John G. Messerly's Blog, page 73

Philosophical Star Trek Episodes

About 20 years ago, I taught a college course titled: “Philosophy and Star Trek.” I also remember the original Star Trek series premiering on TV in 1966 and I’ve seen all of the original episodes multiple times.

Here are some particularly philosophical episodes from the original series, with the caveat that such lists are subjective and I’m probably omitting some classics. (Episodes in bold are particular favorites.)

Title                                                                     Subject

the enemy within                                          personal identity
the menagerie                                              reality
the conscience of the king                         justice
the squire of gothos                                     power
arena                                                                  mercy
the return of the archons                           society
a taste of Armageddon                                war
this side of paradise                                  happiness
the city on the edge of forever             time

amok time                                                        desire

who mourns for adonis?                          gods 

mirror, mirror                                                   parallel universes

return to tomorrow                                       robots
specter of the gun                                          mind
plato’s stepchildren                                      corruption

let that be your last battlefield                cold war

the cloud minders                                         economics

all our yesterdays                                       time 

As for Star Trek the Next Generation, my all time favorite episode is “The Inner Light.” While I don’t know the series as well as the original one, here are a few I’d recommend for the philosophically inclined.

Encounter at Farpoint                                 humanity

Remember Me                                                memory

Relics                                                                  aging

Best of Both Worlds                                      power

Clue                                                                    lying

The Measure of a Man                               artificial intelligence

Elementary, Dear Data                                reality

Ship in a Bottle                                             reality

All Good Things                                              time

Q Who                                                                 power

Tapestry                                                           choices

Yesterday’s Enterprise                                 time

The Inner Light                                             meaning

Thine Own Self                                               reason

The Drumhead                                               conspiracies

Darmok                                                              language

Summary of “The Consolations of Philosophy, Alain de Botton

[image error] [image error]

The Consolations of Philosophy

Alain de Botton’s book takes its title from Boethius’ classic of the same name.

[image error]

[image error] [image error]

In his book, de Botton explores the ideas of different philosophers in order to show that philosophy can offer practical advice about unpopularity  (Socrates), poverty (Epicurus), frustration (Seneca), inadequacy (Montaigne), heartbreak (Schopenhauer), and difficulties (Nietzsche).

Socrates was unpopular enough to be put to death but we can take comfort in the fact that he is still remembered, not his accusers. We can also take comfort in knowing that the injustices we face probably pale in comparison to those he endured.

Epicurus taught us that most of the best things in life, like friendship and knowledge, are free while magnificent wealth and power rarely satisfy. As he put it, “when measured by the natural purpose of life, poverty is great wealth; limitless wealth, great poverty” (70)

Seneca taught us that “what makes us angry are dangerously optimistic notions about what the world and other people are like.” Thus “our greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground rules of existence.” (83) But if we are prepared for the worst we will be less frustrated when bad things happen.

Montaigne taught us not to expect too much from ourselves because we are all ridiculous creatures. We feel inadequate largely because “conventional portraits” of ourselves “leave out so much of what we are.” (128) What is left out is that we are all primates who, despite supposedly noble ideas, spend most of our time caring for our bodies.

Schopenhauer said that the real foundation and purpose of romantic attraction and love is our biological drive to preserve the species. This knowledge helps comfort a broken heart because it shows that only biology has been temporarily thwarted. And it is a gift when pain yields knowledge.

And Nietzsche taught that misfortune is better for us than good fortune; we learn from obstacles and difficulties: “fulfillment is reached by responding wisely to difficulties that could tear [us] apart.” (230) What makes us feel good is not always good for us while what makes us feel bad is not bad for us. Joy may be proportional to the suffering one endures.

In short, even if we are unpopular, poor, frustrated, inadequate, heartbroken, or encounter difficulties, we can still live good lives. I recommend this book. I admire de Botton’s efforts to make philosophy practical and accessible. It is an easy and fun read which reminds us that thinking is a constitutive element of a good life.

My Biography

My Biography

CHILDHOOD AND PARENTS

My earliest memories are vivid and illicit nostalgia: the aroma of baked goods from my mother’s kitchen, a large cottonwood tree in our backyard, the smell of burning leaves in the fall, the glow of a real fireplace, sledding down the hills at the golf course up the street in the winter, and spring … when one could play baseball again. Was life ever better than when playing baseball? Or when playing sandlot football in the rain, snow, mud, and freezing cold? I don’t think so.

 Normandie Golf Course

I was loved by my parents more than I deserved—they loved me unconditionally. How indebted I am to them. My mother died on September 18, 2005 at the age of 86. She is no longer the beauty that stole my father’s heart in the 1930s; no longer the wife who waited through world war II for her husband to return; no longer middle age—but she was my first love, she was my father’s only love, and she was beloved by all her children.

My father died in 1989 at the age of 71, but not before he talked with me about politics, religion, history, sports and so much else. He labored physically for more than 50 years so that his family could have more than he did in his depression era youth. My parents did their best. They may not have received the wages due them—not many parents do—but they labored nonetheless. So now, after more than 50 years, I thank them for their labor and their love. My mother was comfort, consolation, and tenderness; my father was strength, guidance, and toughness. Both resonate within me still.

GRADE & HIGH SCHOOL (1961-1973)

A house like mine on the street I grew up on.

