subjectivity and consciousness, again

Well now that that whole debt crisis is over and the US economy is back to being awesome! (Oh wait...) Earlier this summer I wrote a couple of posts about philosophy of mind. I got all excited about it, and even bought two books off Amazon while I was away, planning to supplement my uninformed ramblings with some solid backing from knowledgeable sources. Then I lost my backpack with both the books in it, just as I was just getting into them, so that plan was out the window. But back in Evanston, equipped miraculously with a new student ID that they for some reason decided to issue me after my graduation, I've found both books—and many more!—at the library. (My love for Parks & Recreation notwithstanding, it's pretty great to have access to free books all the time, especially with some glitch in the system that appears to have extended that access through 2013. Woohoo!)

a few more things i don't understand about the f***king debt ceiling

I've already noted, as have many other people with brains, that the whole "debt ceiling" thing is completely ridiculous. Congress has already approved all the money the federal government spends, as well as all revenue it receives; imposing a debt ceiling on top of existing law is nothing but a cheap gimmick, Congress' way of having its cake and eating it and then shitting all over the country's credit too. If you don't want public debt to rise above $14.3 trillion (or whatever) then why the fuck did you vote to spend so much and tax so little in the first place??

Though this appears to me to be the most fundamentally inexplicable thing about the debt ceiling, there are a number of other things that don't make sense to me. Lil' help anyone?

more on medicine

A few months ago I came across this outstandingly and amazing and fabulously terrific article from a few years ago in the New Yorker. (I don't know how I missed it the first time around in 2008, but my god I made a huge mistake in doing so). In the article Gawande talks about the failure of conventional medical wisdom to explain things like chronic itching or sensations in phantom limbs, in heart-wrenching—and also somewhat terrifying—fashion. He starts to hint at how a not-really-so-recent-anymore revolution in cognitive psychology—suggesting that our perception of bodily sensations is much more brain-directed, or "top-down," than we intuitively believe—is juuuuust barely starting to influence medicine, where that influence is long overdue. The article will fascinate almost anyone but it resonated especially with me due to my history of chronic pain that was for years grossly mismanaged and misdiagnosed—at great cost—by dozens of doctors. If you haven't read the article, do yourself a favor and read the article; it's worth half an hour of your time.

what's the big deal: mental causation

Mental causation is something that's so natural, so routine, that we hardly ever stop to think about it. Even when we do, it's often to reflect on how obvious it is, and how it's weird that scientists ever ignored it. It makes perfect intuitive sense to think that mental events—thoughts, desires, beliefs—cause physical events, i.e., make us do things. I think the apple looks delicious, therefore I eat it. I believe the tiger will eat me, therefore I run away from it. Even though the intuition in favor of mental causation is so strong, it wasn't until the "cognitive revolution" in the 1960's that psychologists began to take it seriously. But what could be simpler than the idea that our thoughts influence our actions?

Philosophically, though, it's not simple at all.

summer time, part 2

Okay, so for the time being I'll try to steer clear of anything that could possibly be connected to illegal immigration (see comment here—I feel like the Volokh Conspiracy or something!).

I had a psychology professor in college who used to say science is filled with puzzles of two distinct kinds: problems and mysteries. Problems are those questions that fill up most of a scientist's day-to-day life, and most scientists' entire lives, but mysteries are the sorts of things that require revolutionary theories and ideas. For instance, before Newton came along with his theory of gravity, the orbits of the planets and the pull of the earth were mysteries (notwithstanding some people's continuing state of ignorance). Before Darwin, the complexity of life was a mystery, something not only that science had no explanation for, but that science seemed incapable of ever addressing. The mysteries of the universe have long been the sanctuary of religious and philosophical beliefs; wherever science stops, religion has typically taken over, but the march of science into the domain of the traditionally religious has been constant and unrelenting, leaving less and less room for the mystical and supernatural.

One of the last and biggest mysteries—for me at least—is consciousness. A different psychology professor of mine from college is famous (I use the term loosely) for his contention that humans are "intuitive dualists," that we cling naturally and innately to the idea that our minds and bodies are separate entities.

