NEW BLOG: This Side of 80

If you're looking for new updates, check out my new blog:

This Side of 80

http://thissideof80.blogspot.com

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MORE FINALS DRAMA

So, I'm already sweating the Spinoza final tomorrow night and then I receive this e-mail this morning from the professor:

I don't know if this message will get through -- Blackboard is behaving badly at the moment. I am in the process of working up the final exam essay questions. You should already have a sense of what topics to study for the final exam, and you know that I am expecting you to be able to marshal the appropriate concepts and arguments from Spinoza to explain his thinking about those topics. One thing I forgot to mention in class is that whereas for the midterm we were still just struggling to figure out what Spinoza was saying, now we have the full account under our belts and should have a decent sense of what his philosophical system is all about. So I will be asking you to critique Spinoza's thinking in these final exam essays -- which is in keeping with the format of comprehensive exam essays. You will need to argumentatively justify your own thinking about whether or not Spinoza's thinking is sound and cogent.

In other words, I did some thinking last night and realized the test wasn't difficult enough. I decided to change that. Happy finals week! Actually, I shouldn't stress this too much. If I've done my homework (check!), then this shouldn't be a problem. However, oftentimes there's something hidden behind these messages, i.e., there's a question he wants to put on the exam most of us probably aren't prepared to answer and he wants to justify asking it. Hmmmm... devious professors everywhere! What's a poor poor graddy to do? Mhuahahahaha!

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CONCATENATION

In case you were wondering:

noun
1. the state of being linked together as in a chain; union in a linked series

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PHILOSOPHERS: WHO NEEDS THE PAST TENSE?

In a paper by Spinoza-scholar Edwin Curley, he writes:

Alan Donagan commented on the habit philosophers have of speaking of their predecessors in the present tense: 'Hume says that ...' 'Hume's reasons for saying that are....' Alan was commenting on J.G.A. Pocock's view that this shows a lack of real historical interest in your subject, that if you were thinking about your subject historically, you would, as historians do, use the past tense.

He continues...

What philosophers do betrays a desire to treat the great figures of philosophy's past as if they were our contemporaries. This may produce good philosophy; it does not produce good history.

Perhaps, but I'm curious what other philosophers might say about this. Thoughts?

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ARE YOU FREE? DOES IT MATTER?

I know, I know, I haven't blogged in like forever. Anyway, here's an excerpt from a preliminary draft of something I'm working on for my class on the Metaphysics of Freedom. Let me know what you think!

I think we have to be careful when speaking about freedom and responsibility. There is too often an assumption in the texts that these terms refer to actual somethings. For instance, that my being free is a fact about me, rather than a description of my actions. The same goes for moral responsibility. We have a temptation to describe someone as “guilty” or “responsible,” when all we are actually saying is this individual was the primary actor involved in said event.

To say that I am responsible for breaking a certain vase is not to refer to a specific part of me that is a responsible-something. It is simply a summation of facts, which consist in a description of past occurrences taking place. My arm raised. That arm knocked into the vase. The vase was moved far enough off the table that it was no longer able to rest on it. The vase fell to the floor and shattered. Now, what caused the vase to break? These circumstances and nothing more. There may in fact be several causal mechanisms taking place in my head, but none any less perfunctory than these other ones. One may desire to posit a motivated agent that decided to lift his arm, but who is this agent and how can we be so sure about his mental faculties that we can rest assured that “he did it”?

Perhaps another example will illuminate things a bit more. It is the year 2050, and my grandchildren have hired a new Sony R8237 Robot to take care of me in my slovenly old age. It beats the nursing home. The R8237 looks like nothing more than bunch of metal scraps soldered together, but it is special in that it is trained to learn human behavior and emulate it to the best of its abilities. While watching a video program, the R8237 sees one of the actresses washing dishes. The actress is upset because her boyfriend never helps wash the dishes, so she starts to throw them against the ground, breaking them one by one. Later that night, when washing the dishes, the R8237 begins taking the dishes and systematically tossing each one onto the kitchen tile, shattering them. My grandchildren call tech support for an explanation of what happened, and they are informed that the R8237 was simply learning human behavior. Sony sends a wireless firmware download and the robot is instantly updated to never break dishes again. My grandchildren instruct me to not allow the robot to watch TV anymore. There is never a moment when we hold the robot blameworthy. We simply accept that its actions are the result of determined causes and effects that were out of its control.