I grew up in Greendale, Missouri, a middle-class suburb of St. Louis in the midst of the baby boom. There were plenty of kids to play with and I grew up “with a ball in my hands,” as a childhood friend used to say. We played outside every day—baseball, soccer, and football mostly—since there wasn’t much to do inside back then. Our grade school soccer team won multiple city championships, and some of my soccer teammates went on to play college and professional soccer. (Needless to say, I was not among them.) Our baseball team was less successful, mostly because I was a pitcher who threw every ball right down the middle—with little or no velocity. As for football, I was “all-sandlot,” at least until we neared puberty when I found out I was too little for football. By high school, my sport of choice had changed to table tennis. I was lucky enough to play a number of the top-ranked players in the world, but I was beaten soundly by all of them.

 A picture of my high school, long since torn down.

The private high school I attended marked the beginning of my academic life. There I encountered the New England Transcendentalists—Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman—the first philosophers I had ever read. But it was the summer before college that marked the real beginning of my intellectual voyage. A good friend was a philosophy major and discussions with him awoken me, as Kant said of encountering Hume, from my dogmatic slumber. I realized that there was a world of ideas to explore. It was if a dam had broken within me, and I saw immediately the parochialism of the ideas to which I had been previously exposed. I was determined to explore this mindscape and die with as large a mind as possible.

COLLEGE – UNDERGRADUATE (1973-1978)

 The Univ. of Mo-St. Louis

My first semester of college, I eagerly enrolled in a class called, “Major Questions in Philosophy.” There I was introduced to Descartes’ epistemological skepticism, Hume’s critique of religion, and Lenin’s critique of the state. Wow! Knowledge, the gods, and the state all undermined in 16 weeks. I am not sure why I was open to new ideas, whereas so many cling to the first ideas they are exposed to, but I was hooked. Subsequently, I took the maximum number of philosophy courses possible; learning about Medieval, American, Modern, and Asian philosophy, and a bit of philosophy of religion, science, mind, and law from instructors like Edward Costello, Peter Fuss, Paul Gomberg, and David Griesedeck. In the meantime, I discovered women, and later, high stakes poker.

YOUNG ADULTHOOD & CHILDREN (1978-1986)

I headed off to Las Vegas with my poker winnings in 1979 and made a meager living playing poker over the next few years. On returning to St. Louis, I wooed my soon-to-be wife by the display of hundred-dollar bills I carried around in case a game surfaced. She was quite impressed, although less so when she found out that was all the money I had. (And that only 1 of the 4 doors on my dilapidated car opened!) But she married me in 1980, and during the next few years, we welcomed two beautiful children. We struggled financially during these years, as my poker income was inconsistent. By 1985 we had moved to Las Vegas where I dealt blackjack. However, the desert wasn’t to our liking and we moved back to St. Louis where I started graduate school in 1986. I wanted to go to Washington University in St. Louis, but unfortunately, I missed their deadline. So I accepted a graduate fellowship to St. Louis University, planning to switch schools. For a number of reasons, I never did switch.

GRADUATE SCHOOL (1986-1992)

 Dubourg Hall, St. Louis University

This is when I really became a good student. I raised kids, study hard, taught my own classes, and made some good friends. I learned much, both from my fellow graduate students—especially Darrell Arnold and John Ries—and from my professors—especially Richard J. Blackwell and William C. Charron. (For more on my professor’s influence see the “academic genealogy.”) I’ve always had mixed feelings about attending St. Louis University, which often leads people to mistakenly assume that I’m religious. The idea of attending a Catholic university sent shivers down my spine before I started, and still somewhat haunts me to this day. Yet, I received an excellent education there for which I am immensely grateful.

The other significant event was the addition of a new daughter in 1988. Like all my children, she has provided much joy.

POST-DOCTORAL (1992-PRESENT)

My first full-time job was at Ursuline College in Ohio—big mistake—both Ohio and the college. I rose to become chair of the philosophy department and had an office that overlooked the campus lake, but I wanted out of Cleveland—the weather there is horrific! Yet I did had some good students there, many of whom I recall fondly to this day.

(Especially Darcy A, Wendy W, Michelle F, Judy A, Donna O, Mary B, and Meredith V.S.)

 The view from my first office.

In 2000 I accepted a position as lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, where I taught in both the philosophy and computer science departments. In was while teaching at UT that I first realized the role that computer science would play in bringing about a future much different from the one I imagined. And I was always moved when walking through a quad whose main building has an inscription: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” But of course, this had no religious significance for me.

 Waggener Hall, UT-Austin

We left Austin in 2009 to follow our grown children to the Northwest—it was lonely in Texas without them. Since then I have taught part-time at a few different institutions, but now spend most of my time doing my own writing and research. I have left teaching behind, and have no desire to return. As the lyrics of an old Cat Stevens song say: “I’m not making love to anyone’s wishes, only for that light I see, Cause when I’m dead and lowered low in my grave, that’s gonna be the only thing that’s left of me.”

Today I live in Seattle, within walking distance of Puget Sound and the Space Needle. From my kitchen window, I can see both the Seattle skyline and Mount Ranier. Seattle is the best place I’ve ever lived. It is politically progressive and set in a breathtakingly beautiful natural setting—surrounded by snow-capped mountains, active volcanoes, undeveloped ocean coastlines, old-growth forests, temperate rain forests, alpine lakes, islands, waterfalls, and the Puget Sound fiord. Still, I wish I could live abroad, and long to die an expatriate, but for now, family obligations leave me in the United States.

