Madness foisted

Does anybody remember when Kleenex boxes just had a hole in the top to get the tissue out, and didn't have a slotted piece of plastic film glued around the hole to hold the next sheet in position?  Why did they change this?  Did anybody have a real problem getting the next tissue out of the old boxes?  Seriously?  The old boxes were simple, and about as cheap as they could be.  The new boxes are probably cheap, too, but making a box and gluing a sheet of plastic in it MUST be at least a little more expensive than just making the box, and it is more harmful to the environment to use the extra material, especially a non-biodegradable, petroleum-based plastic. Why?

Another of my pet peeves is coffee cup lids.  I drank coffee on the go for many years when the cups had simple, tearably-thin plastic lids with no holes to drink through.  I never had a problem getting my coffee out (improvising a sipping hole if-and-when I needed one), nor did any of the other coffee drinkers I knew.  But over time, all the coffee shops started providing (and ONLY providing) much heavier lids (more material) that couldn't easily have custom holes torn in them - but had a PERMANENT sipper hole.  The main function of these sipper holes seems to have been to dribble coffee everywhere (usually all over your clothes) while you were walking to your destination with the cup.  After several decades of this madness, some coffee shops started realizing that this was a problem for their customers.  Their solution was to provide ANOTHER thick, heavy piece of plastic to temporarily plug the unnecessary hole in the unnecessarily thick plastic lid.

The theoretical justification of the capitalist marketplace is that it "puts the consumer first" because they have sovereignty over their purchasing decisions, and producers compete to satisfy the sovereign customer.  But the only feedback is the purchasing decision, which comes LONG after the production decision has been made (and after many prior purchasing/production decisions, such as deciding on expensive retooling of factories).  But I don't think consumers were ever clamoring for plastic tissue-holders in Kleenex boxes, or thicker coffee cup lids with permanent sipping holes, and I doubt that many consumers ever made the choices of buying or not buying tissue or coffee based on these features.  These were unnecessary and irrational choices made by producers and foisted on consumers due to the inefficiency of a feedback mechanism so feeble as to be virtually non-existent.

I dream of a more rational economic system in which production decisions could me made deliberatively and collectively in a broad-based social process, and not in isolation and secret by competing cabals of producers, to be "voted on" after the fact by individual consumers acting even more in isolation and faced with limited and complexly aggregated purchasing options.

But, hey, maybe its just me that's gone mad, and not the rest of the world.  Who knows?

Choice and Determination

If we choose, and our choosing is not pure, unanalyzable magic, then there must be some mechanism, however complicated, by which we make the choice.  Logically, it seems that, either this mechanism must be “deterministic” in the sense that if the mechanism is in exactly the same state, and receives exactly the same inputs*, then it will decide in exactly the same way; or there is some purely random component (e.g. quantum uncertainty) that affects the choice.

Neither of these options “sounds like” free will.  But if this is not free will, and free will is not simply a meaningless concept, or at least irrelevant to the choices we actual can and do make, then there must exist some entity whose choices are being constrained by this process.  That is, there must be some entity that is not “free”.   But if some entity is unfree, what entity is it?  If “you” are not exercising “free will” in these conditions, who are “you”?

We, the material, biologically constructed entities that we are, do make choices, and our choices are made in an effort to further the ends that we have conceived for ourselves.  This much is manifest.  It seems meaningless to me to say that we do not have free will in these choices based on some highly abstract argument that somehow we will never make the choices we don’t end up making.  What does it even mean for us to somehow be “able” to make the choice we do not, in fact, end up making?  I don’t see how that idea can be rendered coherent, except by reference to physical/mechanical potentialities, and epistemic possibilities that are fully compatible with the “deterministic” mechanisms of choice referred to above.    

In any case, other than these organic mechanisms, which make choices in the manner that we, in fact, make them, there is no entity here that can be “unfree”.

