Righting Wrongs

 Regarding the following article, I made a Facebook post which I am now expanding for more detail.

https://theconversation.com/the-curious-joy-of-being-wrong-intellectual-humility-means-being-open-to-new-information-and-willing-to-change-your-mind-216126

Facebook post:

The point this article is making is one that seems natural to me. I've actually been told, once or twice, that people are surprised to find that I am so willing to acknowledge facts and change my stance on an important issue if sufficient evidence has been offered to demonstrate that I've been wrong. To me it just seems an obvious necessity.

If you insist that you are invariably and unalterably correct then it follows that you will often be wrong. We are none of us perfect and intellectual flexibility is required.

In other words, if you want to be right, you must be willing to  admit that you're wrong. 

I want to continue this so I will make it into a blog post with more detail if anyone's interested.

Addenda:

I have known for quite some time a very commonly referred to fact about the attacks on Pearl Harbor in World War II.  It's not just that I believed it, many historians have reported it as factual  as well.  It is so commonly accepted  as a truth that you hear it in almost any analysis of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

The story is that there were three waves of attacks planned on Pearl Harbor. The first two waves were conducted as planned and we all know how successful they were. Of course, the difficulty with the whole operation was that the American aircraft carriers were not in harbor but out on maneuvers. The report goes that

Admiral Nagumo (in charge of the Pearl Harbor attacks) canceled the third strike which was to destroy the logistical facilities including the fuel supplies because he did not know where the American aircraft carriers were and felt it was more important to protect the precious assets of Japanese aircraft carriers than to conduct this third wave.

The show I was watching stated that this was a myth and that no third wave was ever planned. When I heard that my immediate response was, "What!?! Make your case!"

And the historian being interviewed promptly proceeded to do so. And he convinced me. No third wave was ever planned. 

There were three critical points in making this clear. 

The first was that all Japanese naval reports regarded the mission as a complete success with the exception of the American aircraft carriers not being in harbor. That's a pretty clear statement.

The second part is that Japanese naval doctrine throughout the entire war had a list of targets which were to be struck in order of importance. At the very last place on the list was logistical facilities, including fuel supplies.  In other words, if there had been a third wave it would have attacked all the ships that had not yet been sunk and ignored the supposed goal of such a wave.

Finally,  the third point is that the belief that there was to be a third wave was based entirely on an interview with Captain Fushida, who was the tactical commander of the airstrikes. He reported that he was stunned by the canceling of the third wave. But it should be noted that he said this some 20 to 25 years after the attack and after listening for all those years to Americans wondering why the Japanese were so foolish as to not strike at those precious supplies which would have crippled the American fleet, including the aircraft carriers, for much longer.

It is extremely significant to note that when interviewed immediately after the war, Fushida reported that the attacks on Pearl Harbor were conducted as planned and were completely effective with the exception of the absence of the American carriers. In other words there's no report of any third wave being planned until well after the events and only in the light of harsh American criticism of such a wave not being intended.

It seems clear that Fushida was remembering things the way he wanted them to have been long after the attacks and after the conclusion of the war. 

So, while I based my statements on widely accepted facts as reported by historians, the historians had it wrong and therefore so did I. 

Silly Is As Silly Philosophizes

This article irritated me on several levels, so I responded. My responses won't make much sense unless you read the article so I suggest you look at the link  first.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-married-bachelor-proves-that-unicorns-exist/

 Things can't be mutually contradictory? Then light is a wave and not particle. Unless it's a particle and not wave. Or at least it's kind of both sometimes, and also one or the other at other times and...

And Einstein's famous train thought experiment simply can't be true. Except it is. Under certain circumstances mutually exclusive concepts are both correct. To Susan on the train, both doors open at the same moment in time and that is an absolute fact. But it is also an absolute fact that to Bob standing outside the train as it passes by, the rear door opens first. Sorry, all of you who believe in classic Greek logic as an absolute  truth, but Greek logic is very limited and is not adequate for our modern level of knowledge.

