Friday Quotation: Arthur Schopenhauer

The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

Francis Fukuyama on Bloggingheads

As always, he is quite deep, and seems to combine a broad yet detailed understanding of what’s going on in other countries with an attempt to understand the limits of our ideas with which we interact with those countries.  He manages to be politically astute, a wide ranging realist (philosophical idealist?), yet also able to argue well within the Western intellectual tradition. 

Fukuyama is also one of the few who now explains very well why he supported the Iraq invasion, and why he has come to change his thinking. 

If only the administration were able to admit such doubt…

Click here.

See also:  Fukuyama’s essay The End Of History and an important influence G.W.F. Hegel

Dinesh D’Souza And Daniel Dennett at Tufts University: Nietzsche’s Prophesy

D’Souza is a Christian, and while debating Daniel Dennett at Tufts University, he brings up Nietzsche’s argument that God is dead.   From the depths of Nietzsche’s thinking, D’Souza argues he was able to see the coming crisis in Europe; that Europeans could no longer base their lives upon defunct Christian metaphysics without radically and creatively developing new thinking from the ground up.  Nietzsche also supposed that few if any would heed his call and realize the depth of this crisis, and so would likely lumber into the tremendously violent conflicts of the 20th century.

D’Souza then charges Dennett with a similarly shallow approach; over-simplyfying the metaphysical depths of Christianity from the relatively stable position of present day scientific analysis (which, as D’Souza’s argument suggests, grew out of Christianity itself). 

D’Souza is a Christian, as mentioned, and Dennett not.   Nietzsche would probably have not thought much about either a 20th century man still resting upon a belief in God…nor a 20th century man analyzing such a belief from an understanding of science (as a philosopher, Dennett, with a background in science).  Nietzsche, of course, was almost entirely ignorant of science.

You might have to come up with more than that to get to Dennett.

Good debate.  Argument starts at 5:30:

Sunday Quotation: Mark Twain

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

Andrew Sullivan on Faye Wattleton’s Hardball Comments: Corrupt Feminism?

Sullivan has the scoop, including text of Wattleton’s comments.

She says:

“So I don’t think that we should be so upset and agitated about Mr. Clinton’s participation  - we should continue to focus on the issues that the people want to hear about…”

Sullivan says:

“Wow. A proud defense of nepotism over feminism. Or rather, as is the Clintons’ wont, a total conflation of feminism with nepotism.”

Yeah, he’s a little anti-Clinton, but it’s troubling to see that some feminists place the gain of political power and a share of that power above the deeper moral questions that Clinton’s philandering raises. 

Merely a shallow interpretation of feminist doctrine, or has feminism plumbed its own doctrinal depths, and come up empty? 

To be fair, Wattleton is playing politics herself, and probably has an eye on keeping people together….but at what cost?

See also:  What Can You Do With A Women’s Studies Degree?

Simultaneity: Depends On How You Think?

In the previous post, the sonic boom video (from sec 00:13 on) mentions that thunder and lightning occur at the same time, however we experience lightning first because the speed of light is so much greater.

This idea assumes a concept of simultaneity, which also has a spatial component (two events occur at the same time in the same place, say, a mile away).  However, one problem you may find is that the more you think about time, the more you realize that it is a deeper phenomenon that such simple explanations support.   

For example, the vector calculus used to determine the electric field lines and voltage of the lightning bolt relies upon a complex and deeper set of ideas about space and time. 

In fact, the video (and it is a simple explanatory video) relies upon the radical re-workings of time and space for its explanations…

Here’s a video illustrating the relativity of simultaneity and time dilation.

Addition:  Here’s the bigview.com on the subject, including Kantian space-time. 

Robert Downey Jr. Goes Supersonic: Ironman

I saw this trailer for the new movie Ironman, which comes out later this year.  I should probably add that I have nothing to do with the movie.

If you skip to 2:20 (the last 9 seconds), Downey goes supersonic, creating a shock wave which then dissipates as I assume he gains velocity beyond Mach 1.

Wouldn’t a second shock wave, known as a bow wave form at the base of his body?  Would we hear anything after the sonic boom? two booms?

Here’s a well-done page where I found some information. 

Addition:  Photos of an F-22 stealth jet going transonic, clouds forming;  Blue Angel bails out at supersonic speed and tells his story.  Space shuttle breaks sound barrier.   

Video here gives good overview.

Tuesday Poem: W.S. Merwin’s “Separation”

Separation

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle
Everything I do is stitched with its color

-W.S. Merwin

From Andrew Sullivan: The Race Is Tearing Democrats Apart?

Here’s an interesting idea from this post:

“This race is tearing the Democrats apart. But if that’s what it takes to put the Clintons back into the White House, they’ll manage.”

If you find the way that Sullivan frames the argument:  More Clintons, more of the same, a vote for Obama means change kind of sloganeering,  then go for it.  There’s more than a little truth to it.

But also, I can’t help but think that the Democrats (and most of us, really) have allowed ideas like race and gender to become central concepts.  Why should it be a surprise that they may become central to the election?

Addition:  For republicans, be careful to keep doubt alive in your mind; just because you’ve avoided this subject (mostly you haven’t) doesn’t mean there won’t be pressure upon you to defend your ideas with similar zeal. 

Also, maybe I’m wrong in how I’m reading this.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day

A man worth remembering for his courage, vision, and character.

His speeches are on youtube.

A quote from John Locke, found here:

“For wherever violence is used, and injury done, though by hands appointed to administer Justice, it is still violence and injury, however colour’d with the Name, Pretences, or Forms of Law, the end whereof being to protect and redress the innocent, by an unbiassed application of it, to all who are under it; wherever that is not bona fide done, War is made upon the Sufferers, who having no appeal on Earth to right them, they are left to the only remedy in such Cases, an appeal to Heaven.”

And to men like King…