Year: 2014

Sparrow Numbers

Baffled by this. Same issue on two counts.

(1) That the common House / Tree Sparrow is logged as the most commonly seen UK garden bird.

(2) The Dunnock (aka Hedge Sparrow) doesn’t even make the top 10.

Are people just reporting “sparrow-like” birds and are the RSPB not differentiating what is reported. Dunnock and House Sparrow are not just different species they’re quite different types of bird. In my experience of several gardens in different locations, Dunnocks are much more common these days than Sparrows.

[Also incidentally – no Coal Tit ? At least as common as the Blue and Great Tits surely? And Goldfinch increasingly common yes, but no Greenfinch?]

Sokal vs Maxwell

This evening Nick Maxwell presented “How Universities Can Help Create a Wiser World” launching his latest book of the same name. Alan Sokal and and Philip Ball provided responses.

Some 50/55 in the theatre as the UCL Grand Challenge on Human Wellbeing is introduced.

Nick describing his main theme that science has enabled the technologies that have contributed, even created, many of the global problems we face, but blaming science is the wrong response. Obviously science and technology are to be credited with immense positive progress. The problem is a damagingly irrational conception of “enquiry” that dissociates the pursuit of knowledge from how we apply technologies to achieving what is of value in the world.

The idea that Human Well-being is seen as a grand challenge by an academic institution like UCL is an indication that some part of the necessary revolution is already under way. But the rationality of Wisdom Enquiry is not yet recognised as part of this. The problem is that Knowledge Enquiry excludes value-based aspects of problem definition and problem solving – objectivisation and even hyper-specialisation often, without any interaction with the values and aims of the bigger picture. And that’s true even though the concern with the bigger picture may be exercising the minds of the same participants in their wider social world, evenings and weekends.

If you’ve read Nick’s earlier works, the continuing arguments are well recognised and rehearsed. (From Knowledge to Wisdom and Is Science Neurotic for example.) His 7-level model of Aim-Oriented Empiricism / Rationality. In fact as Nick concludes, it’s the same message he’s been pushing for over 40 years.

Feeding AOR into “Social Life” –  the task is social methodology or social philosophy, not social science. Methodology notice, philosophy of action, about doing not theorising

Dr Philip Ball responds, mainly to the book itself. Science is much less methodical that it appears, than it might formally admit (Maxwell’s scientific neurosis?). Trend to have to define and justify (funding) aims in terms of economic benefit. (But must aims be economic – bean-countable?) Dr Ball sees the solutions as essentially economic, even if they may require alternate market models and incentives. The recently recurring reminder that Adam Smith was a moral philosopher before and above his position as an economist. (Very Benthamite – reducing all issues to cost-benefit, even justifying art projects on relevance and benefit.) Democracy is not a necessary part of scientific progress. Agree focus must shift from knowing, but to doing.

Alan Sokal responding;  Science does make metaphysical assumptions, even though it would deny it. Scientists take weekends off, but we all know when non-unified scientific hypotheses are crazy. Nick’s work on the hierarchical AOE/R are important contributions to the philosophy of science, but the lack of “Wisdom Inquiry” in academic institutions is not really the fundamental problem preventing progress, rather than say economic incentives. Nick’s wisdom inquiry claims are probably more targeted at the social sciences than the natural sciences. (Quite the opposite in fact.)

My take is this.

Alan Sokal is well known for his fighting on the side of strict rationality against social constructivism, and yes we can all shoot PoMo Social Constructivists like fish in a barrel. Nick Maxwell’s “Aim Oriented Empiricism” basis for wisdom is however at that interface of rational knowledge with the social.

Yes, the rationality of the processes of gaining and applying knowledge may be strictly objective, logical, scientific. But, the rationality of aims is more than that. It’s also about what we value and how we agree what we should value. That is philosophical, even subjective and clearly social. They’re “problematic” – the task as Nick says is social methodology or social philosophy, not social science – requiring more than rational knowledge to manage and solve. Wisdom.

So, does Alan Sokal believe there can be more to applied wisdom than strictly logical, objective, scientific rationality and knowledge? Apparently not.

Ultimately disappointing, the discussion drew out into very general criticisms of “too hard”, and wider questions of national, resource and conflict governance – the arithmetic of democracy not excluded (*1) – well beyond academe. In fact both respondents really failed to pick up on the social values aspect of Nick’s “Aim Orientation”, slipping too easily to see aims as quantifiable economic goals (*2).

—–

Notes:

(*1) Sure, the one man one vote emancipation, epitomises the importance of the value of any human, but we’re talking here about methodology and doing, We can’t all take equal roles in every action, let alone deciding every action by popular poll.

