s) but more with the breadth of their exposure to other disciplines. Disciplines with internal conflicts about what other disciplines they are part of (or not part of), such as geography, force their exponents to know something about the humanities as well as the sciences, statistics as well as physics and sociology. Disciplines with internal conflicts about subjective experience, such as literature and visual arts, tend to separate themselves from other disciplines because their exponents become ever more specialised and less knowledgeable about other disciplines.

These are of course generalisations, tendencies but not necessities. Your choice of discipline may tend to limit you, but you can always choose to transcend those limits. If a statistician were to confine herself to mathematical descriptions of statistical distributions, that would be one thing; it would be quite another (and perhaps more exciting) if that statistician were to seek further knowledge in all the other domains in which her area of knowledge is used. Unfortunately for teachers of English literature, it isn't a subject used much in (or with) other disciplines.

Not Right?

Since ex-Senator Obama became President-elect of the USA, a miniature cyclone has been brewing about the right that homosexuals are claiming: marriage identical to that of heterosexuals. I say 'miniature' because it is actually very small, and puffed up by numbers of people who do not understand what rights are, and 'cyclone' because it feeds circularly on itself.

I've already pointed out in several posts, such as this one, and this one, what basic human rights are. Any other rights (historically and philosophically speaking) must be established by an enforceable statute; that is, an explicit formulation must be crafted by some people, ratified by some people, enforced or protected by some people, supported by people until it becomes something considered to be similar to a natural right.

I am against the idea of homosexual marriages as legally identical to heterosexual marriages for a simple reason: you can't have it both ways. By giving dissimilar parties similar rights, you dilute rights and confuse the rule of law. It is like saying that bus lanes shouldn't exist because both buses and cars share the roads and carry passengers. Or like saying that all bridges should be rebuilt to allow M1 Abrams tanks to pass freely. Or that all vehicles should be designed to burn any kind of fuel that any other vehicle can burn.

Do I then deny rights to homosexuals by my position? Yes, and no. By creating bus lanes, we create a right for buses that cars don't have. Buses can travel on car lanes, but cars can't travel on bus lanes. Then again, buses can't use certain roads or parking lots at all, while roads and parking lots must be designed to accommodate cars. We have different sets of rights for buses and cars. We can (and often do) have different sets of rights for men and women, for homosexuals and heterosexuals.

Ha, this is where the outrage multiplies. What do I mean by different sets of rights for men and women? I mean, factually and empirically, that the law makes different provisions, in some cases and in some jurisdictions, for men and women. In some places, women are favoured with a right to take maternity leave, while fathers are not. In some places, both have that right. This is where the last part of my second paragraph comes in. Society tends to weight these rights in ways that the law doesn't quite touch. The law can't force you to approve of something. It can only make it legal until people don't disapprove.

In general, because of human history's course, we tend to be more upset when women's rights, now mostly equal (and in some cases superior) to men's rights, are transgressed. It is perceived as unfair to a group who in the past, especially under certain lenses, have been less-advantaged or disadvantaged. At the same time, there have also been female-dominated societies. But equal rights based on gender are not all basic human rights; we need to understand and accept that. The way society is right now, the politics of victimhood make it easier to target a man for being anti-anything than a woman for saying the same things. It is the same for any group of victims, past victims, or perceived victims.

That is what made the US elections this year so entertaining. One of the odd questions thrown up was whether it was easier for a woman or an African-American to become President. Actually, we still don't know...

Finally, I have to say that since I'm not homosexual, I can't put myself quite in such a person's shoes. But I can't quite imagine myself exactly, completely and convincingly as a cat, a Brazilian, a god, a parrot, a turnip, a cow, an egg or anything else that I am not. Am I a bigot? No, I don't think so. I like cats, but not so much dogs; I like eggs, but not so much turnips. I discriminate out of individual preference, in individual cases.

Professional Impact

Over the last few days I've been mulling over what the girl who likes lying on the grass said. She's been thinking about education, profession, and career choices. She's been wondering about the responsibilities attached to or associated with various professional roles. And I remembered, because of what she said, the process that eventually led me to where I have been.

The obvious thing is that, just as with basic rights and basic skills, the identification of 'basic professions' must come from looking at the basic human condition. This is what I mean. Consider what you're like as a newborn:

1. you need protection from the elements; hence one of the basic human rights is shelter from exposure, one of the basic skills is learning to find shelter, and one of the basic professions is making shelters.
   
2. you need food and drink; hence one of the basic human rights is the right to sustenance, one of the basic skills is feeding oneself, and one of the basic professions is providing sustenance.
   
3. you need to communicate; hence one of the basic human rights is the right to communication, one of the basic skills is communication, and one of the basic professions is helping others to communicate.
   
4. you need to learn; hence one of the basic human rights is education, one of the basic skills is teaching oneself, and one of the basic professions is teaching others.

The list goes on, but these four cover most of the fundamentals. The next level up would be the interactive level which develops once communication is present – social needs, self-actualisation, dominance, combat, movement.

How do we consider various professions in the light of this? Here are some examples.

If you're a builder or an architect, a weaver or an insurance agent, you're obviously one of the first-group providers – you provide the means by which people survive their environmental challenges. If you're a farmer or a cook, a hunter or a fast food chain operator, you're in the second group – you provide the means by which people can be sustained physically. If you're going to be an artist or a politician, a lawyer or an advertising executive, you fall into the third group – you're a person who speaks for others when they cannot communicate. The last group is obvious; educators of all kinds are here.

Three things become obvious to me as I look at such lists. Firstly, parents do all these things for you, especially mothers. Secondly, certain professions – e.g. economists, doctors, car manufacturers – rely a lot on people developing secondary vulnerabilities, things which they are not normally born with. Thirdly, some professions are able to fulfil elements of many needs – those with creative, communicative and catechistic roles being obvious examples.

The last thing, not immediately obvious, is that the role you play after being educated and adopting a profession is yours alone. Each of us develops our own sense of mission and our own scope of deeds. Each of us chooses to provide services or goods or intangibles which fall somewhere in between. But the most important part of this is that we should think about this frequently, adjust our perceptions and perspectives, and aim for the best that we can do.

Thinking Schools = Learning Nation?

This is probably the hardest thing I have to say to many people I know, so I shall keep it short.

I've decided that students should not have the primary right to free speech or freedom of movement. Yes, they are human rights, almost universally so – go ahead and look it up in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, that document is flawed in that while it assigns rights to 'everyone', it also distinguishes between parents and children (see article 26). It also hedges all this freedom with caveats regarding what can be said (compare article 12 with articles 18 and 19). Articles 27, 28, 29, and 30 all create further hidden clauses which raise legal issues even if we were to claim that we respected the entire Declaration.

This is not new. It has all been said before. What's new is who talks about related issues, when, and why. On 25 June 2007, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered this very interesting majority concurring opinion concerning free speech in schools. In it, he explains why he thinks that students having the right to free speech in schools in unconstitutional despite the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

I agree with him.

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There, now I've decimated my blog readership. Oh well. I will continue if anyone wants me to, but perhaps I have said enough.

Responses (November 2014) — Summary

The list of IB TOK Prescribed Titles for November 2014 (with some of my personal brief responses) is collected in this post.

Topic Titles

1. “Some areas of knowledge seek to describe the world, whereas others seek to transform it.” Explore this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.  
2. “Knowledge takes the form of a combination of stories and facts.” How accurate is this claim in two areas of knowledge?  
3. “In the production of knowledge, it is only because emotion works so well that reason can work at all.” To what extent would you agree with this claim in two areas of knowledge?  
4. “To gain an understanding of the world we need to make use of stereotypes.” With reference to two areas of knowledge, to what extent do you agree with this statement?  
5. “The task of history is the discovering of the constant and universal principles of human nature.” To what extent are history and one other area of knowledge successful in this task?  
6. “We may agree about general standards in the arts but disagree as to whether a particular work has artistic merit. In ethics the situation is reversed: we may disagree about ethical theories but we all know an unethical action when we see one.” Discuss.  

