Guest Post: Charles Philip Smith

My friend Steven Specht posted an article on http://www.oneletter.org/ that I'd like to share here. I'm working on a post about third-party politics (I know not one of my usual topics), but I'd like to share this first.

Two Sides of the Same Worn Out Coin

Our system of election is broken.

How many times have Americans been so disgusted with both major candidates that they vote for what they believe is “the lesser of two evils” or not vote at all, yet they will refuse to vote for a third party?

I truly believe that if they looked into the policies of third party candidates, (there are 10 on the 2012 Florida ballot) they would find at least one that they believed in more than the standard two.

Here is the part that doesn’t make sense to me. Americans will complain on end about how either the Democrats or Republicans are ruining their country; often they will not even agree with their own party. Yet, I have heard all my life how voting for a third party candidate is equivalent to throwing your vote away or even how “it will takes votes from candidate X when we really need to beat candidate Y’.

I am not trying to push a candidate or party. (At this time I believe I know who I will vote for. It is not one of the two major candidates, but this is a personal choice and not the purpose of why I am writing this.) It is my hope that sometime in the future we will start voting as a nation for the person and not the party. My belief is that this begins with third parties and being well informed on the issues important to us.

However, I have not seen any indication that Americans could now or ever do this in the climate we have created. There is such an undercurrent of division, especially in the media, that actively polarizes Americans into the two major political parties. The implication being that it is ‘us’ against ‘them’. Most people don’t realize that there are shades of grey to their beliefs and very few absolutes in this world. I could almost guarantee that most average Americans believe in elements of the major two parties, but not in everything that they stand for.

What I am proposing is that we as a nation do our research. If you do not have enthusiasm for a candidate, there is no reason you should not find someone you can believe in. We live in a free country but have been systematically convinced that there is no other options to us when it comes to one of the most fundamental tenets of what it is to be an American—the right to vote–the right to vote for someone we do believe in.

This requires effort on the individual. It is the only option we have to us to start balancing the rampant partisan corruption on both sides that seems to be determined to bring America to ruin for the sake of reelection and not the betterment of the citizens.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are voting for change when you vote for one of the two major parties. The only recourse you have is to change your vote to a third party. The only way to have honest politicians is for them to have enough competition for them to be fearful of not being elected on their own merits. Without this our country will never find balance and it will be stuck with either side of a worn out coin.

-Charles Philip Smith

This is Not a Deployment Blog

I don't want to change the tone of my blog to a chronicle of my time deployed, however I did write a bit of a journal entry on the flight over here and I have some stuff to share from my first week here.

After my training near Sacramento, CA, I traveled to Baltimore to catch a flight to the middle east (it's called the "rotator").  My short time in Baltimore was fairly pleasant.  I went to the same irish pub I alway go to when I pass through Baltimore.  My previous experiences at that pub were quite interesting, this time however, I was alone and I just sat quietly drinking my one beer then went back to my hotel to sleep.  The next morning I went to the free hotel breakfast (which was pretty disappointing) then, since I didn't have to be at the airport till the afternoon I took a nap.  Around noon I went to the Baltimore Washington International airport and got in line.  The line for passengers on the rotator was at least 200 yards long!  It's a familiar sight for anyone who has deployed before because the flight is almost always packed full.  Fortunately, after checking in for the flight I ran into some friends (one of whom I have deployed with before), and we shared some beers and dinner before boarding.

Fortunately I got a decent seat on this flight, an aisle where there was only one seat beside me.  This plane is amazingly old and crappy.  The inflight entertainment is a VHS tape player!  I didn't think they even made those anymore.  There's no such thing as 'first class' on this plane; we're all packed in like sardines.  The inflight movie was "We Bought a Zoo" which was a good movie, though the sound system on the plane sucked and it was a tiny screen far from my seat.  They also played "John Carter of Mars."  I've heard that it's supposedly a movie version of the first installment of C.S. Lewis' space trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet.  Now, it has been a while since I read the book so I've forgotten some of the details but I definitely remember that it's quite different from this movie!  Oh well, poetic license I guess.  One of the passengers had some medical issues so we had to divert to Ireland.  I didn't see much of the place, we didn't even get off the plane, but what I did see definitely makes me want to go back some day.

