Saturday Book Quote

From Chaos: Making A New Science by James Gleick.

  “Feigenbaum knew what he had, because geometric convergence meant that something in this equation was scaling, and he knew that scaling was important.  All of renormalization theory depended on it.  In an apparently unruly system, scaling meant that some quality was being preserved while everything else changed.  Some regularity lay beneath the turbulent surface of the equation…”

  “But what made universality useful also made it hard for physicists to believe.  Universality meant that different systems would behave identically.  Of course, Feigenbaum was was only studying simple numerical functions.  But he believed that his theory expressed a natural law about systems at the point of transition between orderly and turbulent.  Everyone knew that turbulance meant a continuous spectrum of different frequencies, and everyone had wondered where the different frequencies coming in sequentially came from.  Suddenly you could see the frequencies coming in sequentially.  The physical implication was that real-world systems would behave in the same, recognizable way, and that furthermore it would be measurably the same.  Feigenbaum’s universality was not just qualitative, it was quantitative; not just structural, but metrical.  It extended not just to patterns, but to precise numbers.  To a physicist, that strained credulity.”

The Joys of Torture

How should I torture? Let me count the ways.
I torture to the depth and breadth and height
Thy body can reach, when pain blinds all sight
For the ends of ticking bombs and commanding thy days.
I torture to the level of abject submission
With excess humiliation when given permission
I torture freely, as sadistic measures proceed
I torture purely, as instinct begets vulgar need
I torture with a passion for suffering and sensitivity
In my attempted deconstruction of terrorist activity
I torture in many awkward positions
With my moral compass in a broken condition
Groans, tears, and spittle will not suffice
To end this torture, not in this life.

Sublimation

Expression has multiple purposes, but some purposes are more refined than others.  One of the primary achievements of Greek culture was to distill by reason the nature of the world.  The echoes and correspondences of the universe are elegant and mystifying.  Although we may bow to the unknowable ultimate question of why, we should advance with determination upon the merely unknown mechanism of how.

Fuzzy versus Formal

The title refers to types of logic.  Another way of saying it is continuous versus discrete.  The approach among nearly all philosophers is that one or the other type is irrelevant or that these types converge on a single answer.  To paraphrase, truth is one but error is infinite.  As Nietzsche puts it, supposing truth is a woman – what then?

Suppose that truth has more than one side to her nature.  In that case, her allure and mystery is revealed through complexity rather than simplicity.  Truth can be reduced to a crude true or false dichotomy, or it can be a synthetic, dynamic process of integration and possibility.

Saturday Book Quote

A look at the Big Easy through the eyes of a comic tragic figure named Ignatius.  New Orleans lives up to its reputation as the place where the Bible Belt is unbuckled.  From A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

Dear Reader,

A great writer is friend and benefactor of his readers. – Macaulay

  Another working day is ended, gentle reader.  As I told you before, I have succeeded in laying a patina, as it were, over the turbulence and mania of our office.  All non-essential activities in the office are slowly being curtailed.  At the moment I am busily decorating our throbbing hive of white-collared bees (three).  The analogy of the three bees brings to mind three b’s which describe most aptly my actions as an office worker: banish, benefit, beautify.  There are also three b’s which describe most aptly the actions of our buffoon of an office manager:  bait, beg, blight, blunder, bore, boss, bother, bungle, burden, buzz.  (In this case, I am afraid that the list gets somewhat out of hand.)  I have come to the conclusion that our office manager serves no purpose other than one of obfuscation and hindrance.  Were it not for him, the other clerical worker and I would be quite peaceful and content, attending to our duties in an atmosphere of mutual consideration.

Paranoid Predator

I would comment about this, but I might end up on his Orwellian “enemies list.”