Responses:

There are two general frameworks that may be of use here. The first is to consider the uses of information: describe, explain, predict, invent/imagine, connect, transform; these can be remembered using the acronym DEPICT. The second is the hierarchy of knowledge construction and use: data given context or value is information; information that is tested for validity, reliability and utility becomes knowledge; knowledge used in the best possible way in a certain situation is called wisdom — these can be remembered using the mnemonic DIKW.

I will, as usual frame some responses here after a decent period of time.

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That time having passed, here are some useful notes.

T1 really requires a clear understanding of description vs transformation, as well as a simple definition of the world. To describe is to detail one's apprehension (sensory perception, emotional response etc) of things in a way that contains some kind of truth—the truth that is inherent in a particular AOK. For example, from the AOK viewpoint of the arts, the truth is largely aesthetic, based on how good a work is at evoking a desired response from its audience. To transform is to change things in a way that is contingent on the working-out of the AOK; to use the same example of the arts, this would mean that the arts not only seek to describe an aesthetic truth but to present it in a way that forces people to react to it, to acknowledge it, to change in response to it.

T2 is pretty basic—stories are narratives, facts are the singular elements used to fill out and construct the narratives. A fact need not be true in all senses; after all, 'fact' comes from the Latin word meaning 'to make' (e.g. as in 'manufacture' = 'make by hand', 'factory' = a place where things are made, 'factor' = an element, component or guiding principle used in making something). Hence, in Gothic novels, you might say 'vampires drink blood' is a fact. All forms of knowledge are composed of narrative structures (hence there is a 'literature' in any discipline) given substance by their own facts. The question really requires some kind of analysis about how (much) these two things combine in two specific AOKs in order to create the knowledge we associated with those AOKs.

T3 looks difficult, but the key to it is to understand what emotion is. Emotion is the set of biochemical and physiological responses that accompany a change in psychological state. The inputs that trigger such responses can be sensory (i.e. via the nervous system) or mnemonic (from memories) or imaginative (from consideration of non-actual scenarios and ideas). Reasoning, on the other hand, is a process by which a person decides or attempts to form logical connections between things—events, facts, processes, data, and so on. The impulse to actually do such a thing is almost always emotional. This is the basic level of the argument. However, at a more advanced level, emotion allows humans to make quick judgements (cf. 'gut feel') when digesting huge amounts of data, thus simplifying the situation (whether accurately or not) when considering complex cases. In different AOKs, these things have different levels of application, and that should be discussed.

T4 requires an understanding of stereotypes. The original meaning of the term is that of a solid object used to make an imprint or used as a mould for producing identical copies. 'Stereo' is from the Greek for 3D (as in 'stereophonic' = having the properties of 3D-sound) and 'type' has one of its usual meanings—the original form of something (as in 'typeface', 'typical'). The question therefore is asking us to evaluate how useful the deployment of 'master images' or 'standard prototypes' is in different AOKs. The usual social definition of stereotypes as rudimentary descriptive templates for groups of people can only be used in the humanities/human sciences AOKs, so beware.

T5 requires an understanding of history as a discipline. History is a purely descriptive and explanatory art. It does NOT make predictions; once it does, it is treading the ground of the human sciences. For example, economic history is the history of human evaluation, transaction and resource allocation in the realm of goods and services. Once this is used to predict human behaviour, it becomes economics. Same for social history and sociology, political history and political science, and many others. The question then is whether such an approach (description and explanation of human events in a chronological matrix) can actually uncover general principles applicable to all humans, and whether another AOK's approach might be better or worse at this.

T6 is hard only for students who cannot define 'the arts'—or those who cannot differentiate between morality, law, ethics and similar constructs. Since the arts are all forms of human action designed to produce something that conveys emotion or produces a desired emotional response, the question is whether humans do indeed have general artistic standards or can produce specific evaluations of merit. The answer is, as always, in between—you can have scores in gymnastics, choir competitions, karate, platform diving, dance, pottery... and they will all have some variance. But some have very tight rubrics of performance, relative to others. Ethics, being a socially-constructed sometimes-philosophical basis for evaluating 'right behaviour' in a human social context, suffers similar issues. It is clearly wrong to steal in a society which has property rights; it is impossible to steal in a society that doesn't have such rights. It's the student's job to define both these areas and craft a nice debate.

Discrimination Rules

The modern humanist world often paints discrimination as a bad thing. I don't think it is. Discrimination is the basis of all our senses, of all our decisions insofar as we are confident that some neurological process underpins them all. Institutions shouldn't be bullied into allowing equal access, equal rights, equal mindlessness.

There are limits to fairness, just as there are to equality; all humans are NOT born equal, although in some abstract ways (such as the right to be alive) they might be. The idea that they are is hogwash, or perhaps bullshit, or some other animal-related thing. You will never find two people with exactly the same characteristics; why might you find two people with exactly the same balance of rights and responsibilities?

A person certified at a specific level of low mental function is treated specially in both positive and negative ways; a person with one arm is in theory (and often in practice) less able to do certain things. Women are different from men; men are different from men as much as women are different from women. The whole idea of equal rights is a shifting, unstable chimera simply because a close inspection of any rights you might care to bestow shows that they cannot be equally bestowed in a way that makes the effect just.

That's because justice (the exact balance of rights and responsibilities) is not the same as fairness (the idea that either a sense of subjective equity or a fact of objective equality should prevail). God is not fair, but He is always just. The problem is that our perceptions are fairness-biased because we have no objective way to determine our position on a universal scale. All this just makes our laws (more recriminatory or just criminalizing, hardly undiscriminating) the locally objective socioculturally-subjective codification of some general principles of jurisprudence.

Discrimination is a fact of the human condition. There is no warm fuzzy 'it need not be so' business about it. Indeed, it must be so, or there would be no basis on which to stand when making choices. While some bases might seem fairer than others, there is actually no choice that would be fair except by subjective agreement. The division of a circular pie might be mathematically fair, but the division of a real budget into actual domains of expenditure will never please everyone.

After running a few years of tests on my own perceptions, I have come to realise that I discriminate against people with darker skin, people with fairer skin, people of a different gender (however defined), people of a different age, people who drive a different car, people who drive the same car. I discriminate on every level and in every dimension that I can. I realise, in fact, that I discriminate against every person who is not me; I also have realised that if I had to live with someone exactly like me, I'd have to discriminate against him just to remain sane.

To those people out there who would have me believe that I should espouse some people's agenda, and call it 'acting against discrimination', all I can say is, "What? You want me to support some bunch of people so that they have the same rights as another bunch of people despite not being the same bunch of people? First prove to me that they have not the same rights, then prove to me that they should have the same rights, then prove to me that I should care."

It's the last part that gets most people. You can only care about this sort of thing if you have an empathic stake in it. You have to feel that one group is discriminated against to the point at which you yourself would feel uncomfortable. And you can only feel that way if you have an uncanny level (or an undiscriminating level) of empathy. That is why Jesus said you ought to love your neighbour as yourself, and not more than yourself; it's not possible in a real sense to have more empathy for others than you have for yourself because by definition, empathy for self is 100%.

That's not to say that I don't believe people should in general and in abstract be treated as equals. I think it's a laudable idea. I just don't think it will, or should, ever happen in a literal sense.

Redefining Murder

The current definition of murder is anthropocentric across all jurisdictions. You can kill any other animal and it wouldn't be murder. Human laws, for human interests.

But the growing body of research on cetacean brains, for one, shows that these brains are as complex as human brains but in a different way. While the human brain is somewhat more layered, cetacean brains are less layered but with more 'vertical' connections through layers. They are clearly intelligent, perhaps more so as a class than any other kind of mammal, when we consider only mammalian intelligence.

Farther afield, we come across the anomalous cases of corvid intelligence — ravens for example — where birds show strong evidence of forward planning, co-opting other animals as partners in an enterprise, and facial recognition with emotional response. And as we metaphorically walk out even farther from home, we meet the cephalopoda; an octopus keeps two-thirds of its neurons in its arms, shows strong evidence of structured memory and observational learning, and comes from the only class of invertebrates which uses tools — in 1986, the octopus became an honorary vertebrate according to UK law, and enjoys the same protections as vertebrates as far as animal rights are concerned.