Let us fast-forward another 50 years to the year 2100 and Sony has come out with its latest model caretaker, the S9348, upgraded to not only learn human behavior more accurately, but look human as well. In fact, instead of “S9348”, people just call him “Sam” because they can scarcely tell the difference between Sam and a real person. My great-great-grandchildren hire the robot to take care of my grandson. While working, Sam observes my grandson drinking Jim Beam from the bottle… a lot (chip off the ole block). Soon enough, Sam proceeds to do this as well. Eventually, my great-great-grandchildren observe this behavior on one of their visits and immediately scold Sam for drinking all day. No call to tech support. No firmware download. They just yell at him. What has changed between the R8237 and the S9348? The latter model looks human. What does this say about our concepts of moral responsibility and freedom? They do not come from observing the world and they certainly do not come from philosophical speculation. They come from us, and I mean this in the strict sense. How free are you? As free as I am. How responsible are you? As responsible as I would consider myself. I may have no more existential status than an R8237, but I look like I do. Why? Because I look like you and you feel like you do. How do I know you feel like you do? Because I feel like I do.

The debate over freedom is not a scientific one. If it was, it would have been decided eons ago. Based on the laws of physics, minus a few quantum-level inconsistencies, everything is determined. The idea of freedom is self-fulfilling; it comes from the idea itself, or perhaps the feeling that leads to the idea. The same goes for moral responsibility. I place as much moral responsibility as I would deem necessary for myself if I were in the same situation. This is not to say that if I eventually found myself in that situation, I would not balk at accepting blame. We quite often ask to be judged under kinder standards. But we usually follow that up by being more understanding of the same crime committed by others later. (Some of us are just hypocrites, but the fact we have a word for that just strengthens my point.) Sartre serves as a useful guide. Why are we ashamed from “the look”? Because we know how we would feel when looking at another performing the same action.

Do we have alternatives when it comes to performing certain actions? It would seem we believe we do. If I inform someone that what he did was wrong, I am assuming there was a right way to act. We constantly walk through the world, unsure of how people will act. I am walking across the street and I cannot tell whether the woman coming from the opposite direction will pass on the left or the right. If she follows the same rules as when driving, she will pass on the right. But this is not necessarily the case. She passes on the left instead and it requires a small readjustment of my own to make sure I do not bump into her. My head fills with disgust because she did not do what I had expected her to do. To me, she was a free actor, who had one of two ways to act and she acted “wrongly.” It does not matter if she was free or not, blameworthy or not, because on both accounts, I assert the affirmative.

How much is this a fact of our lives? I would venture to guess that if a scientist proved today, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the entire universe was determined, it would not have the least bit effect on how we perceive each other: free individuals responsible for our actions. Even in the case of compulsives, children or the mentally ill, we posit a certain sense of freedom, even if it is more limited than our own. It would seem the ability to place blame has an evolutionary advantage as well. If one can discover the individual root of transgression and remove it, the rest of the tribe, group, society, office, etc., is saved the continued aggravation.

There will always be those who need to know for certain whether the universe is determined, thinking that the answer to that question will also answer the question of free will. But I think it simply does not matter. Moral responsibility has nothing to with alternative possibilities as actually existing. Rather, it is associated with alternative possibilities as we feel they exist for ourselves, which we then reflect onto others.

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'I Shall Call It Mini-Me'

Check out this awesome photo Nazzy took with her mobile this afternoon. In the background is Miranda, our fearless, fat, eight-year-old cat. In the foreground is "Squeaker", one of the three four-week-old kittens Nazzy and I are fostering (read: not adopting). We're using the gate to keep the cats apart while we de-worm and de-flea the kittens. They're basically in kittie-quarantine right now.

Here are a couple more pics.

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The Ring

Since the original post about the engagement, a lot of people have asked to see the ring. The only reason I haven't showed it is because it's not done. My jeweler, i.e. Russ, wasn't able to acquire the stones in time (granted, I gave him only a few days).

But it turned out to be a good thing as the band is too small so now we can have it resized before having the diamonds placed.

For all those who can't wait until then, the pic above will have to suffice. It's an amazingly beautiful, artistic piece, hand crafted by James Binnion Metal Arts in Bellingham, Wash. The process used is called "Mokume Gane," a 17th century Japanese sword making and decorating technique that's only been reborn recently in the late 20th century as a technique for producing wedding and engagement bands.

It's so beautiful, I'm almost hesitant to blemish it with diamonds. Right now, it's flying somewhere over the continental U.S. to Bellingham for the resizing. Then it'll come back here so Russ can set the stones and then finally it will be placed on my lovely's hand.

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The Lake Tahoe Anthology

Moti, learning how to ski, the proposal, the after party, the lake, UC Davis. In five days, Nazzy and I spent a lifetime in early March 2007.

To say we had fun would be the ultimate understatement. In some ways, we redefined what it means for us to have fun. Number one was the fact I learned how to ski so now that's something I can share with Nazzy. I'm already counting the days until the new ski season begins! Well, without further ado, here's a round-up of our trip.