Finally, we arrived at the deployment processing center.  Not really a bad place compared to sitting in a plane.  It's not much (a hundred or so bunk beds in a tent), but at least it's a place to lay down and sleep and NON-airplane food.  Also, regular access to wifi is nice, first real chance to call home.  Oh, and one can drink two beers a day there which is nice.  I didn't really care to drink and after only one day in this limbo I moved on to my deployment location.

I've been here a week and so far it's been quite a bit like my previous deployments.  It's nice to have indoor plumbing though.  Last year the place I stayed didn't.  The morale is pretty high in the unit here and one of my best friends from my previous deployments, Jon, is here; which has made for a decent time so far.  The best part about this trip though is the hope that it's only supposed to be three months as opposed to my previous trips which were all six months.  I'll take some pictures and attach them to my next few blogs, which I don't plan on chronicling my deployment, but I might mention it; depending on how it's going.

I have gained way too much weight!  Starting excersize/diet program now!

Consistency and Completeness

To all my regular readers (ha, as if I have regular readers!) sorry I haven't written in such a long time.  I've been busy going overseas to a combat zone.

Anyways, I've been reading Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid and the author brings up an interesting concept.  Can one actually conceive of a universe that doesn't follow logical rules?  In that regard one might use the copout argument that just writing or saying the words means that one can conceive of it.  But that's a silly argument, and doesn't really count.  That's like being able to read Korean script but having no knowledge of what's being said.  Just being able to say the words doesn't mean that it's actually conceivable.

But, it is conceivable?  Think about sci-fi movies and such... or a world that doesn't have mathematical consistency.  Could, even in a movie, there be a world where 1 + 1 = 3?  I'm not talking about the words 'one,' 'plus,' 'equals,' and 'three.'  Even in this world there are a variety of ways to express the number '1' but could there exist a world where having two of something couldn't exist?  In the movies it is easy (or is it?) to blur the lines between conceivable and inconceivable.

The book often references "zen" and that zen readily accepts contradictions.  It seems like cheating to me... like saying 1+1=2 and 1+1=3, and just accepting both as being completely correct.  It's like throwing out Aristotle's laws of non-contradiction.  The same thing, at the same time cannot be two opposite things!  According to Aristotle without these distinctions we cannot know anything, to which zen would probably responds "yes, we cannot know anything."  Accepting contradiction is not a way of dealing with it, it's a way of ignoring it.  I would guess that zen would eventually draw a line somewhere and stick to some standard.  Maybe not, but even if one ignores a fact or a non-fact does that make it any more of a fact or non-fact?

Nothing quite like seeing an airshow from above the planes

Thomas Aquinas

If you've never heard of him Thomas Aquinas was an apologetics master.  As I've mentioned before, I've been listening to the learnoutloud.com philosophy podcast and the most recent episode was about Aquinas's proofs for God.  He used the unmoved mover, uncaused cause and other arguments to show that the concept of God is perfectly logical.  I need to read more from this brilliant man!  That being said, this made me think of another reason to believe in God (caveat this is by no means a good reason to believe).

Before I go into that reason, let's discuss "human progress."  The only thing that has really progressed for humanity is hubris and pride.  Okay, when I say only I'm not saying that there haven't been lots of technological advances over the years.  In just my short 30 years (almost 31) there has been huge progress in the power of computing.  That's not what I'm talking about, technological advanced are not true progress, it's just more complicated ways to put together different things in different ways.

Let's look at human progress in the realm of morality or at fixing social ills.  In the past few thousand years, how has humanity progressed at eradicating any of these things that plague humanity?  Hunger?  Poverty?  Disease?  Homicide?  War?  How well have we done in getting rid of these things?