What is it, then, to willingly (and intentionally, and deliberately) terminate the life of a crow, an octopus, or dolphin? It is the termination of a thinking, emotion-bearing, mind-using organism. These creatures had hopes, fears, ambitions — until they were killed. It is nothing less than murder, but it is not murder yet — for humans still define murder in terms of human-termination.

Elitism Fails

In my previous post I pointed out how egalitarianism fails. Because all humans are different, giving humans equal rights on the basis of a presumed 'core humanity' is actually a distortion of logical contracts, since you are then dispensing something in an inequitable fashion. If all people regardless of virtue, performance, skill, or potential are to be treated the same way and have the same rights, you are looking at something which is exactly identical to the core tenets of some religions — salvation is by a single act and the afterlife is available to all who believe. Except, of course, that this problem is compounded by trying to do it in the all-to-obviously-inequitable material world.

But if all humans are not equal except in some specious idealistic sense, then logically some humans may be 'game-winners'; that is, given all the scenarios that they are exposed to, they have the qualities to achieve a 'win' condition in each of them. There may be no such humans, but there will certainly be humans who are game-winners in some situations. Conversely, there may be some humans who are 'game-losers' in every situation, and certainly, some who are game-losers in at least one situation. In fact, some game-winners for some situations might be game-losers in different situations.

This means that for each simple situation, there will be an elite of those more likely to win. For complex situations, there will be an elite of those more likely to win in all the possible sub-scenarios within the complex situation.

So elites automatically form, and therefore, we have to say elitism must exist — at least in the sense that we recognize that elites are winners and by that fact worthy of being recognized as such. In human societies, if those winners also happen to make us winners (e.g. a very successful hunter in a hunter-gatherer society), then we give them bonuses such as status and power (or huge salaries), medals and awards, stuff like that.

But elitism fails us at one remove, and that is if we unwittingly allow transference of elite privilege — we automatically allow a kind of halo effect to give unwarranted prestige to those associated with the true elite human by kinship, network, clan, or other relationship that is not relevant. There would then be people in the elite group who have not done anything for the community in which they have been raised to the elite.

The only way to compensate for this failure is if they are, after being raised to the elite, able to make others winners using the status or acquired privileges that they now have. So, for example, a poor man who marries into a rich family and is given rich-family associations and privileges could use any influence he has thus attained or accrued to benefit the poor. A son of a rich merchant, landholder, or industrialist, having inherited power and wealth not through his own doing could then use that inheritance to benefit others.

Given the human situation, all these advantages actually come from having people 'below you' in elite status (i.e. the various 'scorecharts' that determine how elite you are). Therefore there is conceivably a moral obligation for elite status to be justified if you didn't earn that status yourself, because your status depends on other people. In the old days, they called this noblesse oblige, the obligation of nobility.

In the modern age of egalitarianism, the use of that term is often shrouded in sarcasm and even an air of impropriety. But there are indeed modern nobles, dispensing state-level power and patronage sometimes because of unearned status. Consider the case of a member of Parliament or equivalent representative in a parliamentary democracy or equivalent state. Supposing he runs for office and is returned unopposed. Then he now has elite status without having done anything for anybody. He now has a moral obligation to do things for people.

This is especially true if such a person ends up with far greater access to 'elite bonuses' such as communication with higher powers, material resources, information and suchlike. Every bit of those trappings of the elite status should carry with it a concomitant and commensurate responsibility towards those in general who don't have such things.

So does elitism fail? Well, there is a tendency for humans to be very happy with privileges and not so happy with sharing them around or making use of them for other people. That is why altruism should be more widely appreciated, since it is at the very least a sign of the realisation that elites need a community to be elite in.

The Plan: Part I – Criterion 3 Situational Appraisal (Reprise)

Criterion 3 has long been the domain of staff welfare and other staff-related enablers of action. Just recently, I had the opportunity to work with and review and international standard for staff-related matters. This standard is applied far more widely than the anaemic stuff we work with in educational circles.

Briefly, and reworded to retain confidentiality, the three subcriteria in the standard are: a plan designed to ensure rational staff recruitment procedures and follow-up; a plan designed to ensure a high level of staff retention that acknowledges the value of the staff knowledge base and loyalty; and a plan designed to provide individual coaching, staff development, and the meeting of staff aspirations (not the aspiration of staff meetings, ha ha). A close examination of this international standard reveals that international standards for fair staff appraisal, transparency and compensation are higher than local ones.

That is not to say that the actual application of those standards results in better staff-related policies. In fact, it is not common that this is so. However, the fact that such standards exist (as, for example, the human rights standards promulgated by the UN) can act as an inspiration towards better things.

Here, for example, are four maxims from the New York Academy of Sciences, regarding the making of legendary research teams (Burke, 2008). It's probably applicable to many knowledge-based enterprises.

• Hire well
• Be more guide than boss
• Do your best to foster an open, congenial, collaborative culture
• Put teaching and career development first, research second

This year the Chinese celebrate the Year of the Rat, associated with wealth, intelligence, charm, cunning and double-edged weapons. I wonder how these attributes will play out when applied to the world of human resource management. It would be very short-sighted for any institution to continue to operate with a 15-20% staff turnover rate without significant overhaul of its internal procedures.

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Reference: Burke, A.; NYAS Mag., Winter 2008, p.21.

Can Holistic Education Exist? (Part 3)

In my last disquisition on this topic, my conclusion was that perhaps, if you were running a Christian mission school, you would have to look at the Christian doctrine regarding the chief end of man; i.e. what kind of holism man was supposedly created for.

This is probably a rather contentious situation when it comes to the details. I am pretty certain that while Judaeo-Christian institutions have many points of agreement, the points of difference exercise them more. And so, I'm just going to float an hypothetical Christian school's educational credo (yeah, the usual philosophy, vision, mission sequence) and see what people say (if anything).

Please note that what follows is a kind of description of the ethical underpinnings of such an hypothetical community. At some point I suppose I will address the UN Declaration of Human Rights, but not here. And this is certainly not a strategic plan or a detailed workplan. It is only a preamble, if you like, for such things.

Here goes. And I do sincerely hope that readers will comment on how this can be improved, given the premises on which it has been constructed.

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We believe in one God, eternal and almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. We believe that He created the world and its people and cares for them. We believe that the best foundation for a fruitful and satisfying life in human society is having a right relationship with Him. This relationship is exemplified and justified by the life, atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It demands a lifestyle and a value system which is consonant with that demonstrated and elucidated by the Word of God.

In line with our beliefs and values, we see our students as young people who can be developed by inculcating a desire to seek out what is true, right and beautiful, primarily in a Christian sense; and by providing them with an education aimed at this, so that they may serve society well in the latter part of their lives. Our vision therefore is that every one of them will come to show excellence in learning, in leading, and in living.

This vision is empowered by a school philosophy which maintains that it is desirable and possible to develop and implement a programme of education which will meet the needs and interests of every student. Every one of these young people has a God-given potential which can be fulfilled — and everyone who enters the school can manifest success and high achievement in different areas through hard work and a positive attitude.

Our mission must therefore be to...

1. create conditions where all students can exercise their initiative and responsibility to attain excellence;
2. establish an environment where students can hope to develop their potential into concrete achievements, irrespective of their backgrounds and abilities;
3. foster a safe, caring and orderly community for spiritual, intellectual, social, emotional and physical growth;
4. prepare young people to meet the challenge of rapid change in society, in a way that is pleasing to God.

The Empathy Tango

In the 19 Mar 2012 issue of Newsweek, Jay Michaelson writes, "One of the core assumptions of [various kinds of] civil rights activism is that all of us, no matter how enlightened we are, have prejudice within us."

Exactly. This is an assumption which is biologically supportable. We've found so far that the natural state of human perception is to be wary of what is dark, old, unfit, deviant from the norm, and otherwise unnatural. Yes, there is a 'natural', and it can be defined in terms of how the human brain sees things.

There is too much data to prove otherwise. Humans drop into the 'uncanny valley' easily, feeling subconsciously uneasy when exposed to lifelike simulations that are too lifelike while remaining identifiably non-human. Humans can mask or attempt to control their responses and reasoning, but their visceral cognition can only be conditioned, not controlled.

