In Blazing Saddles, Madeline Kahn does a spectacular send-up of Marlene Dietrich as Lili von Shtupp singing “I’m Tired.” That is the way I feel. I am sure some of it is age and my struggle with Parkinson’s Disease, but even if I were younger and healthier, I think I would simply be weary of the endless disputes with those who are all on the same side of the great political divide as I am.
Next semester, I have offered to give a series of free
lectures in the UNC Philosophy Department on “The Use and Abuse of Formal
Methods in Political Philosophy,” and I hope they can be arranged. Lord knows, those lectures will not make the
world a better place, but I would find it peaceful and soothing to spend my
time explaining rational choice theory and collective choice theory and Game
Theory to interested graduate students. I mean, it cannot do any harm (save, perhaps, to the reputation of John Rawls, but he can survive my
animadversions.)
50 comments:
"I would simply be weary of the endless disputes who are all on the same side of the great political divide as I am."
If you're referring to the disputes between Marc and myself in your blog and I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that you are, what is the big difference between Marc and I debating and you and Rawls debating besides the fact that neither of us are philosophers of the same intellectual caliber as you and Rawls?
I'm sure that if he were still alive Rawls would be anti-Trump and pro-abortion, that he and you voted for the same candidate in all the presidential elections you both voted in, that Rawls was in almost all senses a person of the left, although of a more moderate left than you. That is, you both were on the same side of what you refer to as "the great political divide".
Once again, I don't claim to be a thinker of your intellectual repute and depth.
After about 280 years, this still seems just about right, tiring though history may be:
“There is nothing which is not the subject of debate, and in which men of learning are not of contrary opinions. The most trivial question escapes not our controversy, and in the most momentous we are not able to give any certain decision. Disputes are multiplied, as if every thing was uncertain; and these disputes are managed with the greatest warmth, as if every thing was certain. Amidst all this bustle ’tis not reason, which carries the prize, but eloquence; and no man needs ever despair of gaining proselytes to the most extravagant hypothesis, who has art enough to represent it in any favorable colors. The victory is not gained by the men at arms, who manage the pike and the sword; but by the trumpeters, drummers, and musicians of the army.”
Fritz,
Thank you for the compliment. Much appreciated.
Reading Fritz’s quotation of Hume above, the question popped into my head, “Was Hume a solipsist?” When I first encountered Hume during my sophomore year at Rutgers, his writing shocked and disturbed me, and almost caused me to have a nervous breakdown. I was a very intense young man and agonized over his espousal of skepticism. You mean, everything I learned in elementary and high school is a fiction? I have no way of knowing if William the Conqueror actually existed; that the sun will come up tomorrow; and that Newton’s laws actually explain how one billiard ball causes another billiard ball to move in a straight line?? How can I go on living? I confronted my fellow students at dinner and insisted that they help me refute Hume. They looked at me as if I were insane. I asked the President of my college class, a born politician, “Don’t you wonder what happens to your typewriter when you are not in the room?” He responded, glibly, “I don’t care what happens to my typewriter when I am not in the room, as long as it is still there when I get back.” A typical anti-intellectual, I thought.
So, to find my answer to the question whether Hume was a solipsist, I checked the Encyclopedia of Philosophy online, and found this: “Hume can hardly be called a conscious solipsist, but he would have become one had he carried his thought to its logical outcome.” So then I thought, now that I am an adult, and no longer an intense young man, can I refute solipsism, the claim that we do not have any basis upon which to believe that there are other minds, rather than cyborgs that appear to have minds?