(*2) Sure, technology is universally recognised as the main driver of global economic activity, and science as the main enabler of technology (Kondratiev, Schumpeter, Kuhn, you name them). But as well as enabling, what we do needs enacting, requiring populations of people with hearts and minds, hopes and fears, that ultimately determine what is achieved; Hiroshima or Hinkley.

Culture and the Death of God

I’ve been reading my way through Terry Eagleton’s “Culture and the Death of God” pretty slowly – blogged a few times I was both enjoying it and finding it a bit tough going. Subject-wise I’m pretty well read, but of course Terry is really well read and not afraid to construct his rhetorical flourishes from technically knowing material, confident in his own knowledge. Keep up mere mortal.

I really have only the one criticism, apart from the one implied above. That is, why someone so well read and intelligent is writing this in 2014, when it could have been written 10 or 12 years ago in the aftermath of 9/11? We agree, already.

95% of the text is so infuriatingly quoting, and more often summarising, critical views of one school / writer’s view of another – that it is well nigh impossible to glean Terry’s own view, except as inferred from his choice of adjective and adverb modifiers. Every view is stated from every side. Everything from the Hellenics to the Po-Po-Mo’s, humanists and new-atheists not being spared. Apart from the subjective modifiers nothing is laid on the table until the final chapter.

Herewith my highlights – a thoroughly recommended read (*), worth the effort needed (avoided the risk of more notes than original text):

[(*) Aside – As you can maybe tell from the criticisms, my position is jealousy – another book I wish I’d written, in fact it’s the book I’ve been trying to write since 2001, though of course I’d be aiming higher – for the message to be assimilable by the voting masses, as well as an intellectual elite. Irony noted Terry?]

Talking of idealists on p64 Eagleton cites Herder :

“[For Herder] reason is a historical facility … “

Compare the Pirsigian “Rationality is 20:20 hindsight” cited in Friends in Low Places by GP Dr James Willis. For Herder, Eagleton continues:

“The enlightenment has served to justify colonial oppression,  and in doing so has proved itself an anti-poetic power, stifling the folk from whom the truest poetry wells up. … Literature must become more earthy and engage. History is the work not of politicians but of poets, prophets and visionaries.  It is the narrative of nations not states.”

Continuing; most of the rest of my recorded notes are just points of interest to give a flavour of the content and language:

p143 “As usual it proved easier to dispose of a caricature of the opposition rather than the real thing”

p148 “… faith has more in common with the American dream than it does … with justice.”

p150 “reason has its roots in the human body”

Interestingly, he quotes (well, paraphrases) Zizek positively on p158. Interesting because reading Eagleton I have trouble not hearing the Zizek lisp in Eagleton’s lecturing delivery, so parallel are the lines of argument since 9/11 and The Empty Wheelbarrow.

“We know that God is dead, but does he?”

On p159 to p166 he cites the Nietzsche’s (unwitting orthodoxy) of “twice-born” in his UberMensch.

“That the death of God involves the death of Man, along with the birth of a new form of humanity, is orthodox Christian doctrine; a fact of which Nietzsche seems not to have been aware …. Like most avant-gardists, Nietzsche is a devout amnesiac”

(Eagleton constantly pillories sources that defend a knowing  intelligentsia vs the convenient ignorance of the masses. Is he denying relative knowledge and wisdom between individuals?)

His opening paragraph on Modernism and After, he says:

p174 “Scientific rationalism takes over doctrinal certainties [of religion]. ”

p175 George Steiner: “Is a luminary”.

Which will be reassuring for Pirsigians.

p179 Shelling: “No act can be more free than the decision to relinquish one’s liberty.”

p183 “It is no accident that Adam Smith is moralist and economist together. The merchant and the Man of Feeling are not to be treated as Antitypes”

p189 Nietzsche: “The Ubermensh stamps his image on a world of mere flux and difference.”

p191 Joyce: “It is the worldly and well-heeled who think of [theistic or non-theistic] religion as cosmic harmony and esoteric cult, rather as the idea of the artist as a shock-haired bohemian.”

p192 “One reason why post-modern thought is atheistic is its suspicion of faith. Not just religious faith, but faith as such. It makes the mistake of supposing that all passionate conviction is incipiently dogmatic.”

p193 A J P Taylor: “extreme views held moderately.”

(Many earlier references to this “Strong views, lightly held” concept, and one recent one.)

p194 summarizing Nietzsche Joyful Wisdom: “If one believes in freedom,  then this must surely include a certain freedom from one’s belief in it [….] Not all certainty is dogmatic and not all ambiguity is on the side of angels.”

p196 after de Certeau: “The market place would continue to behave atheistically even if every one of its actors was born-again Evangelical [….] just as western capitalism may have been edging in the direction of [jettisoning religious conviction], two aircraft slammed into Word Trade Center” and metaphysical ardour broke out afresh. … [and, a la Zizek] … the irony of the so-called war on terror is hard to overrate.”

p202 “an off the peg version of Enlightenment [is being] recycled by the so-called new atheism [in the aftermath of the above].”

