I'm off to California, so there will be a break in posts for a week or so, unless I'm able to post some photos while I'm there.
Adieu for now!
29 July 2010
What's Better
Reunion Tower or the moon?
I'm off to California, so there will be a break in posts for a week or so, unless I'm able to post some photos while I'm there.
Adieu for now!
I'm off to California, so there will be a break in posts for a week or so, unless I'm able to post some photos while I'm there.
Adieu for now!
28 July 2010
Or Maybe
(Continued from previous post)
Thinking about determinism can get wishful sometimes:
A man lay in bed, half awake after a long night's restful sleep. The light slanted invitingly through the half-drawn curtains, not too bright but not too dreary. Early morning hunger rolled over the man, a consequence of an early dinner the night before. "Well," he thought, "if I'm fated to have eggs this morning, I'll get them whether I choose to get up now or not, so why bother."
He is still hungry today.
The Stoics and Sartre are on much more common ground than it would appear, for the Stoics did not believe in inaction because of fate. The fact of the matter is that at the moment of action, there is a necessary "illusion" of freedom, a choice that must be made, despite the fact that what that choice will be is predetermined by a prior cause. The Stoic Chryisippus offered the analogy of a cylinder pushed down a hill: the fact that it's rolling is caused not by the cylinder but by the initial push, but at each moment it rolls only because of its own (round) nature. And, it seems to me, similarly with Sartre: the situation one is in may be utterly out of one's control, but it is the choice to act therein that matters most. Sartre finds it of utmost importance to realize the uncontrollable nature of one's surroundings, and to act with that in mind. In the end, I think Sartre brings to the forefront of the definition of the human condition what the Stoics use as a backdrop to their own ethics: the thrownness of people into the world, the not-up-to-us nature of that world, and the need to act boldly anyhow.
A final word: jazz music strikes me as the perfect embodiment of this view of determinism and free will - a set of pre-determined rules, places that the notes should go and must go, and yet a culture of improvisation, a choice made at each moment as the musician plays, each performance unique and fleeting.
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I present to you Dallas:
Thinking about determinism can get wishful sometimes:
A man lay in bed, half awake after a long night's restful sleep. The light slanted invitingly through the half-drawn curtains, not too bright but not too dreary. Early morning hunger rolled over the man, a consequence of an early dinner the night before. "Well," he thought, "if I'm fated to have eggs this morning, I'll get them whether I choose to get up now or not, so why bother."
He is still hungry today.
The Stoics and Sartre are on much more common ground than it would appear, for the Stoics did not believe in inaction because of fate. The fact of the matter is that at the moment of action, there is a necessary "illusion" of freedom, a choice that must be made, despite the fact that what that choice will be is predetermined by a prior cause. The Stoic Chryisippus offered the analogy of a cylinder pushed down a hill: the fact that it's rolling is caused not by the cylinder but by the initial push, but at each moment it rolls only because of its own (round) nature. And, it seems to me, similarly with Sartre: the situation one is in may be utterly out of one's control, but it is the choice to act therein that matters most. Sartre finds it of utmost importance to realize the uncontrollable nature of one's surroundings, and to act with that in mind. In the end, I think Sartre brings to the forefront of the definition of the human condition what the Stoics use as a backdrop to their own ethics: the thrownness of people into the world, the not-up-to-us nature of that world, and the need to act boldly anyhow.
A final word: jazz music strikes me as the perfect embodiment of this view of determinism and free will - a set of pre-determined rules, places that the notes should go and must go, and yet a culture of improvisation, a choice made at each moment as the musician plays, each performance unique and fleeting.
-----
I present to you Dallas:
27 July 2010
Not So Free, Or Maybe
The Stoics are some of my favorite Ancient Greek philosophers – not only does the word “stoicism” arise from them (and not the other way around), but they subscribe to a host of ideas that at first seems most counterintuitive, but that grows on you as the arguments proceed, the paragon of good philosophy. There is a ton to their views, and I could go on and on about them, but it is the Stoic position on fate and determinism that I find most fascinating.
The Stoics find moral luck to be abhorrent. That is, that someone should be held responsible for something outside of their control is to them an untenable position: that only one of two drunk drivers is punished because only one happens to hit a pedestrian because that pedestrian happens to be there seems resolutely unfair to the Stoics. (Not that they mean to say that neither is culpable – it’s that only one is in fact punished that is the problem.) Thus, they take it to be the case that one can only be responsible for, and one should only care about, those things that one can control. And therein lies the rub, for the Stoics take it to be the case that all events are determined, that every event (and human action) has a preceding cause, and thus, since no alternative is open at the moment of action, that there is no such thing as free will. From this, the Stoics can find it irrational to display overt emotion, because, for example, anger at someone’s action involves the belief that the action could have proceeded differently, which in fact it couldn’t have.
This, then, is where Sartre comes in, for he holds that true freedom rests not in imagining one’s situation to be different and wishing it were so, but in acting given one’s facticity, making choices within the situation one finds oneself in and making the best of it. Freedom, to Sartre, is not lying to oneself about one’s situation, and making decisions based on and wholly within that situation. It’s a balance between, on the one hand, the constraints of body and worldly condition, and on the other, the ability to imagine being above those constraints, and most of all being able to act on that imagination while understanding and accepting one’s physical constraints.