Which leaves us in a bad place. Activists of all kinds point out we are all prejudiced and lack sufficient empathy to overcome this. We protest that we are sympathetic, that we are reasonable, but fall short of redemption. There is no redemption in the human world of uncomfortable biological and neuropsychological truths.

The tango occasionally brings us closer, but keeps us at arm's length while touching. If empathy is never sufficient, what hell has activism forced us to remain in? Hell, as a wise man once said, is other people. And as Marlowe pointed out, "We are in Hell, nor are we out of it; for where Hell is, there we must ever be."

Which is why the logical conclusion is that if salvation is to be found, it lies outside the brawling mass of humanity.

Mulling

I don't know when I became one of those people who write peculiar treatises on the world as it is conceptualised by others. But I am quite sure it happened to me at some point within the last ten years. The other day I was looking at my notes:

Globalisation has been variously defined as ‘the closer integration of the countries and peoples of the world’ (Stiglitz, 2003: 9), ‘the inexorable integration of markets, nation-states and technologies’ (Friedman, 2000: 9), and ‘the conviction that a plurality of cultures… could be accommodated on terms of equality in a single society’ (Fernández-Armesto, 2004: 391) – always driven by the lowering of barriers to transport and the free flow of goods and services through technology and legislation. The first definition is general, the second specific, and the third idealistic.

You see? But all this is what I've come to call 'the new globalisation'. It's a very American free-market sort of idea. To elaborate, Americans believe free trade is good unless they're making a loss; then free trade is called 'dumping' or something like that. If your workers are paid less than Americans, then your crime is 'human rights violations'. In other words, globalisation is now a one-way street (as far as possible) from the New World to the Old.

But it was not always so. At some point before the 19th century, globalisation was a matter of equally mysterious traditions. As cultures collided, they were wary and yet intrigued by other cultures. It wasn't until Darwin's bastard children decided that you could classify other races as inferior or underdeveloped that they felt they had the right to impose without nurturing whatever crops had already been planted in faraway lands.

Take for example the fates of the Maoris and the Australian aborigines. Since the former had established agriculture, a very obvious culture, large buildings and fermentation, they were considered to be more civilised. The Maoris got a treaty with the White Man, the aboriginal peoples of Australia got short shrift and lost everything.

Fortunately, this age sees the rise of China and India as counterweights to the West. You won't see a sudden change, but it will be faster than expected. Eventually, the world will become more multipolar, and then globalisation will become something richer than the rapid onslaught of America-friendly memes and their subsequent integration.

I'm not knocking the USA for some sort of amoral colonial approach, though. I'm saying that a richer memetic inheritance benefits us all. The chance of human survival as a race rises in proportion to its adaptability, and memetic variation is part of that. It is better to have a mixture that is mulled than a stagnant pool.

Morality, Ethics and Law (Simplified)

Morality is the product of individual choices of action concerning other people, synthesized into a whole that is endorsed (either in practice or in breach) by a larger group. Where these individual choices of action come from, and how they are synthesized into a whole, and how they are endorsed, and by what groups — these are all important questions.

Ethics is the other way around: a group with a commonality decides to set out a common code of how they ought to behave collectively in view of that commonality. This commonality can be as general as 'we are all human, hence we base our ethics on human rights, howsoever defined' — or as specific as 'we are all doctors, hence we base our ethics on our commonly agreed view of our profession'.

Law is when a code is a) converted into explicitly worded formulae with penalties for breach (and rarely, rewards for observance) of the rules expressed by these formulae; b) the formulation is based on some form of jurisprudence; and c) special authority is created for the interpretation and execution of these formulae.

There you go...

Psalm 132: Triumphant

There's a fine balance in social matters today that has all to do with the rise of democracy on a sociopolitical level while capitalism increases on a socioeconomic level. The problem is that voting suffrage and cash cannot be the only fundamentals for a robust and humane society.

A large proportion of humans still have qualms about universal suffrage, just as the Athenians did in more exclusive form: does a vote out of ignorance carry the same value as a vote from an informed perspective, and why should the burden of information be on those wanting to be elected as opposed to those doing the electing? Similarly, should the more economically able have any legal (as opposed to moral) liability to the less able (e.g. through taxation, social benefit plans)?

The 132nd Psalm is unabashedly theocratic. The argument goes that if God is indeed all-wise and all-powerful, then theocracy trumps all forms of human government and politics. The problem is that human ideas about wisdom and power infect (as well as inform) our perspectives on God. We'd rather not have anyone (human or divine or whatever) be the boss of us, so to speak. That would be elitist (a meaningless tag because of its ambiguity). Here's the psalm:

Lord, remember David, and all his afflictions:
How he sware unto the LORD, and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob;
"Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed;
I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids,
Until I find out a place for the LORD, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob."
Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the wood.
We will go into his tabernacles: we will worship at his footstool.
Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength.
Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness; and let thy saints shout for joy.
For thy servant David's sake turn not away the face of thine anointed.
The LORD hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne.
If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore.
For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.
This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.
I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread.
I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall shout aloud for joy.
There will I make the horn of David to bud: I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed.
His enemies will I clothe with shame: but upon himself shall his crown flourish.

It is a powerful and reassuring psalm of triumph for those on the right side of the anointed theocracy. The victory does not come for free; you find a place for God at the expense of your own rest and the effort of your days. But how does it apply to those who are not the inheritors of the blessing, but who are also not enemies of David?

Sometimes, when I think of these things, I am reminded of this verse by mostly-forgotten journalist William Norman Ewer (1885-1976). He devised a little clerihew that went, "How odd / of God / to choose / the Jews." In these days, we'd think of it as anti-Semitic, since it seems that whenever someone cracks a Jewish joke these days, it's anti-Semitic. But the point of the question is still valid. As a race, as a people, they are as unlikely as any other race or people to be specifically chosen by a supreme deity. Why not the Navajo, for example?

At the fundamental level of reality, we will never know why. This is what galls us; in a world of capitalism and democracy, we uphold the self-assigned rights of all men to own all things and to know all things equally. That it will never be so does not deter us from seeking some sort of philosophical ideal. But the universe is a lot more arbitrary than we are in this respect: effort and hard work are rewarded in linear fashion most times, but surprise and ingenuity win big too.

And that is why people turn away from the sociopolitical idea of God, the theocratic ideal; the perceived inequalities and externalities are too big for human economic and political thought to handle.

Normal is an Island

The problem with humans is that they are limited by the presence of a relatively small corpus callosum between the hemispheres of their brains. This makes them prone to reification, or at the very least, oversimplification. That's why they like universal laws, universal beliefs, universal rights; and if not, at least the appearance of such things through the application of normative fiat or normal distributions.

If a fundamental assertion of human thinking is that a less complicated answer is always better if it explains exactly the same things as well as a more complicated ones, then what if the things are not always exactly the same? This is true with comparisons between island-states, city-states, nation-states, federated states, overlarge conglomerated states, and so on.

I mean, why on Earth would citizens of one of the 50 (plus change) United States want to compare themselves with the last major (but very tiny) city-state in the world? Or with the ancient Confederatio Helvetica? Or anywhere else? And the reverse applies. What is world-class, but the idea that the entire world rates you in the same way, which is silly in a world of differences.

But surely there are absolute morals in a human world? Absolute rights, absolute ethics? No, I'm afraid not. There cannot be such in any biological population, since you can always engineer the environment or the circumstances to allow for any deviation from the defined norm. Worse, 'normal' in this context, and its supposed antonym 'deviant', don't mean what you think they mean. They are statistical ideas — the perpendicular to the turning point of a distribution is the 'normal', the spread of difference from that norm is 'deviation'.

I am certain there are absolutes. I just don't think that they can be derived from statistics, which by their nature are relativist.

Multipolar

The world is becoming multipolar, according to all kinds of sources. But that's a silly 'sky is falling' sort of statement. The world has always been multipolar; it's just that sometimes, the narrative has required some sort of Zoroastrian dualism (e.g. 'The American Way' vs 'The Evil Empire') or some sort of divine exceptionalism (e.g. 'Rule Britannia'). The complex poetry of the world has always been made prosaic by clever people who hate the messiness.