My wife Jane has been the only woman I have ever loved, and we have been married for more than 35 years. She is an extraordinary woman in every conceivable way; intelligent, thoughtful, introspective, disciplined and conscientious, while at the same time possessing a heart full of warmth, compassion, and love. She is too good for this world. And, if all that is not enough, she is remarkably physically fit! I can’t keep up with her on our daily walks. For her, the most appropriate words are not my own, but the Bard’s:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments.

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me prov’d,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

Finally, as I look back over my life in search of its purpose, my sentiments are best echoed by the prose from the Prologue to Bertrand Russell’s autobiography. It is so beautiful that I long ago learned to recite it verbatim. (Which I can still do!)

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what

human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

Poem from Groundhog Day

[image error] [image error]

Groundhog Day has long been one of my very favorite movies. On one level it is a very funny movie; on another, it is a particular take on Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence. It is definitely a film that rewards rewatching. In fact, the legendary film critic Roger Ebert reviewed it twice and included it in his list of great movies. In his 2005 review he says:

“Groundhog Day” is a film that finds its note and purpose so precisely that its genius may not be immediately noticeable. It unfolds so inevitably, is so entertaining, so apparently effortless, that you have to stand back and slap yourself before you see how good it really is.

The film is about a jerk who slowly becomes a good man. Listen to Ebert again:

His journey has become a parable for our materialistic age; it embodies a view of human growth that, at its heart, reflects the same spiritual view of existence Murray explored in his very personal project “The Razor’s Edge[image error].” [Another of my favorite movies.] He is bound to the wheel of time, and destined to revolve until he earns his promotion to the next level. A long article in the British newspaper the Independent says “Groundhog Day” is “hailed by religious leaders as the most spiritual film of all time.”

The movie is about a guy named Phil, played by Bill Murray, who is living the same day over and over again. He is essentially immortal. In the scene below, Phil’s co-worker Rita, played by Andie McDowell, recites a few lines of poetry. Here are the lines that precede the ones she recites:

High though his titles, proud his name,

Boundless his wealth as wish can claim

Despite those titles, power, and pelf,

And here is the scene in which she recites the poem’s next lines:

The wretch, concentred all in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust from whence he sprung,

Unwept, unhonored , and unsung.

(from “Breathes There The Man,” an excerpt from “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,”

~ Sir Walter Scott.)

Scott is saying that no matter how famous or wealthy, narcissists are among the worst of humankind, and they will be remembered as such.

Brief reflection – How these lines apply to so many Republican politicians, their wealthy owners, and the sycophants that surround them both. We can only hope that the long arc of justice does move forward. But I have my doubts.

Walking in Nature

A reader sent me a beautiful description of the tranquility he finds walking in and communing with nature. It seems my friend has become a forest dweller in the Hindu tradition! I think that if we don’t find peace in this way, we probably won’t find it anywhere, for many seers and sages have found something vastly preferable in nature and solitude.

Here then are the words of a modern-day Thoreau.

I can heartily second Seneca’s suggestion of an outside walk, although I enjoy an opportunity not readily available. I live on 40 acres of mixed forest with a creek running across the middle. When I go outside, I am not confronted by the galling presence of even more members of this appalling species; I am surrounded by pure nature. I have rooted here; by walking over every square inch of this land, I have come to know it intimately. I recognize every tree; I know where different kinds of rock lie on the surface or just beneath it.

The blatant seasonal changes no longer attract my notice; now I recognize subtle shifts in the foliage with the passing seasons. Some places retain their green longer into the summer because the buildup of humus from the fallen leaves and needles holds more water. I note how the Douglas firs in some areas are dying, and make a note to thin the trees in that area so that the survivors will have enough sun and water to stay healthy.

In past years, I felt somewhat guilty about thinning the forest; every time I brought down a live tree, I felt like a murderer. But now I see the forest as a complete organism. The individual trees are only parts of the whole. I am nurturing the entire organism when I cut down a badly placed tree.

I see the sunlight reflecting off the foliage and see in my mind the photosynthesis taking place in the greenery. Carbon dioxide from the air and water brought up from the ground are energized by photons of light to build adenosine triphosphate molecules that are then used to power the activities of each cell. That energy goes into energy-bearing carbohydrates that spread between cells and help grow more cells. Bees and other insects collect some of those carbohydrates, drawing energy from them. Birds and lizards collect some of the insects, drawing energy from them. The energy from the sunlight spreads through the entire organism, nurturing it.

The forest is a huge calculator. It experiments with every square inch of ground, trying to find the perfect plant to place there. The precise conditions of sunlight, groundwater, and soil are all taken into the calculation, and the ideal plant grows in that place. Dozens of different species are scattered around the land, each in its own perfect place.

I have become part of this organism. I plant seedlings, water them in the summer, cut away thick brush, and clear away fuel to protect my forest in the event of a forest fire. The forest can live quite well without me, but my nurturing makes it stronger and more vigorous. The forest has sent its tendrils into my soul even as my hands have helped it grow. We are becoming one, the forest and I. We are both stronger for it, combining our “strength of life”, whose syntony is greater than the sum of our separate contributions. Communing with my forest renews my confidence in the overall goodness of the world. Let the humans stew in their own sewage; the natural world continues regardless of human idiocy.

Here on the same topic is one of my intellectual heroes, Will Durant.

We suspect that when our fires begin to burn low, we shall want the healing peace of uncrowded mountains and spacious fields. After every idea has had its day with us and we have fought for it not wisely or too well, we in our turn shall tire of the battle, and pass on to the young our thinning fascicle of ideals. Then we shall take to the woods; we shall make friends of the animals; we shall leave the world to stew in its own deviltry, and shall take no further thought of its reform.