And I came up with this: I know that there is at least one other mind in the universe, and that is my daughter’s. I have a distinct recollection of engaging in sexual intercourse with this other being whom I refer to as my wife. And after one of these sessions of sexual intercourse, this other being’s stomach began to enlarge, and after about 8 months (my daughter was 1 month premature) this being emerged, who did not appear to have any mind whatsoever at first, and just made unintelligible noises. As time passed, however, this infant being began to crawl, then walk upright, and then started uttering intelligible words. Now, was it possible that my cyborg wife somehow created a cyborg infant, whose brain, intestines, and central nervous system are a bunch of artificial parts? No, because I know that I played a role in creating this infant, and I have my own thoughts which are not the product of artificial parts. So, any human who is a parent knows that at least there are other minds – their children. Prof. Wolff knows there are other minds – even if he questions whether I and s. wallerstein have any minds – because he raised Patrick and Tobias. And if I had not engaged in sexual intercourse, I would still be unable to know if there are other minds and would be stuck in a solipsistic universe for the rest of my life. So, if you want to escape from the horrors of solipsism, engage in sexual intercourse and have children. The rest of you, you may be all alone.
Post-script:
Those of you who are parents, and therefore know that there are other minds, all have recollections of special moments when your child demonstrated an intellect and made you proud. I remember when my daughter first indicated that she understood humor. She especially liked eating Jello eggs, which my wife would make using an egg carton. One morning, when she was three years old, she was eating a Jello egg and offered some to me. I am not particularly fond of Jello eggs and thanked her, but demurred. She continued ravishing her Jello egg, and I said, rather shocked, “You ate the shell!” She laughed, and said, “No, I didn’t eat the shell.” I insisted, “Yes you did,” and I paused. She got such a kick out of the joke, she said, “Say it, say ‘You ate the shell!” as she broke out laughing. Now, she jokes with me, argues with me, and makes my life a non-solipsistic pleasure. (My wife does that too, but I’m not sure she’s not a cyborg.)
Marc
I started to write a comment about your comments above, but hit wrong button on phone and lost it. Suffice it to say that, without meaning to be disrespectful, I find these comments quite weird. I won't be able to elaborate until later today when my computer is on.
LFC,
Well, there you go, maybe I'm jsut a weird cyborg.
Marc you do have a talent for entertainment as i found your writing very entertaining and perhaps the beginning of the process of bringing to mind whether or not other minds exist. For me, i never doubted that other minds exist it was never a question until I took a course on Wittgenstein. If I had that doubt, it is now gone since I fully recognize that human beings are language users and I am not unique in thinking that that ability is in any way unique to me alone.
Charles L.,
Thank you for your compliment.
When I meet someone who is already grown and can communicate with me, I cannot know if their ability derives, for example, from a computer program which has been installed in him/her. My point about watching one’s own child grow up from infancy and acquire language skills is that the development from the inability to communicate to being able to communicate occurs, so to speak, before your eyes, confirming that no external forces have been involved, and what is developing is another mind independent of your own.
Wittgentsten, as I understand him, equated the question of solipsism to the question of whether there could be a “private language,” a concept he found to be nonsensical.
The "cyborg hypothesis" seems generally implausible -- why, for ex., would cyborgs be set up to mimic biological/physiological functions like, say, digestion and excretion? -- but especially implausible when confronted by the experiences and emotions of infatuation, desire, love, etc. that are common. (Neither the exchange of bodily fluids nor procreation need be involved, though they sometimes are.)
Read a novel, or watch a movie made from a novel, about an intense love affair -- say, for instance, Wuthering Heights (movie version, 1939) or Call Me By Your Name (movie version, 2017/2018). We're talking about some passionate "cyborgs" here. Computer programs do lots of things, but they don't do this.
LFC,
Implausibility is not an argument. You would say that the possibility of the sun not rising, or the billiard ball not moving in a straight line is highly implausible. Hume would say, you have no sound basis on which to say that – you are just basing it on your previous experience. Why couldn’t there be cyborgs which could imitate all our bodily functions, as well as the appearance of passionate love? After all, isn’t that what the actors in the movies you are referring to do? How do you know the actors are not cyborgs?
The question which AI philosophers ask is, if a cyborg could do all of these things, wouldn’t that entail that they are human?
