Year: 2015

Hat tip to @SamiraShackle for drawing my attention to @FrankieBoyle’s Comment is Free piece in the Grauniad.

The theme and conclusion is telegraphed in the title, but the content is explicitly about the seemingly deranged rationale of supporting vaguely motivated bombing in Syria but resisting direct support for Syrian refugees. It’s a very intelligent read, plenty of historical, cultural and political content to support the arguments and, most importantly, it’s seriously witty.

I won’t quote spoilers, but the passage of 8 or 10 lines from “A handful of Afghans ….” to “…. how shit Leeds is.” must have a dozen gags within it on several levels, every one of them hillarious. That’s some skill.

I’ve used Frankie before as my archetype of the official “court-jester” in the context of freedom-to-offend debates. Whether writing for the Sun, or being written about in the Sun, no-one has a greater right to be as offensively funny as Frankie. His deadly clever wit earns it.

However, on top of that quality of content and delivery, Frankie nails the real underlying issue we are all struggling with. We can all criticise the “other side” in any political debate, but there is this nagging doubt that whichever side is actually in power, we never seem to learn from past bad decisions. The more rationally we try to justify them, the less we seem to have learned, and the less comfortable we are with supporting them. We (they) must be mad.

It really is an addiction to the decision making process that leads us time after time to the predictably wrong decisions. And the bigger they are the more predictably wrong. It’s a meme itself. An addiction to bad memes. This is a main agenda theme of Psybertron since I started. The first time I joined memes to addiction was back here in 2006 (sadly the content of the Bath conference of Unhooked Thinking on Addiction has suffered link-rot so can no longer be found.)

There’s also a self-reinforcing denial, a neurosis, like any addiction. We do it even though we (really) know it’s wrong, neurotically obsessed by following the well-trod ritual procedure, and again Frankie pinpoints why:

We cling to our dependency with the weary rationale of any addict.
The addiction is simple; giving up is complicated.

Simple repeatable rationale always wins. Anything else is more complicated. Keep it simple, stupid. Logical, quantifiable, arithmetic processes are (a) easy to do, and (b) easy to justify after the event. The numbers never lie, apparently. Unlike values and considerations that don’t fit simple arithmetic logic, where you might need to base your value on some strongly felt belief not backed by objectively definitive proofs. Life and death, not being repeatable experiments, don’t lend themselves to objective proofs. So we fall back on the things that do. Life and death suffer as a result.

Nice one Frankie. A recommended read, a very witty piece of satire, whether you agree with the underlying point or not.

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[Post Note : On Psybertron previously – “Court Jester” on Frankie as archetype of offensive satire.]

[Post Note : Later piece by Frankie on aspirations of “Western (Capitalist) Civilisation”.]

Does Humphrys write his own drivel?

“Chinese dumping cheap steel” in our markets? WTF?! “Dumping” is pejorative and racist language. Sob stories of “our” families losing earners? Disgusting partisan political rhetoric. The Chinese are simply using the free-market as would we.

The problem is all markets being free.

“Parlous state” of UK steel industry? WTF?! Actually not remotely true. Efficiency and quality-wise UK steel industry is second to none in recent decades, both in basic steel-making in modern facilities and in the range of specialist steels and steel products. That’s why Tata, SSI and the like were interested in owning them. Problem is competitiveness of energy and labour and local HSE regulations in a global market.

The problem again is all markets being free.

Proud imperial heritage, used to be “exporter to the world”? WTF?! Maybe true, but irrelevant. Real issue is that steel-making is a strategic security resource. Do we really want to be incapable of producing our own steel, dependent entirely on foreign markets in times of security uncertainty? Clearly we can never expect to produce export steel scaled to satisfy Chinese construction bubbles, but it’s OK to expect we are capable of producing steel when we might need it.

Not all economic considerations are free market.

Somebody please read Paul Mason, and any non-autistic economist.

Key:

	Integrated plants: combined steelmaking and rolling mills.
	Other rolling mills.
	Coating plants.
	Wire plants.
	Tube mills.

Only 7 Actual steel-making plants left before this latest crisis. At least 5 are owned by the groups announcing closures, cuts and administration. We may be down to only 2 or 3 ?

[Post Note : I should add, these job-loss figures are dwarfed by those lost from the oil & gas industry during the last two years, but that industry doesn’t benefit from the romance of “the valleys” or “grim up north” clog-wearing traditions, even though Aberdeen is a long way from London. Just as strategic of course, even if publicly unpopular fossil energy is transitioning to renewables.]

Started reading Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz dialogue on Islam – the Future of Tolerance. Sadly not completed due to distractions including another read, but …

My impression is very good. Most of Nawaz subtlety on Jihadi / Islamist motivations looks much like my own – pure common sense, stuff I already agree with – and he has the first-hand perspective I lack.