The article makes a great deal of 'suppose you know one of these things is true, but how do you know they're true?'  The article makes much ado about this simple point, but why?  It's better to sum it up quickly.

 What if you're wrong? What if you're absolutely certain you're correct, but in objective reality you are not? That's all that needs to be said about it. Going on and on about it may sound erudite, but verbally beating a dead horse is a waste of words. This article is very pretentious, but it takes simple points and makes them lengthy and abstruse.  

This is a great weakness of philosophers.

To put it even more simply,  the liar paradox which has so often been presented, that is still being presented with awesome respect for the brilliance of its creator is nothing but the silly nonsense of misusing and even abusing human language. 

As for me, insofar as I find it profound, I find this article profoundly silly.

We don't need a lengthy philosophizing to demonstrate that it's silly. It is simply silly. All the philosophizing simply gives a nonsensical foolish statement the image of being profound and serious when fact it's nothing but a silly statement. Frankly, philosophers take themselves far too seriously.

Why say in a simple direct self evident statement that which is obviously true, when you can write an entire article endlessly dodging about and describing in exotic terms that which even a fool could see at first glance?

The answer is quite obvious and simple. Philosophers are paid by the word. Furthermore, lengthy words receive bonuses!

Feeling Blue

 

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/the-quiet-revolution-of-the-sabbath

The article presents a very interesting mix of the value of keeping the sabbath both from  personal and legal viewpoints.  Strictly nostalgically, I cannot help but recall the joy of Sundays. We didn't go to church very often, which I preferred to avoid, but it was the day for the Sunday papers to arrive. It was a day for me to read through the comic pages with full page presentations instead of mere strips (and also in full color not black-and-white). Then I would go to the political pages which similarly went in depth and at length rather than the brief snippets that had been presented during the week.   Finally, I hit the arts pages, which always interested me.

It was a day when my mother used her cast-iron cookware to make Sunday breakfast. I recall it as an extensive and rather elaborate meal, although honestly I can only really remember her carefully spooning hot oil on top of the egg yolks so they could be flipped over without breaking and sitting in my favorite spot at the kitchen nook I could glance at the window at the playground surrounded by the apartments in which we lived in Germany.  

But even as a child what I really resented about Sunday was the blue laws. I did not appreciate the idea of not being able to go to the store.  

At the time it never occurred to me, but now I have to wonder, if Sunday is so utterly sacred and precious how is it that the priests, ministers, and pastors get away with working on that day? 😏

Pound Sand Or Breathe Sand?

 https://www.livescience.com/space/extraterrestrial-life/alien-life-may-evolve-from-radically-different-elements-than-human-life-did

While the article is thought-provoking and might be useful to a science-fiction author, it's pretty thin on facts and very thick on speculation.

For example,  it's true that it is often pointed out that because it also allows for four covalent bonds, silicon might be an alternative to carbon based life.  However, the fact that silicon is extremely common here on earth and yet somehow we are carbon based, suggests it simply is not suitable.

Why not? First of all if you use oxidation in order to provide energy to your living organism, oxidized carbon yields carbon dioxide. A gas. Easy to respirate.

If you oxidize silicon, you get silicon dioxide. Sand. It's a little hard imagine a living being which will  breathe oxygen in and breathe out sand. 

(Yes, there were anoxic lifeforms before we evolved to depend on oxygen, but oxygen provides a highly efficient and effective basis for a metabolic system.)

Furthermore, the covalent bonds formed by silicon are more fragile than those of carbon. That is enough in itself to make life based upon silicon difficult to maintain, but it also means that lengthier and more complex molecules are formed with carbon which could not be formed ot maintained by the substitution of silicon. 

As for the other autocatalytic chemical systems that were studied, that's way beyond my level of knowledge, but I have some hesitations there too.

If life is so incredibly common in the universe, why is it that of the three planets which are terrestrial in nature and found in our solar system's Goldilocks zone, only earth is clearly teaming with life? One out of three makes it sound like life is actually rather rare and unlikely. 

Still, it does make for fun speculation. Hal Clement was noted for his interesting alien life forms in his science fiction novels. I think I need to go back and reread some of those; it's been a few decades.