Going back to the topic of great philosophers, hearing some of the writings of Thomas Aquinas made me pause and think about another reason to believe in God, aside from all the great apologists' arguments.  There are dozens upon dozens of brilliant people that have proved time and again that the concept of God is rational.  So, when someone stands up on his or her little soap box and states unequivocally that "God is dead" or "man is God," that person is stating that he or she has more knowledge, wisdom, insight, and logic than many of the greatest thinkers.  Of the history of philosophy podcast that I've been listening to, basically all of the philosophers so far, have believed in some form of god/gods, that includes Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle.  Then there are the other great thinkers like C.S. Lewis, Ravi Zacharias, Thomas Aquinas, and many many more.  I'm not saying there aren't smart people on the other side of the argument.  I'm saying that humanity needs to take a break and remember from where we've come.

Like my last post about believing in God just because without such belief one has no hope, TRILLIONS upon TRILLIONS of people for centuries have believed that there's Something out there that created everything.  Who are you to rail against human history and claim that man is all there is!?

Beautiful view of the Golden Gate bridge from the south side

Existence is Futile

All of human existence is simply a pointless cycle of boredom - desire - satiety - boredom.  Eating is the most basic example, you're hungry - you eat - then you're full; for a time then it starts all over again.  The past is empty/nothingness, the future is vain unattainable hope.  People try to pass themselves on via procreation and leaving a will, but the person is now gone no matter what they try to leave behind.  In the grand scheme of the universe, time, space and eternity no one makes any difference.  There is nothing worth living for; hoping for the future is in vain and nothing can be gained.  All that one gains in life is lost in death.  Even if one passes on a large amount of possessions/money to one's offspring that person still dies, and becomes nothing.

Interesting though in the  made a point against Epicureanism: One shouldn't dwell on the past; it's gone/a dream, nothing can be done about it.  One mustn't dwell on the future; it's unknowable and always unpredictable.  Lastly, one shouldn't live for the present either; it's fleeting, only here for just a moment then lost to the past, which is a dream.

Where is this coming from, you ask...  I've been listening to this podcast here, and it's based on a translation of Author Schopenhauer's work, The Emptiness of Existence.  I can't believe that there aren't more people that commit suicide based on this work.  If all of life is a short tumble down the hill of existence into non-existence, why go on living?

Along the same lines, a friend and I were talking about the concept of being able to transfer one's consciousness into a machine.  He kept calling that technological advance, "the singularity."  I'm assuming he was referencing this book The Singularity is Near by Raymond Kurzweil.  My friend kept saying that being able to do that would render a person (virtually) immortal.  Total hogwash!  Thinking like this is such a small view of eternity/infinity.  Computers break down over time; data corrupts over time.  On an even larger scale energy sources will eventually run out.  Even the sun will eventually run out.  Infinity is so much farther into the future than computers or electricity or the sun.

Keep in mind that one must caveat that first paragraph with... "without God..."  With God, nothing is futile, everything and everyone has meaning and purpose.  I don't agree with Pascal's wager: that one should believe because it doesn't hurt and in the end if it turns out you're wrong then it doesn't matter. However, this is something similar... if life has no meaning without God, then you should believe, so that your life has meaning.

Love the beautiful central California coast

Fear of Looking Stupid

I drove (about 3 1/2 hours) down to Monterey California yesterday to hang out and eat at some of the places I used to enjoy when I was attending the Defense Language Institute there.  It was a great trip, I went for a hike/run at one of my favorite parks, Garrapata State park.  Then took a swim in HUGE waves at Carmel Beach.  Then, after lunch and hanging out on the coast I stopped for gas.  While I was filling up my tank I overheard the conversation that started me thinking about this topic.  I heard a woman walking along, talking to a Chinese man.  He asked a question about what the different prices were on the gas sign.  To which the woman responded that the lowest price was "unleaded" and the higher prices were more leaded.  The highest price has the "most lead."

Now, first I want to say, there's NOTHING WRONG with not knowing everything.  No one knows everything!  What I'm worried about, is why she didn't just answer honestly with "I don't know."  Why do we, in general, fear that tiny little phrase!?  There's nothing wrong with that woman not knowing what the difference is between the different octanes.  Where she went wrong is where she made something up an told someone who honestly didn't know something that's not even close to the actual fact, apparently just to save face from having to say "I don't know."