From the airport, we traveled directly to the home of "Moti," Nazzy's paternal grandmother. Despite the fact she doesn't speak English, and I don't speak Farsi, it was amazing how much we were able to communicate with one another. As you can see, we feasted on traditional Persian dishes, like cutlets and kabob koobideh, as well as a new garnish for me, toschi, a pickled salad of carrots, celery and other greenery which is delicious.



The funny part was when Nazzy's brother Joubin tried to explain to Moti how he just back from a trip to Brazil with his girlfriend, Vahishta. Moti wanted to know who escorted them so there would be no "mozak dozak" or "hanky panky."



Sadly, it was time to leave and make our way for the three-hour trek to South Lake Tahoe.



Remembering that I needed to make a blog post for the day, I snapped this pic in the back seat of the 'rents' car and sent it in on my cell phone. On the way, we stopped at their favorite roadstop restaurant, a German eatery where everyone knows Nazzy's family by name because they stop there so often. How often? When I tried to pull the bathroom trick (so I could pay for the meal before the check arrived), the waitress refused to take it because she knows Nazzy's dad wouldn't stand for it.


The Pakpour home in Lake Tahoe.

The next day, it was time to learn how to ski, but there was one problem: I had no ski equipment, including ski pants and jacket, or skis and poles.



A trip the Heavenly Ski Shop in Harvey's Hotel & Casino, and that problem was fixed. Now we look professional, right? Nazzy and her folks went up the mountain while her dad bought me a two-hour private lesson with "Roman." Roman was cool and was very patient with me. He taught me the art of the "wedge" or "pizza slice," which is how you're supposed to position your legs to slow down and control your turns. Once we were finished, my feet were killing me so I met up with Nazzy to eat lunch. Afterwards, she took me back on the beginner hill.



After about three hours of practice, this was the result. In all honesty, I came pretty far. But now you have to watch how good Nazzy and her family are. For instance, here's Nazzy and Mary while Art follows them with the camera.



And here's Art and Mary showing how it's really done.



Eventually, Nazzy and I took our first lift to the top of the bunny slope. The result wasn't very good, as I fell over and over again, including right off the ski lift.



Day 2 was a lot different.



We went to the Nevada side of Heavenly Ski Resort and were joined by Nazzy's brother Joubin and his girlfriend Vahishta.



Nazzy, Joubin and their father took turns escorting me up and down the mountain and taking themselves up the larger part of the mountain on the more challenging slopes. But first, Vahishta had to get her gear.



I was a lot better on day 2 and I had enough confidence to make my way down the semi-intermediate slope.



I was doing OK, but I was really impressed with how well Vahishta did. This was only her fourth time skiing and she was already doing extremely well.



And here's the overhead shot when Art and I were on the ski lift.



We helped a girl who'd fallen get back up and in return she offered to take a family photo.



Next time, I'll bring my sunglasses. After we made it down the mountain, it was time for lunch. While Nazzy was getting the food, I informed everyone that I was going to ask her to marry me on the next ski lift. But I needed them to go up ahead of us and have the cameras ready.

While we were eating, Nazzy went to the gift shop and purchased matching ball caps for everyone. It was time for the photo op.



What started out as a photo shoot, turned into a snowball fight.







But we'd procrastinated long enough. The fateful moment was coming up. As soon as Nazzy and I got on the lift, I went into a very impromptu speech about how much I cared for her.



The rest of the details are for her and me, but afterwards, as I started to reach for the ring in my pocket, she didn't believe me. It wasn't until I'd pulled it all the way out that she started to realize it was for real. This last video was taken by her family as we got off the lift. I admit it's a rough cut, but I'm no video editor.



Afterwards, we were all pretty excited, and couldn't wait to get back to the house to start the celebration.



Unfortunately, the celebration would have to wait. About 15 minutes later, on a run very similar to this video, I went out of control, ran into a ski instructor and severely bruised my right shoulder.



I wasn't going to let my dumbass injury ruin the day, however. There was a celebration to be had, as Nazzy's father broke out the champaign.



And celebrate we did ...



We went to the seafood buffet at the casinos and finished it off with a little craps and Texas Hold ‘em.

The next morning we took a walk to finally take a look at South Lake Tahoe.



Being from the East Coast, it was breathtaking to see the natural beauty of the Tahoe landscape.



Finally, the trip ended with a stop at UC Davis, Nazzy’s alma mater about one hour outside San Francisco.



This pic was taken in the library. In the middle is a garden. The campus is really pretty and because everything is so stretched out and flat, there are more bikes than people. I’m not kidding. Every possible piece of sidewalk that could have a bike rack, does, and most of them are full.

