“Not Even One”: Ethics, Law and the Gift in Paul’s Letter to the RomansA paper I wrote for a class on religion, ethics and society. Haven’t gotten it back from the professor yet so it could be totally wrongheaded, but I don’t think so. I take up four main themes that I identify in the book of Romans and relate them to what I see as Paul’s basic conception of ethics. Enjoy.
Death is a Cold WatermelonPART ONE OF MY ILLUSTRATED MEMOIRS
Father Solomon didn’t have dementia like the other men had dementia. Other men wore it like a stigma, but for Solomon it was the Dean Martin to his Jerry Lewis; his liberation, the little difference that freed him from the cage of logic and led him into that higher realm of comedy that eclipses the one founded in rationality. Who could forget when his nurse walked him to dinner that crisp July evening as he kept chanting “I’m dead. I’m dead.” in his scratchy deadpan mumble, the same night she said “But sweetheart, dead people can’t talk.” to which he just grunted “I’m different.” and went back to chanting… Read the rest of this entry »
Why I’m Not PostingI’ve been wondering why I have essentially had writers block lately, and have never really felt inclined to write more academic intellectual posts for the blog. I think it boils down to this–I simply do not have the cognitive resources after dealing with classes and extra-curriculars to write these sorts of posts. Once I’m done with my course work and everything else I have to do, I’m cognitively exhausted and just want to turn my brain off. Pythagorean and Scratch Corwood, on the other hand, are both at schools way below their intellectual potential, so it would only make sense that they need an outlet to vent these ideas. I, on the other hand, do not have the energy to vent. I have things I would like to vent, but the last thing I want to do is write them out in an essay format. Maybe I should take up tweeting or something.
Seriously though, after writing a paper debating the merits of cultural relativism, and then spending hours running meetings and writing emails, what I really want to do is watch a nice fight on TV or play a video game and turn my brain off, not write more. Perhaps over my Spring Break I will be inspired to write some posts with substance. I could go to my usual quantity over quality, but I don’t think that really serves anyone (besides the fatman).
This is in no way to say that I’m done posting, just to explain my recent and any future inactivity. I will post, just when academics wind down a bit.
Apoth out.
What Philosophers Should Know About Theoretical Computer ScienceA widely embraced, popularized, and miserable misconception of what Computer Science is has pervaded the world for close to half a century. This misconception stems from Computer Science’s unfortunate relationship to personal computers, Bill Gates types, and also from an unfortunate academic history. The typical image of a Computer Scientist today involves little more than a white male with a poorly groomed neck and face drinking Mountain Dew and eating Doritos (unsuccessfully, as he will always have both Mountain Dew and nacho stains on his white, skin-tight shirt). This man will be sitting at a computer whose screen is filled with fast moving alien symbols.
The goal of this essay is to present facts about Computer Science that will be of interest to a philosopher who studies epistemic and ontological concerns, consciousness and several more outstanding and elusive questions. This essay’s goal indirectly supports a decoupling of the neck-bearded computer expert image from a mathematical field richly endowed with philosophical questions and answers. No effort will be made to explain why the world today thinks what it does about Computer Science, and instead the overwhelming majority of the essay will be devoted to divulging the eye opening consequences of the study of information.
Within This Clip We Can See Nearly Everything that’s Wrong With Television News in America (and Probably Other Places Too)Where to begin…
First, what about “Patch of plastic garbage in the ocean larger than the continental United States” screams “insistent thumping techno music”?
Why does the narrator seem so enthused? Just reading from the tone of his voice, I would guess he was talking about some kind of wacky foreign food on the Travel Channel.
No images are lingered on, so the whole thing just floats by. And of course, their recommendation for the end is to recycle plastic, not to cut down on plastic production or consumption (god forbid they upset their corporate overlords.) I was amazed the shot of a Pepsi can (not plastic by the way) made it in. I guess its because they’re owned by rivals NBC.
Most of the images are insidiously innocuous. We see a beach, a lab, and the egotistical anchor cuts off the experts before they can finish a single sentence. We don’t see any dead birds, we don’t see anything to bring home the gravity of the situation visually. Because of this, the sound and visuals don’t enrich the story but in fact work at counter-purpose to it. What would, said with some sense of seriousness, prompt thought in the viewer is instead sugarcoated in kitschy music and rapid-fire editing. Think, for instance, if the narrator used this delivery talking about 9/11. He’d be fired. But this is different, since ABC/Disney owns plenty of other companies who might lose some profitability if they cut back on plastic production. This is a diffusion of responsibility. We can’t go after Disney for churning out crappy plastic products in massive quantities, it can’t even be mentioned, so its really everyone else’s fault. God forbid political or group actions be taken against ABC and affiliates for gross environmental misconduct, for priming the culture of wanton consumption that fed this thing.
The entire segment is 4 minutes, hardly enough to cover an issue of this scope. And to add to the crassness, the final word is not one encouraging action, but one encouraging viewers to tune in again the next day for what was, I imagine, another 4 minute waste of time.
Ode to Baruch College
Oh Baruch College, what would I do without you? Every morning, oh so diligent, I drag my weary body out of bed for that I may once again pace through your off-white hallways.
You tease me with a sense of humor, which despite streaks of sadism, is not without its own odd internal logic. Who else would hold an event called “Beer Goggles” where non-alcoholic beer is served, stopping the event midway to deliver a sober warning on the perils of drunk driving to an assembly who largely neither own nor use cars? Where else are the escalators dressed up like stairs for no reason other than to taunt us? Where else would the architects, before stuffing the building with Ikea furniture, not make sure that when snow accumulated on the roof it wouldn’t fall to the main entrance and almost kill people? Read the rest of this entry »
Life isn’t sunshine and puppy breathI imagined having an argument today with a person I know of but have never met. In my ill conceived perfect world scenario I was able to dismantle his point of view quite eloquently while still being able to slip in the term “mall-goth”. Eventually the altercation came to blows, fisticuffs if you will. I could not help but to laugh as i blocked punch after punch without so much as a bead of sweat upon my (for some reason) muscular brow. The end came quite expectedly with my defeat of the as of yet unnamed juggalo, but I admit the daydreams leave me somewhat empty and unfulfilled. I can easily come to terms with the fact that I will never become the bastard child of Henry Kissinger and Chuck Norris; but what plagues my sensibility is that I will most likely never stand toe to toe with this ass-hat and teach him the lesson in humility he so desperately needs. Read the rest of this entry »
Utilitarianism’s Necessary Relationship with IrrationalityThis post is a formal philosophy paper that I wrote for my Philosophy of Ethics class. The basic tenents of my argument were previously advanced on this blog in my post Nash Equilibria and Criteria for Mass-Scale Human Interaction. The paper was limited to five pages for the class. Although I went over this limit, the constraint and the formal tone shaped my idea differently. I think I like my previous blog post better, but anyone who found that post insightful will likely enjoy this essay as well.
Without further ado:
Hangman words.I wrote a quick computer script to find good hangman words. The script does calculations based on letter frequencies in the English language. I fed my program an English dictionary. In my calculations I assumed that English letters are conditionally independent, which is obviously not true. Still, the results weren’t bad.
Movie Briefs and Thoughts 2-21-10Going to start serializing my illustrated memoir fairly soon. Should be fun. Anyway, I haven’t had reliable internet in a month, so I’ve watched a lot of movies, while not posting anything. Some of these notes are pretty rough and my memory is too weak to fill them in with anything more substantial. These are fragmented and choppy, but I felt we needed some sort of update. Reviews of Broadcast News and Domestic Violence up tomorrow.
Read the rest of this entry »