Belief and reason

What is the difference between belief and reason?

I recently put my argument about religion being belief over reason (something I cannot hold with) to my father who asked me, "what's the difference between belief and reason?". A thoroughly fair question and one, I'm sorry to say, I'd had 2 too many beers to deal with fully and correctly. Such is so often the way with philosophy, I find.

Reason is a combination of axioms and the scientific method. The scientific method involves the formulation of theorems by extrapolation from axioms or other theorems, then performance of experiments to show that the theorem holds (or otherwise).

As an aside - a single (repeatable) experiment will disproves a theory and will therefore produce more theories to fill the gap, but all the experiments in the world cannot prove a theorem. This means science can never be 'right'. Hmm..

Belief is the trust that axioms hold. So even accepting reason's other faults, it is based on some axiom or other.

There is one major difference I can hold up between religious belief and belief in axioms of reason: the axioms of reason are available to be questioned. Until just before Einstein's time, everyone thought that parallel lines didn't cross (an axiom of Euclidean geometry) but some Russian duo decided to prove that you can change the Euclidean axioms and still have a working mathematical system. This work lead into Riemann geometries, Leibniz' work and Einstein's relativity equations.

This only illustrates the availability of reason, but by comparison religion is a closed shop. I mean, wow! Some Americans even still teach creationism as truth! Some of the details of which are as laughable as Pratchett's space-turtle.

So, the answer is this: belief is knowledge which is unavailable to inquiry, reason is fully available to anyone to be experimented with at will.

important thoughts on psychopathy

I recently read Dawkins' God Delusion, which I recommend, despite it's failings. It got me thinking about how he was so inspired by The Origin of Species. It's not been copernican for me - in fact Dawkins' own book was more so. Later that night I got to thinking (Sex in the City reference) about how OoS didn't stir many of my minds patterns, but Dawkins' less seminal offering did. We all have different models in our heads (pattern machines etc.) and the various inputs will prod them in different ways (Dawkins for me, OoS for him).

Suddenly patterns formed and it hit me: the reason we aren't psycho's is that from a Freudian view, our feedback loop is very short. We observer ourselves inside our heads and feed back before we externalize anything. For psycho corps, the feedback loop is immensely long and has a greater chance that stuff will be externalized before being internally scrutinized. The super-ego of a large corp is hobbled!

I like Freud, despite his lack of rigor. He was a model maker. The model he made worked and fitted and helped a lot of people. Perhaps study of the human mind might learn things from the method Freud employed to model the human mind.

Oh God!

Well, does this concept exist in reality?

I have read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. Quite a good book despite being, by his own admission, totally partisan.

Ok, agnosticism: I reject the idea that science cannot examine/answer the question of the existence of god. Any part of 'the universe' that is a cause for effects within 'the universe' must be examinable and therefore, in principle, there must be an answer. I would tend towards placing agnosticism on a completely different axis to belief. Whatever your strength of your belief in the existence or otherwise of god, you may have serious doubts in the evidence for god's existence. For example, as a friend of mine once said (perhaps quoting someone else), "I cannot scientifically justify it, but that doesn't matter, I believe he exists". This suggests strong belief and strong agnosticism. The same could be true of other permutations too: "the case for/against is strong, but regardless I believe he does/doesn't exist".

So, do I believe? No, I don't. I have never believed, despite various attempts to induce me to do so (including Sunday school at a young age). However, I never really cared much, either. I think the popular term is something like 'Apatheism'. Turning to Dawkins' book, the real Copernican revolution amongst his arguments was when he pointed out the wrongness of teaching religion. Teaching children that belief should outrank reason is clearly wrong. If belief were to always win, then we would never have identified cures for illnesses, never have invented flight, never have discovered nuclear power (yeah, that last step's a doozy - but it's not an out-and-out negative. I'm sorry, you're going to have to think about it). The benefits of reason over belief are clear. We should always teach children to question and investigate. So, now I believe that religion is a negative force.

Of course, there is one thing that religion is good for: 'opium of the people', I think was the term that Marx used (I am, of course, referring to the 'baby-doping' interpretation). There are (at least we are told) people who would follow any crackpot regardless of religion. That there are just plain bad, or stupid people. Yeah, maybe - I've never moved in those circles. The assertion that giving these people 'good' religious ethics suggests that we're brainwashing them into being good people. Let's assume that most religious ethics are good, "don't kill", "don't steal", "be nice", etc. It's a great pity some religious leaders have cut their sedative with speed!

Flow

Dr. Csikszentmihalyi wrote a book, published in 1990 and passed onto my bookshelf last year from a friend. My friend disliked it and, although we both wanted to like it, I am finding it hard going. The book in questions is 'Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience'.

We all know what 'flow' is! It's that state when you're completely engrossed in what you are doing. He sites chess masters, rock climbers and computer programmers as excellent examples of people who regularly experience flow.

The problem I have is that the entire text is so easy to pick holes in, it's even occasionally insulting, that I cannot take it seriously enough to properly understand and research it.

The main thing that I think he confuses is 'optimal experience' and day-to-day feel-good. I don't think it's possible to experience flow whilst pulling up your pants (for example). Oh, I despair of writers with a good idea that just go and spoil it with confusion.

More on Corporate Psychopathy.

Firstly, capitalism: it seems to be a method by which the big psychopaths can trade blows. It seems to be a reasonably successful structure.

Secondly, innovation: I think we might be held back by the structure of capitalism. Large corporations must make money. To this end, product lines must have managed life cycles. Planned obsolescence has to happen in order for the next raft of products to make a market impact. The corollary of this is that any product should never be too advanced such that the corp can't force it into obsolescence. Something too advanced will create a risk that you can't make the next big thing and also that there will not be a high enough perceived benefit of upgrade. There is therefore no urgent need for a company to innovate particularly fast. Finally, the other argument I have to throw in is the big-company internal communication. Senior mgt says: "make me something innovative". Middle mgt hears: "make me something saleable". Analysis bods are told to point-increment an existing product. Project leaders are given an aggressive budget and the point increment is delivered late and below spec. However, the reports going back up the chain now show glowing results, perhaps new buzzwords, etcetera and everyone is happy.

