17 New Heads and 14 New Handles

For those of you that are not fans of Only Fools and Horses, the title of this post is a reference to Trigger's broom. This is the episode where he receives an award for using the same broom for 20 years, only to reveal later that it has been replaced entirely several times. Of course, when I first saw that episode I never realized that Trigger's broom raises an interesting paradox. More specifically Theseus' Paradox, which asks the question whether it is the same object once the majority of it has been replaced.

One can apply various arguments about the intent of the object to get around this paradox, but I wonder how this applies to people. So I can think of two ways in which we can apply this to a person. First, actual replacement of body parts. Putting the medical difficulties aside, if we could do a brain transplant would the new person be the same as the one that owned the brain or is this an altogether new person? I guess we could say that it is the person's personality which defines who they are, not necessarily their look. That is, people would eventually get over the completely new body and face, once they realize it is the "same" person inside.

Let's now look at the second way of applying this paradox to people: their personalities. Now imagine a person, and it does happen, completely/significantly changing their personality. So is there any truth in when someone turns around and says "you are not the same person any more"? What I find interesting is this idea of some kind of defining characteristic. Once that is gone, then we are no longer the same person. You might take a couple of different positions at this point. You might say that the sum of our personality is what defines us; or you might take the position that there are certain aspects of us that are unique and define us. We could conduct a thought experiment by which we swap aspects someone's personalities in small steps. I shall not go into too much detail here, but the basic idea is that through a series of logical arguments we can swap these personality aspects without anyone objecting or questioning the identity of the person in question. So what is it that defines us? I believe it is everything (individually and as a whole), because if you can swap one aspect of you without changing anything then you can swap everything. So even the smallest component of our personality is a defining and crucial component. 

Of course, in all of the above there is major aspect of how others define us. I will have to leave an in-depth discussion of this topic for another post, but it seems to me that our identities are by no means solely based on our definitions of them. Instead, how others view us appears to play an important role in our defining characteristics. It's a shame --- it takes years to be happy with ourselves!

A sausage roll

I ate a sausage roll the other day, but I did not enjoy it. Not because it was a poor quality sausage roll. In fact it was quite good. The reason I did not enjoy it is because I was going against many years of conditioning of not eating pork and thinking of such an act as repulsive. So even if I no longer believe in the reasons for such abstention, going against this training left me with a sort of feeling of guilt. I know this feeling. In the past, when I did something that broke one of the tenets of the religion I was brought up in, I would be left with similar feelings, but stronger. Over the years, I have managed to fight this indoctrination with the aid of questioning (use of which, by the way, is heavily discouraged if it questions the system itself, in this case religion. In other words, made to feel guilty about this as well). It may not seem this way, but this post is not intended for religion bashing. In fact, these feelings made me think about the idea of our moral compass. Made me think about that voice inside us that tells us what is right and wrong. And that feeling of guilt that tells us when, according to our morality, we have done something wrong. Many, if not all, of you reading this post will not consider eating a sausage roll a wrongful act. However, my inner voice was trying to tell me that it is. I ignored that feeling and I know eventually I will not care at all. So what does this say about morals? Is there really such a thing and is it possible to use anything as a guide? Or are they just a convenient level of understanding we have developed, as a society, to sustain the system. Any deviation from these rules (morals), especially if it threatens the integrity of the system, and the protection mechanism (guilt) kicks in. It was a difficult sausage roll!

Science and Religion living in harmony

Although this topic and debate are hackneyed, my thoughts here are inspired by some new experiences. I recently moved to a Physics department situated in the bible belt. It is by no means the heart of the bible belt, so its effects on the University were surprising to me. I was aware of the existence of "evolution deniers" before I arrived in the US, but I did not expect to find them in the Physics department. You may ask why not? This question and its answer are at the heart of my thoughts here.

I have come across researchers from the fields of astrophysics, as well as particle physics, who quite happily state that they do not "believe in evolution". One of the most interesting conversations involved an astrophysicist telling somebody that they should believe in the theory of Relativity, only to state five minutes later that they themselves did not believe in evolution. I find this a curious stance. Leaving aside the point that these things are not a belief system, how can you agree with one scientific theory and deny another, equally amazing and successful, scientific theory. I hear people say that "...he is an intelligent guy... he is researching quantum mechanics, but believes that the dinosaurs were wiped out in the Great Flood." My response is that somebody like that is actually quite stupid, because they have not learnt from their education. (Of course, I would be more forgiving if the person denying a scientific theory had no scientific training. Although, refusing to think is not really excusable!) The greatest human invention, I believe anyway, is the scientific method. It tells us to take our theories and test them. If a theory makes predictions and they match the observations, then it gets a scientific reprieve. This kind of observational confirmation does not prove the theory, but simply states that this is the best we have so far. It is a beautiful system because it tells us to have humility. So any scientist simply denying the evidence for a scientific theory, because it does not suit their beliefs, has somewhat missed the point of their training. 

This is the reason why evolution denying is not compatible with any science department. The theory of evolution is not perfect, but it provides us with a relatively simple and logical explanation for an extremely complex problem; most importantly, there is evidence for the theory. Call it parsimony or Occam's razor, but either way, you are a poor scientist if you replace a simple logical explanation with a belief-driven faith-driven "theory" reminiscent of epicycles. So can Science and religion truly live in harmony in our minds? I do not think so; science asks for evidence and religion wants faith. An attempt to placate both just creates a life of hypocrisy.