Greedy Is As Greedy Does

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/tim-gurner-australian-ceo-unemployment-video-rcna104957

>Tim Gurner wants you to be miserable. Yes, you.

Speaking at the Australian Financial Review’s “property summit,” the property developer and CEO — net worth $584 million — complained that the country’s 3.7% unemployment rate was, in fact, a problem. “We need to see unemployment rise. Unemployment has to jump 40, 50%,” said Gurner, because “arrogant” workers aren’t productive enough for his liking. “We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around.”<

He did apologize for these comments later. However, I am convinced he was only apologizing for having been foolish enough to say it publicly and being caught in  being truthful. I think he was being honest and completely sincere in his original statement rather than in his apology.

And his attitude is not a rare one among the privileged and entitled class. >According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of the wealthiest Americans believe the “poor have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return.”<

It is attitudes like this which are all too common among the wealthy, which drove Marx and Engels to create their poisonous manifesto. And therein lies the old teeter totter problem. An excess of wrong on one side of the teeter totter is not balanced by an excess of opposing  wrong on the other side.  Well regulated capitalism is highly beneficial to everyone in a society. Unrestricted capitalist warfare and greed are destructive.

When you think about it, it's really quite obvious. The poor are desperate and don't create a stable society in their desperation because desperate people do desperate things.  The wealthy care only about themselves and will gut and cannibalize the society they live in in order to make themselves wealthier than they already are.  The middle class is stable and mutually beneficial to society as a whole.

Aristotle was well aware of this over two millennia ago. His Nicomachean Ethics and his Politics explored this issue:

>Aristotle pointed out that if the middle class disappears, then the poor will become the majority. The poor tend to be less educated than the rich, and they tend to struggle just to make ends meet. If the poor are the majority, then in a democracy they will vote to take away the money from the rich!

So, what are the rich to do?

Well, do away with democracy of course! Democracy, at that point, becomes too much of a threat to the elite, and the elite start taking steps to limit the power of government. (Moves to limit voting by the poor, anyone?)

Therefore, as the middle class disappears, democracy disappears with it.

On the other hand, with a MAJORITY middle class, democracy works, and it works well. Why? Because the middle class tends to be educated and has just enough prosperity that members of that class can see themselves becoming rich some day, so they don’t punish the rich, and they have compassion for the poor, being that many of them came from poverty. The middle class stands between the two extremes, the poor and the rich, and you end up with a well functioning democracy.

Here Aristotle describes just that in his book Politics:

The best constitution is one controlled by a numerous middle class which stands between the rich and the poor. For those who possess the goods of fortune in moderation find it “easiest to obey the rule of reason” (Politics IV.11.1295b4–6). They are accordingly less apt than the rich or poor to act unjustly toward their fellow citizens.< -- stanford.edu

This matters to us because our middle class has been steadily shrinking since the days of Ronald Reagan. That is because the middle class is being cannibalized by the ultra wealthy who want desperately poor people who will work for incredibly low wages so that the excessively wealthy can become even more excessively wealthy.

Remember what we're supposed to be doing in this country? 

-- We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.--

This is what a middle-class can do. This is what the poor would like to do, but in their desperation cannot do.  This is what the wealthy absolutely refuse to do because only their own interests matter to them.

God Save Our Wimpy God!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2iiZSgu5Uqw

Although there were only eight or nine people involved, I think it is reasonable to call them a mob. They came into an area that had been rented and in which they had no right to interfere. But they came to save the chapel for Jesus.

One of the leaders  (Napier) declared, "We didn't go  there out of hatred of these people. We went there because we wanted to make sure the House of the Lord wasn't being disrespected … there was about eight or nine of us… The people in the chapel said they were doing nothing wrong, and I asked if they were there to worship Jesus, and a few started raising the voices at me, so I told him just to get their stuff-that we weren't there to argue and I even help gather the things and pack them to their cars.