Of course, our choices are constrained, by the materials and opportunities available in our environment, by our abilities, physical and cognitive, by our histories, including things that have happened to us and previous choices we have made.  And of course the ends and goals that we conceive are formed by similar internal and external factors.  But for this to mean that our choices, from among the options that seem epistemically possible to us at the given moment, are “unfree”, there would have to be some self, other than the selves so constructed by history, biology, and prior choice, whose freedom was constrained, whose will was being denied, by the choices the biological “we” are making.  I cannot, for the life of me, conceive of what that other self might be.

I conclude that to say that people do NOT have free will makes no sense.  All that is left is to either accept that the way we actually choose represents free will, or to take the question of free will as an ultimately meaningless “pseudo-question”.  But at this point the choice is purely “semantic” in the colloquial sense of “just a matter of words”, and it makes no real, philosophical difference which wording you pick.

*The conditions of the mechanism being in “exactly the same” state and receiving “exactly the same” inputs  are considered only to focus on the logical argument.  They are both, in practical reasoning, impossible.  The universe is far too complex for it ever to be put back in the same state twice, and as for our “mechanism”, it is altered by every experience, and therefore can never be in the same state twice.  Even settling for “highly similar” is dubious.  Most significant human choices are, neurologically, a chain (actually a highly “parallel” web) of micro decisions, each of which potentially alters decisions further down the line, possibly in a binary manner (on/off – no shades of gray).  The end result, it seems to me, must show sensitive dependence on initial conditions, whether the component steps do, or not.  (They may.)  Thus even “similar” inputs to a brain in a “similar” state can lead to widely different outcomes.

Note:  I wrote most of the above text while I was reading Ch. 2 in Daniel C. Dennett’s book “Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting”, a book which I have subsequently completed.  I think my views on this, as on many other topics, are broadly compatible with Prof. Dennett’s.

Occupy Wall Street

They re-occupied Wall Street, yesterday. The mainstream media seems to be largely blacking it out, and it's hard to tell exactly what is happening. The crowd in photos looks smaller than some Occupy internet sites have claimed. I suspect the forces of the City of New York, and possibly the Federal Government, will come down on them like a ton of bricks - certainly if they pitch tents, or seem to be assembling in too much strength. I suspect the near-certainty of this will keep a lot of prudent potential protesters away. Still, the mere fact that this is happening causes profound emotion to well up from my heart to my tearing eyes.

I love the Occupy movement with a surprising, deep intensity. It is the source of much frustration, true. But the sins of the Occupiers are those of naivete, mostly. Their strengths are hope, inclusion, solidarity, love, and pure heart. Compare this to a mainstream culture based on self-interest, greed, hypocrisy, and the exercise of naked power. Not much choice, is there?

I do not know how to go about building a better world. As U.S. and global political and economic centers grow stronger, more concentrated, and more adamantly resistant to change, I grow less and less certain that it is even possible. But I do know that whatever limited powers of intellect, knowledge, ability I may possess, I'd rather throw them on the side of love and hope than greed, aggression, and repression. I know which side I'm on.

My favorite Occupy chant expresses, I think, both the sometimes childlike innocence of the movement, and its enthusiasm and unlimited, but unselfish, ambition:

"Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Main Street.
Occupy EVERYWHERE and NEVER GIVE IT BACK."

 

All the Money in the World

"If you had all the money in the world, it would be worthless." At the risk of ruining the appearance of sagacity, I will 'splain my thinking.

If "money" is defined as "gold" or "cattle" or something else which has use value as well as value as a medium of exchange, then the statement in my "status" would not be true. If you had all the gold or cattle in the world, it would be worth something. But money, qua money, has value only in its role as facilitating exchange in a functioning economy. If it became TOO concentrated, it could no longer fill this role. Most people having no money, they would have to acquire goods and services they didn't produce themselves in some other way (e.g., barter or rapine), or they would have to introduce some other medium of exchange in lieu of "money" (e.g., cigarettes in prison or post-war Europe), which of course would then technically be money, in which case the people who had concentrated the official "money" in their hands would no longer have "all the money in the world".

