Author Archive for peter

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The Zen of Sunday-painting

Published by peter on 2009-10-10 in Art, Creativity, Music and Religion. 0 Comments

In his famous account of learning the piano as an adult, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger refers to a book by psychiatrist, Marion Milner, a pseudonym of Joanna Field.  Milner was the sister of Nobel-physicist Patrick Blackett, and great-neice of Edmund Blackett, the architect of colonial Sydney.   Her book is an account of her attempts to paint and draw, and to learn to paint and draw, as an amateur artist.

I am not enchanted by her artwork, and I find her Freudian accounts of artistic creativity and its barriers both implausible and untrue to life.  I believe Alfred Gell’s anthropological account of art to be far more compelling – that artworks are tokens or indexes of intentionality, perceived by their viewers or auditors as objects created with specific intentions by goal-directed entities (the artist, or a community, or some spiritual being).  These perceived intentions include much else beside the expression of feelings.

But Milner’s book is replete with some wonderful insights, many of which express a Zen sensibility.     Herewith a sample:
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The websearch-industrial complex

Published by peter on 2009-10-08 in AI, Computer Science, Computer technology, Economics and Science. 0 Comments

I think it is now well-known that the creation of Internet was sponsored by the US Government, through its military research funding agencies, ARPA (later DARPA).   It is perhaps less well-known that Google arose from a $4.5 million research project sponsored also by the US Government, through the National Science Foundation.   Let no one say that the USA has an economic system involving “free” enterprise.

In the primordial ooze of Internet content several hundred million seconds ago (1993), fewer than 100 Web sites inhabited the planet. Early clans of information seekers hunted for data among the far larger populations of text-only Gopher sites and FTP file-sharing servers. This was the world in the years before Google.
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Public lectures

Published by peter on 2009-10-08 in Africa, Argumentation, Oratory, Politics and Rhetoric. 0 Comments

I expect that Bertrand Russell is the only person in history to have given public lectures to both TS Eliot (in lectures given at Harvard University) and Mao Tse-Tung (in a lecture series given in China).  With youtube and the web, we are in danger of forgetting how special an occasion a public speech can be.  And so I decided to list the people whose public lectures I have heard.  I’ve not included lecturers and teachers whose courses I attended, the most influential (upon me) I have previously listed here, nor talks given at conferences or in academic seminars.

Kenneth Arrow (2000), Michael Atiyah (2008, 2013), PK van der Byl (1985), James Callaghan (1980), Noam Chomsky (2003), Thomas Clayton (2012), David Coltart (2016), Joan Coxsedge (1979), Don Dunstan (1976), Steve Fuller (2008), Dov Gabbay (2012), Julia Gillard (2016), Joe Gqabi (1981),  Tim Harford (2011), Bob Hawke (1980), Xavier Herbert (1976), Anahid Kassabian (2009), Michael Kearns (2011), David Kilcullen (2013), Hans Kung (c. 1985), Kgosa Linchwe II Kgafela (1983), Bill Mansfield (1976-1980, several times), Robert May (2011, twice), Mobutu Sese Seko (1981, at gunpoint), Moshoeshoe II (1982), Robert Mugabe (1981-7, numerous times), Ralph Nader (c. 1977), Robert Oakeshott (c. 1985), Christos Papadimitriou (2009), Malcolm Rifkind (2016), Joseph Rotblat (2002), Rory Stewart (2009), Oliver Tambo (1987), Edgar Tekere (1981), Rene Thom (1979), John Tukey (c. 1979), Moshe Vardi (2010), Gough Whitlam (1975-8, several times), Gerry Wilkes (1975), Elizabeth II Windsor (1980), Andrew Young (1979) and Mick Young (1979).
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Know-all

Published by peter on 2009-10-02 in Argumentation, Culture, Religion and Science. 0 Comments

Terry Eagleton has been a strong defender of religious belief, religious practice, and theology against the attacks of the neo-classical atheists, as in this interview here.  I have a great deal of sympathy with Eagleton’s aims, but he seems confused about performative acts, actions which may or may not imply propositions, and, when they do, certainly rarely imply propositions reasonable people can agree on.   Normblog, here first and then here,  attacks Eagleton’s account of religious practice.  In his second post, Norm is responding to a post by Chris at Stumbling and Mumbling, a post which defends Eagleton by discussing tacit knowledge and coming-to-know-something-through-experiencing-it.
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The Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge

Published by peter on 2009-10-01 in Argumentation, Logic, Mathematics, Matherati and Religion. 0 Comments

From the 18th century until 1909, students at Cambridge University took a compulsory series of examinations, called the Mathematical Tripos, named after the three-legged stool that candidates originally sat on.  Until the mid-18th century, these examinations were conducted orally, and only became written examinations over faculty protests.   Apparently, not everyone believed that written examinations were the best or fairest way to test mathematical abilities, a view which would amaze many contemporary people – although oral examinations in mathematics are still commonly used in some countries with very strong mathematical traditions, such as Russia and the other states of the former USSR.
The Tripos became a notable annual public event in the 19th century, with The Times newspaper publishing articles and biographies before each examination on the leading candidates, and then, after each examination, the results.   There was considerable public interest in the event each year, not just in Cambridge or among mathematicians, and widespread betting on the outcomes.
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Two kinds of people