... if they want to do that stuff, they can do it in their own homes or buildings or wherever else, but it's not happening in Jesus house as long as I'm around to defend it…"

What was 'that stuff'? It was using the chapel as a retreat and safe space for members to meditate or pray according to their own individual desires and beliefs. Why were the crusading Christians in a panic and defending God from the horrible attack that God could not defend himself against? (It is funny how wimpy and weak their God is.  He can't do anything for himself and he requires mobs to do it for him yet somehow he's all powerful?) Someone had placed an ohm symbol in the chapel in case anyone wanted to meditate in the Buddhist fashion. Obviously Jesus would be totally destroyed by that. You know, kind of like a vampire and a cross.

I would certainly have felt threatened and would not have welcomed this interference in our rented property. It's a public venue but it was being rented by a private organization. This is the kind of fundamentalist activity you expect from the Taliban, but that's not surprising. These individuals are the Christian Taliban.

Also unsurprisingly,  the leader of the mob who is quoted above is an ex-con.

I remind everybody once again that I am not opposed to Christianity. I am a Christian.  But I'm tired of having to say to people that I'm not one of that kind of Christian. The world does not need a single one of that kind of Christian to be found anywhere on the face of the planet.

Uber Unter?

 

https://apple.news/AAkvWOSwAQhK81rgSKdOqdg

This article makes the point that I've been trying to make for quite a while. Neanderthals and humans are both very skilled and competent  species, but they are far from identical. The difficulty is due to the teeter totter problem. Neanderthals were originally regarded as genuinely subhuman and then, when we finally realized that this belief was unfair and  inaccurate, we tried to balance that error by piling assertions on the other side that are equally baseless; insisting Neanderthals were just like us.

All this does is result in huge piles of errors on both sides of the teeter totter. 

This Neanderthal expert raises some interesting points that I have not previously known. 

>“Look carefully at Neanderthal tools and weapons. They’re all unique. Study thousands and you’ll find each is completely different. My colleagues never realised that. But when I did, I saw there was a deep divergence in the way Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals each understand the world. 

...Of course, compared to a gorilla we have more creativity and skills. It gives us a certain image of ourselves– one of superiority. But what happens if we compare ourselves to something far closer – something far more like humanity, although different, that only disappeared 40,000 years ago?” Imagine, he suggests, how differently we’d see ourselves if confronted by hyper-intelligent aliens.

... “Their tools and weapons are more unique than ours. As creatures, they were far more creative than us. Sapiens are efficient. Collective. We think the same, and don’t like divergence. 

...“Neanderthals vanished, I think, because of high human efficiency. And this efficiency now threatens to destroy us, too. That’s what’s killing the planet’s biodiversity.”

...Over millennia, humankind has also developed an advanced, impressive technology and culture, of a type Neanderthals could never have imagined. “So while there is something dangerous in our nature, as a collective we can control and reshape it. Understanding this is the key to humanity’s future. Because if we don’t think carefully, next time it won’t be Neanderthals that our efficiency destroys, it’ll be humankind itself that’s the victim.”<

 I do disagree with the conclusion he made that suggests we might have been inferior to Neanderthals in creativity. We were superior to Neanderthals in networking and in working as a cohesive group.

For example, Neanderthals lived in small groups, did not have trade routes, and the small groups in which they lived were frequently heavily  inbred.  You could say that we were simply better at networking while they were better at surviving in individualistic small groups.

As far as creativity goes, compare what passes as  Neanderthal art with human art. One may or may not be art at all.  It is very hard to tell. The other clearly speaks for itself.

Neither species can really be considered as superior to the other in general, but only in certain particulars. We were better at adapting as we were generalists. The history of extinction shows that the more highly adapted and specialized a species becomes, the more successful it will be in that specific set of circumstances for which it has adapted. But it is equally true that the more adapted it is to a specific set of circumstances, the less it is likely to be able to survive change. Generalists adapt and survive. Specialists die out in the face of change.

Unfortunately, I must agree with him that our efficiency and  capacity to network and control our environment, forcing it to adapt to us rather than the other way around, has caused us endless grief and may yet cause us to inflict even greater harm upon ourselves. 