Look at science. Science is democratic. In theory, everyone can be part of the formal discourse because everyone shares the same starting axioms and the same reasoning process. In practice, science is elitist. It creates spiraling towers of horn and ivory, as more of it is formed into more and more specialised stuff and fewer and fewer people know what to do with it — or what can be done with it.

Look at democracy. Democracy is evil. Why? Because humans very well know that the worst thing to trust is humanity. And yet we claim that we want everyone to have the same rights and powers and privileges because all humans are equal in some sense. But democracy is good, because it gives us the comforting illusion that someone who is better than us isn't really better, and that anyone can be as good as anyone else.

These two forces are the greatest movements of the modern age. They have undeniably done much to improve human conditions from a human point of view. But they persist in making enemies, not because they are good things (and thus persecuted) but because they are human, and thus imperfect. And they love trampling over other ideas because they are good at it.

But shouldn't they win, since they are better ideas? The point is that we don't know for sure that they are better ideas. There is no objective point to view them except through the anthropocentric lens of being. We can philosophize all we want, but all we know is that they are convincing ideas to many humans. They win a lot of 'marketplace of ideas' competitions — but the marketplace of ideas can only exist in a world where democracy and science have a significant presence.

I like both democracy and science because they make my life comfortable. If that is how we decide what is good, then I guess that's good. But I'm uncomfortable about thinking that. So what else should I think?

I think I should not conform to the pattern of this world, I think.

User Feedback

This is insane, and yet oddly appealing, as a problem of sorts. I've had this blog up for a few years now; I never ever thought of migrating countless Usenet posts, BBS posts from before that, or anything else into this blog. I'm not about to start now. But I was thinking of adding tags/labels to some of the older posts. And then I realised the magnitude of the task. I append a list of labels below (I don't normally use the sidebar widget for this, but I'll think of doing it some day) to prove to you that I am a terrible post-tag writer.

But before I do that, let me ask those of you who honour me by reading this blog a few questions:

1. What is it about the content that invites you here?
2. What is it about the writing that invites you here?
3. What kind of posts do you tend to spend more time on?
4. And how would you describe this blog?
5. It's a blog that's supposed to be about "inspired mysteries, mysterious inspirations"; how does it measure up?

Your feedback is (as always) most welcome and most appreciated. And here's the label list:

Acronyms (1), Actuarial Science (1), Adolescence (2), Adventure (1), Advertising (1), Aesthetics (1), Agriculture (1), Albion (1), Alchemy (3), Alcohol (1), Alexandria (1), Alfred Duggan (1), Alumni (1), America (1), Anand (1), Anchors (1), Ancient of Days (1), Angels (3), Animals (1), Annie Lennox (1), Announcements (1), Anonymity (2), Anthony Hope (1), Anthony Price (1), Apocalypse (3), Appraisal (2), Archaeology (1), Argument (1), Arsenal (2), Art (2), Astrology (1), Asymmetry (1), Attainment (1), Authority (2), Autobiography (1), Ballad (1), Baptist (1), Barry Hughart (1), Batman (2), Beatles (1), Beauty (1), Bee Gees (1), Belief (2), Benjamin Franklin (1), Bentley (1), Betrayal (1), Bible (20), Billy Joel (1), Birthday (1), Blogosphere (2), Blogs (3), Books (15), British (1), Butterfly (1), Byron (1), C W McCall (1), Calendar (3), Carl Orff (1), Carols (1), Carpets (1), Cataloguing (1), Cathedrals (1), Change (5), Chaos (1), Character (1), Charles Stross (1), Chemistry (2), Chess (3), Chesterton (2), Childhood (2), Chocolate (1), Christianity (2), Christina Rosetti (1), Christmas (4), Churchill (3), Classical Music (1), Coffee (7), Cognition (1), Comedy (1), Comics (1), Communications (1), Community (2), Competition (2), Completion (2), Complexity (1), Compromise (1), Computing (3), Conflict (1), Consequences (1), Conspiracy Theories (1), Consumption (1), Contentment (2), Context (1), Convoy (1), Cookies (1), Coughing (1), Covenant (1), Cows (1), Creativity (2), Culture (2), Curriculum Development (1), Cynicism (1), Darkness (4), Dating (1), Dawn (1), Days (1), De Niro (1), Death (4), Deception (1), Decision (2), Decline (1), Dedication (1), Despair (1), Desserts (1), Destruction (1), Disaster (2), Dispensability (1), Divination (1), Divine Will (1), Divinity (1), Dogma (1), Dorothy Dunnett (1), Drama (2), Dreams (2), Drinking Songs (1), Drugs (1), Duality (1), Dylan Thomas (4), Eagle (1), Eagles (2), Easter (2), Ecclesiastes (1), Economics (3), Education (19), Egypt (1), Elephants (1), Eliot (4), Elizabeth Bishop (1), Emotion (5), Energy (1), England (1), Entertainment (2), Environment (1), Epistemology (1), Equinox (1), Escher (1), Eternity (1), Etymology (12), Evangelism (1), Evil (1), Examinations (7), Exodus (3), Experience (1), Eye (2), Faith (3), Family (6), Fantasy (2), Fatalism (1), Fear (3), Feedback (1), Fellowship (1), Fire (1), Folklore (1), Folly (1), Food (2), Football (4), Forty (1), Fraud (1), Freakonomics (1), Freedom (4), French (1), Friendship (3), Future (1), Futurism (1), Gaiman (8), Games (3), Gatiss (1), Gene Wolfe (1), Generosity (1), Gentlemen (1), Geography (1), Globalism (1), Gnosticism (1), God (20), Goddess (1), Godfather (2), Good (1), Gordon Dickson (1), Gospels (1), Graceland (1), Grandfather (1), Graphics (1), Gratitude (1), Greater Trumps (31), Greek (3), Greek Philosophy (1), Grimwood (1), Guy Kawasaki (2), Hades (1), Haiku (2), Hamlet (1), Handel (1), Happiness (1), Harmony (1), Harrison Ford (1), Harrow (1), Heart (2), Heat (1), Heller (1), Henry V (1), Heraldry (1), Heresy (1), Hermeneutics (1), Heroism (3), Hierarchy (1), Historical Veracity (1), History (4), Hobgoblins (1), Holidays (1), Holiness (1), Hollywood (1), Holst (1), Hope (5), Hopkins (2), Housman (1), Hubris (1), Human Rights (1), Humanity (4), Humility (1), Humour (7), Hunter (2), Hydra (1), Hymnal (1), Iain Banks (1), IB (3), Idealism (1), Identity (1), Ideology (2), Illusion (2), Imagery (3), Imagination (2), Influences (1), Information (4), Information Technology (1), Insanity (1), Insects (1), Insight (1), Insomnia (1), Intellect (3), Intelligence (1), Internet (4), Interpretation (1), Invocation (1), Isaiah (3), Isidore of Seville (1), Jesus (2), JFK (1), John Dunning (1), John Wesley (1), Jokes (3), Journey (1), Joy (1), Judgement (2), Justice (1), Kasparov (1), Khonsu (1), Kim Stanley Robinson (1), Kipling (4), Knowledge (7), Labels (1), Language (3), Latin (1), Laughter (2), Law (2), Leadership (3), Learning (1), Leaving (1), Legacy (1), Legends (1), Lennon (1), Lewis Carroll (1), Libraries (1), Life (11), Light (4), Lists (1), Literature (8), Logic (3), Logos (2), Loss (2), Love (6), Loyalty (2), Lyte (1), Macbeth (1), Magrs (1), Management (2), Mannheim Steamroller (2), Market Forces (1), Marvell (1), Mathematics (1), Matthew Arnold (1), Media (1), Medicine (1), Medusa (1), Memes (2), Memory (3), Mentorship (1), Metaphor (2), Metaphors (8), Miasma (1), Michael Chabon (1), Milk (3), Milton (1), Mind (1), Mission (4), Money (2), Moses (7), Movement (1), Movies (3), Mozart (1), Mysteries (1), Myth (3), Mythology (6), Münchener Freiheit (1), Namelessness (1), Names (3), Natural Philosophy (1), Neander (1), Networking (1), Neurobiology (2), New York (3), News (1), Newton (1), Night (1), Nightmares (1), Nimzovich (1), Noah (1), Nobility (1), Nostalgia (5), Numinosity (2), O'Toole (1), Obituary (1), Operating Systems (1), Organic Chemistry (1), Paganism (2), Parables (2), Parody (1), Patriotism (1), Pattern (2), Paul Anka (1), Paul Simon (1), Peace (3), Perception (6), Periodicity (1), Perseverance (1), Personality (6), Perspective (1), Perturbation (1), Pfeiffer (1), Pharaoh (1), Philosophy (14), Phoenix (1), Physics (2), Physiology (1), Pilgrimage (1), Plato (1), Poetry (50), Politics (8), Possibility (2), Post-Modernism (1), Power (2), Prayer (1), Presentation (1), Pride (1), Principles (1), Professionalism (3), Profiling (4), Prometheus (1), Prophecy (4), Psalms (3), Psychology (4), Qualitative Research (1), Quantum Mechanics (1), Quiz (1), Rain (1), Random (1), Ravens (2), Reading (3), Reality (2), Reason (5), Reflection (12), Reindeer (1), Relationships (2), Religion (9), Remembrance (17), Renewal (2), Requiem (1), Research (2), Resignation (1), Response (1), Revelation (3), Richard II (1), Rite (1), Ritual (5), Roads (1), Robert Bridges (1), Robert Browning (2), Robert Burns (2), Robert Frost (1), Robert Graves (1), Roman Empire (2), Roman Philosophy (1), Sabbath (1), Sacrifice (1), Safety (1), Saints (2), Salvation (1), Satan (2), Scheduling (1), Science (3), Science Fiction (2), Scott Lynch (1), Seasons (1), Secrecy (1), Secret Garden (1), Servanthood (1), Service (1), Shadow (1), Shaggy-Dog (1), Shakespeare (5), Shelley (1), Sheri Tepper (1), Shostakovich (1), Simon and Garfunkel (1), Simplicity (1), Simulation (1), Singapore (4), Size (1), Social Sciences (2), Sonnet (2), Soul (1), Sound (1), Speech (1), Spirit (2), Spiritual Gifts (1), Spirituality (2), Standards (1), Stardust (2), Stasis (1), Statesmen (1), Statistics (2), Stories (3), Storms (1), Strategic Thinking (1), Strength (1), Students (3), Study (2), Subversion (1), Sunrise (1), Sunset (1), Supergrass (1), Superheroism (3), Superman (1), Supernatural (1), Surrender (1), Symbolism (45), Symptoms (1), Synthesis (1), Tabernacle (1), Tagore (2), Talent Development (1), Taverns (1), Taxonomy (1), Tea (2), Teaching (1), Technology (1), Ted Hughes (1), Temasek (1), Tennyson (1), Terminus (1), Tessa Farmer (1), Testing (4), Thanksgiving (2), Thatcher (1), Thaumaturgy (1), Theology (4), Thought (6), Thumboo (1), Thursday (1), Tim Powers (1), Time (7), Titans (1), Tolkien (2), Totemism (1), Transformation (1), Translation (1), Transmission (1), Transparency (1), Trinity (1), Triumph (1), Trivia (1), Trucking (1), Truth (3), Tufte (1), UK (1), Ulysses (1), Unambiguity (1), Unfulfilled Potential (1), Universe (1), University Life (1), UNSC (1), Victorian Era (1), Violence (1), Virtue (1), Virtues (1), Vision (5), Visual Arts (1), Voices (1), Vonnegut (1), Walker (1), Walter Moers (2), Wanderer (2), War (1), Weapons (1), White (1), Wilfred Owen (1), Wine (1), Wisdom (5), Wizardry (2), Womanhood (1), Wonder Woman (1), Words (1), Work (4), WotD (6), Writing (1), X-Men (1), Yeats (1), Youth (2), Zamonia (1), Zechariah (1), Zerubbabel (1), Zodiac (1), Zoology (1)

