Psybertron Asks

Great piece from Slavoj Zizek in the New Statesman.

The animality with which we are dealing here �” the ruthless egotism of each of the individuals pursuing his or her private interest �” is the paradoxical result of the most complex network of social relations (market exchange, social mediation of production). That individuals are blinded to this network points towards its ideal (“spiritual”) character:

in the civil society structured by market,
abstraction rules more than ever.

Great post from Rev Sam over at Elizaphanian. As an atheist (science & technologist), I was seriously concerned previously that Sam, as a non-scientist (theist & theologian), was being drawn into the science of the green movement (through The Oil Drum, etc) – the last thing we needed was more scientism. Wisdom prevails.

Thai football. I guess if your name is Tuck, you can be excused an obsession with the food, but “ritualistic civility” is the real value.

(This is an ancient draft post from a year or two ago. Just decided to post it so I can link to the “rules of argumentation” resource it contains in another post on this subject about argumentation generally – NOT specifically related to the interminable God vs Science debate.)

I’m an atheist. That is I don’t “believe in” a god or gods, any being(s) with omnipotent omniscience, indeed as any kind of causal explanation for anything happening in the (real) world, ever.

Despite a large degree of inconsistency in any such body of (written) thought, I actually don’t have much problem with particular “believers” in the teachings of prophets, the word, the way, of Christians or Mohamedans (or Zoroastrians or Zen Taoists, or Mahayanan Buddhists, whatever), as exemplary moral rules for human life in the world, even if their histories are 95% apocryphal purloined and interchangeable legend. So long as “rules are for the guidance of wise men and not the enslavement of fools”, and so long as much of the apparently literal are understood to be poetic and metaphorical, including short-hand references to god(s) to denote the ineffable, and inexplicable in the current / relevant context. Even rules that are wrong – not right or true – in any absolute objective sense, have some value for obedience in a given social-anthropological situation. The slippery slope is to let the metaphors die and reify, and mistake the ineffable for the objective and causal, the ineffable or pragmatic for some absolute truth with a capital T.

That is I’m a “rational” being. But, that said, I have complementary issues with those who claim scientific, objective rationality – that long pre-date any god vs science debates of the last 5 years or so. I’ve drafted one or two posts and comments into the PZ Myers “Pharyngula” debate, but never actually published, since the discussion threads are inevitably full of participants cock-sure of either side of the argument – eventually trading insults disguised as humorous rhetoric. (I have the same problem with much of Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science” debates.)

In a sense I could be accused of taking a god of the gaps view, and religion as the opiate to avoid worrying about the mysteries of those gaps, those things that “science” has not yet explained, adequately for everyday use by mortals. In a sense I do have that view, but if I ever used the word god for such ineffability, it would always be (risky) metaphorical shorthand. The ineffability is never a causal objective “thing”. In a sense a Spinozan Pantheism, but again, we need to be very cautious about attributing any causal, purposeful teleology to such ineffable pantheism – nature as wonder.

Trouble is, with this “yes and no, sorta kinda, but …” view it is much easier to compare notes with a sophisticated theist or theologian than it is with a sophisticated scientist.

So imagine my delight at finding a rules of engagement flowchart from AtheismResource.com blogged by PZ on Pharyngula.

Trouble is 95% of the subsequent discussion thread is about rehearsed (anti-Creationist) arguments using the flowchart, rather than the content of the flowchart. The meta-argument is much more interesting.

So Yes / No Box #1 – Well, sorry, but “Yes” crassly oversimplifies the situation and “No” is the more sophisticated rational answer. I’m having this argument with you because I’m pretty sure of my position. This argument is going to cost us both time and effort, so we need to start on a basis of mutual trust. I’m looking forward to the discussion because I want to learn something that might help me understand the different positions better, mine and yours. How about you ?

Yes / No Box #2 – Hmm, Yes, OK, but this therefore all hinges on “faulty use” of the argument rather than any argument content per-se. I will certainly be OK to change my use of any such argument, if we can agree what this question really means.

Yes / No Box #3 – Well the $64,000 question is in here. What are the basic principles of reason ? You give examples. “More reasonable”, “more evidence” ? Is this about keeping score. The tyranny of the majority ? Who says the person asserting a position has the onus of justification ? And what is truth anyway ? What counts as reasonable, what counts as evidence ? Does one side of the argument have the privilege of defining these terms for the other ?

Rules 1, 2, 3 & 4 – OK, in general. Specifically 1 & 2 OK unless specifically indicating a dependency on another argument as part of the process. It may not be possible to agree on the first argument we hit upon, in isolation from any others. The world may not be as conveniently subdivided into subjects as our objective argument presumes. 3 & 4, well, OK, but … what counts as “evidence“. If we presume scientific standards of evidence, are we not presuming the scientific arguments for “truth” to be privileged to start with ?