SUMMER TIME

It's summer again! Now that I finally have nothing to do and no employment prospects for the foreseeable future, I figure it's time to go ahead and revive the ol' blog. I miss it terribly. I know you do too. Without a World Cup like last summer, the topics will be varied and eclectic. On the docket and in my thoughts: some amateur philosophy, some current events/politics, and of course, some music. But first up, a quick rant (oh goodie!) about my unfortunate lack of employment prospects for the foreseeable future.

something for everyone??

Wow, have I been lazy these past few months or what! A brief summary on what has happened in the world—for those of you who use this website as your primary news source—hey it beats fox news, and who wants to pay for nytimes these days anyway?? Neither of them would have covered this illustrious first category anyway:

Top 10??

I was recently referred, by several people, to the long-winded discussion of the NYT's music critic Anthony Tomassini about the 10 greatest composers ever. Rather than try to argue endlessly, as I could (and reserve the right to), about why list would be superior, I'll sidestep the issue and instead make a list of favorite and perhaps under-appreciated recordings that everyone should cherish as much as I do, 'cause they're awesome.

Science in trouble?

Because I like to throw around the latest trends in social science, I read this awesome article in last week's New Yorker with great interest and more than a bit of dismay. Lots of scientific experiments report significant effects that turn out later to be kinda bullshit. What could be more damaging to my worldview?

That was my first line of thinking, at least. The magnitude and pervasiveness of the "decline effect," by which certain "proven" trends decline precipitously over time, is troubling for those of us who put a lot of philosophical stock in the scientific method and see it as the basic, and most trustworthy, gateway to truth.

After thinking back to my own forays into the world of scientific research, I realized that the decline effect isn't terribly shocking after all. What people often fail to realize about science is the pervasive biases that could exist in most experiments--even the well designed ones--without ever showing up in the final draft of the scientific paper. Because the popular press, and even scientific papers, never report every detail of their experiments, these biases are easily lost on the reader, and only reveal themselves years later.

I saw the messy details of experimentation at work in three front-line research areas in college: a comparative cognition (monkey) lab, an unconscious cognition lab, and in my own senior research project in theoretical astrophysics.

emily howell, cont'd: essentialism

Okay then! Before I start rambling on about essentialism, let me just say that I've now listened to a bunch of music composed by David Cope's programs. Most of it is terrible (the older stuff, where EMI is trying to imitate composers of the past). But the newer CD is intriguing to say the least, and certainly worth listening to if you have any interest in the future of music. To argue that the Emily Howell project and artificially composed music isn't at least a worthwhile venture, or that it doesn't have the potential for making beautiful and powerful music, is absurd.

Anyhoo, I've recently made the claim that humans' natural inclination toward essentialism distorts our perception of art, and indeed, lots of stuff.

Essentialism, roughly defined, is the idea that things have intrinsic properties that go beyond their more obvious external, analyzable properties, and that these intrinsic properties are in some sense or another irreducible and essential to the things themselves. The classic example is a species like a tiger: there is some essential "tiger-ness" to every tiger that has nothing to do with the way any individual tiger looks or behaves. Rather, "tiger-ness" is an invisible but necessary property that all tigers share, and that all non-tigers lack.

Psychologists have shown how people--cross-culturally, and from very early in life--believe this idea of species essentialism despite the fact that it is, strictly speaking, false.

DADT repeal: am I missing something here?

I just emailed a bunch of senators urging them to repeal DADT. Did you???

The Senate's failure, earlier today, to repeal the military's DADT policy is the latest and worst case of "Oh my God if they can't pass that then what can they do?" type legislation that has met its recent death in the Senate.

What's most frustrating is that DADT is not only cruel, discriminatory, and harmful to the military and our national security, it's also opposed by an overwhelming majority of the public and the military.

What's strange, moreover, is the shocking and inexplicable lack of political calculation by Republicans holding up the vote.

what is music? a debate sparked by emily howell

Over the past year or so a performer-turned-scholar musician friend and I have debated on and off about our various philosophies regarding what we call "art music" or "classical music." I think I've written a little bit about the matter at hand a few times before, but given his conversion to scholar, I can no longer shrug off his ideas. Here is my initial attempt to organize my own thoughts thoughts, with the ultimate goal of perhaps putting them in some more tangible form, as a rebuttal to my friend's crackpot theories (don't worry, the mutual respect runs deep).

