Philosophical Misdirection

Looking at a particular Mancunian's blog, I realised that my ideas on the governance of Atlantis had actually changed over the years. At the end of the last millennium, when I became a Master of (certain unspecified but useful) Arts, I published these thoughts as part of my thesis. Then, I believed that Atlantis was governed by Machiavellian pragmatism; old Nick had described his vision of both principalities and republics in a way consonant with what we know of Atlantis.

Of course, Atlantis, infected by a need to attach its anchor to a more perdurable rock, has in the last decade or so claimed the blessing of Master Kong, he of the scholarly bent and crystal-clear ethical arguments. In this regard, I am quite certain that the claim does not match the facts. Master Kong distinguished between right conduct and gainful conduct; the Thunderer and other Atlantean rulers and priests have never done so. When I say this, I am certainly not saying that Atlantean rulers run around garnering bribes and filthy lucre (although they are very well paid); rather, I am saying that they do not distinguish, on one hand, between conduct that produces practical and useful outcomes for the state; and, on the other, conduct that is morally and ethically unquestionable according to Master Kong's reasoning.

So, if Atlantis is neither an adherent of Master Machiavelli nor of Master Kong, what philosophy is it that drives the island state?

I suspect it is really a sort of Neo-Platonic Republicanism. I will not elaborate much further, except to say that the cardinal features of the Atlantean city-state can indeed be found (in great and mordant detail) within the pages of Plato's Republic. Atlantis is not founded on rational (and perhaps cynical) political pragmatism; neither is it founded on a code of morality and ethics. It is really founded on the proto-Fascist jokes that Plato embedded in his dialogues.

How do we know? Well, think about the breeding programme of the elite that Socrates talks about in the book. State-engineered and state-sponsored education leads to state-engineered and state-sponsored marriages to produce eugenically and philosophically qualified guardian-warriors for the city-state. There are many other examples. It is actually a very entertaining book, especially when you realise that this might not have been a manual for how to run a city-state, but a cleverly written pamphlet on how not to do it.

I must confess, however, that I do think all three of these philosophical models have something to contribute to Atlantis. In fact, I sometimes wish that the philosopher-kings of the city-state had actually thought through the materials from which they claim inspiration. Nobody ought to be running an elite based solely on what that elite thinks is elite; that is the way to groupthink, and then decay.

Word of the Day: Necrophoresis

I remember that one of the most moving parts of Neil Gaiman's Sandman sequence was the storytelling part (collected as Worlds' End) which comes before the climax of the series and the death of Dream. In that collection is a story about the many ways in which bodies are prepared for dissolution after death. Oddly enough, the word that doesn't appear in that story is 'necrophoresis'.

'Necrophoresis' means 'the removal of corpses', from Greek nekron, 'corpse' and pherein, 'to carry or bear (away)'. It is explicitly used to describe the removal of dead ants from a colony by those still alive, a mysterious phenomenon because somehow ants know another ant is dead even before it starts producing death-related chemical compounds.

The mystery has been solved (there was a paper published by UC Riverside researchers in May earlier this year on it). Apparently, ants emit a couple of chemicals that proclaim, "I'm not dead yet!" These chemicals are called dolichodial (a dialdehyde whose name comes from the Greek word for 'long foot-race') and iridomyrmecin (from the Greek words for 'rainbow' and 'ant').

As long as the ant is alive, it keeps producing these, "Hey I'm still alive!" chemicals. Once it stops, its friends sense this lack-of-life state and carry the carcass out; the chemicals dissipate with a half-life of less than 10 minutes.

Somehow, this process reminded me of academia. Academics publish papers to proclaim their continuing academic life. Once they stop publishing, or otherwise making a nuisance of themselves, they are considered academically dead.

The process also occurs in schools. Some schools are very bad at necrophoresis; the deadwood lingers on, afflicting students with a marked lack of inspiration and the sensation that being taught is a horrible thing. I think that once a teacher stops inspiring students (in a positive way, of course), that teacher should be carried out and dumped. Occasionally, however, just as in some ant colonies, the wrong signals are sent and perfectly functional ants teachers are dumped.

Emigration in an Age of Globalisation

Where would you go, said the Black Lily to me, if you had all the resources and qualifications to go anywhere you wanted and make a living there?

It's a good question. I know I wouldn't go to the Fragmented States, for sure. Too harsh a tax regime and too uneven a cultural environment. I love some parts of it; I am indifferent and sometimes dislike other parts. If I had all those resources, I am sure I'd be ripped off.