Edit: made it more manageable for people who hate scrolling...

A Note About This Blog

What is this blog about anyway?

Well, if I were a bird, I'd be a corvid by nature. I'm curious. I like finding things out. I like using what I find, if that's possible.

Of late, my environment changed to produce an endless supply of associates who were interested in epistemology (or who had no choice but to act as if they were). So I dug into my hoard of material on this, and produced a few nice shiny bits.

That's what I am. If you're looking for something interesting, there's probably something about it on this blog. If there isn't anything about it on this blog, I might be interested enough to post something about it. See below for a list of topics, or stop right now and have greater peace of mind. Heh.

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Currently, the list of tags/labels I've used in this blog is too long to form a nice tag cloud or list in the sidebar. So here it is, without hyperlinking:

1 Thessalonians (1), 1886 (6), 1960s (2), 1970s (2), 1980s (4), 1990s (2), 2 Timothy (1), 2000s (1), Abraham (2), Accountability (2), Acronyms (2), ACS (1), Acting (1), Actuarial Science (1), Adjectives (2), Administration (4), Adolescence (3), Adulthood (1), Adventure (1), Advertising (1), Aesthetics (3), Age (2), Agriculture (3), Akunin (1), Albion (1), Alchemy (5), Alcohol (2), Alexander (2), Alexandria (1), Alfred Duggan (1), Alistair Cooke (1), Alliteration (1), Altruism (2), Alumni (1), Ambidexterity (1), Ambiguity (1), Ambition (1), America (3), American Politics (10), Analysis (12), Anand (3), Anatomy (7), Ancestors (3), Anchors (1), Ancient of Days (7), Andrew Lloyd Webber (2), Angelology (1), Angels (3), Animals (7), Animism (1), Annie Lennox (2), Anniversary (1), Announcements (1), Anomie (1), Anonymity (2), Answers (2), Anthems (1), Anthony Hope (1), Anthony Price (1), Anthropomorphism (1), Apocalypse (6), Appraisal (11), Appropriateness (1), Archaeology (3), Archangel (1), Archilochus (1), Archiving (2), Argument (2), Aristotle (1), Arms Race (1), Army Life (2), Arsenal (5), Art (3), Arts (1), Assessment (2), Astrology (1), Astronomy (2), Asymmetry (1), Atheism (2), Atomism (3), Attainment (1), Auden (1), August (1), Australia (1), Authority (6), Autobiography (3), Autumn (3), Avoidance (1), Awakening (2), Awards (2), Babylon (1), Balance (2), Ballad (1), Baptist (1), Barry Hughart (1), Batman (3), Bears (1), Beatles (3), Beauty (3), Bee Gees (1), Beginnings (1), Behaviour (3), Being (1), Belief (7), Benjamin Franklin (1), Bentley (1), Betrayal (1), Bible (44), Biden (1), Billy Joel (6), Biochemistry (1), Biography (1), Biology (3), Birthday (7), Blades (1), Blake (2), Blessings (2), Blogosphere (11), Blogs (6), Blood (2), Boarding (1), Bonnie Tyler (1), Books (32), Botany (1), Brain (4), Breakfast (4), British (1), Brotherhood (5), Browning (1), Business (1), Butterfly (1), Byron (1), Byzantium (1), C Northcote Parkinson (1), C S Lewis (1), C W McCall (1), Cabell (1), Cabernet (1), Caffeine (3), Calendar (6), Capitalism (1), Capsaicin (1), Career Guidance (5), Carl Orff (2), Carly Simon (1), Carols (2), Carpets (1), Casting (1), Cataloguing (1), Catechism (1), Cathedrals (1), Cats (2), Celebration (5), Censorship (1), Change (11), Chaos (2), Chapel (1), Character (2), Charity (1), Charles Stross (1), Charteris (1), Cheese (2), Chemistry (8), Chess (10), Chesterton (4), Childhood (5), Children (2), Chocolate (1), Choice (1), Christianity (6), Christina Rossetti (2), Christmas (9), Churchill (3), Cinnamon (1), Circular Thinking (1), Cities (1), City Life (6), Civilisation (2), Clannad (1), Classical Music (3), Classics (1), Clay (1), Coaching (1), Coffee (10), Cognition (7), Coincidence (1), Cold War (2), Coleridge (1), Comedy (1), Comics (2), Communications (1), Community (2), Compassion (1), Competition (4), Completion (2), Complexity (2), Compromise (1), Computing (11), Conflict (2), Conscience (1), Consciousness (2), Conseqences (1), Consequences (1), Conspiracy Theories (1), Consumption (1), Contemplation (1), Content (2), Contentment (2), Context (1), Convoy (1), Cookies (1), Cornwall (1), Coughing (1), Couplets (1), Courage (1), Covenant (1), Cows (1), Creativity (3), Credo (1), Criminalisation (1), Crispin (1), Critical Thinking (3), Cruelty (1), Cryptography (1), Cryptozoology (1), Culture (5), Curriculum Development (5), Cynicism (2), Dancing (1), Daniel (1), Dante (1), Darkness (8), Data (1), Dating (1), Daughters (1), David (2), Dawn (1), Day (1), Days (2), De Niro (1), Death (8), December (2), Deception (3), Decision (2), Decline (1), Dedication (1), Definitions (2), Departmentalism (1), Departure (1), Desert (1), Despair (2), Desserts (2), Destiny (1), Destruction (1), Deuteronomy (2), Devotion (1), Devotionals (2), Dictatorship (1), Disaster (2), Discontent (1), Disease (4), Dispensability (1), Dissent (1), Divestiture (1), Divination (2), Divine Will (1), Divinity (1), Documentation (1), Documents (1), Dogma (2), Doom (1), Dorothy Dunnett (1), Dracula (1), Drama (4), Dreams (18), Drinking Songs (1), Drugs (1), Druidism (1), Duality (1), Dungeons (1), Duty (1), Dwarves (2), Dylan Thomas (6), Eagle (1), Eagles (3), Easter (4), Eccentricity (1), Ecclesiastes (7), Economics (12), Education (146), Eggs (1), Egypt (2), Egyptians (1), Eighteen (1), Elections (2), Electricity (1), Electronics (1), Elephants (1), Eliot (12), Elizabeth Bishop (1), Elvish (1), Emotion (5), Empire (5), Empiricism (1), Employment (1), Encryption (1), Endings (4), Enemies (1), Energy (1), Engineering (2), England (2), Enlightenment (1), Enmity (1), Entertainment (5), Entropy (2), Environment (1), Epistemology (18), Equinox (1), Escher (2), Espionage (1), Eternity (4), Ethics (2), Etymology (35), Evangelism (1), Evil (2), Examinations (32), Excellence (3), Existentialism (1), Exodus (6), Experience (3), Eye (2), Ezekiel (1), Facebook (1), Faith (10), Family (21), Fantasy (4), Farewells (1), Fatalism (3), Faust (1), Fear (5), February (1), Feedback (2), Feelings (1), Fellowship (2), Fencing (2), Finance (6), Finding (1), Fire (2), Fischer (2), Flexibility (1), Folklore (1), Folly (1), Food (20), Football (7), Fordism (1), Forgiveness (2), Forty (1), Fragment (2), Fragments (1), Fraud (2), Freakonomics (1), Freedom (6), French (2), Freud (1), Friendship (11), Future (1), Futurism (1), Gaiman (8), Gamaliel (1), Games (16), Gatiss (1), Geekiness (2), Gender (1), Gene Wolfe (1), Generosity (1), Genesis (2), Gentlemen (1), Geography (2), Geometry (7), George Lucas (1), Georgia (1), German (2), Ginger (1), Global Warming (2), Globalism (18), Gnosticism (1), God (46), Goddess (1), Godfather (3), Gold (3), Goliath (1), Good (2), Goodbyes (1), Gordon Dickson (1), Gospels (2), Government (3), Grace (1), Graceland (1), Grandfather (2), Grandparents (1), Graphics (1), Gratitude (1), Greater Trumps (31), Greatness (1), Greed (1), Greek (5), Greek Philosophy (2), Gridlock (1), Grimwood (1), Guinness (1), Guy Kawasaki (2), Hades (1), Haiku (3), Hamlet (1), Handel (1), Hands (2), Happiness (5), Hardware (1), Harmony (2), Harrison Ford (1), Harrow (1), Harry Potter (1), Hatching (1), Hate (1), Healthcare (1), Heart (4), Heat (4), Heaven (1), Hebrews (1), Heinlein (1), Heller (1), Henry V (1), Heraldry (3), Heresy (1), Hermeneutics (1), Heroism (3), Hierarchy (1), Historical Fiction (18), Historical Veracity (4), History (35), Hobgoblins (1), Holidays (1), Holiness (1), Holism (12), Hollywood (1), Holmes (1), Holst (1), Honour (1), Hope (11), Hopkins (3), Horse (1), Housman (3), Hubris (1), Human Rights (3), Humanism (1), Humanities (4), Humanity (12), Humility (1), Humour (21), Hunter (2), Hydra (1), Hymnal (2), I Samuel (4), Iain Banks (1), IB (5), Ice-Cream (3), Iconography (1), Idealism (3), Ideas (22), Identity (2), Ideology (2), Idioms (1), Idleness (3), Illusion (3), Imagery (3), Imagination (4), Immediacy (1), Importance (1), Indian Ocean (1), Inertia (1), Inevitability (1), Influences (1), Information (15), Information Security (2), Information Technology (4), Injury (1), Innovation (1), Insanity (2), Insects (1), Insight (2), Insomnia (1), Inspiration (4), Institutions (11), Insurance (1), Intellect (4), Intellectual Property (3), Intelligence (7), Internet (7), Interpretation (1), Invocation (1), Iron Man (1), Irony (1), Isaiah (4), Isaiah Berlin (1), Isidore of Seville (1), Israel (2), Italy (1), Jade (1), Jeremiah (3), Jessica Williams (1), Jesus (5), Jews (2), JFK (1), Joab (1), Job (1), John Dunning (1), John Lanchester (1), John Wesley (1), Jokes (11), Journal (1), Journalism (1), Journey (4), Joy (2), Judgement (4), Juggling (1), Juice Newton (1), Jungian Archetypes (1), Junk (1), Justice (3), Kasparov (2), Keats (1), Ken Burns (1), Kennedy (1), Kenneth Williams (1), Kent (2), Khonsu (1), Kim Stanley Robinson (1), Kindness (1), King Lear (3), Kingship (7), Kipling (10), Knowledge (16), Kurosawa (1), Labels (2), Labour (2), Lacunae (1), Language (12), Latin (5), Laughter (3), Law (4), Leadership (21), Learning (6), Leaving (1), Legacy (2), Legends (4), Legitimacy (1), Lennon (1), Lessing (1), Lessons (1), Lewis Carroll (2), Libraries (3), Life (83), Light (7), Lists (3), Literacy (1), Literature (24), Liverpool (1), Logic (5), Logos (2), London (3), Loss (3), Love (9), Loyalty (3), LRB (1), Luke (1), Lukyanenko (1), Lysenkoism (1), Lyte (1), Macavity (1), Macbeth (2), Madness (1), Magic Realism (3), Magrs (2), Mahbubani (1), Mammals (1), Mana (1), Management (28), Mannheim Steamroller (2), Market Forces (4), Martian Manhunter (1), Marvell (1), Mathematics (3), Matthew (2), Matthew Arnold (2), Maxwell (1), McCain (1), Meaning (4), Meatloaf (1), Media (2), Medicine (1), Meditation (1), Medusa (1), Melancholy (3), Memes (12), Memory (8), Men At Work (3), Mendacity (1), Mentorship (2), Mercy (1), Meritocracy (2), Merlot (1), Metallurgy (2), Metaphor (25), Metaphors (20), Miasma (1), Micah (1), Michael Chabon (1), Military History (5), Milk (3), Millennialism (1), Milton (3), Mind (7), Minerals (1), Misconceptions (1), Misery (1), Missile Weapons (3), Mission (9), Mockery (1), Moderation (1), Money (6), Moon Knight (1), Moorcock (1), Morality (1), Morning (3), Moses (9), Mottos (3), Moustache (1), Movement (1), Movies (6), Mozart (1), Multitasking (1), Muses (3), Music (10), Mysteries (2), Myth (8), Mythology (19), Münchener Freiheit (1), Namelessness (1), Names (6), Narrative (1), National Service (1), Nationalism (1), Natural Philosophy (3), Nature (4), Neander (1), Negotiation (1), Nehemiah (1), Neologisms (1), Networking (2), Neurobiology (2), New York (5), News (2), Newton (1), Night (5), Nightmares (2), Nimzovich (1), Nixon (1), Noah (1), Nobility (1), Nomenclature (2), Nostalgia (14), Notes (2), November (1), Numbers (7), Numinosity (2), O'Toole (1), Obama (10), Obituary (1), Objectivity (1), October (1), Odd Questions (13), Odd Thoughts (23), Old Age (2), Operating Systems (1), Optics (1), Optimism (1), Order (1), Organic Chemistry (2), Organisations (3), Organs (2), Orientalism (1), Orientation (1), Orthopaedics (1), Other (1), Paganism (2), Pain (3), Parables (3), Paradigms (2), Paradise (1), Paranoia (1), Parody (2), Patriarchs (1), Patriotism (2), Pattern (4), Paul Anka (1), Paul Simon (2), Peace (6), Pencils (1), Penitence (1), People (6), Perception (8), Perfection (1), Periodicity (1), Perseverance (1), Personality (9), Perspective (1), Perturbation (1), Pfeiffer (1), Pharaoh (4), Philip Pullman (1), Philippians (1), Philosophy (46), Phoenix (2), Phonetics (1), Phuket (1), Phylogeny (1), Physics (4), Physiology (1), Pilgrimage (2), Plagiarism (1), Planning (3), Plato (2), Poetry (91), Policy (1), Politicians (2), Politics (24), Possibility (2), Post-Modernism (4), Pottery (1), Power (8), Practice (2), Pratchett (1), Prayer (6), Preferences (1), Prepositional (2), Presentation (4), Pride (2), Prime Numbers (1), Principalship (2), Principles (2), Problem Solving (1), Processing (1), Professionalism (7), Profiling (5), Progress (5), Project (1), Prometheus (2), Propaganda (2), Prophecy (6), Proust (1), Providence (1), Prufrock (1), Psalms (18), Pseudonyms (1), Psychology (18), Psychosis (5), Punishment (2), Puzzles (1), Quakers (1), Qualitative Research (8), Quality (1), Quantum Mechanics (2), Queen (1), Quirks (1), Quiz (18), Racism (1), Rain (5), Random (7), Ranking (1), Ravens (9), Reading (5), Reality (6), Reason (9), Recessional (3), References (1), Reflection (38), Reflections (24), Reflective (5), Reindeer (1), Relationships (4), Relatives (3), Relaxation (1), Religion (20), Remembrance (73), Renegade (1), Renewal (2), Requiem (3), Research (20), Resignation (1), Resources (5), Response (1), Rest (1), Returning (1), Reunion (1), Revelation (5), Revenge (1), Review (1), Rhyme (2), Rhymes (3), Richard II (1), Richardson (1), Riddles (1), Rite (3), Ritual (5), Roads (1), Robert Bridges (1), Robert Browning (3), Robert Burns (2), Robert Frost (1), Robert Graves (2), Robots (1), Roman Empire (3), Roman Philosophy (1), Romance (2), Romans (3), Rugby (1), Rules (1), Russia (6), Ruth Solomon (1), Sabbath (1), Saberhagen (1), Sacrament (1), Sacrifice (1), Sadness (2), Safety (1), Saints (3), Sallust (1), Salmon (1), Salvation (1), Samuel (1), Sanctus (1), Sand-Jensen (1), Sanity (1), Satan (2), Satire (1), Saul (1), Sauternes (1), Savannah (1), Scheduling (1), Schizophrenia (2), School (5), Schools (1), Science (10), Science Fiction (5), Scotland (1), Scott Lynch (1), Search Engines (1), Seasons (3), Second World War (3), Secrecy (1), Secret Garden (1), Secrets (2), Self-Help (3), Senses (2), Serenity (3), Servanthood (2), Service (5), setti (1), Seven (1), Shadow (1), Shaggy-Dog (1), Shakespeare (8), Shelley (3), Sheri Tepper (2), Shostakovich (1), Shoulder (1), Shoutout (1), Silliness (1), Silver (1), Simmons (1), Simon and Garfunkel (2), Simplicity (3), Simulation (1), Singapore (7), Size (1), Skepticism (1), Skills (4), Skinner (1), Sleep (6), Slings (1), Small Things (2), Smiles (1), Smuggling (1), Social Sciences (9), Society (15), Socrates (1), Software (1), Songs (4), Sonnet (2), Soul (2), Sound (1), Space (1), Speech (1), Spin (1), Spirit (3), Spiritual Gifts (3), Spirituality (3), Sports (5), St David (1), St Etienne (1), St Jude (1), Staffing (1), Stalin (2), Standards (1), Star Wars (1), Stardust (2), Stasis (2), Statesmen (1), Statistics (16), Stephen Spender (1), Stoicism (1), Stories (10), Storms (1), Story (8), Strategic Planning (3), Strategic Thinking (14), Strategy (2), Strength (1), Structure (1), Stub (1), Students (16), Study (4), Stuff (1), Stupidity (1), Style (1), Subjects (3), Subversion (1), Succession (2), Suffixes (1), Suitability (1), Sun (1), Sunrise (1), Sunset (1), Supergrass (1), Superheroism (3), Superman (1), Supernatural (1), Supertramp (1), Surrender (1), Symbolism (54), Symbols (6), Symptoms (1), Synthesis (1), Tabernacle (1), Tacitus (1), Tactics (1), Tagore (2), Taleb (1), Talent Development (3), Taste (1), Taverns (1), Taxonomy (2), Tea (2), Teacher (3), Teaching (20), Tears For Fears (1), Technology (2), Ted Hughes (3), Temasek (1), Temper (1), Temperance (1), Temptation (1), Tennyson (2), Terminus (2), Tesla (1), Tessa Farmer (1), Testing (7), Thailand (1), Thanksgiving (8), Thatcher (1), Thaumaturgy (1), The Hundred (5), The Saint (1), Theology (10), Therapy (2), Things (2), Thinking (1), Thought (13), Thumboo (1), Thursday (1), Tim Powers (1), Time (22), Titans (1), Tolkien (2), Tools (2), Topalov (1), Totemism (1), Towers (1), Toys (1), Tragedy (1), Training (1), Transformation (1), Translation (1), Transmetropolitan (1), Transmission (1), Transparency (1), Travel (2), Trinity (1), Triumph (3), Trivia (2), Trucking (1), Truth (9), Tufte (1), TV (2), U2 (1), UK (1), Ulysses (1), Unambiguity (1), Unfulfilled Potential (1), Universality (1), Universe (4), University Life (10), UNSC (1), Urban Life (2), Use (1), Usefulness (1), Values (3), Vampires (1), Vanity (1), Venality (1), Vengeance (1), Vergil (1), Victorian Era (1), Violence (1), Virtue (3), Virtues (1), Vision (10), Visions (2), Visual Arts (2), Vocation (1), Voices (1), Vonnegut (1), Vowels (1), Voyages (1), Walker (3), Walking (2), Walter Moers (2), Wanderer (2), War (4), Watchmen (3), Water (2), Wealth (5), Weapons (3), Weather (1), Wedding (1), Weekdays (1), Weird (11), Welfare (1), Wenger (2), Werewolves (1), White (1), Whois (17), Wildlife (1), Wilfred Owen (2), Wine (6), Wisdom (9), Wizardry (2), Wolfberries (2), Wolfwatching (1), Wolves (2), Womanhood (2), Wonder Woman (1), Words (16), Wordsworth (1), Work (17), WotD (33), Wrath (3), Writing (7), Wyverns (4), X-Men (1), Xanthines (1), Yeats (3), Youth (6), Zamonia (1), Zechariah (1), Zerubbabel (1), Zodiac (2), Zoology (1)