Uncle Max's Blog

Same old same old

In trying to explain narcissistic selection as something related to but distinct from natural selection, I've been developing (what I see as) a fundamental premise of philosophy, more primitive than logic can support. According to most people with opinions on the matter, there can be nothing more primitive than logic, but I think of this as an example of precisely the problem (with logic) that I'm trying to deal with. Mathematics is ultimately primitive, but when you use words and things instead of symbols and numbers and call it "logic", I don't think it remains so fundamental.

So we're back to that...

I just connected briefly to make an update, and was confronted by more traffic than I expected, and wondered to myself, "Just who the hell are you people?". It is a pitifully small number, granted, but more than the one or two I'm used to, especially since I haven't updated since Easter.

And that was what I came to do: due to technical difficulties and lack of resources, I'm not going to be posting very much for a while. I can still get online, but not well, and not anytime all the time like I was used to. So updates on the blog or the wiki, facebook or twitter (my little pretend media empire) will be much less frequent. I know, it makes you very sad. Or not, I wouldn't know, because I don't know who you are, yet.

But while I'm here, I might as well mention the conversation I had with Jake on Facebook; go check my page if you're interested, I'm not happy enough about it to link it. Basically, I tried to challenge him to discuss why "prove me wrong" is self-defeating, and it didn't work out at all. He must have gotten spooked by something I said, I don't know exactly what, because he went all nasty ad hom very quickly. I'm used to people criticizing my writing and my 'naive' approach to philosophy, they are both very badly done, I know, but I was hoping for something more constructive, given the circumstances. According to POR, whatever it was that bugged him is going to keep bugging him, and if he's [trying to be] logical he'll grow to detest me and become angry and bitter, and if he's more reasonable he'll eventually realize what it was he misunderstood, and whether he does so consciously or not he will approach the next argument with better reasoning, once that happens. No hard feelings, Jake. But attacking me and dismissing my philosophy isn't the same as responding to my arguments.

Happy Easter

Easter is my favorite Christian holiday, (though admittedly Christmas is 'bigger') because of all the feast days that were 'borrowed' by the Catholic Church, Easter is the one that is the most obvious about it. The word 'Easter' comes from the Anglo-Saxon/Germanic Indo-European celebration of the dawn goddess, who's name is the root of our word 'East'. The celebration of the spring festival of the dawn goddess Easter included hiding eggs for children to find and fertility symbols like the ever-prolific bunny rabbit.

But the most obvious artifact of this religious borrowing isn't the Easter bunny or the name of the holiday, but its timing. It is otherwise entirely outside the Catholic faith to date things in such a fashion, but of course that is exactly how the Germanic tribes of 'Pagans' scheduled things, and to this day, in contrast to the day that Jesus supposedly was born, the day he died, backdated from the day he resurrected, is still not a fixed spot on our calender, but is instead the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox. All due respect to the Christians, because I don't mind them using it, but Easter isn't really their holiday, and even less so than Christmas, (which is what they called Saturnalia when they borrowed that, which also loosely corresponds to the pagan celebration of Yule and the winter solstice.)

Response to the Dali Lama

I came across a Google+ comment from the Dali Lama (!) and since that service is a sluggish monstrosity, I decided I'm going to respond here.

"The very purpose of our life is happiness, which is sustained by hope."

With all due respect to my more famous colleague, I have to dispute him on this point. He goes on to do a relatively good job of describing what' hope' is, but it isn't his tautologies, but his teleology, that I disagree with.

THAT'S What Was Bugging Me!

When Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution by natural selection, it didn't just change our awareness of biology, but our philosophy of reasoning. But since that time it has continued to cause controversy. Those who are aware of the factual basis of common descent and genetic development find it slightly preposterous that controversy continues, and outraged by parents who are obstinantly against the teaching of evolution in schools. I sympathize with them, but I am less outraged by the outrageous behavior of the "creationists" than I used to be, because I've learned to understand them, and their arguments, in a new light.

Modern Politics, 4/18/14

I don't read widely on the web much anymore, mostly picking articles and then just trolling back and forth with commenters, but...

Better Answers

I might not be able to get as many college-trained scientists to agree, but my answers are more accurate, despite that. On the PBS website they have a "FAQ about Evolution" that provides hyper-rationalist answers that really bug me, so I'm going to provide my own answers here.

     1. Did we evolve from monkeys?

There's something about...

I've been feeling an urge to redo the narcissistic selection page, again, but after half a dozen attempts, I'm still getting nowhere. Traffic on the blog has flatlined again, after hitting a peak (10!) when I posted that bit about political corruption and SCOTUS logic. And I'm going round and round in my head, trying to figure out how to kick-start this whole New Church thing.

That and sick kids and alternately glorious and dismal weather, and life just keeps rolling along. Just checking in. Back soon.

Oh, Paul

Paul Krugman has done it again.

In his latest blog post, the eminent Dr. Krugman highlights something very important about the current politics he often writes about, and his lack of awareness of that very important thing he's highlighting:

"In part this may reflect the Obama administration’s lackluster job so far in getting the word out..."

Paradigm

One of the ways I apply POR to help me understand what people are saying and why is the abstraction paradigm. Like the idea of a "primary common referent", the abstraction paradigm can be thought of as a way of dealing with words and their meaning without directly referencing dictionaries. A 'PCR' is what a dictionary entry would be, if POR used dictionaries; a textual paraphrasing used as a definition which will work in most cases despite the varying contexts. An abstraction paradigm is the opposite: what we use instead of dictionary entries, when the 'true meaning' of the word rather than the 'primary common referent' is the subject of our examination.