Like this blog for example [see footnote]. Compare also Dennett on those naive scientistic types who believe science provides all the off the peg philosophy one could ever need.

p204 “reluctant atheists who can be distinguished from the Archbishop of Canterbury only by the fact that they do not believe in god”

p207 summarizing Nietzsche: “less the death of God than the bad faith of man.”

p208 (concluding paragraph) “[It is] a solidarity with the poor and powerless [in which] a new configuration of faith, culture and politics might be born.”

Solidarity – the latest buzzword. Not just values, but a variety of values worth sharing.

RIP Tony Benn – Conservative at Heart

Not usually one for Obit’s but I thought this quote was telling in the the context of my agenda.

“I try to operate on two unconnected levels. One on the practical level of action in which I am extremely cautious and conservative. The second is the realm of ideas where I try to be very free”
Tony Benn, 1925-2014
People tend to think of expressed thought and actual action as necessarily tightly related, and raise accusations of hypocrisy when they’re not, but wisdom knows better. (May make more sense when I post my Terry Eagleton review later – Strong views, lightly held …. etc.)

Air Accident Failure Modes

Interesting summary, prompted by the ongoing Malaysian Airlines loss naturally, but harking back to many previous crashes, including AF447.

” ….technology is so good today that pilots are not really necessary. The technology exists now for an airliner to fly without a pilot from London to Beijing. Today planes hardly ever fail – I can’t think of a [recent] accident caused by engines failing or wings dropping off.”

Sorta. Kinda. The crew are in supervisory command of a complex system, of which they are part – their real value (and risk) is what they are capable of doing when something goes wrong or simply the unexpected happens. The incidental chains of events that lead to some unrecognised or misunderstood piece of information are typified by the Tenerife example, but are in fact typical full stop.

Hence the interest in my agenda here – from Deepwater Horizon to MH370 – the problem is how to decide what to do with (imperfect) knowledge.

[Example – series of twin-engined 737  accidents, including BMI @ Kegworth.

  • Passenger to cabin crew – the right engine’s on fire.
  • Instruments to flight crew – shut-down left engine.]

Not Putin a Foot Wrong

Is it just me or is Putin playing the Russian hand as straight as could be in Ukraine?

With the UK press and media, and the rhetoric of various international premiers and foreign secretaries casting him as the bad guy, almost clamouring for violent conflict I can see Russia’s point.

OK, so as a “sovereign nation” Ukraine has rights not to be invaded (even threatened) by its powerful neighbour. But Crimea is a special case.

Geographically, thanks to Ukraine being split in half by the Dniepr, and the Crimea being further separated by an isthmus out into Russian waters, the Crimea is only part of Ukraine because of special circumstances. Originally bequeathed as a gift by Kruschev [*], the home of the Russian Black Sea navy as well as many ethnic Russians and Tatars, and a strategically significant territory overlooking the Kerch channel from Russia into the Black Sea, Crimea has always been a special case subject to special international conditions and agreements, before and since the break-up of the Soviet Union. People are humans, sovereign nations are just lines on maps after all.

I’m trying to imagine Scots Nats threatening British citizens and assets in Faslane or Leuchars with violence, and not expecting the UK government to assert its interests, yes vote or no.

Whatever the strategic economic and military power plays going on (which they clearly are), Russia’s not spilled any blood yet asserting its interests in Crimea, unlike the last few months’ events in Kyiv. Let’s keep it that way, and turn down the rhetoric please.

[Post note – I see today Thursday, the Crimean parliament has voted for Russia – the fact the arrangements include a Crimean parliament tells us it’s not as simple as Ukrainian sovereignty?]

[*] Paraphrasing from Wikipedia :

On 18 May 1944; [under Stalin] the entire population of the Crimean Tatars was forcibly deported.

On 19 February 1954; [under Kruschev] Crimea decreed to the Ukraine as a symbolic gesture.

On 20 January 1991; [under Ukrainian referendum] Crimea upgraded to an Autonomous Republic.

Since 1992;  autonomy vs self-government compromised as part of ongoing agreements to be part of Ukraine and partly fudged around both Ukrainian and Russian “shared” naval interests there and Crimeans being “permitted” to hold Russian
passports.
In 2014; By constitutional means or revolutionary coup in Kyiv, there is no way a Ukrainian government can determine the status of Crimea, without the agreement of both Crimea and Russia. What’s popular in Kyiv in 2014 doesn’t govern Crimea.