All except me, who is wondering... C+P to a new post on ETW.

Wrong way round

I'm approaching philosophy from the wrong direction, but I am doing so conciously. I know that the 'usual' form is to establish a basis upon which to build knowledge probably commencing with an arguement about what can be established as basic, undeniable truth. I have started with the premise that human cognition is based on pattern-matching. Obviously this is a mid-tier starting point, based on physical investigations into the structure of the human brain and simplified computer models of such scructures.

Firstly, in my defense: nowhere is it written that you have to start at the bottom and work up or that one method is more valid than the next. Secondly, I'll have a go at a starter on the bottom-up approach. I think I have something to say here today.

Hume seems to hold complete scepticism that our senses give us any real information. Rationalism seems to back this up with knowledge being completely separate from the real world. Kant says that a synthesis of experience and reason (sensual information and conceptualisation of that information) is the root fo knowledge. Thereafter within the history of philosophy, I don't know.

I tend to agree that doubting our senses is an irrelevant line of arguement. I think it is clear that I have a thing called 'my experience'. 'My experience' is based on something. If the seeming of that something is not representitive of 'the thing in itself' then we would not be able to infer any form of continuity within the world. This implies the circular argument that there is something I can call 'my experience'. In 'my experience' there is continuity. Because of continuity, our experience of the 'thing in itself' must at least be representative.

AEtherial Relativity

Hmm, it occurs to me that Einstein's theory of general relativity suggests an aether. Perhaps not the aether of substance that Newton postulated, but without a concept of aether what exactly is 'bent' by massive objects?

Corporate psychopathy

Let us at first say that a business can be treated as an entity practically independent of the people who comprise it. This entity has a personality. It appears that the bigger the company becomes, the more psychopathic it appears.

A company must play two games: one of image and one of balance sheet. There is no reason that a company must necessarily be psychopathic because of this duality, however let's have a look at how this disjoint might develop. Imagine now that you have a large corporate and that the upper mgt are playing the image game. Yes, the business might issue edicts to attempt to ensure ethicacy or environmental awareness or any other 'good' thing. This will filter down the ranks with some impact. However, once you get a couple of stages removed, you will probably find younger, less experiences or even just less competent people. The obvious way to make a name in a big company is to do one of two things: save money (limit a liability) or make money (exploit an asset). In fact, this is written into most contracts of employment with performance related pay or ongoing appraisals. So somewhere around the 'doing' level, the 'good' policy will be unknown, side-stepped or just plain ignored.

Fairtrade is an interesting concept. Do you think that supermarket buyers will go out to win a bad deal for their corporate? Or do you think, rather, that some method of side-stepping will be employed such that the buyer can show they haven't damaged the corporate's bottom line? I can think of one simple sidestep: pass on the markup, and even better you could add a bit of extra margin on top! Woo, image win, bottom line win. Ethical or manipulative? Who created the need for Fairtrade in the first place?

This illustration of psychopathic tendency of a larger organisation can be applied across the board in practically all situations. As Pinel put it, rational and morally neutral but without restraint or remorse.

Smaller organisations have fewer people. They generally more closely resemble the individuals that work there. Cheating scumbags aside, people who run their own businesses want to do well, but also do right. Within such a small organisation there's less disjoint between policy and implementation. So they act more humanely.

So what? Well, I'm suggesting that larger organisations need control more than smaller ones. Control needs to be external to those entities because they cannot have any themselves. This is a political point for governments, although these are immense entities themselves, a dilemma! Yes, big business will probably baulk at more control and stamp their feet. Jobs might suffer, but I suggest that in the long run, keeping psychopaths carefully controlled is probably a good thing. The corollary of this is that smaller businesses require humane treatment by the policy makers of government.

Of course, this is all practically impossible because government is a psychopath too! Ah well, nice thought wasn't it?

Howto code emotively

Let's assume Pirsig's assertions that quality is undefinable and that it sits as a parent to both qualititive and quantitive activities (romantic and classical, respectively). It's interesting that the lexicon is not quite good enough to have quality separate from the romantic side in this case, when quality has to be linked completely to both, if the assertion holds - but I digress.

Therefore, if the objective of any activity is to achieve a high quality result, one has to *do* both the analytical side and the emotional side.

This is a weird proposition for/from a positively analytical being such as myself. How can one apply one's emotions against a piece of computer code?

The answer is one that is based in the assertions of the eldar codemonkies of yesteryear (or at least the good ones). Programming is art. So much of it is to do with feel. One could, given sufficient time and motivation, abstract into infinitum. It's simple to add more and more flexibility to any piece of code. Performance (speed/size) can almost always be improved. But at some point, the sage will say, 'stop' (if he's feeling particularly poetic he might add, 'I am at peace and the code is finished, the one necessitates the other').

Philosophical/Psychological investigation.

Baby steps here, nothing profound..

Descartes said, 'I think therefore I am' (only in Latin an slightly more open to interpretation). As Hume would have it, nothing exists outside our minds, because we cannot prove otherwise - it's all in our imagination(s). Kant said a lot of things in such impenetrable language that it's hard to know, but I get the feeling he added the suggestion of a-priori ideas as the basis of human minds being separate from the world - not limiting the world. The world is definately there without a human to observe it, humans just add the classification of all things (like Plato's ideas).

Biologically, we know that the cells of a brain operate as a neural net. Making rudimentart neural nets in software, we know that they're damn good at pattern matching. So it's totally plausable to guess that the Platonic ideas are human patterns that are used to make sense of the world. Now, here's something that jumped to mind. Mpegs store movies as a single frame, followed by a number of changed to that frame, then another single frame followed by changes. Imagine our generic pattern as the frame, then add in changes to that frame to constitute a specific tree, or dog or whatever. This could be quite an efficient method of storing data (potentially a neural net would be very good at this too).