Published by peter on 2009-10-01 in Heroes and Politics. 0 Comments

 K. Kram in Glee and Disaffection (translated by Mark Kaplan):

When I was an adolescent it struck me, rather narcissistically, that there were two kinds of people, politically speaking. On the one hand, there were those who had realised, at first dimly and intuitively, that there was something profoundly wrong with the social and political order in which they lived. It was wasteful, unjust, amoral and much more besides. Its language seemed formulaic and false, a screen of clichés and convenient fictions. Following up these dim intuitions, turning them into genuine understanding, would be no easy task. One had been thrown into this world, grown up with its assumptions and habits of thought, and these had (to use a phrase I would learn later) deposited a kind of inventory, and this inventory had to be painstakingly scrutinised and thought through. This thinking through would involve dragging into visibility and naming the whole social order. It would be a long game. One would have to relearn how to think and speak. But only fidelity to this project was worthwhile. And this type of person pledged that they would never succumb to the easy rewards of this social order, they would do everything they could to maintain their critical distance. Otherwise, they could not live with themselves. From this social order which they had not chosen they would at least win for themselves insight into its workings, and would attempt to prepare and imagine alternatives.
And the other type? These consisted of those scandalised by the very presence of the first type. For these people, the mere fact that a form of life existed seemed to be sufficient proof that it should. And for them, the first type of person could only be motivated by resentment or fashion.”

Poem: The Workman's Friend

Published by peter on 2009-10-01 in Poetry. 0 Comments

One of my favourite poems, by Irish comic novelist and journalist Flann O’Brien (aka Brian O’Nolan aka Myles na gCopaleen) (1911-1966):

The Workman’s Friend
When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night –
A pint of plain is your only man.
When money’s tight and hard to get
And your horse has also ran,
When all you have is a heap of debt –
A pint of plain is your only man.
When health is bad and your heart feels strange,
And your face is pale and wan,
When doctors say you need a change,
A pint of plain is your only man.
When food is scarce and your larder bare
And no rashers grease your pan,
When hunger grows as your meals are rare –
A pint of plain is your only man.
In time of trouble and lousey strife,
You have still got a darlint plan
You still can turn to a brighter life –
A pint of plain is your only man.

Evil intentions

Published by peter on 2009-09-29 in Culture, Religion and Science. 0 Comments

A commentator on Andrew Sullivan’s blog asks:  Where is the Darwinian theory of evil?   Because  modern biologists this last century or so have been very concerned to avoid teleological arguments, modern biology has still only an impoverished theory of intentionality.  Living organisms are focused, in the standard evolutionary account, on surviving themselves in the here-and-now, apparently going through these daily motions unwittingly to ensure  those diaphonous creatures, genes, can achieve THEIR memetic goals.  Without a rich and subtle theory of intentionality, I don’t believe one can explain complex, abstract human phenomena such as evil or altruism or art or religion very compellingly.
Asking for a theory of intentions and intentionality does not a creationist one make, despite the vitriol often deployed by supporters of evolution.  One non-creationist evolutionary biologist who has long been a critic of this absence of a subtle theory of intentionality in biology is J. Scott Turner, whose theories are derived from homeostasis he has observed in natural ecologies.   I previously discussed some of his ideas here.
References:
Alfred Gell [1998]:  Art and Agency:  An Anthropological Theory.  Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
J. Scott Turner [2007]: The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself. Cambridge, MA, USA:  Harvard University Press.

Vale William Safire

Published by peter on 2009-09-27 in Argumentation, Decision theory, Obituaries and Politics. 0 Comments

William Safire, a speech-writer for Richard Nixon and later an op-ed columnist with The New York Times, has just died.  To his memory, I retrieve a statement from his novel Full Disclosure, which nicely expresses a different model of decision-making to that taught in Decision Theory classes:

The truth about big decisions, Ericson mused, was that they never marched through logical processes, staff systems, option papers, and yellow pads to a conclusion.  No dramatic bottom lines, no Thurberian captains with their voices like thin ice breaking, announcing, “We’re going through!”    The big ones were a matter of mental sets, predispositions, tendencies – taking a lifetime to determine – followed by the battering of circumstance, the search for a feeling of what was right – never concluded at some finite moment of conclusion, but in the recollection of having “known” what the decision would be some indeterminate time before.  For weeks now, Ericson knew he had known he was ready to do what he had to do, if only Andy or somebody could be induced to come up with a solution that the President could then put through his Decision-Making Process. That made his decision a willingness not to obstruct, rather than a decision to go ahead, much like Truman’s unwillingness to stop the train of events that led to the dropping of the A-bomb – not on the same level of magnitude, but the same type of reluctant going-along.”  (pp. 491-492)

Reference:
William Safire [1977]:  Full Disclosure. (Garden City, NY, USA:  Doubleday and Company).

Australian logic: a salute to Malcolm Rennie

Published by peter on 2009-09-27 in Heroes, Logic, Mathematics, Matherati and Obituaries. 0 Comments

Recently, I posted a salute to Mervyn Pragnell, a logician who was present in the early days of computer science.  I was reminded of the late Malcolm Rennie, the person who introduced me to formal logic, and whom I acknowledged here.   Rennie was the most enthusiastic and inspiring lecturer I ever had, despite using no multi-media wizardry, usually not even an overhead projector.  Indeed, he mostly just sat and spoke, moving his body as little as possible and writing only sparingly on the blackboard, because he was in constant pain from chronic arthritis.   He was responsible for part of an Introduction to Formal Logic course I took in my first year (the other part was taken by Paul Thom, for whom I wrote an essay on the notion of entailment in a system of Peter Geach).   The students in this course were a mix of first-year honours pure mathematicians and later-year philosophers (the vast majority), and most of the philosophers struggled with non-linguistic representations (ie, mathematical symbols).  Despite the diversity, Rennie managed to teach to all of us, providing challenging questions and discussions with and for both groups.   He was also a regular entrant in the competitions which used to run in the weekly Nation Review (and a fellow-admirer of the My Sunday cartoons of Victoria Roberts), and I recall one occasion when a student mentioned seeing his name as a competition winner, and the class was then diverted into an enjoyable discussion of tactics for these competitions.
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