cogito ergo sum

Interesting reading; Karl Popper and a comment on application of logic across the sciences

In reading Aristotle - or any other (relative) realist philosopher - I sometimes wonder whether or not I'm being fooled (I wanted to say hoodwinked, but perhaps some may not understand the term) into believing the seemingly pure and simple rationality behind their claims. This problem afflicted me throughout any of my courses in philosophy because I knew that my next course in so-and-so who thinks differently from the philosopher du jour would convince me that they were right and the last person was wrong.
Regardless, I'm convinced that there is a reasonable and objective way to show that knowledge is reasonable - i.e. that it is possible to know real things without confusing ourselves with the discussion of worlds in-between and Forms we magically come to know through dialectic and mind boggling philosophical discourse. In part of Popper's book of essays entitled Objective Knowledge, I came across the following that interested me (mainly because I can't believe that I hadn't thought about - not of, but about - it before):

"Once the logical problem, H(l), is solved, the solution is transferred to the psychological problem, H(p's), on the basis of the following principle of transference: what is true in logic is true in psychology. (An analogous principle holds by and large for what is usually called 'scientific method' and also for the history of science: what is true in logic is true in scientific method and in the history of science.) This is admittedly a somewhat daring conjecture in the psychology of cognition or of thought process." (Popper 6)

Why the above even surprises me is this: we in Philosophy (at all of the colleges where I took philosophy courses) always seemed to have a bias against our Psychology brethren. (For me, it was more a bias of amusement than disdain - I would have gladly taken psychology, too, had I thought I had the time - and not one wherein I think any one of us thought less of them - that much, I want to make clear.) We, for whatever reason, thought that philosophy was still more of a hard science when compared to psychology. While that statement along is enough to start a flame war, I won't go further - it is what it is (or was) - and really doesn't matter to me right now. What I find striking is that Popper makes a logical claim; that the logic of one science is applicable to the logic of another. This must surely mean that we ought find procedure, techniques and factual knowledge that mix between the disciplines, and if this isn't possible, there must be something wrong. For how can I create a logical construct that is only valid in one science and not another. I think to do so would be borderline absurd.
And that is where my thoughts drift off for the day. It seems that I can at least have faith that the discoveries in one discipline should help me garner greater understanding about knowable things in general.

Modern Philosophy 'Problematik'; Thoughts inspired by Vasilis Politis

While working/reading for my essay on Aristotle's Metaphysics, I came across this quote in Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle and the 'Metaphysics':

"Perhaps Aristotle's approach to the question of the possibility or impossibility of metaphysics enjoys a particular advantage over the typically modern approach to this question. For suppose that we set out to defend the possibility (or impossibility) of metaphysics from the basis of, let us say, semantics and a theory of meaning. Then we are tacitly presupposing that this investigation, semantics, is prior to and more fundamental than metaphysics. But such an assumption will not be obviously correct, and once it is made explicit, it may be questioned. But then what investigation can we appeal to in order to defend this assumption, or its denial? Apparently it cannot be semantics that decides whether semantics is prior to metaphysics; for that would beg the question. So some more neutral investigation will be called for. But what could this investigation be? Since no answer is forthcoming, or even available, it seems no wonder that modern answers to the question whether or not metaphysics is possible, or how it is possible, have tended to become dogmatic, with little room for real engagement between different answers. But Aristotle's approach, i.e. the approach which says that questions about the possibility of metaphysics must themselves be understood as being or involving metaphysical questions, questions about the nature of being in general, does perhaps avoid such dogmatism and mutual begging of questions." (Politis 81)

Politis couldn't have more succinctly described a problem that I feel dogging me most times when opening modern books on metaphysics. It seems that instead of concerning ourselves with the actual topic of what metaphysics is and what types of subjects are covered by metaphysics, we are worried about whether or not it is even possible to discuss or have metaphysical discussions. I have always found this as absurd as claiming that the table before me isn't real. To use a commonly used example Dr. Stephens at Hillsdale College used in our Modern Philosophy class, when I slap my hand hard against the desk, "it certainly seems real... and by god (SLAP!) it feels real!" Why can't it be real, then, and what requires us to constantly provide foundation for subjects that are - as is obvious by our thought of them?