Emily Howell, for those who don't know, is a computer program created by computer scientist and composer David Cope. David Cope's previous program, Emi, analyzed music in a given style and was then able to compose music in the same style. Emily, however, purports to write music in her own style.

The reason Emily Howell is such a controversial figure--well, at least in the world of art music--is that she (it?) makes us question what music is, why it's important, and ultimately, why we value it.

An unforgettable game!

If you are a soccer fan--but especially if you aren't--do yourself a favor and watch the Barcelona-Madrid game from earlier today. I just finished watching it. It was outrageous. Don't just watch the highlights! You'll miss the best parts.

Simply put, Barca played soccer at its awe-inspiring best. In the beautiful game, a scoreline isn't always indicative of how the match played out on the field. But 5-0 is a perfect reflection of Barca's dominance--maybe even flattering to Madrid. Barca have ripped teams to shreds before. But to do it with such conviction, such assurance, and such swagger, against one of the best teams in the world! Remarkable. Madrid, after all, had not lost a game all season. Rarely do you see a team put 20 consecutive passes together in a game. Barca did that at least half a dozen times, including in the run-up to the second goal. And all the while they were enjoying themselves, expressing themselves, and putting on a show for the Camp Nou fans, who ate it right up. It wasn't just the sheer number of passes or quantity of possession that did it; it was all the heel flicks, one-touch passes, and nutmegs that Barca inflicted on hapless Madrid defenders. The crowd was already ole-ing passes within the opening 20 minutes. And I haven't even said anything about the goals.

advantage rule and diving, again

On the eve of an important soccer event in my own life, to soccer we turn again. Right now I can't resist but make an argument I've already made, only more emphatically and with renewed conviction: that diving in soccer is largely a product of the inadequate advantage rule.

I probably should have talked more about this during the World Cup, because diving seems to be Americans' preferred reason for disliking the beautiful game and dismissing out of hand. I could hardly read anything last summer about soccer in the US without coming across some disdainful comment about how diving makes soccer un-watchable. And that now infamous challenge by Carles Puyol on Arjen Robben in the final would have been a perfect way to explain the real deal with diving.

In addition the issue comes come up so often in my own playing, with my being consistently the most fouled player on the field, and what can I say... it makes me extremely angry.

So first, let's think about that Arjen Robben play again. Robben is through on goal in the second half of the World Cup Final, and feels contact, which he knows is illegal, from Carles Puyol. Because he knows the current advantage rule is in force, he knows he has two choices: go down, take the foul, earn Puyol a probable red card and himself a free kick well outside the area, or go on and try to score. To Robben's credit, he chose the latter course, figuring his chances of scoring were still rather high, despite having been fouled by Puyol. Unfortunately for him (but thank God for soccer) he failed to score. It was probably the only moment in which I sympathized for him in the entire game.

Meter, ct'd

A friend of mine wrote me this long email discussing the philosophy of music. I wrote back, telling him the discussion was arcane, and sent him the link to my meter post, below. He accused me of irrelevance.

I remembered this piece I heard last year. My friend plays in a wind quintet. They played this piece, "Aires Tropicales." I heard it twice, once in a masterclass scenario, and then in their concert. Now listen to the beginning of the second movement. Where's the downbeat? Now when I first heard this movement, in the class, I heard it, as I'm sure you did, as the first image shown above. It's the only way anyone would ever hear it! After the bassoon goes on for a while, the other instruments join, but if you'll listen through to the youtube video, the rhythm just doesn't sound right for the entire movement. Then, in the masterclass, they projected the score on screen, and it all made sense. The bassoon ostinato is actually written as the second image above. But once you get it in your head the first way, it's impossible to get rid of it. Every time I heard it, for the rest of the class and then again in the concert, I tried really hard to hear it the right way, in this case not just because it was right, but because the whole piece sounds so much better the right way. But I couldn't do it.

(Apparently, neither can the clarinetist in that youtube video, who keeps tapping his foot on the faux-beats.)

Anyway, the point is, the metrical tension should be one of the most important aspects of this music, but it's completely lost when it's impossible to hear it the right way.

My suggestion: the basoonist should stomp at the start of the second movement to signal the downbeat, or at least breathe to the downbeat. I don't know if that would solve the problem, but it couldn't hurt. I mean, he's got to do something, right??

Point is: this happens all over the place. It's far from irrelevant!