The Southern Cross Dominions have pretty good healthcare for senior citizens. Taking a long view, I guess it looks like a good option. They speak some sort of Anglo-Saxon tongue there too, which is about as mutually (un)intelligible to us as Atlantean Creole English is to them. The same argument, I suppose, applies to the Land of the Maple Leaf; however, that is a colder land. And you'd have the Appalling Princess as your neighbour.

I've often thought about some place in Europe. Best thing is, I'm already a citizen. Finding a place to live conveniently is not as easy as you think, though. Too much demographic insanity.

The funny thing is that I am quite happy to live out my exile in Atlantis while Atlanteans run around thinking of alternatives. A strange people, this.

Everyman Overboard

It's probably a sign of how old I am that the death of Karl Malden (dead today at the age of 97) hit me harder than the death of Michael Jackson. There's no doubt that the latter was more famous by a few orders of magnitude, and more talented by the same factor.

But Malden was more a part of my life. I learnt about car chases, interrogating suspects, figuring things out and being phlegmatic under pressure by watching him in The Streets of San Francisco. In that five-year TV series, he acted as Detective-Lieutenant Mike Stone, the senior partner to Inspector Keller, acted by Michael Douglas.

He actually did win an Oscar; like his Emmy, it was for being a great supporting actor. Here's to Karl Malden, an everyman who taught us nameless people how to be supporting actors!

Gridlock

Sometimes, when you're playing a new game, perhaps for the first few times, you come to several realisations about what you might be doing wrong and have no clue as to what to do about it. Or sometimes you have a very good clue and then you find out that doing something about one problem actually causes worse problems (or 'suboptimalities') elsewhere.

The solution to this is called 'minimaxing'. In most games, some sort of optimal expectation-based strategy allows you to figure out what a good solution might be, in terms of maximising your gains while minimising your losses.

But in complex games (or worse, games which you aren't sure are games, or games which don't seem to have success conditions, or games which you have a sneaky feeling are set up so that success might actually be failure), this strategy may not work. It might even work against you.

Once in a while I look at the world in which I live and I realise that if it is a game, or game-like, then it probably can't be optimised by minimaxing. It's too complicated, and if you think about it too much, your thoughts and theories degenerate into handwaving and other gestures of uncertainty. Eventually, things come to a gridlock; they don't work out because too many goals and interests have come into conflict.

There may be no solution; there may never have been a solution. The world may be solid, opaque, intractable all the way through, insolvent and insoluble, inscrutable but pretending to scrutability. All we can do is work things out the best we think we can, and trust that there is some validity to what we're doing.

The most important idea behind all this metagame theory is: are the rules spontaneous and hence random in origin, or are the rules imposed deliberately by an external agency? And one nagging thought beyond that is: are there any other options?

It is all terribly fascinating.

Stressful Times

I've had a rich and complex life, and if this were to be the end of it, I would still be happy. As I sit here watching the plague across the earth, I realise it probably isn't yet the end. Things can always get worse, things can always get better. People can always get worse, people can always get better.

Sometimes, I realise that a life in F&SF has allowed me to roll with life's stormy weather without getting seasick. Sometimes, I realise that being anchored to the Rock has meant that I've not rolled too much. I am almost always in a state of contemplation. I am almost always in a state of active reflection. I realise that, along with everyone else, I am many things and yet one. I realise that not everyone realises this.

Sometimes I realise that I am remembering odd things. I woke up today remembering this:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Some of you will immediately recognize this. It is the Bene Gesserit 'Litany Against Fear', from Frank Herbert's Dune. In Latin, bene gesserit means 'to carry oneself well', or 'to bear one's responsibilities well'. It implies good conduct within the framework of a regulated world.

I am reminded that St Paul, in his various epistles, enjoyed quoting from pagan sources. I suspect that one of his flaws was the need to show off his scholarly erudition. It shows in his liberal employment of rhetoric and arcane quotations.

I realise that during times of stress, I can hear the laughter of God. He sometimes says, "Just remember, you must take Me seriously, and yourself not so much."

Worthless?

Today's post was triggered by something somebody said about how worship comes with a sense of one's personal unworthiness. I think that's partly justifiable; after all, you are indeed facing the Infinite and Eternal — compared to such things, you might feel finite and timebound. But further examination proves that the position of unworthiness is philosophically and theologically untenable beyond certain limits.

Let's begin with some simple assumptions. Let's say you are conscious that God is infinitely greater than you, and not bound by time, space or any physical limitation. This makes you feel infinitely small. I would say that you have a perception problem. Why? How on earth are you perceiving (or conceptualising) infinity (whether infinitely great or small)? The Good Book says that God has set the idea of the infinite universe in the hearts of men (see Ecclesiastes 3:11). If this is true (I am assuming you must believe it is so), then you have a piece of that infinity and eternity in you. You are only a smaller infinity, a kind of aleph-null (for the mathematically inclined, look here).