Quick thoughts on the 'self'

Reading Dennett's Brainchildren and Politis's Aristotle and the 'Metaphysics' (Routledge Philosophy Guidebook) have gotten me thinking once again about my own conception of 'self.' It seems an inadequate explanation and improbable, as Dennett just made comment on page 39 of Brainchildren (I stopped at that page, so what I'm about to write may be wrong), that the 'self' is a ghost-ghost-in-the-machine type entity that just so happens to control our physical self. I guess for a good amount of time, I was satisfied with that description because it helped make easy the beliefs I hold in God and the existence of a supernatural world. With more experience and intellectual challenges through reading, though, I'm convinced that the concept of the 'self' as such is absurd. (That doesn't leave me in a position of denying God or the supernatural, but it does make me question and reflect on my own subconscious beliefs - something I think is good.) So what is the 'self,' then?
The simplest way I can put it is that it is the way we combine our life timeline. My own thoughts go off on tangents in ways that I couldn't begin to write, but the common thread among all of those tangents and distractions is a timeline of my physical and mental presence existing. With 'timeline,' I am not referring to a solid, consistent stream. Sometimes time runs fast and sometimes slow. Regardless, it goes forward and my 'self' is held together by that progression.
Oh the lurid problems that exist in those two paragraphs... The discussion of 'being' in the Metaphysics is going to be an interesting one.

Random Dennett Related Thoughts: Consciousness of the Internet?

While I was doing some work on the first of my two Burke papers, I remembered watching TechTV (which I had affectionately called NerdTV to my Gateway College students back in the day) and seeing an episode of a series where current influential tech leaders and thinkers were interviewed and I specifically remembered the interview with Dan Dennett where he makes the statement (not verbatim) that people are nothing more than complicated robots - or the body is a mass of tiny robots.
Starting to read the Metaphysics (Aristotle) for the tenth time (I have yet to make it past Book V) and the current being and primary being concepts I'm covering, my mind raced to that comment by Dennett. So much of our discussion and thought on the term being surrounds the concept of an I and/or the concept of human consciousness. If my memory of Dennett's comments are at all accurate and he really believes that the idea (or concept) of consciousness can be applied to anything that reacts with purpose to its surroundings, then wouldn't the internet at large be a master example of mechanical consciousness? I've been playing quite a bit with twitter lately and when bored, I check the stream of posts being made to the site by everyone and anyone. If I could simply sit in front of my terminal and watch a live stream of incoming twitters, in a way, I'd be encountering a combined (and very simplified) stream of consciousness, right?
If the human mind were able to process the constantly updating flows of information pouring onto the 'net, wouldn't that be like touching super-consciousness - the combined general and simple thoughts of my Mitmenschen? It is amazing the impact the comment stream from twitter has on myself when I consciously weed out the nonsensical and irrelevant information (e.g. the comment wow with no context or explanation). So many times I'm lead to thoughts or ideas that I wouldn't otherwise have. Frankly, I can't think of anything quite like it. Even those times I go into Hamburg or Chicago just to enjoy the constant waves of people walking past, it doesn't compare to the twitter experience because I can't actually hear, sense or know what people are actually thinking.

Really, what's wrong with people?!?

I'm reading comments over at Joi's and see this:

...While you're swinging through this phase of your life, it seems appropriate to re-alert you to the moral wrongness (I don't have any other words for it, sorry for being so harsh) of burning fossil fuel like you do and increasing the world's CO2 load as exuberantly as you do.
I hope you know I'm not some nutcase (haha famous last words, I know) bent on changing the world one CO2 molecule at a time, but I seriously consider the amount of travel you do wrong. That having been said, I'd love to get together for another Ito dinner, sans booze and wine this time and all vegan and stuff, so I know I'm contradicting myself mightily here. (go to 'Vietnam tour operator' comment here)

Oh do comments about travel like the above irritate me to no end! Think of the regression we would experience if travel were limited - and I'm talking about humanity as a whole. Think about the impact on learning, development, knowledge, awareness, etc, etc that would halt without our ability to move about relatively cheaply and freely! I hope people like the above never, ever, ever gain the type of power to limit my freedoms that I enjoy so thoroughly. Oh, by the way. I think you're a nutcase.

Do you believe in people?