I love this town, hope to move back there some day

Abolish meta-insert the blank

First, if you've never heard the term, meta- comes from Greek meaning "after or beyond."  It's been used in various compounds, the most famous being Aristotle's works (not titled by Aristotle).  The irony of this is that the title has double meaning: either that it's the chapter/book after physics, or that it's beyond physics; i.e. on a higher plane than physics.  Interesting enough this is the only compound using "meta-" that I think should be kept, and I'll cover more about that later.

First, let's consider metalanguage.  The idea that there's some conception of language beyond language, doesn't make any sense.  The "thing" behind language, is thought.  Now trying to conceptualize thought is virtually impossible because you have to think to think about thinking (like that?).  Now, studying and thinking about what kinds of thought generate language.  Sure, but don't call it "metalanguage."

Next, meta-philosophy, that's like saying the philosophy of philosophy.  First off, philosophy is a vague enough word as it is: love of learning.  What is that?  Why do we romanticize the idea?  I think the term meta-philosophy was made up by a philosopher that wanted to get laid (aka sound smart).

There's a large variety of words that misuse the term "meta-," and I won't go into them all now let's just say that most often the words could be replaced by some other word or concept.

The exception: As I mentioned before I think the term metaphysics should still be used.  Here's why: God exists (only using the term "exists" because of a lack of a term that fits better) outside the human plane of existence, and there's no better term to describe something that is beyond our concept of the physical universe.  I've written a couple times about this topic on my blog and I've posted some on this topic at a philosophy forum.

I Refuse to Participate

The topic of rape/abortion is swirling around the internet as bad as the typhoon that just passed over Okinawa (and is heading towards the Korean peninsula).  I refuse to participate in this argument!  I've already made my position on abortion clear and I'm sticking to my guns.

What I would like to talk about kind of just fell into my lap.  As I was hiking Saturday, the topic of over-diagnosis/over-medicating ADD/ADHD came up out of the blue.  Then today as I was scanning through the New York Times Opinion pages I ran across this article about the topic.

While I'm not a medical professional and this is just my opinion.  I've seen a variety of articles/Op-Ed pieces about this topic over the years and I still think the way I've thought for a long time.  First, the caveat: YES there are cases where people are helped by medication and there are definitely people that need the help of medication to function.  However, I think the whole system is broken where this is concerned.  While medical science has greatly improved over the years but the brain is still very mysterious, especially concerning cognitive function.  If cognizance is still such a medical mystery how can we rely on medicine to alter people's state of mind.  And yet, that is basically what the medicines that "treat" ADD/ADHD do, alter people's state of mind.  If we don't understand how something works, let's not tamper with it.

Short Comment on Book VI of The Republic

So as I've said before, I've been listening to the audiobook version of Plato's Republic and I've said time and again that I disagree with most of the things he says...  Well, this is one more that is totally crazy (at least, to me)!

Once again, books 1-6 have all been about this supposed "Guardian" class of people that are divided into two sections: gold and silver, i.e. true guardians and auxiliaries.  Well among other things, book six talks about marriage and children among the guardians.  Plato/Socrates places love of the state above ALL else (seemingly on par with love of the gods, which I think might be a part of why he was put to death).  So, in light of that view book six makes sense, though I think he overlooks some important parts of the human nature.  First, a bit about what he says about marriage and children in this perfect state:

Basically, women will be given the same rights and responsibilities as men (which, in that day was very forward-thinking).  However, when it comes to marriage and children all the guardians will share all the women and children.  At a large marriage festival, everyone will gather and the lower classes will be deceived into thinking their marriages were drawn by luck/lot but in reality it's just to keep the lower classes in line and maintain the purity of the gene pool of the guardian class.  So, all the guardians will be mated with other guardians and their children will be immediately taken from them and sent to guardian nursery/training schools to be cared for by specially chosen nursemaids.  The mothers will be only brought in to supply milk and they will be carefully matched so they don't ever nurse their own child(ren).  All the children of a certain age, will call each other 'brother/sister' and call all the people of their parent's generation 'father/mother,' and the previous generation 'grandfather/grandmother.'  Here's the worst part: all the children of the guardian-class couples will be evaluated shortly after birth and if they are found defective they're thrown out like trash and killed, basically, state-sanctioned infanticide.