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Good grief!! What a good book!

The comparison of the groovy, arty world with the grey, techie world was relevant in the '70s and I think remains relevant today. Not only do you get a book on the philosophical combination of the two, you get a stimulating story (mostly autobiographical, i believe) of an exceptional life, combined with a road-trip. The three are necessarily interwoven in a style which reflects the conclusions about Quality drawn in the book. Classic and romantic in unison.

So, why do computer people claim programming is an art? Programming is one of the most classically defined subjects on the planet, yet it's artisans claim an emotive compulsion. How?

Well, how should one sculpt an elephant? The unattributed answer (I wish I knew where it came from), is to take a large block of marble and remove all the bits that don't look like an elephant. Seems ridiculous, but there might be a nugget in here somewhere (possibly unintended). The artist works with the idea of an elephant and works the marble to achieve this idea (Emmanual Kant's a-priori elephant - there was a man who knew how to think complex thoughts). A programmer does similar. There exists the idea of a computing solution, and the programmer works the code to achieve this idea. An artisan in computing produces a beautiful expression of that idea and, much like a sculptor, a bad programmer will produce something that only vaguely resembles the idea.

But this only brushes the surface of computing. Beauty can exist in the HCI element of the program, in the code itself, in the aesoteric concepts pulled together to work in harmony. Yeah, computing is an art..

3 aspects

I was thinking in the bath the other night, incidentally an excellent place for it - probably better than the loo! I had in my mind the three parts of Freudian psychology: id, ego and super-ego - but I was thinking about the strands of philosophy that might be influenced by the, 'human condition'. The outcome was this: there are 3 parts to the human makeup: logical, emotional and moral - corresponding to Freud's model respectively.

The id is purely logical in that cause leads to effect and the effect is either correct or incorrect. Emotion is an order of magnitude more complex in that an effect is either agreeable or disagreeable. The super-ego is a moral watchdog in that the effect is either right or wrong.

Herein I must disagree with Freud, because a baby will use both the id and the ego to operate. The baby might not be able to project these logical and emotional strands onto others or far into the future, but that comes with practice. However, the super-ego must come last (or at least mature later) because moral questions just feel to damn complex, even to a fully mature and reasonably well adjusted human.

So, how can I test or prove any of this? Well, put simply, you can't. It is a nice theory and might prove a useful model, but you can't prove anything in psychology (beyond a few bio-chemical reactions). But I guess I ought to generate some research to back up my theory. I also probably want to show practical uses of the theory.

Ok, so - I want to demonstrate the separate nature of the logical, emotional and moral aspects of human nature. I suspect I would want to show (statistically) that the responses from each separate strand are predictable (in a 'normal' human being). Next might be to demonstrate cases of the lack of any one of these aspects (lack of the moral aspect springs to mind as the easiest to show). Perhaps on the back of that, some method for improving the responses from the 'under-developed' aspect(s).

Well, there's more to show on the psychology front, but applying this to the philosophy side is really where I started with this whole thing. A philosophy that deals with logic and morals is well documented, but how much has emotion been pushed aside? Also, how about relating these aspects back to my original assertion that humans are pattern-matchers? And what about explaining the physical world, alongside the social and psychological items that naturally link to this discussion? Finally, what is the 'useful' direction of this discussion?

Cycling

1) I love cycling - it's physical, it's fun and I'm relatively good at it.
2) Everyone hates cyclists
- pedestrians thing we shouldn't be on cycle paths where they are shared. Obviously there are bad cyclists who ride on the footpath, but it also seems most pedestrians didn't do those green-cross-code lessons at primary school!
- motorists think we don't exist and hence cut us up and overtake with no space. Cyclists are not standing still and do require half a lane on a normal road, you do need to cross the central line if you're overtaking. Around town, we're doing about the same speed, so you do have to check that you're safely past before pulling back in - otherwise you will at best come very close to hitting the cyclist. And beeping a cyclist to, "get out of your way", is not what a horn is for! I could go on..
- taxis own the road, so I have no idea what I was thinking trying to use it with a bike of all things! Actually, taxis haven't been too bad for me, at least they come very close to following the rules of the road - they should given their familiarity with it. It's just the occasional blazee bad-judgement.
- busses are onto a loser from the off - they're big, clunky take up most of the road and are asked to share their lanes with small, nippy cyclists. Even the good ones probably can't help feeling annoyed.
- motorcyclists, you guys are not cyclists! One chap on a CB500 (but not a courier) cut me up in a cycle lane last week!
3) The fumes! Busses are the worst (gag, yak), closely followed by white-vans, but also cars and motorbikes: 2-stroke scooters, etc are absolutely awful, but even a spanking GSX-R1000 spits out some noxious pongs - I had to sit behind one at a red light the other day!
4) I'm going to die if I keep cycling in london! I'm not perfect (close, but not quite!), and all it will take is one serious accident and I'll be wishing I already had life assurance.

So, that's it. Something I love and enjoy has been completely nobbled by incompetent drivers, pedestrians and road-layout engineers. Something that is good for the environment and good for my fitness. Something that should be the default mode of transport for all young(ish), fit people on journeys of 8miles or less (more if you're properly fit). Kinda sad.

Ego in Programming

Should programmers have big egos? Perhaps you think the obvious answer in 'no, of course not'. Although I had a pub conversation the other day which made me think. My friend suggested that technical experts ought to have bucketloads of ego, more ego than you could possibly shake a very large stick at! Counter-intuitive? The man's an idiot? Well, let's follow this one through.

