John C. Wright's Blog, page 69
May 12, 2014
Alignment
I’ve always been mildly puzzled, and, because I am a geek, mildly annoyed, by the ‘Alignments’ in Dungeons and Dragons.
For those of you who never played Dungeons and Dragons, I gaze with covetousness upon your good sense spending time outdoors or playing chess or collecting stamps or something clearly more useful to God and man. But I have to explain that when you invent a character to play in this game, you are asked to assign him an alignment.
Gary Gygax, the co-inventor of the game, establishes nine alignments: Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Good, True Neutral, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, and Chaotic Evil.
Good basically means being altruistic and helpful to others, and Evil basically means being selfish and cruel and Objectivist. Lawful means obeying the letter of the law whether it is just or unjust, and Chaotic means anything from being free-spirited to being an anarchist to being insane.
Lawful Good are paladins and white knights; Lawful Evil are Nazis in snappy uniforms; Chaotic Good are loveable rogues like Robin Hood or Han Solo; Chaotic Evil is the Joker from Batman.
The first thing to notice about alignments is that Gygax is trying to stuff into his game the moral quality from legends and stories ranging from tales of Arthur or Charlemagne to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and also stuff in the amoral quality from Moorcock’s Eternal Champion cycle.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Books We Cannot Read Only Once
The fine fellows over at SfSignal ask the following question:
There are books we read once. There are books we re-read. And then there are the books that we wear out our copy because we devour it again and again. The books we have to buy a copy for ourselves immediately upon lending out our copy because we’re sure we will never see it again–or just want to make sure we have it on hand. What are some of these genre books for you? Why do you go back to them again and again?
My answer:
The primary purpose of nonfiction books is either to give us facts, give us insights based on facts, or to persuade or urge us into some course of action based on that insight. But the primary purpose of fiction is to slake the thirst we have for the magical waters which flow from worlds beyond the dry and bitter world of facts, to drink, to bathe, to be cleansed, to be refreshed, and to emerge shining from the baptism of the imagination to return to the dry wasteland of the factual world washed and prepared for battle. Science fiction and Fantasy form the deeper waters which carry us farther from the shore of this wasteland, and therefore provide deeper springs from which, through the imagination, to irrigate it.
Hence, those books which call a reader again and again to its wellsprings must be those which have particular power to restore what the factual world does not give him. By seeing what books never lose the power to refresh him, you can see what he most craves and yet which the world most fails to provide him.
Science Fiction is a refreshing drink when you look around at the world, and you see some bad and ancient institution, and you think: that will never change. It is also a shocking splash of cold water in the face when you look at some good we take for granted and think: that will never change.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
May 9, 2014
An Observation on the Disposition of Spiritual Enemies
Three times so far in my career I have been the subject of what Orwell describes as the Two-Minute Hate. By this I mean, an attempt, usually by a small and pathetic number of people pretending to be a grand and great number of people, indulging in the Internet equivalent of a shrieking contest apparently directed at me, or some imaginary version of me they have conjured in their fevered brains for that purpose. It is booing.
Always this is accompanied by swearing, giggling, hissing, cavorting, evil dances, gibberish, monkey-antics, blather, blither, halfwitticisms, and all fashion of juvenile eccentricism that is self-humiliation if not self-parody. Sometimes this is accompanied by threats of boycott from people who are not customers, but who do not seem cognizant that one must be a customer to be a boycotter. (And I am not sure the wares I sell would be comprehensible to minds unable to grasp the idea that one must be a customer before one can cease being a customer.)
While they are certainly free to boo, it is the timing of the spasms of gibberish that betrays the true nature of those who indulge in this odd pasttime.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Goedel and Panphysicalism
And now a moment for arid philosophy! Because I know my readers don’t want me just to talk about Space Princesses!
If materialism is true, that the universe is like a machine with programming or like a system of logical statements one following from the next as in geometry. There is nothing in the universe which is not defined, determined, or caused by anything other than a material cause. Hence the chains of cause and effect in the universe are exactly parallel to the logical formal causes of a machine following its programming or a system of logical statements following their assumptions. This means that everything, everything, everything in the universe is exactly the same as a line of code in a computer program, a set of cogs in a clockwork, a set of proofs in a system of geometry.