Useful resource from io9 – no idea of accuracy – another hat tip to BifRiv.

Love this one, from a Bob Mankoff TED Collection of New Yorker cartoons. The French Army Knife is a good one too, but this one, as well as the scatological reference does also of course allude to Schroedinger too, where science really does need to think outside the confines of Copenhagen and many worlds. (Hat tip to BifRiv)

Lancelot White, writing in his 1961 edited collection of pieces on Roger Boscovich says, without attributing it to Boscovich (or to anyone else for that matter), “It has been said that …

Man loves logic,
but chooses his premises with passion.”

Googled various whole and part versions of that expression, but cannot find it attributed specifically to anyone – though similar word combinations crop up with Aristotle, Aquinas and (god forbid) Ayn Rand.

It struck me immediately. I’ve used the idea as far back as my original “manifesto” that people often construct arguments that look (are formally designed to look) logical and objective, but forget that they’ve already chosen what to include in their considerations on the basis of more personal, informal, subjective, implicit or even totally invisible and forgotten values (*). My example was even a simple business-like “bid tab” to justify selection tabulated on price against a specification of some kind.

It’s part of my wider agenda, aligned with Nick Maxwell, that even science, or scientism in socio-politico-economic decision justification (evidence-based-policy, management-by-objectives, simple majority voting, etc.), often proceeds in total ignorance of its underlying value-based subjectivity. Something which it denies with a neurotic (hence ironic) vengeance of course.

[Post Note (*) – I should perhaps be explicit. It’s a good thing that they do (include these less objective things), the bad thing is that their real inclusion in practice, is forgotten / ignored / devalued / denied.]

BHA posted this Free Arab Press piece (from March) of a young Egyptian lad speaking about what’s wrong with the then current “fascist theocracy” and their “constitution”.

Bright and certainly done his listening and reading, to pick up so many issues, and respond eloquently when interviewed, apparently unprompted. Of course the translation is not his, so the stock phrases (sound-bites) for the issues and parties are obvious, but not much wrong with his logic. His argument for secular government and non-discrimination – who could disagree. Smart kid, and a welcome sign of hope in his generation.

But – vote for him as next president? Institutionally “promote” him from Free Arab Press & BHA perspective? The situation has already changed since then. And, now you’re objectifying one young individual and taking sides – with sound bites – in a complex affair at the same time. How wise is that BHA?

The point is the bigger the issue the less it is about taking sides (after Slavoj Zizek) and the more the thinking needs to be integrationist (after Mary Parker-Follett and Jim Al-Khalili).

“The ruling ideology appropriated the September 11 tragedy and used it to impose its basic message: it is time to stop playing around, you have to take sides �” for or against. This, precisely, is the temptation to be resisted: in such moments of apparent clarity of choice, mystification is total. Today, more than ever, intellectuals need to step back. Are we aware that we are in the midst of a “soft revolution”, in the course of which the unwritten rules determining the most elementary international logic are changing?”
(Slavoj Zizek – The Empty Wheelbarrow)

“Just so far as people think that the basis of working together is compromise or concession, just so far do they not understand the first principles. [It’s neither fighting (win-lose) nor concession (lose-win), it’s about integration.]”
(Mary Parker-Follett)

“It’s because we are winning the battle that we can afford not to be so strident, belligerent, antagonistic, confrontational. Because we’re winning the battle that more and more people can see that humanism is an inclusive thing, … Because that is changing we don’t need to be on the attack against people with faith.”
(Jim Al-Khalili)

I’m a fan of Andy Martin – his books and his blog. Though he blogs infrequently, he has two posts in June that I only spotted accidentally today.

One, a reminder that I’ve still not yet read Waiting for Bardot, whereas it is soon to be released as a film.

Two, however, the piece that really caught my eye, was The Persistence of the Lolita Syndrome, prompted by the recent BBC / Savile / Hall scenarios. Suspend suspicion in the intellectual foggie-froggieness – froggiephilia is Andy’s thing –  and it’s a recommended read of what Andy has to say.

Rousseau was the distant godfather of contemporary arguments that imply that education is, in effect, irrelevant, since the selfish gene (or “nature”) is paramount and sociobiology rules. But the point that emerges from Beauvoir’s analysis in “The Lolita Syndrome” is that liberation and “authenticity” are indistinguishable from coercion because they turn the very notion of “freedom” into a categorical imperative. As Rousseau argues in “The Social Contract,” the citizen (young/old, male/female) has to be “forced to be free.” As so often, freedom coincides with what I want you to do for me.

… there is a certainly an ironic convergence between believers and atheists. Savile for one, mother-fixated and explicitly convinced of his own sinfulness, nevertheless expected to get himself off the hook with a final, posthumous appeal to the “Boss.” And in a strange mirror image, secularists are perfectly capable of dissolving any notion of responsibility in an invocation of ancient, even pre-human patterns of behavior. For Savile, there is predestination; for others, there is the overarching excuse of genetic fatalism.