An effective programmer ought to be self assured, able to recognise that they are good at their profession and decide that, "this is the correct way to do it and I will act upon my belief". Good programmers will be happy, if challenged, to back up their point with articulate and logical arguement. So far, nothing too controversial, but we should make no mistake that we are already describing someone with a reasonable amount of ego. A quick aside that an intelligent programmer will at least listen to other arguements or suggestions - perhaps a glimmer here of egolessness? However the killer blow was that a strong programmer will be able to unashamedly and graciously drop an incorrectly held belief and adopt another's, more accurate, arguement. This takes gallons of ego! The ability to recognise that everyone makes mistakes, but that doesn't change the fact that, "I'm still darn good at this!".

What is perhaps the dangerous sort is the one with a middling amount of ego. Where they don't truely belive that they are great and hence over-compensate by making every arguement a battle to be won.

Cycling

I have been cycling 8miles to work the last few days (16miles round trip, in one day, home the next). I have been supprised that given my complete lack of fitness, I've not died and have made reasonable time. I have also been supprised about how good the provision for cyclists is in London. I'm very pleased, overall, with this whole cycling thing - perhaps I will become fit within the month!

A philosophy should be..

I'm reading a variable, but generally interesting book called "The Great Philosophers" (really it's a collection of essays by numerous experts). I've *done* Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Sponiza (skim read him), and part of Berkley. Add to this an introduction to Kant I read a while back, Sohpie's World and various other bits and bobs. I started thinking about what makes a philosophy?

Kant says that a philosophy must be practical. Or to put it another way: useful. I wonder what 'useful' means..

As noted in the book Sophie's World, there is a glut of publications aimed at 'self-help', which fall short of philosophy (or psychology) but their existance suggests a desire to 'improve' the average person's lot. Clearly this is an important aspect to a philosophy (agreeing with Kant).

Many philosophies are built into or upon political movements or religions. Invariably these are supposed to 'improve' society as a whole.

Most philosophies, including modern physics, focus on mathematical and experimentational results to explain the way the universe works.

Very well, next in my current reading matter I noted two interesting themes:

I noted that Descartes and Plato seem to be inspecting the physical tools upon whose feedback we base our philosophies: our senses. Modern physics certainly seems to attempt to remove these inaccuracies of human-ness.

Berkeley seems to start on the inspection of the computational device we use to formulate our philosophies: the human brain. I suppose you could say 'cogito ergo sum' is Descartes' attempt to look at this same device.

So, a philosophy should usefully marry physical, psychological and social aspects to improve our lot. It should include the physical and mental mechanisms of human-ness in it's unification. It should build a basis for the GUT in the physical sciences, a better understanding of the human mind and provide a method for the compassionate operation of a society.

Right, should be done by teatime then!

Models, patterns, psychology and science

The big argument that seems to exist in psychology seems to stem from the perceived unscientific nature of the subject. The works of Freud, Jung and many of the others is based on observation of a reasonable number of snippets from anecdotal evidence from their patients. The psychologist then appears to have constructed their model of how people think, from the individual to larger generalisations.
This method is all very human in nature – we are built to be pattern-matching machines and therefore we need a model with which we do our matching. This is not a bad thing, to my mind, because this is the basis of scientific research. We construct a model, then we test it with logical ‘proof’ or with controlled experimentation. Experimentation is never taken as proof of a theoretical model, however an experiment, if repeatable, can be taken as proof that a model is wrong. Even if a model is wrong, though, it might still be useful. Newton’s theories were proven wrong (inadequate is the PC term) but they’re still useful.
With the human mind, these theoretical models are practically impossible to prove. Only experimentation and observation can be used to give them a stronger base. It is probably also true that our models are inadequate – the human mind is very complex, perhaps to the level of chaos theory. However it doesn’t stop them being useful models which have helped psychologists in turn help a large number of people.
Thinking about this, chaos theory might be a good starting point for setting the ground rules for logical thought about psychology.

More Flow

I think the Flow book confuses 3 types of flow.

The first is the 'big flow' experience which is generally accepted as the definition of flow. It's the experience that operates of a limited timescale and is a deep and fully focussed, enjoyable activity. I have no doubt that this is a good element to a model of the human mind.

The second is the ongoing 'happieness' factor in daily life. The Flow book contends that this can be controlled and is linked to 'big flow'.The link could be via both the ability to experience it and and regularity of it's experience.

The third is something I'm sure is specifically not flow at all. This is when someone jumps into an activity and throws full attention into it for the return of bio-chemical, monetary or other responses. I'm aware that everything in human experience is basically bio-chemical, but I'm specificall thinking about things like gambling. I'm also referring to flow activities that are pursued to the level of being self-destructive. Adrenaline junkies, dopamine junkies, etc.

This is interesting because something that was 'big flow' can become something that is no-longer flow. Without a definition for 'big flow' it is easy to see how some people might get very dissillusioned by a change like this. So how can we define Flow better then?

We appear to have a conundrum: which came first, the flow or the enjoyment? This discussion suggests to me that the link is the other way up. You don't enjoy flow because of itself, but that flow is flow because you enjoy it and are therefore investing time and effort in something you enjoy. Now 'big flow' has become more understandable: an absolute investment of attention in a task which is, of itself, enjoyable. The investment doesn't automatically make the task enjoyable.

Let's investigate the middle of the three then. 'Little flow', or 'enjoying life'. To enjoy life, it seems self-evident that you must commit yourself to the here and now with 'just enough' vigour. However, can a non-enjoyable task become enjoyable purely through investing effort? I suspect this is only true if the enjoyment is found in the investment of effort itself.

So, if one finds enjoyment in making an effort then any task can become enjoyable by proxy. Therefore the simplest way to deal with non-enjoyable tasks is to cultivate an enjoyment of making an investment of effort. I guess this is part of what makes 'big flow'. You have the twofold enjoyment of the task. Also, this will reinforce the sense of enjoyment in investing effort.

I totally agree with the Flow book that external demands cannot make a task enjoyable. It is also difficult to see that delayed rewards can make a task enjoyable - although it can make a task much more bareable.

I'm basing this purely on my own thoughts, so untested by experiment and unbacked-up by research.