It would appear, then, that the Stoics and Sartre are much at odds, for how can one resolve to act, even given an understanding of one’s facticity, if all actions are predetermined anyhow?
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I leave the question unanswered until next time, and leave the discussion for now with this possibly unrelated and possibly related photo.
The Stoics find moral luck to be abhorrent. That is, that someone should be held responsible for something outside of their control is to them an untenable position: that only one of two drunk drivers is punished because only one happens to hit a pedestrian because that pedestrian happens to be there seems resolutely unfair to the Stoics. (Not that they mean to say that neither is culpable – it’s that only one is in fact punished that is the problem.) Thus, they take it to be the case that one can only be responsible for, and one should only care about, those things that one can control. And therein lies the rub, for the Stoics take it to be the case that all events are determined, that every event (and human action) has a preceding cause, and thus, since no alternative is open at the moment of action, that there is no such thing as free will. From this, the Stoics can find it irrational to display overt emotion, because, for example, anger at someone’s action involves the belief that the action could have proceeded differently, which in fact it couldn’t have.
This, then, is where Sartre comes in, for he holds that true freedom rests not in imagining one’s situation to be different and wishing it were so, but in acting given one’s facticity, making choices within the situation one finds oneself in and making the best of it. Freedom, to Sartre, is not lying to oneself about one’s situation, and making decisions based on and wholly within that situation. It’s a balance between, on the one hand, the constraints of body and worldly condition, and on the other, the ability to imagine being above those constraints, and most of all being able to act on that imagination while understanding and accepting one’s physical constraints.
It would appear, then, that the Stoics and Sartre are much at odds, for how can one resolve to act, even given an understanding of one’s facticity, if all actions are predetermined anyhow?
-----
I leave the question unanswered until next time, and leave the discussion for now with this possibly unrelated and possibly related photo.
26 July 2010
25 July 2010
Mo' Mirro'
I'm just building up to my favorite of the bunch, promise.
By the way, some of these night shots are better viewed in a bigger size, which you can do by clicking on them (and zooming in, if so desired).
By the way, some of these night shots are better viewed in a bigger size, which you can do by clicking on them (and zooming in, if so desired).
Crime and Punishment, or Not
A friend of mine, who shall remain unnamed, recently had a brush in with the law, and it got me to thinking about the eye-for-an-eye principle that's at the heart of just about every criminal proceeding. In fact, it seems as though fines and incarcerations generally have two purposes, one of deterrence and the other of "due" punishment. Deterrence, perhaps, can be justified, albeit with a somewhat cynical view of human nature (ok, it's probably accurate). It is the idea of punishment as a necessary repercussion of wrongdoing that worries me, however. It seems evident that most people would agree that a criminal deserves to be punished, especially when the crime does serious damage to others. And my immediate reaction is the same - yeah, the murderer deserves his three lifetimes in jail - but when I think about it further I am stymied at what exactly may be the basis of that judgment. How is it that I can find it immoral (see next sentence for caveat) for a person to purposely ruin another's life, and yet agree to the same action as a punishment?
A philosophy professor in my last semester of college did a rather fine job of convincing me that free will - defined as that which gives people moral responsibility for their actions - does not exist, and so any punishment or praise is the equivalent of teaching a dog not to pee in the house or to roll over, respectively. While I'm still reeling from the implications of this idea (the subject of a subsequent post, I would venture), it does suggest that perhaps retribution is nothing but behavior correction and deterrence, a view against which, as I mentioned, I can raise fewer objections. As I'm woefully unversed in legal philosophy, I can only say that maybe Hammurabi's eye-for-an-eye system really was principally a method of keeping the peace through deterrence, but that still does not explain the deep-seeded intuition that a wrong-doer a priori deserves to be punished, and my more recent counter-intuition that this feeling is rather baseless. Although, in the end it still feels right to be happy when the purse-snatcher it pummeled by the helpless old lady, so I remain as conflicted as ever.
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In other news, I intend to have more posts such as this one along with all the photos, as I've been itching to write, partially for fear that I will have neither the time nor the assignments to do so when medical school rolls around, and partially because that is, after all, a stated purpose of this blog.
A philosophy professor in my last semester of college did a rather fine job of convincing me that free will - defined as that which gives people moral responsibility for their actions - does not exist, and so any punishment or praise is the equivalent of teaching a dog not to pee in the house or to roll over, respectively. While I'm still reeling from the implications of this idea (the subject of a subsequent post, I would venture), it does suggest that perhaps retribution is nothing but behavior correction and deterrence, a view against which, as I mentioned, I can raise fewer objections. As I'm woefully unversed in legal philosophy, I can only say that maybe Hammurabi's eye-for-an-eye system really was principally a method of keeping the peace through deterrence, but that still does not explain the deep-seeded intuition that a wrong-doer a priori deserves to be punished, and my more recent counter-intuition that this feeling is rather baseless. Although, in the end it still feels right to be happy when the purse-snatcher it pummeled by the helpless old lady, so I remain as conflicted as ever.
-----
In other news, I intend to have more posts such as this one along with all the photos, as I've been itching to write, partially for fear that I will have neither the time nor the assignments to do so when medical school rolls around, and partially because that is, after all, a stated purpose of this blog.
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