You cannot therefore be thinking of yourself as worthless, only less worthy than you think you ought to be.

But that's wrong too.

Let's go to another assumption. The standard of 'worth' must be external to the things being assigned a value of 'worth', or else it can't be used as a benchmark. God must be the source of this standard, or else 'worthiness' with respect to God is a useless measure. So either you are not worthy enough (according to God), in which case you can't even aspire to come before Him or worship Him or even interact in any other way with Him; or you are worthy enough — and it's not because of you, but because He has assigned you a sufficient value of 'worth' so that you may approach Him.

You cannot therefore be too unworthy, and to think you are is actually some sort of negative pride or false humility (or humility based on false assumptions).

There are hymns with lines like, "I, though so unworthy, still am a child of His care..." and those have quite another meaning. It means that you are indeed unworthy of your own merit, but you are thankful that he has assigned you sufficient merit to be worthy of grace.

But what is the textual evidence for all this? Many Christians think that philosophy is the next worst thing to sorcery, and the textual evidence for it is that human philosophy (the philosophy of men, human philosophers, the philosophy of the world etc) is quite soundly rejected as long as the basis does not accept the major premise. That major premise is of course that God exists and interacts with us, and St Paul, for example, uses philosophy based on this premise quite shamelessly and extensively (his own words, not mine).

So let's look at the text. From searching the Good Book in its many versions, I have yet to see a human claim unworthiness successfully. God does say that many things are worthless or of no value, but the text says even physical training has value. The text also says that humans have been given (or will be given, conditional on their free-willed request or acceptance) many things — gifts, grace, wisdom, peace... the list is very long, and all of it confers and implies God-assigned worth.

Hebrews 12:3 does caution against the peril of considering oneself more highly than one ought (after all, that was the sin of the greatest of the Kherubim), but it also enjoins us to consider ourselves with sober judgement, and the next few verses talk about our gifts. The implication here is clear: don't think too highly of yourself, but do evaluate your worth according to the standards of God.

A similar concept arises when humans are told that the wise man should not boast of his wisdom, the strong man of his strength, or the rich man of his riches; rather if they must boast, they should boast of how well they know God, specifically in terms of the countervailing virtues of kindness (a scholar should be kind and teach, not mock, the less-educated), justice (an officer should be just and not tyrannical in his exercise of power) and righteousness (a gentleman should be righteous in his use of wealth, and be generous, not hold on to it out of avarice).

In other words, you can hold on to your sense of self-worth, provided you know how that worth is calibrated and what it is measured against. It is no sin to be honest, but it is a sin to bear false witness; in this context, 'bearing false witness' means to either inflate or deflate your actual worth. The Good Book tells us not to use dishonest scales or measures. And this is why we have to soberly judge ourselves.

Have we done what we are told to do? Are we fit (as in exactly a match for) the tasks we have been given? The point is that we fail these tests often, but we do succeed sometimes. And when we fail, we suffer the consequences, but we also know that the Master does not hold most failures to be the be-all and end-all.

So, we're not so worthless after all. What we need to do is figure out how much we're worth and then use that capital to do what we're supposed to do.

Pandemic (Redux)

Yes, yes, I know I have talked about disasters and pandemics and all that sort of thing way too much. From now on, if you haven't already been doing so, you can keep track of the 2009 influenza 'they said it would not be one' pandemic on your own at this reliable and frequently updated webpage.

Atlantis has about 600 casualties as of this hour. Someone should do a per capita analysis. I think, that as Jared Diamond has pointed out before, city living is a prime cause of the spread of contagion. Cities are reservoirs for this sort of thing, since people have little or no choice but to come into range of the diseased. If your entire country is a city-state, then you can expect to be pretty much doomed to suffer the complexities of pandemic management.

Meanwhile, the Southern Cross tribe has claimed that their own high figures are due to better detection of disease, and that if everyone else (especially the people of the Beautiful Land) were as honest as they, the figures would be much higher. Someone said that about a million of the Beautiful People have got it, although they say they only have about 25,000.

Currently, things aren't too bad. But way back in 1918, things got really bad. An estimated 3-6% of the world's population died then, from the 1918 H1N1 influenza virus. Almost a century later, could the bad old times be set to roll once more?

Meanwhile, the Indic Syndics have claimed that their billions of people have only suffered about 70 casualties and no deaths. Statistically interesting, I'd say. The 1918 bug killed 17 million of them.