Controlled experience

Aerosmith: "life's a journey, not a destination"

I'm reading 'Flow' by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, brought for me by Hen(http://blog.generationjava.com/roller/page/bayard/). It's an interesting read so far, although I am only 20 pages through.

He talks about a malaise in modern society - something I feel I've felt in recent years. It's described as becoming aware of the chaos surrounding us, feeling helpless within it, spinning without direction because the destination is unknown and unknowable (of course the ultimate destination is very well known and not very comforting). The cynical realisation that the delayed gratification promised to us from all sides (government, commerce, science, religion, etc) will never be achieved and therefore no longer provides the cushion it used to. The book also describes another for of self-protection: resignation from 'the world' into operating purely on natural (read biological) methods of gratification: sex, drugs, rock and roll.

He expresses his opinion that happiness is achieved through controlling consciousness so as to be 'into' whatever is the current occupation. I have picked holes in practically every point he has made thus far, but the general statement just sounds about right. I know a number of people - normally older - who are always 'into' everything they do. They seem to be the most vigorous and happy people I know. So, throw yourself into everything and you'll enjoy it! For large things this is obvious: work, hobbies, etc, but this should include times of relaxation - have you ever spent time, which would otherwise be time to relax, worrying about something? Even mundane tasks must be undertaken with one's full commitment to elicit enjoyment from them.

Additionally, he says that you must explicitly think about the motivations for yourself. Motivations, such as money, are external: foisted on us by society. Although fitting into society is important, he argues that one must be able to say what motivates you. An example and anti-example? The motivation might be to create the most wonderful computer system, therein time and money are just enablers - indeed, one might seek education and employment to further this goal - all of which should be enjoyable. An anti-example might be that you naturally feel violent - this ought to be suppressed because of the anti-social aspect of it, but even here there are channels that can be used to express violence in a controlled and socially acceptable way (rugby, car racing, perhaps even chess!).

Conclusion: have goals and throw yourself wholly into everything. Simple!

However, no two people have the same goals, so there is no correct way to do it. No two people have the same temprament and so won't throw themselves in the same way. It's a path forged by the person walking it and that path is the thing to enjoy, not the promise of where it is leading.

Start Something

The hardest thing about doing, is starting, followed closely by finishing... or not as the case may be.

Starting can be the biggest hurdle to actually doing anything at all, but why should that be? After all it's always the first thing you do whenever you do anything - we should all be well practiced by now! I've been thinking about this question a lot recently and it seems to me there are a couple of broad blockers to 'starting', and that these can be further broken down. Perhaps by making a better understanding we might be able to avoid some of them.

The two general areas I feel block starting are: time and motivation. Time is perhaps simplest to deal with - it is an absolute: 24hrs in a day, plus we all should be sleeping for about 8 of them (see earlier posts about my baby boy). This should leave something like 8hrs at work and 8hrs to yourself. Anything you want to start would have to fit around this, however, having said all this perhaps it's not so simple. The phrase 'make time' springs to mind. It's a little more interesting than my first reading of such phrases as macho attempts to out-compete. If you truely have no time, then you should look at your days. Are you enjoying your days? Is there anything you could sacrifice (perhaps gladly) to make room for this new thing? Sometimes the answer is indeed, 'no', but not always. However we have now strayed. Now we are talking about motivation. Perhaps, 'starting', is all about motivation?

Motivation: an inducement or incentive. The motivated party has a real desire for some outcome such that they act upon that motivation. The following are blockers to motivation: no competition, no love, time to procrastinate or the outcome doesn't repay the effort required. Of course all of these are perceived values, but that's ok.

Competing might be motivation enough for some people - a desire to have the best, do the best or be the best. This would make things very simple for getting things started where there is real competition. Generally, it doesn't motivate me and you can't always rely on others to offer you competition.

True love of a thing might be your motivation. This is a very vague motivation - rarely enough of a reason of itself. Certainly it is a wonderful thing if you find it and if you do, don't under-estimate the value of doing whatever it is.

A thing has to be done and there is no more putting it off. Perhaps the moment of inspiration must be acted upon right now. This monograph is very much of this category. The inspiration happened and required that I act before I forgot the subject.

The result may be very valuable. Value is normally thought of as monetary (in the western culture), but other things have value too: time with family, health and fitness, etc. This entire avenue forms it's own study! What do you count as most valuable in your life? But I digress.

Perhaps next time you nearly start something, you might think about your motivations and why they appear so weak that you won't start.

My Boy

My son was born on 9-March-2006.

It's a profound thing, a wonderful thing. It's not for everyone, but if you're trying and finding it difficult, my best wishes go out to you. Make no mistake tho', it's very hard work (even more so if the road there is difficult and there are complications afterwards). When you get there you might expect to find yourself changed - for me this has happened and happened in a way I wasn't expecting. I won't try to explain things because I can't, but I will say I'm very happy. I do feel there are some practical things I need to alter and I think I know how. Having a child hasn't fixed anything per-se, it has changed some things and it has certainly made life harder in many respects but for me it has been (and long may it continue to be) great.

Spinal aches

My friends wince as I crack my neck. It's normally a relief when it happens, but recently I've become concerned that it's not getting any better and is really getting worse. Worst of all, I occasionally get jolts right down my arms when it happens.

So, I started with a sports injury massage. This quickly turned into three sessions, all of which were very good. I am quite heavily built, so I was worried that the young lady wouldn't stand a chance of 'getting into' the muscles. However, the techniques enabled her to effectively get through the muscles to the correct area. My left leg is longer than my right (ever so slightly) meaning I have a tilt in the pelvis which causes a very minor spinal curve putting strain in all kinds of places all over my back. The neck is supposedly the last thing to go, but also the last thing to go right afterwards.

To anyone considering similar treatment: the trick is to relax and let the massage in. Also you should expect to hurt a bit in the morning - as if you've done some strenuous physical work with the relevant muscles.