Seneca “On Tranquility”

[image error] [image error]

Should we trouble those we love with our worries about the state of the world, environmental degradation, the possibility of nuclear war, etc.? Or does this disturb both ours and their tranquility? Such questions were posed recently by a friend who reminded me that such questions were long ago discussed by Seneca in his letter On The Tranquility Of The Mind[image error].

But gloomy people who deplore everything and find reason to complain you must take pains to avoid. With all his loyalty and good will, a grumbling and touchy companion militates against tranquility.

Now here I think that Seneca counsels us to avoid the cynics, not those who simply worry about pressing issues.  We might recall too that Seneca wrote:

If Fortune has removed you from the first rank in public affairs, stand your ground anyhow and help with the shouting. The efforts of a good citizen are never useless; by being seen and heard, by his expression, gesture, silent determination, by his very gait he is of service.

So we should share our thoughts with those who will listen, remembering that our influence on others is limited. Seneca  had such things in mind when he advised the “avoidance of labor for empty ends,” and that “every exertion must have some rationale and some objective.” Perhaps it is also nobler never to unburden ourselves with our worries. As he writes:

to get rid of the causes of personal sorrow gains us nothing, for sometimes hatred of the human race possesses us. When you reflect how rare simplicity is, how unknown innocence, how seldom faith is kept unless keeping it is good policy, when you recall the long calendar of successful crime  … then the mind is plunged into black night and darkness envelops us, as if the virtues were overthrown and we could no longer possess them or aspire to them. The trend of thought we ought to pursue therefore, is to make the common failings of the crowd not odious but ridiculous …. we ought to take the lighter view of these things and cultivate tolerance; it is more civilized to laugh at life than to lament over it. Further the man who laughs at the human race deserves more gratitude than the man who mourns over it, for he allows it hope of amelioration, whereas the foolish weeper despairs of the possibility of improvement.”

There is a lot to digest here, and I agree with most of it although sharing our troubles and listening to other’s burdens provides comfort to all. Surely this is worthwhile.

Also, I’m not sure that Seneca is right about connecting laughing with hope and mourning with despair. (I’ve written a lot about hope on this blog.) Those who laugh may be apathetic while the mourners might act.  So I don’t see a necessary connection between laughing and hoping, or lamenting and despairing

Still further writes that “We ought to take outdoor walks, to refresh and raise our spirits by deep breathing in the open air. Sometimes energy will be refreshed by a carriage ride, a journey, a change of scene, good company, and a more generous wine.”

Surely this is good advice. And in the end, I suppose that if we cultivate tranquil minds that will probably be better for everyone. Despite the tribulations of the world we do best to retain our equanimity.


 

Trump is an Existential Threat

Here are a few more pieces warning us about our (quite possible) forthcoming doom.

In “Trump is an existential threat — but we can’t give in to pessimism,” Conor Lynch writes that “Donald Trump could fulfill all the most dire prophecies of 20th-century theory.” But he asks us to reject the pessimism of most Frankfurt school theorists and embrace the cautious optimism and socialism of Albert Einstein, Eric Fromm, and Noam Chomsky.

But it is hard to turn our backs on pessimism. As Lynch writes:

the survival of the human race remains very much in doubt. Indeed, one has as much — if not more — reason to be pessimistic about the future of humanity in 2018 as critical theorists did in the 1940s. This is especially true when considering the current state of affairs in America, where the most powerful man in the country seems intent on accelerating humanity’s collective suicide. Donald Trump possesses all of the worst qualities found in humans — greed, ignorance, stupidity, arrogance, impulsiveness, myopic self-interest — and these characteristics have unfortunately flourished in our contemporary society. (The president is, in many ways, a reflection of our consumer capitalist culture.)

In this light consider Trump’s recent boast that his nuclear button was bigger than North Korea’s. In response

John Mecklin, editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which is known for its “Doomsday Clock,” observed that Trump’s tweets about North Korea are “an existential threat to humanity,” and could “increase the probability that North Korea will misinterpret normal military exercises as an attack and respond with force,” leading to worldwide thermonuclear war and “the end of the human experiment.”

But even if we escape an apocalypse brought about by this unstable man and his minions there is still plenty to fear.

If the president’s insane and impulsive tweeting doesn’t lead to the end of the human experiment, his right-wing policies will certainly help get us there — especially his environmental policies, which will exacerbate the man-made crisis of climate change. Last year, Noam Chomsky called Trump’s Republican Party “the most dangerous organization in world history,” noting that there has never been an organization in human history that is “dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organized human life on Earth.”

Still, Lynch asks us to remain optimistic since only that helps provide the impetus to act to save the world. If we don’t reject pessimism, Lynch argues “the “Doomsday Clock” — currently the closest it has been to midnight since the 1950s — will continue ticking until it is too late.”

And David Frum writes in the Atlantic that this is mostly the fault of the Republicans who enable Trump. In “Donald Trump Goes Full Fredo,” he notes that Trump’s character was well-known before his ascent to power:

Who and what Donald Trump is has been known to everyone and anyone who cared to know for years and decades. Before he was president, he was the country’s leading racist conspiracy theorist. Before he was the country’s leading racist conspiracy theorist, he was a celebrity gameshow host. Before he was a celebrity gameshow host, he was the multi-bankrupt least trusted name in real estate. Before he was the multi-bankrupt least trusted name in real estate, he was the protege of Roy Cohn’s repeatedly accused of ties to organized crime. From the start, Donald Trump was a man of many secrets, but no mysteries. Inscribed indelibly on the public record were the reasons for responsible people to do everything in their power to bar him from the presidency.

