Go Sports!

With the World Cup engaging the world at the present moment, I hear lots of the boorish and idiotic argument that attempt discrimination between worthwhile and non-worthwhile sports. Baseball is not worthy because .... Soccer is .... I won't attempt to repeat these are they are mind-bogglingly ethnocentric and close-minded.

Here's a word from Alistair McIntyre on what constitutes a worthwhile activity or practice ...

By a 'practice' I am going to mean any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended (AV, 187).

Possible Equation

complex behavior + cooperative human activity multiplied by internal goods and levels of excellence + achievable levels of human excellence = worthwhile human activity

So, all sports contain this internal logic. Counting blades of grass does not. In counting grass, you usually perform the task alone (because your crazy), there's no recognized levels of excellence (you can't get much better at it) and its none the too complex. You could theoretically add these things to grass counting and it would become a sport. Throw in body checking and it would become a contact sport.

So basically, the sport you grew up with and were embedded in the practice and culture thereof and internalized the standards of excellence therein becomes ipso facto the best sport there is. Of course, you could be an American and like cricket for example, but chances are that you are a difficult and contrarian personality who has a thirst for ragging on the home grown stuff.

In following MacIntyre, this is not relatavism. People can clearly discriminate between grass cutting and baseball. Likewise, people can clearly disriminate between fine dining and microwaveable food. Fine dining is embedded in a rich culinary practice, microwaveable cooking lacks this context.

How Do We Point Out Particulars

How do we talk of particular things?

This is a very basic question, maybe one that concerns philosophy at its best. Peter Strawson claims that we can talk fish out the logical necessities of the structure required to talk about particular things by referring everything back to the present moment of space and time.

Space and time is a unifying structure that links every particular with every other. We want to refer to Aristotle, we know at this present moment of space and time it is now, refer to our internal or an external calendar to get a sense of the 5th century BC when he lived, and maybe even look at picture of him to get an idea of what he looked like. But, what is necessary, is too relate everything to this current space and time moment, and show the relative space current to that.

What happens when this system appears to break down. For example, a speaker and listener are talking and the speaker refers to 'a boy and a man standing at a train station', 'the man then proceeds to sit down'. In this case, we put quotation marks around the story. We can't relate these particular things 1) the train station, 2) the boy, 3) the man to anything in space and time as we do not know the exact location of things or the thime that they occured. So, we must, put quotation marks around these particulars. So, for the listener, the quotation marks put the particular not square in reality but in a frame held by the speaker. The speaker, unless he is making up the story, does not need these quotation marks. He can sufficiently locate these thing within reality.

So what happens when he get something like a phrase "the first dog born at sea". We can make sense of this phrase. It is logically sensible and conceivable. But, we don't know where and when the first dog was born at sea. We can not place it within the logical framework. Strawson argues, however, that it is not completely detached from out talk of particulars grounded in space and time (which in turn can be traced back to the present moment). We can make sense of talking about dogs because we know of other particular dogs, likewise the sea and 'being born'. We could not make sense of the sentence if we could not refer back to any particulars.

Thems the Rules

In Western society, its fun to romanticize rebels like James Dean and villainize bureaucrats and salary men as inside-the-box rule followers. But, what would happen if there were no people who followed all of our mundane mind-numbing rules? What are boring and the middle class' true value? This piece may shed light ...

To drive home the importance of good rules to economic growth, Romer sometimes shows a photograph of Guinean teenagers doing their homework under streetlights. The line of hunched, concentrating figures presents a mystery, Romer says; from the photo it is clear that the teens are not dirt poor, and youths like these generally own cell phones. Yet they evidently have no electric light at home, or they would not be studying by the curbside. “So here is the puzzle,” Romer declares: Why do these kids have access to a cutting-edge technology like the cell phone, but not to a 100-year-old technology for generating electric light in the home? The answer, in a word, is rules. Because of misguided price controls in the teenagers’ country, the local electricity utility has no incentive to connect their houses to the power grid. Their society lacks the rules that make technological advance meaningful.

Rule-of-law: unglamourous, not pretty, unriveting, uncelebrated in verse, print or cinema. But, necesarry.

An interesting question:

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  If culture really has a evolved to choose and promote the fittest courses of action,





• 
  
  
  and rule of law is the fittest course of action,







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  then why is rule of law not a celebrated part of our low, mid or high culture?