Thoughts on Metapolitics

Looking at the previous post, there are some interesting tensions between the various ideals.  The goal of liberalism over radicalism has some implications that I thought should be explained.  In some ways, this is really about information integrity, because a fair, democratic process has the benefit of allowing objective review of facts, although partisans will inevitably spin those facts to their liking.  Radicalism, if it bothers to deal with facts at all, is so highly selective that the big picture is distorted beyond belief.  The only reason I did not choose a one on that scale was because the areas of rights should be immune from democratic whims.  No matter what the public sentiment is, if a right exists it cannot be trumped by a plurality.  Obviously, this means we should be careful when using rights language.

The other areas that I deviated from the mean were a slight emphasis on aggregation over deliberation, authoritarianism over libertarianism, and wealth redistribution.  Even though I am fond of deliberation, I have seen too many cases where it is used to obfuscate the issue at hand.  So I favor a small amount of deliberation, where two or three competing visions present their case, and then the majority votes. 

My emphasis on authoritarianism is based on two separate goals: universal justice within a society and the potential anarchy of severing cultural bonds.  By far, the concept of social justice carries more weight, but the atomization of society into enclaves and city-states does have a deterrence value.  One need only look to Iraq to see how a lack of authority has created total chaos.

The wealth redistribution question is also a matter of social justice and keeping inequality from permanently stratifying society.

Metapolitics

Metapolitics Go-meme

How should politics be conducted? I’ve marked in my positions on the 7-point scales below. To participate yourself, simply copy this entire post (including links), and mark your choices accordingly before posting it to your own blog.

a) Liberalism – X – – – – – Radicalism (2/7)
Do the ends justify the means? Procedural liberals insist on the primacy of fair play and democratic process. Radicals care less about method, and more about getting the desired result.

b) Rationalism – – – X- – – Subjectivism (4/7)
Is there ever a “right answer” to political questions? Rationalists think that reasoned debate could, ideally, lead to consensus about the common good. Subjectivists see politics as a mere contest of wills, all rhetoric and power plays, where the goal is simply to have your individual preferences win through.

c) Direct – – – X- – – Representative Democracy (4/7)
Should power rest more with citizens or elected representatives?

d) Aggregation – – X – – – – Deliberation (3/7)
Should political decisions be reached by simply aggregating individuals’ prior preferences, or by submitting reasons for deliberation and critical scrutiny?

e) Federalist – – – X – – – Globalist (4/7)
What’s the most appropriate level for political decisions? Federalists favour local-level decision-making (which may vary across localities), in contrast to Globalists.

f) Libertarian – – – – X – – Authoritarian (5/7)
How much discretionary power should be allowed in politics? Libertarians favour greater (e.g. constitutional) constraints on the exercise of political power. Authoritarians (may include populists and paternalists) are the opposite.

g) Economic Left – X – – – – – Right (2/7)
How favorably do you view redistributive taxation and other typically “Left-wing” economic policies?

Track List:
1. Philosophy, et cetera
2. Kiwi Pundit
3. GeniusNZ
4. Blargh Blog
5. Crosswords and Puzzles
6. [Add link to your blog here]

Graceful Days

From one of the most hopeful songs I have heard recently. 

I need someplace simple where we could live/ And something only you can give/ And that’s faith, and trust, and peace while we’re alive. 

From “Better Days” by the Goo Goo Dolls.

Miscarriage and Choice

From what I have read on the subject, miscarriage is a fairly common event.  It occurs often enough that it affects half of all fertilized eggs, and about seventeen percent of all implanted eggs.  So nature, on its own, is rather particular about letting just any zygote continue on its developmental journey.

How this correlates to choice is that abortion adds an additional level of selection to the natural process.  The prolifer will say that it is not the mother’s role to deny consent, because the fetus has a natural right to life that overrides her choice.  My reply is that if the fetus does have a natural right to life, nature would not be so frequent in eliminating that right.

The mother’s consent is not an absolute in this equation however.  As I mentioned in my first post, consent is granted by default after a period of time.  Nor does her consent trump the legal rights of a person, once the fetus has developed to that stage of consciousness (third trimester).  This means that Doe v. Bolton must be overturned and Roe v. Wade should be modified to ban third trimester abortions.  If the mother’s life is in jeopardy, an attempt must be made to save both parent and child.