The cyborgs can't be human because humans age, get sick, get well and die. We are mortal creatures and aware of our mortality. You can obviously program a cyborg to stop functioning at certain moment, but that's not mortality.
s. wallerstein,
And how would you know?
To all:
Is this the beginning of a thread on epistemology and the philosophy of mind?
Now where are those lectures of mine?...... Just kidding.
One of the most hauntingly poignant scenes in a sci fi movie is Roy Batty’s final monologue in Blade Runner, reportedly improvised by Rutger Hauer: “I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die."
A subject of debate among Blade Runner fans is whether Decker (Harrison Ford) was himself a replicant. According to Ridley Scott, he was.
David, what are you going to be doing next Saturday?
Marc,
There are two separate questions.
1. Could a cyborg deceive you into thinking that it is human?
2. Could a cyborg be human in some way as you say some AI philosophers claim?
The answer to 1. is yes and the answer to 2 is no in my opinion. After all, human beings are animals.
"Why couldn’t there be cyborgs which could imitate all our bodily functions, as well as the appearance of passionate love? After all, isn’t that what the actors in the movies you are referring to do? How do you know the actors are not cyborgs?"
Or robots. BTW, couldn't this be proof that an 'all powerful creature' exists since you obviously didn't put the cyborgs there, & you didn't put yourself here?
You could say we are in a giant holo-program or total recall machine. But if that's the case, then who made that recall machine & who made the universe that that recall machine rests in?
It would be easier to eliminate us if we thought they were us.
s. wallerstein,
Perhaps your definitions of "human" and "animal" are erroneous. For example, during the first six decades of our lives, "marriage" was defined in the United States as the legally recognized union between a biological male and a biological female That changed in 2015.
Marc,
Maybe they'll change the definition of "human" some day, but they haven't yet.
Maybe those AI philosophers are way ahead of their time or maybe they're just some super smart guys (probably guys) playing games with words and showing off how bright they are.
Re the "definitions of 'human' and 'animal'":
We'll soon have to introduce a thread on the semantics of natural kind terms.
Bring on Putnam, Kripke, et al.
David,p
Perhaps with Prof. Wolff's permission, you can introduce that thread.
Marc and David,
That sounds like a great idea!
Maybe you (David) can just use this space here to explain to us what the semantics of natural kind terms is about.
I recall from previous threads that you (David) are quite skillful at summarizing complex philosophical issues.
Marc,
I asked the President of my college class, a born politician, “Don’t you wonder what happens to your typewriter when you are not in the room?” He responded, glibly, “I don’t care what happens to my typewriter when I am not in the room, as long as it is still there when I get back.”
Your mistake was to think this was Hume's idea. Hundreds of years earlier, Al-Ghazali wrote the following:
"I do not know what is at the house at present. All I know is I left a book in the house, which is perhaps now a horse that has defiled the library with its urine and dung, and that I have left in the house a jar of water, which may have turned into an apple tree." —Al-Ghazali (The Incoherence Of The Philosophers)
Continuous creation is known both by revelation in the Qur'an, and it is seen by the gnostics when they ascend, which confirms revelation.
From here the gnostics climb from the lowlands of metaphor to the highlands of reality, and they perfect their ascent. Then they see--witnessing with their own eyes--that there is none in existence save God and that "Everything is perishing except His face" [Qur'an 28:88]. [It is] not that each thing is perishing at one time or at other times, but that it is perishing from eternity without beginning to eternity without end. —Al-Ghazali (The Niche of Lights)
Here, continuous creation appears in the works of the Calvinist Jonathan Edwards as stated by Oliver Crisp:
Oliver Crisp summarizes [Jonathan] Edwards's view: "God creates the world out of nothing, whereupon it momentarily ceases to exist, to be replaced by a facsimile that has incremental differences built into it to account for what appear to be motion and change across time. This, in turn, is annihilated, or ceases to exist, and is replaced by another facsimile world ... and so on."