In any case, my thought experiment ran that IF you had "all the money in the world" its extreme scarcity would make it useless as medium of exchange, and it would no longer be "money". Of course, social disruption and change (of the political system, or economic system, or both) would happen long before that that time. The relevant questions, to our own radically unequal national and (even more) world societies are: "What kind of change?" and "When?"

Similarity and Natural Kinds

Preface:  I’ve been reading “Naturalizing Epistemology” by Hilary Kornblith, Ed., which reprints a couple of papers by W.V.O. Quine, “Epistemology Naturalized” and “Natural Kinds”, along with papers by others that relate to questions raised by Quine in those essays, or raised by others in response to those essays.  The present post was inspired by ideas in the first few essays in that book.

“Similarity”, I think, arises from replaceability.  Two objects are similar to the degree to which you could replace one with the other without salient change in the state-of-affairs under analysis.  Obviously “salient” and even “change” are terms in need of further analysis.

Perceptually, we have “hardwired” (innate) and “softwired” (learned) structures in our brains (primarily – with some functionality distributed elsewhere in our somas) to identify different kinds of similarity.  Hardwired structures include things like edge detectors and angle detectors.  Softwired structures are built up from such.  Questions that can be asked include:  How would such features have come to evolve?  Why are they so apparently efficacious?  Just how reliably efficacious are they?

The nature of organisms suggests categorization of environmental factors on the basis of their effects on the organism.  Some factors encourage growth or reproduction.  Some limit these or produce death or extinction.  With complex organisms, some factors have these effects on a part of the organism, only, and may have very different effects (or little effect, at all) on other parts – stimulating production of this hormone, while retarding production of that, for example.  Replaceability of these factors with respect to their organic effects is the basis of categorization, and the source of similarity.  The salience of change can be suitably quantified in each case (e.g., rate of cell reproduction or hormone production).

Since they derive from our interactions with the world, our categories and sense of similarity relate closely to the world.  But there is still an element of subjectivity.  All categories are relative to an analysis.  Some categories may be relatively stable across all conceivable analyses we may do.  These we tend to characterize as “natural kinds”.  But even natural kinds such as species can have fuzzy edges for certain analyses.  (Exactly where, on the evolutionary tree, does a particular species begin?)  An intelligence arising from a very different history (a silicon-based life form, say, or a spontaneously evolving “artificial” intelligence) might cleave the world very differently than we do.  But in some categories (mineralogy, biological lineages) if it made an analysis at all, there would probably be considerable correspondence with our own.  Natural kinds are not meaningless, nor arbitrary, but neither are they perfectly precise.

Subject for Debate

It is not surprising that the debates fail to satisfy.  (I admit I didn't watch them.  A few minutes of Romney's wild eyes and wilder lies, and I was ready to puke, and changed the channel.  But I'm responding to the post-debate coverage I've read, both in the news media and on Facebook.)

You can't squarely and honestly address the issues facing this country unless you address the issue of class; to wit, that the rich and powerful are and have been systematically looting the working class both of this country and the world.  (This is the actual class that includes the working poor plus the bulk of that which we disingenuously refer to as  "the middle class" in our political debates.)  They have been doing this since time immemorial, generally with the full help and support of government.  This was mitigated for a brief time, due to working people's revolutionary struggles and the rise of unionism in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The post-WWII prosperity then eased the pressure (there was so much wealth to be generated, that the rich could be convinced to share).  But since the mid-70s the rapine has resumed, and steadily intensified in force.  Extreme inequality was a driving force behind the economic collapse of 2008, and our government (a milquetoast Presidency and a recalcitrant Congress) ensured that, while working people got some palliative measures (a stimulus package, payroll tax cuts, unemployment extensions), which actually lessened our pain compared to, e.g., Europe, the rich essentially got made whole, and certainly were not asked to pay for their crimes.