She recommended I see an osteopath to do some structural work. Again a nice lady who dealt with my build effectively. Seems I have extra-long tendons and ligaments. This means my motor muscles have to make up for a lot of the stability that would otherwise be lacking. Turns out that tai-chi is an ideal type of exercise - strengthening structural muscles. The weirdest thing was that she couldn't crack my back or neck on the left side when the muscles were relaxed! Seems those muscles are very tight..

Anyone considering this kind of treatment should expect a bit of pain afterwards (use ice to relieve it) and don't be squeamish about joints popping.

Baby

Having a baby on the way makes you re-think a lot of things. Work commands a lot less importance now. This realisation has lead me to an observation of how many families appear to work. For sake of arguement, I'm going to use stereotypes exclusively - these exaggerate the situation and emphasize the point. I know they're never completely true.

The man goes out to work to earn the crust. The woman stays at home and looks after baby and home. Let us examine these situations: the housewife has a 24/7/365 job. When baby demands, the woman must supply (literally in the case of breast-feeding) and who will argue that this is not important? Now the working man does his job and comes home. Let's say it's a 50hr week in real terms with holidays, and now add in the reduction of importance I mentioned above. Essentially, the man here is doing a much less important job for less hours.

I don't like this, so I have told my wife that, especially at first, she must do no housework at all. I'm not good at spotting that things need doing, but nevertheless I should at least be responsible for doing it - even if she has to prepare a list for me. I want to do as much as I can for baby too, but she is wanting to breastfeed so there's a limit to what I can do - nappies, baths and general comforting is about that limit.

Putting all these mechanics of making life work aside, these are exciting times.

Differences

I was wondering about differences in humans, this morning on my walk to work.

The differences between men and women (appart from the obvious, and partly because of the obvious) seem to be role-related. Men are physically bigger and stronger, which has always been attributed to men doing the hunting. Women became less capable of hunting because of changes in the female pelvis, due in turn to the increasing brain sizes at birth. I wonder whether this effect has partly affected the general differences in attitude. Men are generally less capable of multi-tasking and more attuned to plugging into a single task the to the exclusion of all else.

The I started thinking about regional differences. Recently a friend of mine pointed out the falsity in the assumption that black people have the pigmentation due to more sun. Is this were true then how come middle-eastern peoples (across the equator) are not darker than southern african peoples. Where did the facial features of eastern asian people come from? How come there are just a few physical shapes of caucasian people (the squat, dark haired and the tall, blonde shapes)?

Potentially there are actually more than one origins of the species? Perhaps it's not even that simple and I'm falling into the all-too-human trap of pattern-matching.

Omni-oholic

omni-oholic

Some people have an addictive nature. They quite easily become psycologically addicted to almost anything. I am among those people. I invented the term (I think).

Morality, Buddhism and Daoism

Morality, according to the Dalai Lama, goes like this: If you can, always help others, but at the very least, do no harm. From my weak understanding of Taoism, morality is generally far more complex. I'm also guessing that other Buddhist branches add caveats about doing no harm: the Shaolin tradition, for example.

I want to adopt a moral approach to life, obviously starting small and working up. I am considering a more organised approach by finding some group or other to help me. I know myself well enough that I'll just procrastinate if I work alone. The problem I have is that I don't trust organised religion. I think this is a problem that I've had with adopting much of the Taoist things that come to me through my Tai Chi. Can I really trust the teacher? I'm not suggesting that my teacher (or his teacher) is out to purposefully mislead, just that a teacher has a particularly complex situation when it comes to religion. Religion is not a science, where you can actually teach real methods that will give you a correct answer. Religion is an utterly personal experience, no two people seem to have it in the same way.

Science and religion do appear to have some crossover somewhere around philosophy. Philosophy is supposed to be meta-science, although science itself often uses meta-techniques to elicit the technique that will eventually give the answer. Hence the grey area between science and philosophy. Then philosophy is generally based on some personal belief, for example the Platonic forms, Descartes' existance of the mind without the body. But even with that relationship, the best a theological teacher can give is a historical account of the tradition in question. Anything more than that history, particularly where religion dictates how to live, should be viewed as the teacher's personal opinion.

My other problem with adopting the moral way is that I can forsee that I'm going to get shat on from a great height by those who are less moral. For myself I think I could come to not mind about that, but I have other people relying on me. If I end up doing more time at work for no more pay, I know my relationships will suffer. If I earn less money then it will impact my family's standard of living. I can think of various situations where the people I work with might suffer because of my morality towards someone else.

Just to record the fact, I've considered on numerous occasions the idea of leaving and joining some form of monastic life.

Death

Perhaps death is caused solely by lack of will to live. The extreme case which highlights this is a Tai Chi exercise where you hold a parallel stance (thighs parallel to the ground). My teacher said that if someone were to hold a gun to your head and say, "Hold the stance for 1 minute", you would do it. I disagree. I think you would start, but after a while you would give up. 1 minute is within most folks' ability, save for the very fat or the very unfit but I still think most people would fail.

I wonder if the same can be said of other causes of death. The clinically obese person who dies of a heart attack, the smoker who has one last ciggy, the raging alcoholic who has to drink, the druggy looking for one more vein. Perhaps even cases like the trauma victim who loses the battle for life, the old person who has another stroke. The extremes here sound incredibly insensitive, but I'm not sure I can discount the aspect of 'giving up', even here.

More thought required.

Plastering DIY

Oh lord, follow the instructions when using finishing plaster! I made up some finishing plaster by adding water to the plaster. This is wrong, the stuff set in 2minutes flat. I ended up with a bucket with a solid lump of plaster stuck in it. Oh well, nevermind. Water first next time, sprinkle the plaster on top and make it up quite runny.

Teaching Tai Chi

I used to help out teaching Tai Chi but then I stopped. I felt it wasn't fair on those I was teaching, I also felt a certain selfishness that I wasn't learning or progressing and I also felt that I couldn't (or wouldn't) commit the necessary time to preparation.

