Today's class

 I am trying to fix things so that everybody can join. Sorry for the problems.

Monday

For those of you who wish to hear me give a game theoretic analysis of A Theory of Justice at 2 PM on Monday, here is the link.

I'LL TAKE IT

The Tennessee Three restore my faith in the power of the southern Black church, Rupert Murdoch and Fox look to be going down in the Dominion suit, Trump is caught showing classified maps to his Mar-a-Lago fans, Alvin Bragg makes Jim Jordan look like a fool -- it is not the Second Coming, but I will take it.

I have been preparing to lecture this Monday on John Rawls' A Theory of Justice.  I will provide the link if anybody wants to join the zoom call. Lord, I like to teach.

Meanwhile, I struggle with my Parkinson's and try to look after my wife as best I can. A week from Saturday, if the arrangements can be made, I will make a zoom appearance at the 50th anniversary of the STPEC program I started at the University of Massachusetts.  The parents of the students now in the program were either not yet born what is going to kindergarten when I created the Social Thought and Political Economy program all those years ago.

SOMBER THOUGHTS ONA GORGEOUS SPRING DAY

I sit here at my desk completing my preparations for my Monday lecture, in which I will finish up my exposition of the fundamental theorem of Game Theory and then discuss some of its applications, before turning in my final lecture to a full-scale formal analysis of the central argument of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice.   I anticipate this weekend the arrival of my son, Patrick, with my grandson, Samuel, for a brief visit during their tour of colleges and universities as part of Samuel's preparation for next year's applications.  I am following with enjoyment the seemingly ever more rapid development of the variety of legal cases against Donald Trump and look forward to the time when he will be under indictment in three or four separate jurisdictions. Despite the constraints upon me imposed by my Parkinson's disease, I feel alive, engaged, fully myself.

And yet, in a few years – perhaps more, perhaps less – I shall no longer exist, I shall be dead for all time. I have been aware of this all my life, of course.  When I was a teenager the prospect of my death frightened and obsessed me, but for 70 years or so I was able, as it were, to put it out of my mind.

It is all very well to repeat Dylan Thomas villanelles to myself, but beautiful as they may be, they are in fact no comfort. As Emily Dickinson observed in one of her poems, it was rather odd of God to arrange things so that we must die to meet Him.

GOOD NEWS TUESDAY

Democrats took control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years, and the election was not even close. Once again, we see the enormous political impact of the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe V Wade. That Supreme Court decision negatively affected half of all the people in the United States as well as those in the other half  who actually care about their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters.  We may well be witnessing the death of a modern Republican Party.

Meanwhile, I am delighted that  the case brought by Dist. Atty. Bragg will not have its next court date until December. Long before that time, Trump will be indicted in Georgia and at least once by the Atty. Gen. of the United States and maybe twice. Trump's out-of-control reaction to the events yesterday raise at least the possibility that he will eventually be sanctioned by the judge.

But in my mind, all this fades into insignificance when compared with my preparations for my next lecture on Game Theory.  I am teaching by zoom seven or eight UNC philosophy students and although the sessions are being recorded, I do not know whether there is any way to make them available to a wider audience. No matter. The pleasure I derive from clarifying these complex logical and mathematical issues in my mind and explaining them to the students is very great.

Meanwhile, a few moments ago, I replied to a philosopher in Mumbai, India who has written a futuristic novel called 2084, parts of which are inspired by my writings. When I was a boy, I read with great pleasure a book by Charles Erskine Scott Wood called Heavenly Discourses.  Wood, a late 19th century early 20th centuryAmerican radical, imagines a heaven in which Plato and Rousseau and Hobbes and Mill and Aquinas and others meet and debate the great issues.  The Internet has provided an earthly analog for lesser lights like myself.

THE LINK TO TODAY'S LECTURE

   Here it is, hot off the presses. The lecture starts at 2 PM today and it should be great fun. Today we finally get to define a zero-sum game.

ZOOM TOMORROW

I will give another lecture via zoom tomorrow on game theory. The lecture will begin at 2 o'clock and as soon as I have a link I will post it. Tomorrow I get to the heart of things, with the mathematical prerequisites for a two-person zero-sum game. It should be pretty exciting, if you like that sort of thing, as I very much do.