As I think about my own political leanings and beliefs, I often think of a phrase (or something similar to the following) that I read many years ago:

[People if] left to their own devices, would spontaneously develop institutions necessary for a healthy and wealthy culture... (paraphrased from Doherty 3 - Radicals for Capitalism)

In the humanistically inclined world we live in, do you believe that people don't need the prodding and insistence of laws and/or regulators to do what is right and to get along? Most people with whom I disagree most (typically defined as liberal - a term I hate because many of my beliefs are the extreme of what it means to be a liberal) normally believe humans to be intrinsically good and deserving of the help of others. Yet those same people insist that people with means need to be reminded (rather, forced) to practice good deeds (through the use of government) and provide for others. We shan't rely on a system in which people are allowed to volunteer of their blessings, but they must be coerced into giving to others.
To me, the above two ideas of human nature - i.e. humans have good intentions, yet they must to be forced to act upon them - seem to be diametrically opposed. I am a proponent of (close to ultimate) freedom of the individual and that guides all of the political choices I make. I am not lacking a sense of hypocrisy in some of my pragmatic choices, but I still believe people should be left to their own - and this means for good or bad. With that being said, I realize I could spend days writing on what I just said and still not fully explain or examine what I mean. What I meant to ask at this point was simply how people can believe in the good and yet insist so many of us are too callous to help those around us.

I versus We, Conundrum

If we want to form a coherent and successful society, where does the I of the individual - the I that wants to mold the world in his own vision - stop and the we begin?
If part of success is determined by leaders taking their place at the head of the pack and leading, when does leading become more about the individual ego than wishing for the success of the whole?
I believe in the I and the necessity of the leader - but where to find the balance...

Travels in life

Does life guide you, or do you guide life?

Technorati Tags: philosophy

Alternative Fuel/Locomotive Sources

An article in the Chicago Tribune from this morning caught my eye with the discussion of a different type of Hybrid Ford is experimenting with: an Edge crossover that is powered by batteries and hydrogen.

Ford provides another alternative. Its hybrid uses batteries to start and keep going. You do have to recharge the batteries after 25 miles but can travel an additional 200 miles by switching to a hydrogen fuel cell that creates electricity. Refueling requires 4.5 gallons of hydrogen. (via Fuel-cell Ford gets Edge from its Escape hatch)

Great. I'm seriously happy that work is being done on trying to find an auto power plant that actually runs without using gasoline or diesel. The problem has more to do with the reporter than the story on the Edge, it has to do with a number of statements made that claim the Edge to be an "emission-less automobile:"

The drawback, of course, is that you have to refill the gas tank and, therefore, create emissions. (emphasis mine)

The claim is that electric or hydrogen powered cars don't create any emissions is an absolute fallacy. Directly, no. Indirectly, yes. And depending on how your local electric utility generates energy, you don't know how much or how little pollution is being produced by powering your car with electricity. Also, there is a lot of energy required to actually create the hydrogen that would be used to fuel said cars.
At least the reporter does use the term "automotive pollution" later in the article to specify what type of pollution is being combated, but just like the switch to using ethanol, every change has a consequence and it is dubious to believe that the solutions we come up with will resolve the issue of pollution and dependency on other nations for fueling our transportation.
I believe that we will eventually come up with ideas that help achieve the goals of reducing emissions, etc., but I also think that the solution will be a paradigm shift in the way we power transportation and not a leap to another combustion fuel source (either via hydrogen or the use of electricity generated by coal, natural gas or diesel). What form this will take, only time will tell - maybe Back to the Future II was right and Mr. Fusion will provide us that source someday (although, even then, in the third installment, Doc makes the comment that Mr. Fusion was limited to providing the power for the "flux capacitor" and not driving the car...)

Technorati Tags: business, environment, manufacturing

Ethics in Business: Be wary of startups... (Discussion of risk, quality, price and intent.)