Alarmingly,  Harris, whilst being positive in the spirit of dialogue, responds with “very interesting” and “that’s important to know”. It’s as if he really has been ignorant of this stuff.

I’ve always criticised Harris’ prejudiced anti-religious “new atheist” position, but always defended his more philosophical rationality, than say Dawkins or Krauss. Surprised he really was that ignorant.

Consistent with my impression of the Harvard live conversation, where I said Harris looked chastened by what he’d learned. Learning is always good. Credit to Harris.

Attended Theos event “Does Humanism need Christianity?” at Kings College, London last night

The dean introduced Nick Spencer of Theos, who in turn introduced chair, Clare Carlisle.

Christian speakers were Angus Ritchie and Alison Milbank.
Humanist speakers were Julian Baggini and Richard Norman.

The topic was a conversation in response to the Theos essay / booklet by Spencer and Ritchie “The Case for Christian Humanism” a critique of the Amsterdam declaration of Humanist values. A critique controversial amongst humanists when published last year, suggesting that, bar one anti-religious declaration, all Humanist values were shared with Christianity.

[And I have previously reviewed Spencer’s work on the shared histories of atheist humanism.]

Apparently it was recorded – so look out for the link – and @theosthinktank tweeted #theoshumanism continuously, and subsequently “storified” here – so I won’t include all my notes on the conversation. But a conversation it was. Proper dialogue rather than the standard debating to win.

For sure, the title as worded wasn’t going to be agreed with, that Humanism needs Christianity, or theistic religion in general, but it was clear humanists need christians, and muslims, and jews, and …

Humans need dialogue with humans.

My take-aways were:

Late on, Socrates’ Euthyphro arguments against the existence of god was cited (anonymously) from Plato’s Dialogues, from the audience. In fact it’s easy for each “side” to prove the other’s basis of belief is unfounded in an objectively narrow logical sense. Thing is we all as humans (really) see our rationality as something wider and deeper than this.

Transcendence – a grace or god or spiritual idea, being “somehow” one with, connected with the world, beyond the boundaries of our “self” and our “known” rationality. The Saganian “we are (all) stardust” suggestion quoted from the audience; we are an integral part of the cosmos and our terrestrial ecosystem, special only because of the responsibilities that come with our faculties. This as stated from a humanist audience member, correctly described as religious – a sentiment that binds us as humans – by Milbank.

Religious God-given stick / reward justifications for faith or the desire for absolute rational objective grounding are both ultimately misguided. And dogma is misguided in any context. The rationality of “turtles all the way down”; objective empirical, logical rationalism still ends at recursive first-cause questions of grounding. Accepting the thin ice we skate on (Baggini) might look like a kind of faith, a choosing to believe the best foundations on which we build our world view, but more an assertion we choose to believe pragmatically and contingently to live life without spending all our time in deep philosophical debate. (The trick is for us not to allow our ego and arrogance lose sight of the reality of this thin ice grounding our rational edifices.)

The real question neatly summed-up by Ritchie in his closing remarks, given we pretty much agree human values, and the nature or quality of their groundings, is “what is for the best for “conservation” of this understanding of these human values and their basis, for the future of humanity in the cosmos?”.

Turning every human value into explicit (objectively rationalised, evidence-based) human rights, might not be the best exclusive answer. Goods include transcendent sentiments and responsibilities.

A very encouraging dialogue.

 

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ROUGH NOTES – retained until recording or transcript can be linked.

case for christian humanism essay by nick and angus

ritchie – words n language affect values and perception. humanism.

historically inclusive of human values, not simply atheistic. church problem of giving up use of the word except catholics inc pope. atheist humanists sawing off branch?

norman – humanist atheist but happy with xtians also being humanist. dependency less clear. grounding of dignity of humans is the question. common problem to both camps. real issue is basis of reason n cognitive capacity? kahneman cognitive evolution and biases. no prior underpinning morality grounded in what it is to be human can agree.

milbank – h needs transcendent “god”.meaning always exceeds our grasp through metaphor etc bound religare. there is a meta dimension whether you call it metaphysical or spiritual. poetic beauty. is secular humanism setting human as a privikeged in itself. settibg limits at boundary of self. participation as creatures. more than rational and autonomous.

baggini – turtles all the way down story. moral nothing is groubded all the way down. rational secular accept reality of this – though dogmatic might not. god of the gaps as missing foundation doesn’t actually solve it. noones human reaction to the beauty of a new born is neitger theological or rational.

