Michael Flynn's Blog, page 20

Summum ius, summa iniuria

Roman Tully

So wrote Cicero in De officiis I.10.33. It translates as 'maximum justice is maximum injustice.'







Oakland Oakley

Prof. Barbara Oakley, of Oakland University, Rochester, MI, whom TOF cannot resist calling Oakland Oakley, has published a paper yclept: "Concepts and Implications of Altruism Bias and Pathological Altruism," in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  The eight pages of the paper manage to accumulate 110 footnotes, so it is an impressive feat.  Or an impressive foot.

Pathological altruism is "altruism in which attempts to promote the welfare of others instead result in unanticipated harm" with the proviso that while the altruist does not foresee harm that "an external observer would conclude was reasonably foreseeable."  This can be summed up in the great Battle Cry of the Besserwissers: "What could possibly go wrong?"  (Followed sooner or later by the plaintive "How were we supposed to know?")
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A Passing Comment

TOF ran across this comment in a comm box during his morning Internet run-through:

gxxxxxreader101
From what I hear in the mainstream media, and what I hear from scientists themselves, they and their adherents are pretty certain that science is the only sensible way of looking at the world.  Scientists may believe that there is an infinite amount to discover, but they are absolutely certain that it can be discovered through science...and nothing else.

The which neatly summarizes the coherence problem.
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Final Remarks

No, no, not those kinds of final remarks; rather remarks about finality.

You may either express relief or horror as the spirit moves you.
Final Word




De Cart

One of the things that most confuses the modern (and therefore the post-modern) mind is the notion of finality in nature.  Ever since Descartes decreed that henceforth -- because they could not be used to produce useful products for industry -- formal and final causes did not exist, the backfill required to cover over the conceptual collapse has muddied up the picture considerably.  Today, few even understand what these meant.

Part of the problem is the supposition that a philosophy of nature is in competition with natural science, as the term is used today.  Hence, the complaint that the pursuit of natural science is not facilitated by formal and final causation.  But this is simply due to a methodological choice.  It is like deciding a priori that the only thing worth knowing of a physical body is its weight and then declaring that a thermometer tells you nothing about how heavy the body is.  The choice made four centuries ago was that only metric and controllable efficient causes were worth knowing -- because only the metric and controllable causes would further the new goal of the new science; viz., the extension of Man's Dominion over the Universe.  Hence, all other efficient causes, as well as all formal and final causes, and even material causes, disappeared from the Weltanschauung.  But that the blinders worn by a race horse do not permit seeing certain things does not mean that those things do not exist in nature.
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Pithy Quote Parade

At the TOFSpot, a collection of pithy quotes gradually saved on Notepad.

A Medieval Moment

Two links:
A cute video with single caveat and a column in the Onion nostalgic for the 60s... the 960s. 

Quote of the Day

The essence of what Jerry Pournelle calls 'the voodoo sciences' is pithily encapsulated in this bon mot:

Places Where the Roads Don't Go

Excerpt from the story found here

Quote of the Day. Models and Turism

http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/05/quote-of-day-models-and-turism.html

Memorial Day 2013

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