I originally started this post by talking about the disappointments I've experienced in the past few weeks and my own personal issues with sporadically posting things to my weblogs. I deleted all of what I wrote because it avoided details and vaguely ran through the situation we (meaning MB and I) are in the process of dealing with. The fact is that I can't talk details because we have no idea where our [soon to be former] customer is going to force us to go and I don't want to effect the likelihood of an outcome that goes in our favor.
Suffice it to say, MB and I are learning an important lesson: business is war and don't trust your customers. My heart sinks as I write that. I believe that most people - when I say people, I mean businessmen - are filled with good intentions. In the case of startups, these people have an idea that they think others will like and even pay them for. Most of the time, these new ideas fail, but through said failure, it gives us all the opportunity to learn why, what seemed like a good idea, fails and what we can do to either make it better and less failure prone or why it won't work at all. The type of excitement behind startups that are lead by people with an idea and a dream is fantastic to work with. Sometimes it is like touching a live wire that provides you the mental energy to deal with the daily grind.
The problem is that some of those people with the idea and dream don't have the ethics or the backbone to do what is right when failure starts to rear its ugly head and it is just this situation that is one reason why businessmen get a bad reputation.
The vendor-customer relationship is an interesting phenomenon. The vendor's job is to provide the best competitive service at the best possible price to the customer. This means that at the end of the day, you need to not only beat your competitors, but you also need to make enough money to pay your bills and make the risks you take worth your time. (Some call this squeezing every dollar out of your product, but I just call this a fact of life. If you don't maximize your return on work, you will not last very long.) The customer's job is to seek out the best deal for the business they have to give. This is a combination of weighing quality against price. Somewhere in the middle of every market, there is a price spread that defines whether the quality is at level a, b or c. (At the very top and very bottom of the market, you are either overpaying for psychological reasons or you don't care about quality and simply want something that will kinda' work.)
In the markets I work in (technology and production manufacturing), defined quality definitely impacts price. In the case of tank manufacturing, if you want something to look like a product you would showcase in your kitchen (pristine surface, hidden welds, etc.) then the price of your product goes through the roof. In this case, the term quality includes an aesthetic mode that doesn't necessarily impact the functionality of an item. So, if your major concern is functionality, then aesthetic issues become less relevant. In the case of the technology market, and in particular, internet services relating to hosting, application management, bandwidth management, distribution, etc., quality is not so much aesthetic as it is the perceived manner in which a product is delivered. Application management, hosting and bandwidth management rely heavily on network performance (specifically latency) as a product begins to scale out (this also assumes you know what you are doing with program development and hardware implementation). This is what we are usually talking about when we refer to quality. Here again, there is a middle market where most people live and then, there are the upper and lower echelons where people choose to live, depending on what they do. In the porn industry, latency is usually the last thing they are worried about. They just want cheap, big, pipes. Unless the latency becomes ridiculous (200ms +, in my book), who cares as long as the content is provided? I doubt most porn consumers are conscious of the additional second it takes to load an image or video... At the upper level, we have providers dealing in voice and video communications products where latency is a big deal. The perceived voice and or picture quality has an impact on whether or not users are going to stay with a service or not. When the novelty of VoIP and/or Video-oIP wears off, people start to notice the tin-can effect of sound and/or the poor quality of the video - and this is why the providers try to be wary of using low quality bandwidth. The middle ground is for all of us who have a general service to provide (whether blogs or e-commerce) where we weigh the logarithmically increasing costs of low latency bandwidth against bandwidth that does the job.
So, the above meandering conversation has to do with startups in this manner: their job is to define their parameters on quality and seek out the best bang for the buck. MB and I feel that we have a good grasp of this and that our market is to cater to those in the upper middle and/or the high quality service consumers. This comes at a price and we aren't shy about admitting that...
Our latest experience, though, shows that there are people out there willing to forego their responsibilities, sign with you (in this case us) and put all consideration and caution to the wind. Unfortunately, this means that when times get tough, there are hard choices to make: be honest about the situation at hand or lie through your teeth. We, as businessmen, are more than aware of the dangers that lurk around the corner for startups and although our primary goal is to make sure we maximize our return, included in that goal is making sure we do what is in our powers to make sure our customers don't fail. Therefore, if a customer has made a mistake in going with us - i.e. they should have really gone with a lower cost, lower quality provider - and is honest about the situation they found themselves in, we want and need to work with that customer. That is the honest and ethical way of doing business; admit mistakes and work to resolve them.
We found that people are willing to do the exact opposite. Conjecture and assumptions make MB and I speculate on what has gone on with our problematic child behind closed doors, but we don't know any facts, because whatever information we have been fed simply doesn't add up with the actions of that party. The situation can be explained thusly: we are owed money for a product we are contracted to provide and they haven't paid. The facts are simple: we met our obligations and expect them to meet theirs, especially if they want to claim that all is well in their world. Instead, what we have encountered is actions that speak louder than words. And those actions show an intent to deceive. That's all I can say for now.
Unfortunately for all of our future customers, we are going to be less willing to work out special deals that we would have otherwise been possible - all because of one customer. We learned that even with inside information, there can be on-goings below the surface that are detrimental to our business and long term viability. This is one of a number of situations I have been a party to in the past year that make my cynicism grow and trust shrink. That's not a good thing for any of us...