But none of this stop those who hope to use him:

What sustains Trump now is the support of people who know what he is, but back him anyway. Republican political elites who know him for what he is, but who back him because they believe they can control and use him; conservative media elites who sense what he is, but who delight in the cultural wars he provokes; rank-and-file conservatives who care more about their grievances and hatreds than the governance of the country …

Michael Wolff has done a crucial service, showing more intimately than any reporter yet the true nature of the man at the center of the American system. But without the complicity of other power-holders, Trump would drop from his central position like a tooth from a rotten gum. What we need to do now is widen the camera angle beyond Fredo Trump to the hard-faced men and women over his shoulders. Those are the people who put Trump where he is, and keep him there, corrupting the institutions of American democracy and troubling the peace and security of the world.

I wish I could do something to change all this, but I cannot. For those who do have the power to stop all this madness, I hope they have the courage necessary.

2018 is the year that will decide if Trumpocracy replaces American democracy

Reading legitimate journalism every day leaves me feeling that we are indeed descending into totalitarianism. I don’t know enough about the powers pushing back against this assault on representative government and the rule of law to know if they can contain this threat. I don’t know enough about the FBI, CIA, Justice Department, Supreme Court, etc. to know what they can and will try to do. But I wish that Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and other wealthy, powerful, Patriots come to our rescue before its too late—before they find their own funds frozen. I wish somebody would save us.

Here are a few of the most insightful pieces I’ve read in the last 24 hours.

In “2018 is the year that will decide if Trumpocracy replaces American democracy: Loyalty to Donald Trump is the new principle of Republican Party politics.” Vox’s Matthew Yglesias explains how blind loyalty their leader is undermining democratic governance.

In “It’s Been an Open Secret All Along,” the Atlantic’s James Fallows notes that “the scandal of Michael Wolff’s new book isn’t its salacious details—it’s that everyone in Washington has known its key themes, and refused to act.”

In  “” the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart sums up his insights about Wolff’s depiction of White House dsyfunction by quoting the celebrated journalist H.L. Mencken,

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

In “Faust on the Potomic” the New York Times’ Paul Krugman concludes:

What this means, among other things, is that expecting the GOP to exercise any oversight or constrain Trump in any way is just foolish at this point. Massive electoral defeat – massive enough to overwhelm gerrymandering and other structural advantages of the right – is the only way out.

And a smaller piece of the puzzle that is easy to miss. In “” the Washington Posts’  Catherine Rampell comments on the Republican effort to undermine the census as another way of undermining democracy. When they get the census they want Wyoming will be more populated than California! (An aside. Did you know that Roy Moore won 6 of 7 congressional districts in the recent Alabama senate race because the districts are gerrymandered to assure that 6 congressional representatives will always be Republican.)

I simply can’t let occupy more of my consciousness. I want to think about big things before they arrest us all.

Finally,  here is a joke that describes our current situation.

A guy falls from a 50-story building. As he flies by the 25th floor, someone asks how it’s going. “So far, so good!” he says.

 

“We’re rushing toward the breaking point” ~ E.J. Dionne

Here are just a few of the articles I’ve read in the last 24 hours about the threats to our democratic government which is slowly eroding and descending toward totalitarianism.

In “” the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne points to a problem with media coverage of Trump,

There has been an inclination over the past year in both politics and journalism to separate Trump’s tweets and other outbursts from the realities of governing. … But we are past the time when we can believe any of this. Trump is, without question, doing enormous damage to the United States’ standing in the world, and his strategy for political survival is rooted in a willingness to destroy our institutions. … we must face the fact that Trump is accelerating us toward the breaking point.

Dionne’s main point is that the actions Trump is taking to hold on to power at any cost are just as threatening to democratic government as is his general unfitness for the position he holds, his tweets, his mania, his childishness, etc. We can hope that special counsel Robert S. Mueller saves us,

Yet doing so means continuing to absorb Trump’s blows to our system and to our country’s influence around the globe. It also requires great faith in our capacity for restoration despite the readiness of the president’s allies to place his survival above the health of our polity.

As Dionne concludes,

The United States does have extraordinary gifts for self-correction. But we must face the fact that Trump is accelerating us toward the breaking point. No matter how confident we are in our resilience, we should not imagine otherwise. Not even Mueller has a button on his desk he can press to get us out of this without scars.

Here are a few other fine pieces:

In “Donald Trump’s Year of Living Dangerously: It’s worse than you think” Politico’s Susan B. Glasser details how Trumps ignorance, and his indifference to that ignorance, has led diplomats to call him: “insane,” “catastrophic,” “terrifying,” “incompetent” and “dangerous.”

Evan Osnos’s article in the New Yorker reveals how Trump cites a Chinese think tank which views the Trump administration as comprised of hostile “cliques,” with the most powerful being the “Trump family clan.” The further describe it using the term “jiatianxia,” which means “to treat the state as your possession.”

As the Brookings Institution Benjamin Wittes wrote recently, in a particularly chilling yet still hopeful read that

The president of the United States—as John Bellinger warned as early as December 2015 and as I elaborated on in March of 2016—remains the principal threat in the world to the national security of the United States. His aspirations are as profoundly undemocratic and hostile to the institutions of democratic governance as they have ever been. He announces as much in interview after interview, in tweet after tweet. The president has not changed, and he will not change. Whether he has grown or will grow is not even an interesting question.