Physics, Solipsism, And Me

 https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2023/07/quantum-mechanics-is-nonlocal-but-what.html?m=1

As always Hossenfelder makes an interesting presentation.  As sometimes occurs,  I  disagree with her this time. I'm not going to go into the length and depth of spooky action at a distance in quantum entanglement (which may explain our entire universe including the space-time continuum itself), suffice to say that quantum physics has rather conclusively proven that if you have two entangled particles and both are in a state of superposition, no matter the distance between them, measuring one will instantaneously cause the other one to collapse into the correlating condition. I suggest you click the link if you're interested. She explains it quite well.

My point of disagreement with her is the statement universally accepted  by physicists, and denied by me, that this is not a method of communication. I  disagree for two reasons.

First:   Although it is not intelligent communication, one can argue that there is a passing of information in the form of one datum between the two particles.  And that is my position.

Second:   While it is true that you can have no control over the random process of how each particle will respond to decoherence, you can send a simple message using simply one pair of particles.  The message is, "If I measure my particle, causing your particle to decohere, it means that I have proven that Karl Marx and Groucho Marx are twin brothers." If I don't measure my particle within a certain span of time, it means that the two are not related; or at least that I could not prove it so. The mere fact that  your particle is no longer in a state of superposition gives you information which travelled faster than the speed of light.

Now send billions of particles in an array where are you know which particle comes first, which comes second, etc. (No we can't do this now, but I don't see why a future civilization couldn't --which would make a great element in a science fiction story).  If a particle collapses, you count it as a one. If a particle doesn't collapse, you count this as a zero. You now have a binary code, which is the same code running computers. That's a lot of data traveling faster than light.

No, I'm not presenting this as a statement of reality because my knowledge of physics is virtually nonexistent and you all know how I feel about math and how math feels about me .  However, until a physicist explains to me why I am wrong, this is what I accept as my version of reality.

Final note: I actually know what the physicists will say about why this wouldn't work. It's because the person at either end doesn't know if their particle has already collapsed until they measure it and since they don't know who is collapsing the particle, the only way information is sent is in the first proposal. Nevertheless, I suspect there may be a way to make this work. Certainly as a science-fiction story it allows the potential for faster than light data transmission.

Where is the physicist when you need one?

Logically Mythological

 I made a post in response to a report that a movie was based on a lie which did not seem to bother the makers of the movie. In fact, they have insisted the movie is nevertheless telling the truth about an individual even while misrepresenting details about the facts of that individual's life. I have expanded on the response I posted on Facebook in this post. 

Original post:  I am known to be fond of pointing out that the ancient Greeks generally accepted that there were two ways of knowing things, two epistemologies. One was logos, the logic upon which we base science today. The other was mythos, an emotional or spiritual reality which may not coincide with empirical facts; it might even be absolutely contrary to them, but it contains an inner truth.

Nevertheless, I really do get irritated at movies that are "documentaries" or "based on a true story". This is because they are usually absolute arrant nonsense. The phrases are too often just excuses to tell whatever lies are convenient or comfortable for the individual making a profit off of them. 

>...Montañez never actually invented the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto. Instead, he simply rose through the corporate ranks and created other snacks instead. 

... “We never set out to tell the history of the Cheeto,” she said. “We are telling Richard Montañez’s story, and we’re telling his truth.”<

This is not mythos. This is not telling a deeper or spiritual reality or truth. This is lying. 

Addenda:  

The definition of logos from the Collins dictionary:  "reason, thought of as constituting the controlling principle of the universe and as being manifested by speech"

The definition of mythos from the Collins dictionary: "the complex of attitudes, beliefs, etc. most characteristic of a particular group or society"

Please note that in general that mythos is related to an entire society not a particular individual. Thus, the falsehood contained in the movie "documentary" cited above and in other movies (such as the Autobiography of Malcolm X) can be argued to fit into mythos in that they affect the way a subdivision of American society perceives themselves, but they can also be argued to not be mythos but simple falsehoods because they specifically addressed the lives of specific individuals and make statements that are demonstratively not accurate.