It may be difficult for Cultural Memetics, a branch of evolutionary psychology, to give a non-throwaway answer to such anti-fit behavior. After all, it is a fact that by-the-book behavior is the most evolutionarily capable strategy in everyday and long-term circumstance. Culture, according to memetics, needs its hosts, humans, to live long and prosper in order to have hosts to feed off of. Then, why doesn't pop, mid, or high culture reflect this fact at all?

Not that anyone would be intersted in cultural artifacts that celebrated such things. And, I can't blame them.

The Third Date

I have no real input on this one ... just interesting ... and I never realized, but there's probably a lot of truth to it ...

That third-date urge
“Welcome to the third date,” Hannah Seligson writes for The Daily Beast, “that moment on the courtship trajectory when the truth comes out about STDs, personal hygiene habits, secret significant others, family backgrounds and, yes, their real age. Anecdotally, the third-date confession has become so legendary that some people have come to fear the third date for what they’ll learn about the up-to-now wonderful person smiling at them from across the table. … The tone, tempo and type of information revealed in a burgeoning relationship can get complicated. Is there ever really a right time to tell someone you are dating you never finished high school, that your father is a Satan worshipper, or that that sex tape of yours is still making the virtual rounds? ‘I generally advise people to hold off on revealing information until things have become exclusive and serious,’ says Dr. Diana Kirschner, a New York-based psychologist and author of Love in 90 Days … Psychologically, Kirschner says, the third date is a moment when you are just starting to relax. And comfort can quickly morph into the impulse to reveal embarrassing or scary information. ‘It’s an unconscious wish to be accepted,’ she says.”

My personal third date confession: I care too much, and, I scream in my sleep.

North Korean Film Imports

No much gets into North Korea. Maybe a boot-legged copy of Titanic. But, who can deal with that? One thing that does make its way into the Black Market is Californian porn.

Though initially counter-intuitive, it probably makes a lot of sense for the North Korean Gov't to look the other way on this.

• First, it paints America as a den of iniquity and decadence to the public. Imagine if they thought this represented main stream American? Pizza would quickly replace hot dogs as the identified food of choice of Americans by Koreans.


• Second, it allows the Korean gov't to give its people some circus over bread, old Roman style. A nation may be food starved, but there are other types of starvation as well.


• Third, everyone over 22 in North Korea is a mother and/or father. Though they may indulge in watching illicit films; they certainly don't want that type of thing in their neighbourhood. So, it keeps the glamourous lifestyle in the 'no thank you' category.

Some stock footage of North Koreans looking at a girly magazines taken last week.

Frames and Reference

Descriptive philosophy greatest accomplishments is in further refining the things we already know. If philosophy is doing its job, we should upon hearing a nugget of its knowledge, exclaim, "Well, that sounds about right". Here's an example from Peter Strawson ...

Upon hearing a story from another person

The hearer, in the example, is able to place the particular referred to within the picture painted by the speaker. This means that in a sense he can place the particular in his own general picture of the world. For he can place the speaker, and hence thespeaker's picture, in that general picture of his own. But he cannot place the figures, without the frame, of the speaker's picture in hisown general picture of the world. For this reason the full requirement for hearer's identification is not satisfied.

Simple, none too controversial. We frame those things that we hear from other people. Everytime someone tells you a story, we put a little cognitive frame over that person's story. If we steal that persons story for ourselves and delude oursleves into thinking it is real, we lose the frame.

Here's a question. When we watch CNN, do we frame the action we see? The event has actually occured though not in front of our eyes. But, the camera is itself just another eye. After all, it is a piece of equiptment designed to process light rays so our brain can in turn process them to form images. As is the eye. We should have no superstitiious prejudice because one is 'natural' and the other is not. It is just 2nd level image processing as it must go from TV lens to eye to brain, but is this enough to qualify it as a cognitive frame? For all purposes, we have witnessed the event as sure as we are standing there.

I would say we don't cognitively frame these events, as the fact they are relayed through TV is irrelevant to our understanding of the action in the event. In order to understand someone's story we must keep in mind (frame) that that person has witnessed it, not I. This framing is unneccesary to understand televised footage, as you can understand the action first hand with reference only to your sensory experience. Of course, it is a lie to say you actually were at the spot it took place, but its not a lie to say you saw the event. So, in a way, we all have been to the (and, every) SuperBowl ever since it became a televised event. And, I saw the Berlin Wall fall.

Does the same hold true for a performance of music on the radio? Should we allow our eyes but not the ears cognitive priority?