Consider that Trump has already this year called on the Justice Department to “finally act” against Huma Abedin and James B. Comey. Needless to say, prosecuting political enemies is what authoritarians do.

Jonathan Chaidt’s “2018 Will Be a Fight to Save Democracy,” points to Trump’s

recent interview with The New York Times in which he spoke admiringly of autocratic tactics like using law enforcement for political ends. “The president,” as Chait points out, “explained his belief that the Department of Justice on principle ought to cover up crimes by the president and his administration.” Trump clearly believes that he is above the law.

I also encourage you to purchase a new book that will be published in a few week titled, “How Democracies Die,” written by two Harvard political scientists. The book’s promotional material states, “a bracing, revelatory look at the demise of liberal democracies around the world — and a road map for rescuing our own.”

I could go on and on but I caution all my readers, especially young ones, to carefully monitor this situation. It is easy not to care if African Americans or Native Americans are denied the rule of law. But an autocratic state threatens all of us—privileged children too.

Summary of Clement Vidal’s, “The Beginning and the End: The Meaning of Life in a Cosmological Perspective”

The Beginning and the End: The Meaning of Life in a Cosmological Perspective is the latest book by Clement Vidal, a member of the Evolution, Complexity and Cognition Group at the Free University in Brussels, Belgium. In it Vidal investigates a most important question—whether modern scientific cosmology can satisfy our search for meaning in life. The book is a carefully and conscientiously crafted work of immense scope and daring imagination, one of the most important and timely books I’ve recently read.

A briefest overview is as follows. Chapter 1 conducts a broad study of the philosophical method whose major aim, Vidal concludes, is to construct worldviews–comprehensive and coherent answers to big questions. Where do we come from? Where are we going? What should we do? What does it all mean? Chapter 2 develops criteria to test the strengths and weaknesses of these worldviews; Chapter 3 applies these criteria to various religious, philosophical and scientific worldviews; Chapters 4-6 investigate the question of the origin of the cosmos; chapters 7-8 study the question of the future of the cosmos; chapter 9 the question of whether we are alone in the cosmos; and Chapter 10 the possibility of a cosmological ethics.

Vidal is aware of the speculative nature of his work, but he reminds us that speculation plays a large part in the scientific and philosophical enterprises, speculation aims to solve scientific or philosophical problems. He knows his speculations could turn out to be wrong, but given the choice between careful speculation or silence, Vidal chooses the former. And we are glad he did. For his assiduous scholarship reveals the possibility that a scientific cosmology can provide a narrative which gives life meaning. A narrative so desperately needed as old mythological ones have become increasingly passé. And we are privileged to journey along with a well-ordered and visionary mind as it contemplates perhaps the most important question of our time—how do we find meaning in the cosmos revealed by modern science.

Chapter 1 – Vidal begins by arguing “that having a coherent and comprehensive worldview is the central aim of philosophy.” (Vidal, 2) This contrasts sharply with (Continental) philosophy’s investigation of subjectivity, or (British) philosophy’s logical analysis. To better understand his synthetic philosophy Vidal introduces six dimensions of philosophy. Those dimensions are the:

1) Descriptive – What exists? Where did it come from? Where is it going? Describing or modeling reality depends on our current scientific understanding.

2) Normative – What should we do? What is good and what is evil? How do we live well? What is a good society? What is the purpose and meaning of life?

3) Practical – How do we act in accord with our values to solve practical problems?What is our theory of action?

4) Critical (epistemological) – What is true and false? What is the nature and limits of knowledge?

5) Dialectical – How do we answer the previous question? By engaging in a debate or dialogue with opposing positions–a dialectic.

6) Synthetic – This final dimension of philosophy provides the comprehensive and coherent synthetic worldview–a synthesis.

Following the Belgian philosopher Leo Apostel, Vidal argues that a complete worldview will comprise these six elements. And it is crucial to have a worldview because they sustain us and give meaning to our lives. Individuals lacking worldviews suffer psychologically, and without rational worldviews irrational ones will arise to fill the need. Yet it is so difficult to express a rational worldview that many philosophers have been content to reject them all—skeptics—or accept them all—syncretists. Nonetheless Vidal will try to articulate a synthetic worldview.

Chapter 2 develops criteria to test the strengths and weaknesses of these worldviews.

In order to derive criteria to evaluate worldviews, Vidal takes three perspectives into account. The 1) objective or scientific; 2) subjective, existential, or phenomenological; and 3) intersubjective, social or cultural. These perspectives mirror the concerns of Kant’s three critiques, Popper’s three worlds, and Weber’s cultural spheres of value. The three perspectives distinguish between the objects of knowledge, the subjects who assimilate knowledge, and the communication process to transmit knowledge among subjects. “… the criteria can be seen as tools for philosophers to describe the history of philosophy, to work out their own philosophical position, or to clarify disagreements.” (Vidal, 18) Vidal draws heavily on Nicholas Rescher’s standards for evaluating philosophical theories to derive the criteria:

Objective criteria

Objective consistency  – The worldview exhibits internal and systemic consistency.

Scientificity – The worldview is compatible with science.

Scope – The worldview addresses a broad range of issues and levels,

in breadth and in-depth.

Subjective criteria

Subjective consistency – The worldview fits knowledge and experiences individuals already have.

Personal utility – The worldview promotes a personally rewarding outlook on life.