Obviously, I stand with the second interpretation. 

It is interesting that mythos and logos can be in contradiction to each other, but can also be identical. My two favorite examples are American attitudes toward gun laws and American beliefs regarding George Washington. 

I have pointed out repeatedly that gun laws in America today are the loosest and least restrictive that they have ever been in the entire history of the United States. I will not repeat those arguments here since anyone who has followed my posts will already be familiar with them.  This reality is in direct contradiction to the common belief in which it is generally "known" that in  historical times, virtually everyone carried guns virtually everywhere so that they could frequently have gun fights right out in the open street. This is a mythos because while it may or may not affect specific individual, it is a cultural perception of truth that has a great import in the current American self image and legal activities.  (I will add that, much to the shock of the people to whom I have explained this, the gunfight at the OK Corral was about the Earps trying to disarm  the Clanton and the McLaury brothers in accordance with gun control laws that were enforced within the city.)

In other words, mythos and logos are in absolute and mutually exclusive contradiction to each other in this case. 

What about George Washington? While there are contradictions between the two epistemologies, there are also areas in which they are identical. I'd like to look at those in some depth.

#1. Washington praying while kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge.  

This is one of the most beloved images of Washington and has been painted, and praised, and cited endlessly. There is no evidence of that event actually happening.  It was first reported by the infamous Bishop Weems who wrote a book on the life of Washington intended to inspire children and was therefore full of nonsense and ridiculous stories like the cherry tree silliness we were all taught as children.  Conveniently, Weems didn't publish his book until after Washington was safely dead and couldn't criticize his inventions. 

One of the men claiming to have been the sole witness of this event did not live in Valley Forge and yet claimed that he just happened to be there in the middle of a very hard winter when travel in the best of times was difficult, that he rushed home to tell the wonderful story to his wife (whom he did not marry until years later)… You get the picture.

What we do know about Washington's religion is unclear. He was never outspoken about his beliefs. He did refer to Providence a great deal, but he didn't specify what he meant by Providence. He was a very private man in this regard. 

He was an Anglican until after the revolution when he stayed a member of the church which changed itself into the Episcopal Church, associations with England no longer being considered desirable.  He served his church, but often skipped services and absolutely refused to take communion much to the distress of his pastor. He was also on record as believing that religion was a good thing for binding a country together, but he never specified what religion or religions.   In other words, we have no idea what he actually believed.

Conclusion:   The mythos of this is absolutely critical to the concept of America as a Christian nation. That this is completely baseless as evidenced by statements made by founding fathers and early treaties is irrelevant. It remains a mythological truth for millions of Americans  desperate to believe that America was founded just for them and their particular religious sect.  In terms of logos the story is clearly false.

#2. Washington really didn't want to be president and while he could have been president for life, refused to serve a third term.

Here we have logos and mythos in complete agreement. Washington was tired. He had desperately striven to become commander-in-chief of the American forces during the Revolution but the war went on a lot longer than anticipated. He was weary.  He was old.  He wanted to retire and have a peaceful life at home.  However, the nation was in a terrible state. As always happens with revolutions, once the  thing has been won you have to decide what to do with your success.  Having Washington serve as the first president would solve many problems and give the nation a precious period of stability. Washington was almost universally beloved and he could provide what no one else could. He did his duty and ran for president.

And when he was finished with his first two terms, he was even more tired than ever and also older than ever. He really did want to go home. 

Conclusion: here mythos and logos happen to be identical. There's no contradiction contained in that. Remember that logos is simply empirical objective fact,  while mythos is the spiritual or emotional truths that a people or a nation or a society feel necessary to their understanding of themselves. 

Now I'm tired. I'm also older than I was when I began writing this. So although there is a lot more to say on the subject, for today I'm done with it. 

Final note: it is interesting how many "sole witnesses" to the event of Washington kneeling in the snow in Valley Forge are to be found.   Maybe Washington spent entire days and even weeks kneeling in the snow which might have caused some frostbite. Or, perhaps, all the witnesses didn't notice the crowd of them standing around because they were so focused on Washington.