Karate

Japan is a country that fetishizes cuteness with a countless array of animated characters; wide eyed and round for maximum effect. They are also a peaceful, sharply ordered country nevertheless with a quiet perversion for the violent. They enjoy re-creating snuff films, creepily enough. When those two aspects of the culture come together, the creature in the picture below is shat out and willing to kick ass and take names with ridiculous, short-legged abandon.

Meterological Equation:

Hot Front and Cold Front (multiplied byX) Collision = Thunder and Lightning

From this the General Rule

Two extremes collinding create a Electric clash

Ipso Facto:

Sociological Equation:

Cuteness + Violence + Judo Mat = Cultural Thunder

Nice mushroom cut, loser.

On the Ancient Limit of Reading Aloud

On our recent ability to read silently to ourselves:

At first, books did not have any spaces between the words, and required a lot of work to understand. They were typically read out loud, and those who could read silently to themselves, like Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, were viewed with amazement. Eventually, punctuation marks and spaces between the words eased the "cognitive burden" of reading. The "deep reader" was born. Readers trained themselves to ignore their surroundings (countering our evolution, which encourages wariness) and to focus on a text. Writers responded to this new reader. "The arguments in books became longer and clearer, as well as more complex and more challenging, as writers strived self-consciously to refine their ideas and logic," Carr explains. Private carrels were built in libraries; reference books sprang up to help the solo reader.

There's a lot of interesting information in this paragraph regarding how reading basically made us different people with an increased depth. We examine the effect of literacy on societal developments - how the writers of the Enlightenment, for example, led to man thinking of himself as deserving of the political respects and rights that we now take for granted. But, we rarely examine how reading in general -i.e. no book in particular - effected us cognitively. New ideas in books didn't just give us new ideas; even if the value of the idea was negligible, the act of reading uncorked a whole new set of cognitive skills.

But, most astounding, though perhaps least relevant, is the fact that reading silently is something people had a hard time doing. I just always assumed reading and silence went hand in hand. After all, aren't nerds the strong silent type? But apparently, it was something that takes quite a bit of cognitive work and represents a tier up on the smarts plain.

A little more more on this Bishop of Ambrose ...

In this same passage of Augustine's Confessions is a curious anecdote in which bears on the history of reading:

When [Ambrose] read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still. Anyone could approach him freely and guests were not commonly announced, so that often, when we came to visit him, we found him reading like this in silence, for he never read aloud.[20]

This is a celebrated passage in modern scholarly discussion. The practice of reading to oneself without vocalizing the text was less common in antiquity than it has since become. In a culture that set a high value on oratory and public performances of all kinds, in which the production of books was very labor-intensive, the majority of the population was illiterate, and where those with the leisure to enjoy literary works also had slaves to read for them, written texts were more likely to be seen as scripts for recitation than as vehicles of silent reflection.

On an unrelated note, Ambrose also chose celibacy ...

In a passage of Augustine's Confessions in which Augustine wonders why he could not share his burden with Ambrose, he makes a comment which bears on the history of celibacy:
Ambrose himself I esteemed a happy man, as the world counted happiness, because great personages held him in honor. Only his celibacy appeared to me a painful burden.

When one looks at the glorious reverse white lions mane beard glued to his face, we can only think what a waste. Its one thing to be ugly and celibate - its just a good excuse and no one is burdened. But, the world cries a little when one so bearded and beautiful chooses lo' solitary path.

Super Foods And the Morbidly Obese

Look at this title ...

People who eat ‘junk food’ aren’t junkies. The idea that the food industry has turned us into fat, helpless beings desperate for our next fast-food fix is based on a degraded view of human beings.by Rob Lyons

This title comes from an article claiming that there is no such thing as food addiction. http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/8927/ It argues against the thesis of a book by David Kessler who says that modern food, and the wider food environment, leads to a state of ‘conditioned hypereating’.

Kessler's answer is that our food has been re-engineered to maximise palatability. Almost all the processed and convenience food we eat has been fine-tuned to turn our sensory responses all the way up to ‘11’. We get hooked on our food. At every level, our food is made more pleasurable to eat. Salt, sugar, fat and starch levels are tweaked to achieve the perfect balance; colours, smells and flavours are synthesised to heighten the experience of every mouthful; food is broken down, shredded, moistened and reassembled to ensure that it is as easy as possible to gulp down. The way Kessler describes it, our diets are baby food in Technicolor. That burger, that cookie (Kessler himself is a sucker for cookies, he confesses), those fries and that drink are culinary crack, and we are addicts. The result is that we can’t stop shovelling the stuff down our necks.