Because of continuous creation, causality does not and cannot exist. Al-Ghazali again:
The connection between what is habitually believed to be a cause and what is habitually believed to be an effect is not necessary, according to us. But [with] any two things, where "this" is not "that" and "that" is not "this", and where neither the affirmation of the one entails the affirmation of the other nor the negation of the one entails negation of the other, it is not a necessity of the existence of the one that the other should exist, and it is not a necessity of the nonexistence of the one that the other should not exist. . . . Their connection is due to the prior decree of God, who creates them side by side, not to its being necessary in itself, incapable of separation. -Al-Ghazali (The Incoherence Of The Philosophers)
David Hume referred to this as "constant conjunction".
The philosopher David Hume used the phrase frequently in his discussion of the limits of empiricism to explain our ideas of causation and inference. In An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume proposed that the origin of our knowledge of necessary connections arises out of observation of the constant conjunction of certain impressions across many instances, so that causation is merely constant conjunction—after observing the constant conjunction between two events A and B for a duration of time, we become convinced that A causes B. However, this position raises problems, as it seems that certain kinds of constant conjunction are merely accidental and cannot be equated with causation.
Ahmed,
Thank you for that exposition. But here’s my question: Why does the book which I leave in the room only change into a horse when I am not in the room and not looking at the book? Why doesn’t it change into a horse while I am looking directly at it? Why does continuous creation only occur when I am no around?
If A doesn't cause B and there is no Cause & Effect in the universe, but just accidental conjunctions, then higher probability would be accidental. However, if truths are based on higher probability (& are not absolutes) there would seem to be some semblance of order out of the chaos.
This 'semblance of order' if figured out as a whole would be the science of universal accidents.
I would like to put in a plug for Ridley Scott, who, along with Stanley Kubrick, has been one of most overlooked directors in the movie industry. The scope of his work has exceeded that of Martin Scorcese and Tarantino, both of whom have won Best Director Awards. Scott’s scope extends from sci- fi (Blade Runner; Alien; Prometheus; The Martina); to historical drama (Gladiator; Black Hawk Down); to feminism (Thelma And Louise); to suspense (American Gangster); to fashion dynasty drama (House of Gucci). He was nominated twice and lost both times – in 2000 for Gladiator, lost to Steven Sonderbergh for Traffic; in 2001, for Black Hawk Down, lost to Ron Howard for A Beautiful Mind.
Marc
Re R. Scott: I don't think any director who has been nominated twice for a Best Director Oscar really qualifies as "overlooked," but I guess that's debatable. You're more knowledgeable about movies than I am, but I don't think 'Gladiator,' while there was nothing wrong with the direction, was a path-breaking movie, nor was 'Alien', though it was very scary and contains what has to be one of the more disgusting (in the literal sense of that word) scenes ever filmed. 'Blade Runner' was more innovative -- it really created a distinctive atmosphere -- though I saw it so long ago I don't have a clear recollection of most of it.
As for Kubrick, 'Dr. Strangelove' has become, to use an overused word, iconic, though it may be the case that Kubrick didn't get as many awards as he should have. I never saw 'Clockwork Orange' and I can't really even remember whether I saw 'Barry Lyndon' or not, which may say something about that movie. I've only seen bits and pieces of 'Full Metal Jacket' and I never saw 'Eyes Tight Shut', so I can't really form an opinion of his work. But 'Dr. Strangelove' will certainly endure.
p.s. I think I did see 'Barry Lyndon,' but it did not make much of a lasting impression.
I'm not a particular fan of Tarantino. 'Once Upon A Time in Hollywood' had its moments, but the ending is so gratuitously violent that while some people may find it funny, I just found it gross and disgusting.
Kubrick's Paths of Glory is the best anti-war (or war) movie I've ever seen. Then there are
Spartacus, Lolita, and Dr. Strangelove (mentioned above), all of which took courage to film. Kubrick seems like more than a competent commercial director. I'm not a big Hollywood fan in general.