Words of the Day: Blame/Fault

It is very interesting to see how people assign blame or fault, sometimes not realising that the two are very different things in deed. "It's your fault!" or "You are to blame!" are not equivalent.

To begin with, 'blame' (c.1200) seems to come from Greek blasphemein, 'to utter evil'. If you blame someone, you are therefore speaking evil about them, blaspheming them. The fault may be theirs, but the sin is yours. The Greek word blasphemein has a strange and mysterious etymology. The first part of it seems related to blema, 'wound'; it has been also linked to blaptikos ('hurtful') or blax ('slack in body and/or mind').

But the blema etymology is even more interesting; it is linked to the Frankish blesmir which means 'to injure or to make pale'. It is the word from which we get 'blemish' — an impurity, a spot of white, a blanched portion. With the earth sciences term 'astrobleme', the whole thing comes full circle. 'Astrobleme' is the geological term for a meteorite impact crater that has 'scarred over' with time. The word, from Greek aster ('star') and blema, means 'star wound'.

So when we talk about 'blame', we imply 'blemish', and we also indirectly imply that the situation involves us casting an aspersion at someone else. It may or may not be their fault, but we are actively assigning the penalty, the cause, anything bad that comes out of it, to the person(s) we blame.

'Fault', on the other hand, comes (through some evolution) from the Latin fallere, from which we get 'false' and 'fallible'. To say that someone is at fault is to imply that they deceived you (or you were deceived) by looking as if they could do something that they didn't or couldn't (or wouldn't). In geology (again), and in many other areas of knowledge, 'fault' means a lapse, a gap, or rift in the continuum, process or routine. It implies that things looked good until evil was found in them (well, maybe that's too dramatic).

Where 'blame' implies active participation on the part of the person blamed, and requires an active accusation, 'fault' implies negative or passive participation on the part of the person faulted. To clarify, you really ought to blame people for what they did, and fault people for what they did not do. So when we say that some hypothetical Mr K is to blame for the chaos affecting some area of society, we mean that he did something to cause this state; when we fault him, we mean that he should have done something but didn't.

At this point, you can probably tell that you can both blame and fault people in certain situations — if they did the wrong thing and then failed to do the right thing (or vice versa).

Of Human Bondage (and other stuff)

Ah, today is a milestone day. Herr Hierophant finally got his dative covalent bond (although highly polarised and almost ironic) within the amorphous State. Meanwhile, the rest of us got to endure (if we were so minded) a whole news cycle on the life and times of the late Michael Jackson.

I've ignored MJ apart from the peculiar and singular highlight of his 1982 album, Thriller. I suppose you had to be there. But MJ never really had any impact on me. It's not that MJ wasn't part of my musical upbringing; he was everywhere during the years of my youth. Rather, it's more a reflection on the fact that in the early 1980s, when I was attending secondary school, even Marvel Comics' Power Man, Iron Fist had more impact on me.

By the time I was really musically aware, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Billy Joel, and even the retroactively-discovered Beatles had more influence on what I thought good popular music was about. With characters like Madonna and bands like America around, I think I completely ignored MJ during that period.

And now he's gone, aged 50 and a bit. So also is Farrah Fawcett, aged 62, and I think she had more influence on my growing-up years than he did.

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In other news, about two hours ago I became an uncle for the third time. Heh.

A Life of Archivement

I once read an answer in a chemistry test that went like this: "An atom of fluorine accepts one electron easily to archive a stable configuration." I remember thinking to myself, "That's a cheap librarian for you." How ionic.

But it's not such a joke when you realise that your male ancestor has succumbed to the creeping danger of all those who live in academia, especially historians and their ilk. There are literally hundreds and thousands of books stashed in unruly piles and plastic bags all around the house. There are papers dating back to the time of Constantine (well, John Constantine, maybe). The whole thing is like an archaeological dig, not a house. You need to grid and measure, take notes, examine the trash.

There is buried treasure too. I found a battered little blue book which, to my mixed mortification and excitement, turned out to contain a record of my first few months. Apparently, my first words to the world were, "Hiyo!" instead of the more common "Mama!" It seems to have perturbed my mother, and my sister observed with a ghoulish satisfaction that my niece has followed suit.

There are unopened bills dating back to the last millennium, and minutes of meetings best left unremembered. There are literally STACKS of old correspondence. Buried at the back of it all, I found a drawer containing the letters I received from old friends. And the photo albums from the days before there was an internet. Old memories.

Older still, my ancestor has kept VIDEOTAPES. And a cassette player! Argh! I need to help him clear all this up soon, before he retires and brings back yet another few thousand books. I have returned to dust, just as the Good Book says.