I'm inclined to agree with Kessler and appaled at Lyon's lazy review.

Lyons main argument against Kessler's position is that if we believe people lack autonomy when it comes to food, then we have a degraded view of human nature. According to Lyons, Kessler should be more positive about human nature because its good to be nice.

Here, Lyons confuses a moral point with an empirical point. Lyons doesn't try to show that people have more autonomy or he doesn't try to show that a less degrading picture of humanity is justified. He just feels we should have more pleasant thoughts about humanity in regards to freedom of choice and food. Evidence be damned.

In contrast, Lyons preffered culprit in the fat blame game is our culture's shizophrenic view of food. We shouldn't desire and value thinness, if we want to gorge on sweets. By blaming culture, we don't have to blame anyone except the Man. One can imainge Lyon thinking that no one would be fat if one could be given a hug and told that they should love themselves. But, this, in turn, is schizophrenic as everyone knows the best hugs are given by the obese.

True, our society has a schizophrenic view of food. But, schizophreneia doesn't make people fat, calories do. And, if there is no analysis at the level of caloric intake, then there is no firm scientific basis on which to launch a cultural change (if one is even necessary).

Lyons is probably a sociologist or took a sociology course somewhere and Kessler is a scientist. So, if Lyons has to write a book review about a scientific topic it is probably easier to just put forth a sociological thesis then engage with the actual scientific material. After all, that could involve a trip to the library.

Schools in sucker.

Historical Figures are my Friends

Historians have the habit of being gay for whoever they are studying. In, and of itself, this may not be a bad thing and it may fuel the type of intelllectual love that creates the best works of scholarship. But, it occasionally leads historians to gloss over the truth and romantacize those from days of yore who were just bastards.

Case in point: Jefferson Gray's article http://www.historynet.com/holy-terror-the-rise-of-the-order-of-assassins.htm/1f-the-order-of-assassins.htm/1 on The Order of Assassins. The Order were 11th century Persian holy warriors following a frigging awesome offshot of Shiiteism. They killed those who had previously targeted them. In this article, Gray says

There is little doubt they would have viewed the tactics employed by modern Middle Eastern terrorist groups—particularly their targeting of unarmed civilians—with incomprehension and disdain.

Here is a case where we have something contemporary and therefore easily hateable like suicide bombers being distanced from other historical and therefore more intellectually interesting terrorists like The Order of Assasins. In other parts of his article, Gray reveals that

Whenever possible, The Order won over other fortified places through missionary activity called "propaganda." But The Order was equally prepared to resort to coups or direct assault, to "slaughter, ravishment, pillage, bloodshed, and war," reported Juvaini, the 13th-century Persian historian who participated in the Mongol destruction of Alamut in 1256, "and wherever he found a suitable rock he built a castle upon it.

Its difficult to take a positive spin on slaughter, ravishment and pillage that The Order participated in. Are we to believe they only performed these actions on armed soldiers? Did members of the order never kill innocent people? If that is the case, then pillage is certainly the wrong word. Pillaging holds a lot of nasty connotations. In this case, Gray doesn't seem interested in exploring them.

Looking back historically does funny things to our sense of right and wrong. It has done great things for Genghis Khan's PR for one. And, the guy who commisioned the builiding of the Taj Mahal is remembered as a sweet old romantic for building a masoleum for his wife; not a Kim Jong Il-like psycho who plucked out the eyes of the building's chief engineer.

Of course, people say things were different then. Really? Was having your arm lopped off by Richard the Lion Heart while he engaged on a rollicking adventure for treasure and glory any less painful then getting your arm lopped off by child-soldiers in today's Africa. Perhaps. I would say its less painful today, though. We have better drugs.

I have no qualms about condemning suicide bombers or other terrorists. Equally, I have no qualms with romanticizing swashbuckling assasinary groups from the past (Romanticizing makes for the best reading). But to twist history to try to use violent groups from the past as moral exemplars and equally violent groups of now as moral heins seems wrong. And disingenious.

Possible Equations:

Tyranny + Violence + Letting Centuries Pass + No Violations of Politcal Correctness (Slavery is Still Culpable except if you are building a Great Pyramid)= Moral Absolution in Modern Eyes

Violence + Tyranny + Now = Moral Condemnation