Humanists don’t see need for grace to complete the human?
Lots in common but few specific disagreement — based on Amsterdam declaration.
Stuff known by revelation in the religious is a specific difference.
Human capacity is enough grounding says Norman.
So do humanism needs to “trust” in the intuition that is ok to rely on the thin ice of human capacity. Not says Baggini more an assertion that it’s good enough- neither founded in pure reason out there cast in stone nor mere preference. This is a false dichotomy
Human appreciation of the baby?
We’re all human, but we’re not all Christian. Hard for Christian (sect) to claim universality.
Milbank Still sticking seeing humanists seeing humans end in themselves. Revelatory
No we really see that the human perspective is pragmatic limit to grounding.
Managing objects. Reacting to this is not just pomo different issues.
Does right and appropriate allow moral sentiment as well as objectively rational.
Really about theism not Christianity. Spiritual question. Genesis is Jewish anyway. Judaism has wonderful human view. Dominion is not negative. Tolkien fan!
We have Christian heritage culturally. Yes secular humans recognise complex relations beyond our autonomous self-identity.
Euthyphro
Assertion not faith? Many affective inputs as well as rational objective. Right is morally rational.
Demands for absolute grounding of morality doesn’t win an argument against someone who fails to hold right moral view. Agreed must not cash out morality as simply result of some other.
Transcendence also shared by secular humanist views. We are stardust. We are oriented to find meaning beyond ourselves.
Humanists do need Christians! Agreed.
Anti-religious humanists made most noise for a while, but there are plenty who do recognise value in the other. Conversation not debate.
Best at protecting the values we share — a conservatism.
No we are not certain — we know we’re on thin ice.

Been aware of a couple of tweets from Sabine at BackReaction on the topic of continuity over scales in physics, starting with a post by Krauss in Nautilus, and culminating today with another Nautilus link to a Max Tegmark piece that Sabine “wishes she could find something to disagree with” and this from FQXi on Quantum Cybernetics. As Sabine suggested in response to the first, so much more one could say if we had the time. Somewhere in there Frank Wilczek gets a reference too. So far this week I’ve just skimmed over these, but needed to read so I could comment.

Before I do, the meme coming back to me is Peter Rowlands observation on the topic of a theory everything, that abandoning the idea of physics having a coherent story to tell, was to make physics itself meaningless. Certainly a physics made of mathematical laws relating the objects of physics can never cut it. Information is more fundamental than a mathematical physics that accepts its fragmentation.

For me the real issue is the weirdness of causation itself, and it follows from Hofstadter’s strange loops, that at different scales different (why) causes and effects are in play, but they are all manifestations of an underlying reality, a coherent (how) story of the workings. This the common accusations of reductionism and determinism, that some high level behaviours are simply the sum total or net effect of many smaller causes and effects. Dennett warns against this greedy reductionism.

So what does Krauss have to say?

We know of no theory that both
makes contact with the empirical world,
and is absolutely and always true.

True. And that’s the reason the demand for “evidence” can become a fetish, if evidence is presumed to be objectively empirical. We know the world rationally through many forms of evidence or experience, not all of which can be objectively empirical.

So, what is going on?
Is a universal theory a legitimate goal,
or will scientific truth always be scale-dependent?

And here the fetish is that “scientific truth” is some primary or universal truth. Physics – fundamental science – is about how things work, not about “truth”. Is it possible Krauss has learned the value of philosophy?

The closer you get to the electron,
the more deeply you are penetrating inside
the “cloud” of virtual particles that are surrounding the electron.

Thereby preserving a preference for a particle model. The “cloud” of virtual particles in inverted commas is a hopeful sign. Further quoting Feynman:

“theory is simply a way to sweep difficulties […] under the rug.”

Feynman’s concerns 
were, in a sense, misplaced.
The problem was not with the theory,
but with trying to push the theory …

Well it is the problem – theories are only models, not reality. All models – theories – are created for a purpose (a local subjective reason). So, clearly it’s not likely to work out of that context. Unger and Smolin (and others) have already suggested that maths and physical laws change over time (and hence space). Like everything else, they evolve. What is universal is not “a” physics, but a meta-physics, with meta-laws and processes. The field of possibility exists, the particles are simply our objectified things. Waves and forces happen, but they’re only things when we objectify them for our subjective purposes, our working model. Krauss concludes:

Which road is the real road to reality is up for grabs. If we knew the correct path to discovery, it wouldn’t be discovery. Perhaps my own predilection is just based on a misplaced hope of continued job security for physicists! But I also like the possibility that there will forever be mysteries to solve. Because life without mystery can get very boring, at any scale.

Refreshingly honest admission of personal interest as a physicist. It’s wishful thinking to see reality as a physical model. The road of physics can never lead to reality, just better (more useful) physics. Of course, he couldn’t be that honest when given the opportunity of debating with a philosopher or two.