Emotionality  – The worldview evokes emotions so that it is more likely to be

assimilated and applied.

Intersubjective criteria

Intersubjective consistency – The worldview reduces conflicts between individuals.

Collective utility  – The worldview encourages an outlook on life and mobilizes

for what is socially beneficial.

Narrativity – The worldview presents its messages in the form of stories.(Vidal, 20)

Vidal’s subsequent discussion points out the strengths and weaknesses of each criterion. For instance: objective consistency informs a good worldview but overemphasizing it leads to a formalism that limits creativity; we must take modern science into account, yet dismissing non-scientific domains of knowledge leads to scientism; if the scope of a worldview is too narrow the resulting worldview becomes over specialized, but as the scope expands synthetic integration becomes more difficult. Similarly the breadth or depth of the worldview can be too narrow or too broad.

When discussing the subjective and intersubjective criteria, Vidal also highlights how each component is an important part of a worldview, but that no criteria are sufficient by itself. He concludes by arguing that these criteria allow us to judge some worldviews as better than others. For instance, continental philosophy generally ignores objective criteria while analytic philosophy often ignores subjective criteria.

Here are some things the three basic criteria illuminate. “… we humans are involved in three kinds of conflicts: against nature (objective), against ourselves (subjective), and against others (intersubjective) … objective criteria require that the worldview not be in friction with the outside world; subjective criteria require that the worldview not be in friction with an individual’s common knowledge and actions; and intersubjective criteria require that the worldview minimizes friction between individuals … A worldview that fits well in the three worlds has more chances to be accepted, appealing, and useful. Ideally, it would give rise to the following benefits: A consistent conception of the world (objective benefit); a lifeworld providing a meaning for life, useful for living a good life (subjective benefit); and a worldview whose foundations are fit for a well-organized society, where few conflicts arise (intersubjective benefit). Most importantly, those three worlds would be synthesized as far as possible in a coherent and comprehensive framework, thus forming a synthetic worldview. If we sum up the use of the three-perspectives criteria, we come to the goal of minimizing friction: a good worldview has a minimum of friction within and between objective, subjective, and intersubjective worlds.” (Vidal, 36-37)

With an understanding of the criteria a good worldview will satisfy, Vidal will turn in Chapter 3 to assessing various religious, scientific and philosophical worldviews.

3.1 Religious Worldviews –  Vidal now invokes his criteria to test various worldviews. To demonstrate how the process works he compares intelligent design (ID) with flying spaghetti monsterism (FSM).  They are both objectively consistent and equally unscientific, although ID is larger in scope. ID does better in terms of subjective consistency,  since the designer of ID is amorphous, while FSM has a very specific designer. ID is also more useful and emotionally satisfying, as it is disgusting to think that a monster designed the world. FSM is more intersubjectively consistent since it has not killed millions, but ID is collectively more useful. ID’s narratives are more developed than those of FSM.  From this analysis we can conclude that ID is a better worldview than FSM. (Of course it may be a much worse worldview than others.)

Now that we have a sense of how these comparisons work we can consider religious worldviews in general. Religions usually excel in personal and collective utility, emotionality and narrativity. “… a religious worldview gives meaning, provides answers to fundamental questions, and has a pragmatic value in terms of both psychological benefits and social cohesion.” (Vidal, 43) Yet religions have few rational methods to resolve conflict—hence the ubiquity of religious conflict—and they are generally low on objective criteria, their tenets often contradict known scientific truths. They typically respond by invoking a god of the gaps, using god to explain current gaps in scientific knowledge. (This strategy is notoriously weak, as the gaps are continually closed causing religion to continually retreat.) In short religions are generally much better with subjective and intersubjective criteria than with objective criteria.

3.2 Scientific Worldviews – The strength of science is apparent–it constructs our best models of what is, where it came from, and where it’s going. It is strong in precisely those areas religion is weak. (I would say this is because science is the only cognitive authority in the world today.) But science often ignores integrating its models with questions of value, actions, knowledge, and meaning. Essentially, science is strong regarding objective criteria but less so regarding the subjective and intersubjective.

3.3 Philosophical Worldviews – In order to correct the flaws in their various worldviews, theologians try to develop theologies more consistent with science, while scientists may expand their worldviews to include values, emotions, and meanings. Building a naturalistic worldview entails starting with objective, scientific principles, and extending them to include the subjective and intersubjective. For Vidal this is the essence of a philosophical worldview.

Vidal now examines three analogies to help us grasp how to build comprehensive and coherent worldviews. First, consider worldview questions as an axiomatic system where worldview answers are structures satisfying the axioms. Many philosophies and religions use axioms such as god, immortality, or freedom as postulates in their systems. In general scientific worldviews are coherent but incomplete; religious worldviews are relatively complete but incoherent. Second, consider worldview questions as a system of equations. In this model solving philosophical questions about worldviews compares to solving intricate sets of equations.  Third, consider worldview questions as problems to solve. In this case, we might employ problem-solving techniques to resolve these problems.

Now that we have some idea of what it entails to develop a philosophical worldview, Vidal’s next task is to reformulate worldview questions in light of modern science.