Selfishness in Tai Chi is a bad thing. The whole culture from which Tai Chi came is supposed to have been much more altruistic than the modern western society. Certainly more altruistic than the situation in which I find myself. My justification was always that a) a selfish teacher will necessarily be a bad teacher and b) a teacher who isn't still learning will also be a bad teacher. I think these are merely justifications to myself to make me feel better. The question still remains whether I should have given it up?

Now I've been asked to assist from time-to-time. I have said yes, of course.

The Modern Kitten Society

Cheers Bayard: link

Plugging into a cyber-punk nightmarish world is one way of looking at it. I sometimes think of it as a 'kitten society' (I made that term up today to describe the system).

When you domesticate a cat, it effectively stays as a kitten (or regresses as in our cat). It becomes dependant, expecting dinner to be ready and a knee to sit on. All of it's needs are met with no effort on it's part. When something doesn't go as the animal expects then it gets all stressed. Imagine that same animal in the wild - it'd last 2minutes tops.

We are happily allowing ourselves to be domesticated in the same way. We have expectations and get stressed when these are not met. It appears to be worse the better off you are because you can afford to have higher expectations and you have further to fall when they're not met. We are the kittens but there is no owner: a dangerous place for our sanity? Probably.

The Truth

You know when someone says something and you just connect with it. Well, recently someone said that in western cultures we are filled with a self-loathing which holds us back from achieving our potential. This has stuck in my mind now for about a month. It goes on that this self-loathing is usually reflected as selfishness and cruel intentions towards others.

I recognise this in myself but worse to my mind is that I think I recognise it in others. However, I'm not at all sure. It seems a terrible accusation to lay upon someone. It's desparately unsettling too: what if it's true?

When I'm rich

when I'm rich I will buy
this car: http://www.morgan-cars.com/brochure2005/morgan4+4.htm
this bike: http://www.motorcyclecruiser.com/roadtests/tbirdsport98/

Tai Chi for the Immobile

I have been thinking of Tai Chi for the immobile. My grandma can't stand and has poor motor control over her limbs. I was wondering about exercises that are supposed to improve motor control and general fitness. Then these have to be modified to be done in a seated position. I'm told that the same rules apply for sitting as for standing: straight back, pelvis slightly rolled under and chin in (sraightening the neck).

Next is a set of 'stances' and movements that can help. I think I would start with some of the 8-pieces of silk brockade: pushing the sky, touching heaven and earth (although the arms of the chair might get in the way), shooting the golden eagle, cow turns to look at the moon, willow cools it's leaves and punching the wind. The other 2: White crane washes it's wings and shaking the tail feathers are not at all faesible. Perhaps placing the hands over the dan tien and breathing would replace shaking the tail feathers. I'll have a think about other Qi Gong that might work. I'll post again on this I think.

Before I go, I was thinking about her tilting chair. If the back doesn't fall forward too far then it might be possible to put some weight on her legs.

Of course all of this may be completely in vain, because 1, she's realatively likely to say, "I'll have none of this hippy rubbish", and 2, western medicine says that this is a neurological problem - part of the brain is dying so exercise shouldn't be able to help. We'll see..

Daily Tai Chi

My teacher is wanting us to do some Zhan Zhuang at home. I'm having problems with this because I was trying to do it in the mornings. The mornings are not my favourite time of day so I'm completely failing to do it. Anyway, I had this email exchange with a friend about what we would like to be doing in an ideal world and we came up with this reigime that sounds like a goer:

mornings:
- Swing arms,
- squats,
- asanas,
- Dan Tien,
- stretch
then in the evening:
- swing arms or 7(?) gates,
- 10 from 28 or 8 pieces,
- asanas,
- stretch,
- ZZ(10min),
- swimming dragon no.2

This will make the mornings a short sharp wake-up and then the evenings a more meditative set to help relax after the day. I'm going to give this a try for the rest of the week.

First impressions

Sometimes I think I should trust my first impressions more. I naturally make these value judgements in an instant but then I try to discard them because I feel it's far too easy to just get the wrong impression. However, every time I can think of conciously discarding a first impression I've been rudely brought back to it. I think I try hardest to discard bad first impressions. At least these are the impressions that I most sorely remember being brought back to.

Recent ones have been: someone with lack of vision, someone who is basically a bit nasty.. ok 2 isn't very impressive.

Philosophical question

Philosophers seem to be in search of the initial assumptions that make the rest of philosophy work. The philosophical equivalent of numbers and basic arithmetic in maths.

I am of the opinion that the base premise is: humans are pattern-matching animals. Our brains are just wired that way. I was thinking this morning that perhaps additional to this we live our lives on the border between an imaginary world and the real world. This fits within the pattern match axiom because the imaginary world is our image to which we match the input from the real world. We are able, then, to modify our image, if necessary, to match the real world more closely. This observation pays service to previous philosophers' work on the interplay between the mind and the physical world, for example Hume and Descartes go so far as to say that only the imaginary world exists. Kant's meta-image of the world is very close to this observation, without my initial axiom. He seems to take this second observation as the initial axiom.

Further to the new observation, I then added that animals are more in the real world and less in the imaginary world. Perhaps because they are more easily able (for various reasons) to modify their image of the real world, but they do seem to sit more wholly on the 'real' side of the line: not bothering with the aesoteric subject that bother us humans.

The question still remains as to whether we can trust our senses that the real part of the world exists.

Then also I feel I must also think about a-priori knowledge. For this I trust the single axiom that good/bad is the only a-priori knowledge. With good and bad comes the ability to reach the decison that a pattern matches well or ill, and hence the rest of human knowledge.

All of this arguement is embryonic in form. I should develop it to investigate it's implications. Note to self: read more in the Socratic 'dumb questions' that continue to test other philosophical theories. Another note to self: see who else's theories match mine.