Gesteinigt werden?

Ich dachte, dass soetwas nur in der Bibel wäre... Eine Artikel über zwei Italianerinnen, die im Urlaub gesteinigt worden sind:

Grausamer Mord an zwei Touristinnen

Technorati Tags: news, random

Chaos in the mix, organization and managing chaos

Well, we thought that 2007 would be a relatively quiet business year. Perfect timing for the last step in a major move we are making to the last addition we built at Tankcraft at the end of 2006. Or so we thought... Between the struggle of important personnel being out for various reasons (long term leaves of absence, that is) and the fact that business is actually busier than expected (the reasons for which, I won't delve into at this point), we have found ourselves in a chaotic mess of a situation. On top of key people being gone, we have a bout of sickness running through the upper ranks. My dad can hardly hold a conversation without coughing his way to a beat red face and others, while not as obvious, are struggling under the pressure of their ailments.
Considering everything, though, things are going well and it is a great time to learn some lessons in business management. In the current situation, I'll consider myself successful if two things happen: I actually accomplish 10 of the 100 tasks on my to-do list within the next month and keep my office better organized in the process. Today, I left work with one solid foot of paperwork on my desk. (Although, it doesn't really look like a foot because it is paperwork spread across the entire surface of my desk. Trust me, though, it is a foot...) My primary goal tomorrow will be to eradicate half of that and get rid of the four iMac and Mac Mini boxes littering my office. I'm finally on the cusp of finishing two software installation projects and just need a good hour or two to really hammer out the final details.
The problem with the above is that, in essence, what I need is four or five solid hours of work time to finish what I mentioned. The fact is, however, that I will be interrupted a minimum of 10 times within the first hour of arriving and while I write this, I am already adding items to that list of 100 mentioned earlier. So, for me, the skill I am desperately trying learn and hold on to is organizing and managing chaos. Success can be made in relatively crazy situations and all it seems to take is concentration. Interruptions are a fact of life - the question is how to deal with them.
So, after tomorrow's 6pm rolls around (or what, in my head, is 18.00hr), we'll see how well my head planning of tonight does for managing the crises of tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: business, chaos, management, to-do, work

NASA Bubble Science

I really hate being a reposter, but, this is the type of stuff that made me love studying physics - and even to this day, make me read physics texts that I don't quite understand:

via Digg

What business does the Federal Government (US) have in local safety subsidies/changes?

In reading (Blue Mound might get safety makeover: Left turns would be sharply limited on suburban main drag) I was completely confused (and yet, now I understand how the last Energy Bill somehow included billions of dollars in pork spending) as to why the [US] Federal Gov't was providing money to the community in Brookfield (WI) for improving road conditions on a well known corridor, Blue Mound Road. I've traveled Blue Mound since I received my driver's license. It is one of the few areas relatively close to Delavan that offers a decent amount of shopping (of all sorts) in one area that stretches a few miles. The section of road between Moorland and Highway 18 are, indeed, precarious, but it defies logic that the Federal government would be supplying funds to a community for what is decidedly a local problem. Granted,

The reason for the changes: There were 23,000 crashes from 2000 to 2004 - or an average of 1.5 a day.

$1.5 million of the funds will come from a Federal hazard elimination and safety program.
I still don't get it... Again, why is the Fed providing funds for a locally created hazard - one that cannot be linked to federally funded highways?
I think I need the end of my driveway improved to deter the potential accidents caused by me sleeping on the way to work. Really. It could even prevent 1.5 accidents every 50 years.

via Milwaukee Journal Sentinel