But neither of the major U.S. parties can address this issue, since they are both entirely beholden to the capitalist class.  Our Constitution, and our private cash-driven electoral system ensure this.  I'm not a believer in the strategy of "Down with the Elephant, Down with the Ass."  While I would love to see an effective (i.e., election-winning) "Party of the Working Class,"  I have yet to see one with a credible plan of building mass American support.  Working within the Democratic Party has been somewhat more effective in my lifetime, but frustrating also:  for all the so-called "progressives" we sometimes manage to elect, we can't seem to shake the identification of the Democrats as the kinder and gentler of the parties of the elites.  Money is too influential, leadership too powerful, and even our "progressives", once in office, are often too willing to go along to get along.

I don't have a solution.  We need an effective, yet revolutionary politics if we are ever to break the stranglehold of wealth over our lives, and I frankly can't see where that politics is coming from.  But an honest recognition of the problem has got to be the first step.

P.S. The quote above is from an old Socialist chant, "Down with the Elephant.  Down with the Ass.  Let's build a party of the Working Class."

Irrational Atheists

I've "liked" a couple of atheist pages on Facebook in the past couple of months.  But I'm thinking of unliking them.  People on them seem mostly interested in finding nasty things to say about the religious.  A common theme is to hold religious people accountable for every inane thing that is written in their holy books, as if every Christian were out there burning witches, and all Muslims spent their spare time putting non-Muslims to the sword.

Now I am absolutely convinced that reason demonstrates the non-existence of God with about the same measure of certainty that it demonstrates the annual path of the Earth about the Sun.  And because I think it is shameful to base your world view on an obvious falsehood, I think all people should be atheists.  I could make even stronger statements, but I won't at the moment, because my immediate purpose (anyway) is not to insult theists, but to argue for rationality and balance.

What I don't think (and where these so-called atheists seem to disagree) is that religion necessarily makes one a bad person.  All religions, at least in the Judaic/Christian/Muslim tradition, have some pretty horrible, immoral, anti-human things within their teachings.  But religious people, in reality, show a remarkable ability to pick and choose the tenets they will follow.  Rather amazingly, they do this even when they claim to literally following their holy books, and even when those books specifically deny them the right to pick and choose.  Many Christians, Muslims and Jews treat other people very, very badly in the name of their respective religions.  But others are entirely good people.

What I believe is that one's religion is entirely irrelevant to one's morality.  Despite their vehement protestations, I do not think religious people derive their morality one iota from the religious teachings they subscribe to.  I think they are the people that they are for many reasons - "nature" (whatever that is), their general history and upbringing, the love they had (or didn't have) as children, and other, similar things besides.  They take from their religion exactly what they bring to it.  Messages of cruelty, or messages of love, they find what they go looking for.

But I'm getting tired of atheists who just want to feel superior by ranting against the religious, and doing so in a way that eschews rational argument.  (Whenever I've posted mild suggestions to think more deeply on some topic, they have been ignored.)  I seem to have found the worst of the atheists - in the way that the "God hates Fags" folks are the worst of the Christians…, well, maybe not quite THAT bad... 

I've been told by theists that atheists "hate God".  I've always thought that was silly.  How could I hate an imaginary creature?  I don't even think that religion is necessarily evil - just silly and wrong.  (And the insistence of the religious that they have some kind of special right to be respected for their evidently untenable ideas is really annoying.)   I also, of course, find myself eternally arguing against the old chestnut that atheism is just another belief system, in effect another religion.  (Of course, in reality, atheism is just the result of an honest insistence that the same idea of reason that we apply to answering other questions in the world be applied to the question of God.)  But listening to some of these so-called atheists, I begin to see where my theist disputants got these wrong ideas about atheism.  I guess what I am is a rationalist first, and that leads me inevitably to atheism.  Atheism is a secondary, not a primary, identity.

But maybe I just need to find a better atheist group/page.  (Or start my own.)