By Goedel’s argument, there is no set of proofs in a system of geometry which is both universal and determined. Determined means you can tell whether it is true or false. Universal means that all proofs in the set of proofs are proved.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
May 8, 2014
Sauce for the Gander
I am taken to task for daring to say Heinlein would not win the Hugo these days.
http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2014/05/appropriating-heinlein/
I regard the observation as unexceptional; a sufficient number of Leftists denounce Heinlein as a fascist and sexist, and who (by their own admission) do not vote on the merits of the author’s work but on his ideological purity, to defeat a nomination.
Admittedly I am speculating about the Leftist numbers in our community, but not about their ideology. I assume anyone familiar with the field is familiar with the ideological denunciations against Bob Heinlein.
Mr Davidson argues that Mr Heinlein was a gadfly, more interested in starting a debate than in promoting any particular ideology. This is a sentiment not only I agree with, but he himself quotes me saying so. I am glad he and I agree on this point.
He also says that Mr Heinlein would tell us to cease the political wrangling and get on with the business of living. Since this was precisely my point, I am again quite happy to find myself in agreement with Mr Davidson.
Nonetheless, there seems to be a point of apparent disagreement.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
May 7, 2014
Hell
Soldiers of Christ, this is required reading. This is the face of hell. This is what we are fighting. Don’t flinch. Go look.
Civilians, women, children, do not look. You will never be able to remove these images from your mind.
http://themattwalshblog.com/2014/05/07/this-is-my-positive-abortion-story/
On second thought, perhaps you should look, ladies. Take a good, hard, look. More than half, perhaps as many as two thirds of abortions are performed not because the mother truly wants one, but because a husband, boyfriend, or paramour pressures or forces her into it. This is what they are calling your right to choose. Take a good, long look.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
THE WRIGHT PERSPECTIVE: Why I am No Longer a Libertarian
I think this is the most link-heavy day I have ever had. Unlike the other two, this is meant to be the first of a weekly and ongoing feature.
This is EveryJoe:
EveryJoe is the ultimate boys club. From tech tips and gaming tricks, to the latest sports news and entertainment buzz, EveryJoe delivers non-stop action to men on the go.
Featuring valued perspectives from bloggers and an active community, the pages of EveryJoe are your destination for knowledge, entertainment and news.
EveryJoe is for men who don’t have time to surf the endless reaches of the web. You know what you like to read regularly but you like having tastes of other areas readily available at the click of a button. You work hard and you play hard, and EveryJoe helps you do that.
The opening of my first article for them is an introduction of myself:
I often introduce myself as a recovering libertarian. It is not an entirely serious introduction, but it is not entirely frivolous either.
Why “recovering”? Sad experience teaches that any ideology, even a sound one, like libertarianism, is intoxicating. The appeal of ideology is the appeal of elegance. Just as Newton reduced all motions from the orbits to apples falling to three expressions, every intellectual craves a simple formula to explain the human condition. Libertarianism is based on a single principle that limits the state’s use of force to retaliation against fraud and trespass.
Nearly all the natural moral rules all men carry in their hearts are satisfied by the simple rule that you may do as you like provided you leave your neighbor free to do as he likes. No neighbor may rob, defraud nor attack another.
The intoxication comes with each case that fits neatly to the theory. Natural morality agrees that wars to defend the innocent are permissible, as is killing in self defense. Natural morality agrees that a man should keep his contracts, and so on.
The theory says the state must remain carefully neutral in all cultural and moral questions: the use of intoxicating drugs for recreational use, suicide assisted or no, polygamy, prostitution, gambling, pornography, duels to the death (provided only all participants fully agree!) or, for that matter, copulating with a corpse on the roof of your house in plain view of the neighbors’ children playing in their backyards, and then eating the corpse, all must be legal.
For me, the intoxicating spell ended in three sharp realizations, each one as forceful as a thunderbolt.
Read the rest here:
http://www.everyjoe.com/2014/05/07/politics/why-im-no-longer-libertarian/
————————————–
ADDENDUM: I have the honor to share the paper with Col Kratman. Here is the announcement and the link:
On Monday we launched Colonel Kratman’s column, “Lines of Departure”. I’m pleased to announce that it is now the most-commented piece of content we’ve had in the site’s history. Instapundit was kind enough to provide an inbound link which definitely helped the launch.
http://www.everyjoe.com/2014/05/05/politics/soldiers-deserve-better-weapons/
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Infinitely Re-Read
The fine fellows over at SfSignal ask the musical question:
There are books we read once. There are books we re-read. And then there are the books that we wear out our copy because we devour it again and again. The books we have to buy a copy for ourselves immediately upon lending out our copy because we’re sure we will never see it again–or just want to make sure we have it on hand. What are some of these genre books for you? Why do you go back to them again and again?