LFC and s. wallerstein,
I won’t go into why I like each of Scott’s and Kubrick’s movies. I agree regarding Paths of Glory. I believe that Barry Lyndon was a faithful recreation of Thackery’s novel, and was cinematographically and musically a masterpiece. You both overlooked 2001: Space Odyssey.
I left out 2001 because I detest science fiction.
This scene from Paths of Glory is a classic. The camera follows Kirk Douglas as he walks down the trenches lined by dirty (one of the first, if not the first, war movie where the soldiers look like they haven't bathed in weeks), scared and tired men about to participate in a horrid attack in which many will die and they know it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gyyGHHXfck
2001: Space Odyssey is much more than just a sci-fi movie The opening scene, with its reverberating excerpt from Richard Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” depicting the discovery of weapons by a group of chimpanzees is one of the most iconic movie scenes of all time.
Marc,
Our comments disappear from the blog soon after they appear.
I don't know if there's a problem with the blog or if we both have been banned.
If the latter, I assume that Professor Wolff will announce that in a post.
If we've been both banned, let's stay in touch.
Yes, I noticed the same thing.
I hope that our interactions have not so disgusted Prof. Wolff that he has banned us.
I feel like I'm back in high school when I got suspended a couple of times with some other kid with whom there arose a great sense of fraternity.
s. wallerstein,
I will say this about you, despite the sometimes abrasive things I may write to and about you, you never hold a grudge. You always respond to me with respect and civility, even though you do not agree with me, which I believe is admirable – even though I do not agree with some of your opinions.
Our last few comments now appear in the blog.
On my phone right now, and afaict none of your comments have disappeared (or, to use a phrase from the Latin American dictatorships, been disappeared).
(s.w. got to it just ahead of me.)
I have tried to post a comment abut 10 times now, and it keeps disappearing, even though it does not exceed the character limit.
Possibly the Blogger platform is having a bad day. That's the sort of thing one can search on and see what comes up. (e.g. "Blogger down?" etc.)
Marc,
No, I don't bear grudges at all. Probably because I don't see things in moral terms: I don't see people as having "wronged" me. I just see the clash of personalities.
I can get very angry if someone insults me (as you sometimes do), but with internet I restrain myself from answering while I'm angry and wait to answer until I calm down.
I get so angry and cruel that I've blown too many human situations in the past, so cruel that people never speak to me again, so I control that aspect of myself.
Marc,
For some reason, the blog does not accept your comment. I see that a comment of yours above has been published, so you're not banned. Try a new comment, not the same one, to see if it is rejected or not.
s. wallerstein,
Thank you for posting this scene from Paths of Glory. It is one of many superb, compelling scenes in the movie. The scene, as genuine as it is, fails to convey Douglas’s character’s opposition to the war, which he demonstrates during the trial in which he defends the three soldiers charged with cowardice for having turned back from the assault portrayed in the scene you posted. In an earlier thread I posted the firing squad scene. The last scene in the movie displays Douglas’s moral courage, and then shows the despair of the soldiers as they watch a young German woman singing eine Lied to the tired and exhausted French warriors. (P.S.: the woman singing in that scene was Stanley Kubrick’s then wife.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ifRA0Kj-8
Amazing. There was a supplement to the above comment which the blog will not allow me to publish. The subject is somewhat scatological, about an experience I had while serving in the U.S. Army Reserve during the Vietnam War. I have tried several times to expunge any obscene references, but it still will not allow me to publish it. A very puritanical computer program is controlling the blog.
We all know Rene Descartes as a brilliant mathematician and philosopher, the developer of analytic geometry, the author of the cogito and originator of the mind-body problem. But he developed these advances while serving in the military during the Thirty Years War, fighting on the side of the Catholics. I am sure that he saw and participated in some ghastly military maneuvers in which he saw his share of death and destruction.
Correction: ein Lied. Das Lied is neuter. My high school German teacher would be very upset with me.
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