One track

I have often heard the term, 'one track mind'. I've also heard it said that men can't multi-task (but women can). I really think there is some truth in this and I think I'm fairly single-tracked most of the time. If something is off the topic of my current thought train then it takes me a little while to adjust. I pretty sure it creates stress for me to have several things to think about at one time and I then deal with all of these things badly.

This might be linked to my earlier observation about people-engineering, because there are always many things to keep in mind whilst dealing with a person. Perhaps I'm destined to be forever bad at that kind of thing, a programmer forever!

It's a double edged sword: on the one hand I'm better at solving discreet, linea problems. On the other hand I'm bad at dealing with multi-dimensional problems. Note this is nothing to do with 'outside the box' thinking because if you go in a straight line long enough you'll get to the edge of any box, I suppose it's more of a boot-strap problem. I sort of imagine the multi-taskers as having a brownian motion of thoughts. There is no start or end to the mess. With a line, you have to have a start and end.

Fuel Cell

I've been looking at Fuel Cell stuff. I think Direct Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFC) are the most likely candidate for transport-based solutions. They operate in reasonable temperatures and with reasonable humidity. Other fuel cells are much more picky.

I think the basic construction is making a sandwich with the membrane between an anode and a cathode. The membrane needs to be in contact with the methanol mix on one side and air on the other side. You heat the fuel up and the whole thing just goes. It spits out CO2 and H2O (vapour) which are relatively clean.

It seems that a company called PolyFuel make the best membrane for use in a DMFC. They claim 500milliwatts per cm-sq. I calculated this to mean that for a relatively powerful motor of 85kw you need 27m-sq. I guess you could do this with a stack of 5 or 10cm-sq cells in the circuit. Then you just need fuel-delivery and a method to ensure you don't get dirt everywhere.

So, remaining questions are: how fast does the fuel get used up? How much does the membrane cost? What am I missing in terms of construction? How good is an electric motor at converting the electricity to rotational energy? How big a battery will I need to start the thing up?

Seeing

Being a techie I see things differently to the way many people see them. I understand this is a facet of any form of techieness, where that techieness has progressed to the relevant level. I hardly ever see things as they are. I look through the surface at what is behind. I see a motorbike (picking up an earlier topic) but I see engine capacity; I see miles per gallon; I see top speed; I see handling capabilities. I barely register the colour. Perhaps I'm not as techie as I could be because I do want a Thunderbird for almost purely superficial reasons. Are the political beasts that rule the countries and workplaces also special techies who see deep beneath the superficial words that generally blind me? Perhaps I just lack a relevant mental model to be good at people-engineering. Perhaps that's the same problem that non-techies face when presented with a complex computer system or non-mechanics have when presented with a breakdown. Read Robert Pirsig's, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for some discussion of classical vs romantic views on the world. I think my people-engineering model is improving, but it's slow going.

My Book

I have been talking about writing a book for ages. I started already on a beginners programming book for kids, but that's kind of fallen away while I decide how I want to pitch the teaching style. I've often thought about writing fantasy fiction or cyberpunk/scifi. Maybe I should try to do that. There is a website which entices you to write a novel in a month: http://www.nanowrimo.org/ perhaps this is the way to do it.

How improbable?

There is no time.

I seem to have no time at all. I grab an hour here or there but when I do I'm so damn tired that I just want to sit and watch telly. I'm not physically tired because I can still do physical work. It's all in my mind - which doesn't make things any less debilitating.

I suspect I have had two main contributors to this: firstly a company I worked for went under (or very nearly). It was suddenly very stressful and I was down to working 3days a week and pay was generally coming late or not at all. It wasn't as if I was strapped for cash, but nevertheless it was stressful. I then moved jobs twice - performing very badly in both of them. I think I'm now doing ok at work - I'm working for myself and I'm generally quite happy with my performance. The second contributor could have been that I gave up Tai Chi around the same time. I effectively gave up all exercise. All very unhealthy. I'm back now and a little happier.

Back to that time problem; I want to do more Tai Chi, I want to finish of a couple of computer projects I started, I want to do more work for my new business, but the time is not there. Perhaps that's the problem: the time is there, I just lack the energy to use it.

So, I should do something about it. I think my first aim should be getting physically fitter. More Tai Chi will be my aim. I just have to comvince my wife that it's not some kind of freaky cult.

To Bike ot not to Bike...

..that is the question.

I am generally a little agressive in the car, particularly on London's roads. This is to the extent that I had a little bump at christmas. Would this agressiveness translate onto a bike and get me killed? My confidence was really rocked by that little bump. Perhaps some ADT lessons and the test would give me back some of that confidence.

Assuming I ignore that whole issue, it's a lot of money to spend purely on me. My wife will see little benefit and in fact I can't see much in the way of objective benefit either. It comes down to 'I just want one', which is selfish and just a bit silly. Then again, it's not like we're strapped for cash.

Let's just say I do go for it. I think I'd wait to get a bike until after I've passed the test. I want to buy a 600cc bike (in that region anyway) and I'm told there's little value in getting a 125 for practice before I pass the test. I'm told I'd pick up bad habits and also the riding style is completely different on a bigger bike. So what kind of bike? I want a Triumph Thunderbird, because the style just appeals to me aesthetically, but I can understand that they might not be a good learner bike. They're at least 3k, so I don't want to drop it. They're nearly 900cc, which is probably a little more power than I'd really want, plus the insurance jumps a bit with the extra size engine.

I was thinking something like a Honda Hornet, or similar sportsy tourer as a first bike for a year or two. Then think about a more aesthetic machine later on.

I think that will be my plan: take some ADT lessons in a car, go for the bike test, buy some 600cc sports tourer then see how that goes.

Firstpost

New blog.. let's see how this goes..

Subjects? Well, I am a techie so I will probably have a lot to write about that. I practice Tai Chi, so there will be some of that too. Then there are the usual events that happen in the life of a person.