I still like motorcycles

Recently I read quite a scathing critique of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (ZAMM) by Robert Pirsig. It was particularly critical of the philosophy contained in the book and how it has been misleading a generation of readers. In that case, I am one of those that have been mislead. I read ZAMM when I was 17 or 18 and really liked it (and have recommended it to a few friends over the years). I shall not bother describing ZAMM in too much detail, but it is essentially about a scientist who is disillusioned by science, but finds solace in philosophy; the protagonist then explains his philosophies to us, whilst on a motorcycle road trip with his son and couple.

Not to be dissuaded by a bad review, I decided to re-visit ZAMM. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. Let me give an example of a dialogue that takes place in the second chapter. This a conversation between the protagonist and the road trip companion, John. (It's long, so I have put more relevant text in bold.) 

'Modern man has his ghosts and spirits too, you know.'
'What? '
'Oh, the laws of physics and logic... the number system... the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real.'
...
So I go on. 'For example, it seems completely natural to presume that gravitation and the laws of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity.' 
'Of course.' 
'So when did this law start? Has it always existed?' 
John is frowning, wondering what I am getting at. 
'What I am driving at,' I say, 'is the notion that before the beginning of the earth, before the sun,and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed.'
...
'Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its won, not in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere - this law of gravity still existed?' 
... 
'Well, I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did  not exist before Isaac Newton. No other conclusion makes sense.'

Right, I am sure you are bored by now, so I shall stop; it gets worse as it goes on. The first question, and a rather embarrassing one at that, is 'how did I fall for this?'. I guess I still hadn't developed my critical thinking yet! Anyhow, let's deal with ZAMM.

It seems to me that Pirsig is intentionally confusing the notion of gravity with the laws that describe them. The laws of gravity did not exist before Newton because these laws are an observation and description of the Universe in which we live. This is also the reason that they are not correct; they are approximations. For that matter, gravity is not something just always existed; if that is a name we have given to the interaction of massive bodies, then it came into existence with mass. Also, just because we are not able to describe something, does not mean it does not exist. I guess this is where popular "Zen" comes into it. A tree falling in a forest will produce sound waves, even if there is no one there to listen. It is only the description of those waves which is missing. Humans do not hold the position of a "special observer" in the Universe.

There are further examples of scientific and logical fallacies in the book, but I shall leave them out. The protagonist acts like a great voice of reason and enlightenment and makes John, his friend, sound like an idiot. When in fact, John is the real voice of reason and the protagonist the voice of popular ignorance. If I recommended this book to you at any time, I have changed my mind since. If you like motorcycle maintenance, get a Haynes manual. If you like road trips, get a travel guide.

Friendship, but with limitations

My previous post started to delve a little into the idea of morality. It made me think about friendships and how our sense of morality affects them. Let's take this real life scenario: 'A' terminated his long-standing friendship with 'B', after finding out that 'B' is gay. This is because A is very religious and considers homosexuality a sin (or some other ridiculous argument). Now, we know this to an asinine point of view and should chastise 'A' for being bigoted. We can quite happily say that 'A' was not much of a friend to 'B' anyway, as friendships surely involve accepting people for who they are.

However, here is where the small print comes in. Do we all have a limit to our friendships? That limit being dictated by our sense of morals. So we can disagree with A's sense of morality, but at what point would you stop being friends with somebody? We all think of certain things to be 'right' and 'wrong', and what if your friend does the ultimate wrong (in your opinion anyway). Would you be able to look past that and carry on being friends with them?

I can say that my sense of right and wrong mostly revolves around whether someone's actions harm others. If I harm another, then I have done wrong. However, when applied to friendships, this seems arbitrary as well. We mostly carry on as normal if a friend harms another emotionally (say by cheating on a partner), but if the same friend harmed someone physically then we might reassess our friendships. What is the point of all this? Well, maybe I should be more tolerant of people's morality-driven actions, even if those actions themselves are intolerant --- maybe

Originality and value

A recent conversation with a friend of mine made me think about the concept of originality. I, and it seems others as well, put a lot value on an original item, be it work of art, literature or science. I am not questioning the point of originality in itself. What I thought interesting was how I view something depending on if I think it is the original or a copy. Given the choice between an original artwork or a copy, I would want the original every time; even if the copy was identical to the original. I am trying to understand the reason for this. For the purposes of a thought experiment, let's say whatever emotion the artwork is trying to capture, it is captured in the exact copy as well (e.g. every brushstroke, every note, and so on). Therefore the main emotional importance of this original work is the importance I have attributed to it. This can range from the artist's personality to the context of the work itself. If I am none the wiser about whether something is original or a copy, they would be equally "valuable" to me. So, it seems that a work of art is more than just the piece itself. However, what does this say about works by artist such as Eric Gill (who is thought to have abused his young daughters), Caravaggio (who is thought to have killed people), Wagner (who held anti-Semitic views), or even Roman Polanski (thought to have drugged and have sex with a minor)? Should their works be considered inferior to those who have acted "morally" in their lives?

Preface

I have been too hung up on the idea of committing only the most “amazing” thoughts to this weblog; unsurprisingly, I have written nothing! So here is a change of tact: write about subjects that are making me think. No matter how original (or not) these thoughts are. If they prove stimulating in any way then they have served their purpose.