My answer: The primary purpose of nonfiction books is either to give us facts, give us insights based on facts, or to persuade or urge us into some course of action based on that insight. But the primary purpose of fiction is to slake the thirst we have for the magical waters which flow from worlds beyond the dry and bitter world of facts, to drink, to bathe, to be cleansed, to be refreshed, and to emerge shining from the baptism of the imagination to return to the dry wasteland of the factual world washed and prepared for battle. Science fiction and Fantasy form the deeper waters which carry us farther from the shore of this wasteland, and therefore provide deeper springs from which, through the imagination, to irrigate it.
Hence, those books which call a reader again and again to its wellsprings must be those which have particular power to restore what the factual world does not give him. By seeing what books never lose the power to refresh him, you can see what he most craves and yet which the world most fails to provide him.
You can see the rest of answer, and the answer of writers no doubt more insightful than I, by clicking the link: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2014/05/mind-meld-books-weve-worn-out-re-reading/
It is perhaps the longest Mind Meld ever, and if you are looking for something new to read, you could do worse than finding out what your favorite authors’ favorite books are.
It is with grave sorrow that I see how few of these favorite books I have read or even heard about. In my youth, I read two books a day, and the field was small enough that an avid reader (and none was more avid than I) could be familiar with all the major and most of the minor works. These days, I have little time to read for pleasure, and what pleases me has narrowed, and so even bestsellers and awardwinners are strangers to me.
I am pleased to see authors praising Gaiman’s NEVERWHERE and Susan Cooper’s THE DARK IS RISING. In addition to being good books, both have arresting titles that catch the eye from even across the room. (Speaking of good titles, Laura Resnick has a brilliant one: MISFORTUNE COOKIE. Is that not a title that makes one’s eye simply water with desire to read the book? I have no idea what the book is about, but that title hooked my curiosity.)
It is a topic for another article, or perhaps for another Mind Meld, but what titles strike you as the most evocative, the best able to pique one’s curiosity? My vote for this category would be THE DYING EARTH by Jack Vance and THE WELL AT THE WORLD’S END by William Morris. The first, with merely two words almost never seen in conjunction (Animals and man die, or even nations, but the Earth?) and this immediately evokes a sense of peculiar desolation akin to awe. It promises a sense of wonder.
As for the second, if you cannot see the sheer magic in a title like THE WELL AT THE WORLD’S END, then you are no true traveler of Elfin Lands, nor ever sailed the haunted seas beyond the twilight.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
May 6, 2014
Atlas Shugs and Reads My Theory
There is a survivalist and Objectivist website called SHRUGGING OUT PODCAST much taken with the Evan Sayet theory I wrote about not long ago.
There is some talk of chickens and farming until about 8:45, which is a noble calling, to be sure. He discusses the title of the essay until about 14:30, not noticing that I actually think Leftism is nothing so innocent as a mere mental disease, but is willful cooperating with sin, namely, the sin of pride disguised as compassion.
At around 14:30 he begins to discuss the theory itself, with an adroit summation.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Parable of the Circular Train
A reader asks:
“What, then, is the distinction between ‘universe’ as used by radical materialists and God understood in the sense of Unmoved Mover, Being Itself, etc?”
A fascinating question, and an easy one to answer, but the answer requires some explanation.
Materialism is the proposition that all things have no properties aside from material properties.
If this it true, then everything which might seem to be a non-material property is actually a side effect of a material property and ultimately can be reduced to it. For example, ‘red’ seems to be a quality rather than a material property, but modern science shows redness is a wavelength of light, which has wavelike properties akin to soundwaves, and these wavelengths have pure material properties such as mass, length, duration and temperature.
But if materialism is true, then not just ‘red’ but all things, such as a pure Platonic ideal, human free will, truth or love or justice or any quality involving a valuation or purpose, an abstract law of logic, and on and on, can be ultimate reduced to waves and particles or some other physical property.
This leads to an immediate and obvious difficulty: physical things have no known final causes, that is, they react to outside pressure, they do not act because of a desire to achieve an envisioned goal or escape a feared outcome.
If materialism is true, all final causes can be reduced to mechanical causes.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
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