And that was it; the trip, the proposal, everything. Thanks to all our family and friends who’ve been so supportive. And if you ever get a chance to visit Lake Tahoe, go! It’s so worth it.

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Random Cuteness

When shooting without artwork, go with something from the cat collection, I say.

So, Nazzy and I are settling back into the groove. Neither of us looked forward to getting back to work, but alas, 'tis necessary. For me, that means getting back into the homework groove as well. Tonight, it's working on my Ethics presentation for next week's class. Why I chose to do Kant, I have no idea.

I finally called just about everyone necessary to give them the good news, even reaching my brother (in Peru) and father (in Costa Rica) this morning. Everyone is genuinely happy for us, and they constantly remind me how much they "really, really like that Nazzy." Yeah, I do too...especially since she cleaned the house and made me dinner tonight.

Hey! What can I say? I'm injured! Fortunately, not that bad. Went to the doctor this afternoon and the diagnosis was positive: severe right shoulder bruise, but no major damage. Hopefully, I'll be throwing fastballs by the time spring training is over. The funny part was when the doctor went to look at the bruise, she did one of those cringes, like "what the hell is that?!" When you can get that reaction from a general physician, that means you did some damage. I'll see if I can get Naz to take a picture of it before bed tonight and I'll post it tomorrow.

Finally, I'm working on posting all the pictures and videos online for public consumption. When I do, I'll post a wrap-up article on the whole trip and give you all the gory details on how I popped the question. Off to study now. Good night!

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Lake Tahoe - Day 5 - We're coming home

On the way home now with an awesome new book in my lap. See you on the East Coast!

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Lake Tahoe - Day 4

L-R: Nazzy, Brian, Art, Joubin, Vahishta & Mary

What an awesome time we've had here in Lake Tahoe. Today, we walked around the lake (you can see clear to the bottom from 20 feet up) and on the way home we toured the UC Davis campus (Nazzy's alma mater).

Now we're back in Walnut Creek, preparing for the trip home. But of course, there's always time for one last bloggy.

Thanks to everyone for their notes and phone calls of encouragement. The celebration of the engagement last night was enough to mark the occassion and the wedding plans have already begun.

I'll provide more detailed accounts when I get home (and need time to goof off at work). Until then, see you all back on the east coast.

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Lake Tahoe - Day 3 - We're Engaged!

I can't type much because I totally ate it on the slopes today and screwed up my shoulder but I asked Nazzy to marry me, on the ski lift, and she said "yes!" This picture was taken minutes after the fateful moment. I'll write more about it tomorrow, but I don't have much time right now and my shoulder has very little motion.

I love this woman more than words can describe anyway.

Until then, here's more video from the slopes.

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Lake Tahoe - Day 2

My lower legs were in so much pain today I can't even describe, but my first day of skiing was really, really fun. Nazzy's family and the instructors said I was way ahead for a first day skiier.



Nazzy was an excellent teacher and we had a great time going up and down the slopes together. Tomorrow: More skiing! Only this time with Joubin and Vahishta, who are arriving late tonight. More updates tomorrow!!!

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Lake Tahoe - Day 1

This is the best I can do for a blog post today. We flew into San Francisco this morning and I met Moti, Nazzy's grandmother. I fell in love with her ... I didn't want to leave her. But now we're on our way to Lake Tahoe and that's when I snapped this pic in the back seat of the folks' Beamer SUV. More to come...

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Gilbert Ryle ... New URL Coming

Not much to report today. I had Philosophy of the Mind last night and I'd give a report on what I learned except I'm not sure I could even explain it to myself, let alone anyone else. We were reacting to Gilbert Ryle, who makes the argument that one of the critical problems when discussing the "mind-body problem" comes from the language we use to discuss it.

It gets a lot deeper than this, but one thing I can expound on is that the language we use to describe the mind cannot be the same language that we use to describe the body, or events we observe the body in. If the mind is non-spatial and non-physical, as it is proposed by most substance dualists like Descartes, then to use phrases like "My mind is inside me" is logically invalid, since that which has no spatial qualities cannot be positioned inside anything. There's also a temptation on the part of dualists to describe the mind using processes similar to the body, just in a more mystical way. Again, these descriptions are logically invalid, borrowing metaphors to speak about something that must be entirely unmetaphorical. That's as far as I'll go for now.

One thing I do want to announce is a bought a new domain name last night: 86Madness.com. Right now, there's nothing there, so I didn't even hyperlink the URL. But when you dial in listentobrian.com after this weekend, that's where you'll be directed. Where does the name come from? There's a story to it (having to do with the pic above) and I'll have a full retelling when I migrate the blog. Until then, updates will appear here as usual.

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