While the concept of a society-family would be nice (there have been other cultures that do something similar, Korean culture is much more familial than western culture) I don't think this kind of concept will really work.  There's an interesting example in the Bible of state-sanctioned infanticide... it gave birth to Moses, one of Israel's greatest heroes.  I think that Plato/Socrates is greatly underestimating the power of a mother's connection to her offspring; mothers really do have deep connections with their children and wouldn't be able to give them up so easily.  I've said this before, and I'll say it again...  I would never want to live in this type of society.  No matter how good a state is it cannot replace family.  The Nazis tried this kind of eugenics and failed (more or less).  Only the people in charge want to perpetuate this kind of system.  I'm glad that Plato didn't write our constitution because if our state wanted to mandate arranged state-sanctioned marriage and infanticide I'd refuse to have any part in it.

Eidetic Memory and Testing

Do you have an eidetic memory?  According to the Wikipedia article on the subject, you probably don't.  I love Wiki articles as a launching point for further inquiry, and I think this deserves more study. I only know how my own thoughts go and I, most often, think in pictures.  So, the alternate term for eidetic memory is kind of silly, because lots of people think in pictures and recollect via pictures, therefore lots of people have "photographic memories."  I always like to say, I have a photographic memory but the camera is out of focus.  Mostly because I do think in pictures, and, at times, I can recall a specific picture in my mind.  Unfortunately, oftentimes there's a part of the picture that's blurry.

Best example I can think of off the top of my head: I can picture myself in Mr. Gaines' Bible class (not sure what grade, but it was in high school in the "new" building so it must have been between sophomore-senior years), and I'm taking a Bible memory verse quiz.  I can remember that I could picture the verse in my head (though I've lost the verse now) and I could remember the first half, but I was stuck on a certain part.  But, I could remember what column and what part of the page the verse was one and up until that point I could remember the words, but the rest of the page was fuzzy.  I can still picture where on the page it was; left page, right column, a little more than half way down.  So, obviously in some cases I remember in pictures, but when it comes to music, especially music I've heard but not played, I don't always associate a picture with the music in my head.  I just hear it in my mind.

I was listening to Plato's Republic some more today (like that non sequitur?), which again I have many disagreements with, but in one thing (from book four) I agree with Plato; that is: the importance of education.  Then, as I was thinking about how important education is and today's education climate that seems to think that teachers should be held accountable for their student's performance on "standardized tests" which apparently is leading to "gaming the system", I came up with my idea to help.  I know it's not a perfect analysis of the issue, but my initial thought to helping resolve the problem would be to use two tests each year.  I know that seems like it will only lead to more problems and I feel that much of today's education problems stem from too many tests, but I think that if we're going to base teacher's salary, benefits, and promotions etc. on test performance let's make sure we're testing the right things.

Now, about these two tests...  well, first off, it's actually only one test.  Though I don't think it should be the exact same test twice; because, just by virtue of taking the test once all students would presumably perform better the second time.  No, it should be two virtually identical tests which cover everything the class is intended to cover for the whole year.  Yep, you heard me... a comprehensive test which covers everything the student should have learned over the course of the whole year of class.  But here's the kicker... all the students should take this test BEFORE the school year begins, say on the first or second day of class.  You might respond that all the students should fail.  Well, yes in a manner of speaking most of the students shouldn't know hardly any of the answers.  However, the first test serves as a baseline for the second test to show improvement.

Here's my logic behind this... Some people in every class are going to be extraordinary, WITHOUT the teachers' input; some are not...  So, how can we test to show how much someone learns (presumably from the teacher) without a baseline.  The idea of holding teachers accountable is not necessarily a bad thing, but lets make sure we're not just punishing a teacher for having students that aren't as bright as other students.  After students take both the tests (which should be developed by the teacher), as long as some of the students make some progress then the teacher has done his or her job.  That can be quantifiable evidence used in paying, promoting and providing for teachers.  There should be strict proctoring and review of the test by a group of teachers, and as much as possible we should prevent teachers from cheating.  However, if we hire good people to teach the future of humanity there shouldn't be much danger of cheating.  Only the most trustworthy people should be entrusted with the minds of the future.