In Chapter 4 Vidal turns to issue of the beginning of the universe. Answers to these questions are no doubt found in the realm of science. “Modern science can successfully connect physical and chemical evolution with biological and cultural evolution … Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that science is an effective method to understand cosmic evolution.” (Vidal, 59) But the multiple challenges for any ultimate explanations include:

a) epistemological – What are the epistemological characteristics of an ultimate theory? Are all ultimate theories either circular or infinite regresses?

b) metaphysical – Why not nothing? Why is there something rather than nothing?

c) thermodynamic – Where does the energy of the universe come from, and how will it end? Can something come from nothing?

d) causal – What was the causal origin of the universe? Was it self-caused? Is its causal chain infinite?

e) infinities – Is the universe spatially finite or infinite? Is it temporally finite or infinite?

Vidal begins by discussing a foundational starting point for the universe–a cause which does not need another cause. Examples of points include a god or the big bang. By invoking a creator god one avoids an infinite regress (the idea that the chain of causation goes back infinitely) but one can still ask  questions like: “Where did God come from?” “What was god doing before he created the universe?” Theologians often answer that God is self-caused. Of course one could say the Big Bang was a self-caused starting point too.

To avoid these issues we might assume the origin of the universe has no foundation–that ultimate explanations are cyclical. Cyclical thinking is found in various disciplines: recursive proofs in mathematics and computer science; networks of meaning in linguistics; and feedback loops in systems theory. (Jean Piaget thought that all of the sciences ground each other in a “circle of the sciences.) Might cyclic cosmologies like those of the Stoics and Hindus better explain the origins of the universe? The problems with cyclic theories are many. Cycles appear to have no endpoint, and thus don’t supply an ultimate explanation. Cycles also imply an eternal return–an endless repetitive cycle.

To fully engage these deep issues Vidal encourages us to take current cosmological theories seriously. “It is crucial to take seriously our best theories to answer our questions about origins. Major physical theories like quantum mechanics or general relativity can have counterintuitive consequences, which nevertheless we must take into account. Such theories are more reliable than intuitions coming from our brains, which are mere products of biological evolution. The brain is well adapted to recognize cycles in natural environments or to recognize starting points in human actions, but not to guess what happened in the Big Bang era.”(Vidal, 75)

Vidal concludes that building scientific models involves the interaction of the external system and an observer who constructs models of that system. And understanding how observers model the world gives us the best chance to avoid the cognitive biases that lead us astray.

Chapters 5 and 6 continue to investigate the question of the origin of the cosmos. Perhaps the most important result for the average reader is that the argument for a fine-tuned universe is inconclusive. The discussion in chapters 4-6 leads to the question of the future of the cosmos in Chapters 7 and 8; the question of whether we are alone in the cosmos in Chapter 9; and Chapter 10 the possibility of a cosmological ethics. There are simply so many profound and novel ideas in these chapters that I’ll leave them to the readers of the book to explore.

The crescendo of the work appears in the last section’s discussion of immortality, where Vidal distinguishes five kinds of immortality:

1) Spiritual – The belief in a supernatural realm where a non-physical soul “goes” after death. This belief is widespread and appealing, but anathema to the rationalistic mind.

2) Individual – The belief that we can be biologically or digitally immortal. Vidal suggests that motivation for individual immortality arises primarily because we are cultural creatures. Our genes survive to a large extent but “most of the information we gather during our lifetime is cultural and gets lost at the time of death. And this is pure waste.” (Vidal, 298) The way out of this problem is biological or digital immortality or some combination of the two.  Critics question whether cybernetic immortality is possible without embodiment, whether it’s worth it to live in a simulation, whether its cost will be prohibitive, whether death is good because it motivates us, etc. But Vidal suggests that immortality would force us to worry about things like climate change and the death of our sun and universe since we will live into the far future.  Still, we don’t need to be immortal to have transpersonal concerns–we can care about others who will live on after we have died. And the same with our projects, concerns, and goals. If they take many generations to achieve, then our deaths do not undermine them.  Such considerations lead us to consider transpersonal immortality in three different varieties.

3) Creative – The belief that immortality can be achieved by leaving a cultural legacy. The main problem here is that even the achievements of an Aristotle, Shakespeare or Darwin may be forgotten in thousands or millions of years.

4) Evolutionary – The belief that immortality can be achieved by leaving a biological legacy. For example, we are almost immortal at the level of the genes and are potentially immortal as part of a global brain. But even this is not enough if there are cosmological constraints on the immortality of the universe.

5) Cosmological – The belief that true immortality can only be achieved by a connection between ourselves and the immortality of the cosmos. But can the universe continue indefinitely? Perhaps universes could reproduce other universes ad infinitum, or our descendants will become smart enough to determine the fate of the cosmos. Vidal believes that we can be concerned with the issue of cosmological immortality, we can see the immortality of the cosmos as our ultimate goal.

My reflections – Let me conclude by stating my belief that only with cosmic immortality can complete meaning in life be found. And I agree with Vidal that this is our ultimate goal—the creation and continuation of a good, meaningful, immortal cosmos.

Finally, let me reiterate what I said about this work previously. It is a carefully and conscientiously crafted work of immense scope and daring imagination, one of the most important and timely books of the last few decades. Vidal is aware of the speculative nature of his work, but he reminds us that speculation plays a large part in the scientific and philosophical enterprises. He knows his ruminations may turn out to be wrong, but given the choice between careful speculation or silence, Vidal chooses the former. And we are glad he did. For his assiduous scholarship reveals the possibility that a scientific cosmology can provide a narrative which gives life meaning. A narrative so desperately needed as the old mythological ones become increasingly passé. And we are privileged to journey along with his well-ordered and visionary mind as it contemplates perhaps the most important question of our time—how do we find meaning in the cosmos revealed by modern science.