Tegmark on the other hand – given his title, I cannot imagine how he avoids a Dennett and Hofstadter GEB / EGB reference!

The bird surveys the landscape of reality from high “above,” akin to a physicist studying the mathematical structure of spacetime as described by the equations of physics. The frog, on the other hand, lives inside the landscape surveyed by the bird.

The delusion of physicists that they are working towards some god’s eye view of reality in a nutshell. Living in the landscape is reality. Reminded of William James observing the squirrel going “around” the tree in Tegmark’s next analogy, the moon orbiting the earth. I had to stop reading Tegmark at this point:

That our universe is approximately described by mathematics means that some but not all of its properties are mathematical. That it is mathematical means that all of its properties are mathematical; that it has no properties at all except mathematical ones. If I’m right and this is true, then it’s good news for physics …. It also implies that our reality is vastly larger than we thought, containing a diverse collection of universes obeying all mathematically possible laws of physics.

“That it is” is merely an assertion. No science to see here, folks. Lines, volumes and patterns woven through space-time are not new metaphors. Quoting a non-physicist friend Tegmark reports:

If someone says
“I can’t believe I’m just a heap of atoms!’’
I object to the use of the word “just”.

Good. Me too. Reality isn’t “just” a collection of things. History (the braid) matters, for one thing. Just seeing higher levels as assemblies of the lower is the greedy reductionism Dennett warns against.

On the Adesso and Girolami piece on Quantum Cybernetics in FQXi – some good stuff. Ashby, Wiener, “requisite variety” and a lot more, though not sure I came away understanding what they mean by their catchphrase. But OBVIOUSLY, given my agenda, Cybernetics is reality; how the real world’s working are governed. The objects of maths and physics are artefacts, phenomena, species we give names to in order to manipulate their information (through Cybernetics), but not fundamental reality.

In fact the summary in the headline says it:

Quantum Cybernetics – the quest for a meta-theory of quantum control that could one day explain physical systems, certain biological phenomena—and maybe even politics.

Not sure about “quantum control” but it’s certainly a meta-theory we’re in need of. [Ah, and “control” simply as a translation of “governance” (cybernetics)?]

Interesting piece from Nick Cohen in the Spectator that picked-up some twitter traffic – good addition to the freedom of speech debate and its limits in a free society.

Slightly baffled by a “just say no to demands for self-censorship” summary in the twitter threads.

Political correctness is a deep issue that needs to to be recognised for what it is – pernicious – and Nick lists great advice in the many guises it manifests itself. A must read for that reason. I have more reasons for pointing out political correctness problems in even more fields, more seemingly objective fields far removed from art and politics, like would-be science itself, but that’s my agenda.

Being censored or asked to censor for PC reasons is to be resisted. Just say no.

Self censorship is however entirely wise.

Anyone who does understand their topic and does understand where political correctness traps lie within and around their topic is entitled to indulge in their freedom to speak. Anyone who doesn’t should self-censor – ie shut up. But, anyone who does, must also make wise choices about what they should say to achieve informative and active goals, and what not to say to avoid redundant and counterproductive distractions.

Being asked to self-censor is an oxymoron – simply PC cover for censorship itself, surely to be resisted.

One for later, some tough reading (120 page technical PDF), but a philosophical view of “modern” physics by Hans Christian Öttinger that dares suggest:

… in the words of Margenau:

“it is quite proper for us to assume that we know what a dog is
even if we may not be able to define him”

Philosophy shall here serve as
a practical tool for doing better physics.

Very much Dennett’s “hold your definition” stance, and very much the same rejection of definitive objectivity I was referring to here. As Öttinger says:

Emphasis on the importance of beliefs,
even if they are justied by a variety
of philosophical and physical ideas,
may irritate the physicist.

Definitions are matters of hindsight, like species in evolution. Objects are simply abstractions – artefacts – of the model we are using, even when we’re doing physics of what we consider to be the “real” world.

[Hat Tip to Sabine on Backreaction.]

With 15 years and several thousand posts, with thousands of links between them in the archives, page rendering is now so slow (without cacheing*) that I am going to have to retire the site and start a fresh one.

That still leaves me with the housekeeping problem of how I keep links to important older posts working (without cacheing*).

(*) Seems I am to remain without cacheing, thanks to the permalink option I selected way back when I first migrated to WordPress, where every link is a query – which would be flattened by the cacheing, thereby losing ALL existing archive links. Need to find some link search and replace mechanism that doesn’t screw up the database, or progressively manually migrate the important links. The strategy adopted will affect whether I can preserve the main address for the site.

[Post Note : looks like with a change of theme, switching permalinks does maintain backward link compatibility in both the cached and live pages, so with a couple of other tweaks I can fix this. Tried out a few ideas on another blog, and will update here in a week or two.]