…
the style of thinking that made a real difference
maintains that thinking makes no real difference
…

Fits my agenda in one very specific way and topical in view of recent exposure of Pinker’s take on linguistic development. Objectification that makes all decisions no-brainers, logical truisms, destroys real thinking, and what we really need is real thinking. Thinking matters (*) and is culturally evolved – genes and teachers (and parents) are a part of that, but only ever a part.

And this statement – in the light of recent European Court of Human Rights input to UK legal decisions:

“liberation and “authenticity” are indistinguishable from coercion because they
turn the very notion of “freedom” into a categorical imperative

As soon as we codify (objectify) freedoms (human rights), they are lost.

[(*) Thinking – as in the way we believe and understand things, that underlie our actual decisions to act, not our “theories of action” – after Argyris.]

If that’s true about 777’s then it’s pretty scary and not what you’d expect – (and quite independent of the bizarre mix of trainee and trainer pilot experience on the flight deck of a commercial flight operation, and whether they were relying on glide-path systems on the ground that were actually switched off for maintenance. Like most major accidents there may eventually appear to have been one fatal mistake, but the situation is inevitably complex). Anyway …

In the aftermath of the Air France Airbus mid-Atlantic loss there was much web commenting about the distinctly different control automation philosophies of Airbus and Boeing. The former moving to greater and greater active / positive automation of aircraft controls – computer systems being more reliable than humans – whereas the latter seemed to have a policy of no-matter how much automation in protective / preventive systems, active controls needed positive pilot inputs. (There is a huge amount of automation in both of course, and it’s a complex philosophical debate about, which kinds of risks are best managed by which kinds of system design responses – a system of systems with humans in the loop.)

In this latest Asiana crash at San Francisco, it seems the experienced pilot is able to issue a “pull-up” command – to the first officer pull the stick back – and rely on the aircraft systems to boost the throttles automatically. As any schoolboy knows, “pulling up” doesn’t pull the aircraft up, it lowers the tail, and the rotation pulls the nose up, increases the angle of attack and slows the plane down, and if you do nothing else – the plane falls. Climbing priorities are all about engine power and speed. Why dumb down the pilot and give him the secondary task – like, don’t you worry your pretty little head there, the systems will look after the most important stuff – mad?

And, talking of complex situations involved in accidents – what about the Lac-Meganic oil-train disaster. How unfortunate that an earlier fire in the one out of five functioning – brake-maintaining – locos, should lead to events that lost braking in the 72 tanker cars that ran-away back into town. Though strangely, that loco doesn’t seem to be amongst the wreckage ? Were the cars decoupled to put distance between the loco fire and the oil cargo – as part of the earlier fire-fight, would seem sensible. How come such trains don’t have brake cars any more – that last wagon looks just like all the others. Seems amazing that the original fire-fight wouldn’t involve rail-operator expertise. More to this story yet. [Post Note – yep, it was a rail engineer that decoupled and – apparently – failed to set the tank-car hand-brakes effectively. Still baffled however. The train had passed through Lac-M already and was parked for the night west of the town at Nantes, so presumably the locos were at the front, west of the cars, so that the cars were able to roll back east to the accident ? Baffling because the rail line comes from Dakota, passing north of the Great Lakes with full oil-cars bound for the St. John Refinery in New Brunswick – the opposite direction to the arrangement described . Were the contents naphtha product or some such going somewhere else in the opposite direction ? Or had there been more complex shunting operations involved in moving the loco(s) out of the way of the cars? Will need to see a more complete report. [2014 Update]].

Ironic also, to be writing this the morning after “Fire in the Night” the BBC televised documentary on Piper Alpha. Excellent programme. Focussing on the survivors, what it took to survive, and what they experienced in their own words of those around them who didn’t. Whatever the tragic circumstances that led to the event, from which industry has learned many lessons, there is a lot worth learning about humans.

And when it comes down to it, humans rely on humans, not objects. (Must look at the recent Arizona fire-fighting team tragedy in that context too.)

[Post Note – thanks to Smiffy on Facebook for pointing out links to Professional Pilots Rumour Net on the topic of the very interesting problem with the Boeing 777 auto-throttles, particularly when converting from Airbus, the trainee / trainer pilot relations and more, including one plea that pilots be allowed to be pilots, not systems managers.]

[Post Post Note – and this Spanish (Santiago de Compostella) rail crash. Sure it was going too fast, and sure some component has to fail first first under the lateral rolling loads on the carriages that experienced the loads earliest, but why was it going too fast, is a wider systems engineering question, a system involving the two (?) guys in the cab – and it seems a system of transitioning between multiple different systems – hmm. (Incidentally, multiple people on the bridge was a feature of the Italian cruise ship crash too?)]

[Post Note : More on “complexity” of automated controls – Asiana 777 crash report.]