Monthly Archives: April 2007
Protected: List A
Protected: Metamorphosis
The Baker and the Maker
Causality. Its something we assume for scientific discourse, it is something I have spoke very much against in social understanding. In our everyday usage, however, we can’t go without it. If we hear a sound, we either try to give an account for why this sound is being heard. Either you can find a cause for it, and its explanatory desiderata is fulfilled, or we are labelled psychotic by the state institutes.
If I see a loaf of bread, I’ll think it’s reasonable (although as a philosopher I wouldn’t be so easy to do this) to say that the loaf had a maker; a baker perhaps. It would seem pretty weird, but not absurd, to say that this loaf came about through a non-baker creation; perhaps this qualia is of a false object; a mirage, perhaps it is not a loaf at all but a thing that looks like a loaf, perhaps I’m dreaming, perhaps I want a loaf to be there. All of these skeptical challenges are the (misplaced) focus of much epistemology excepting the truly great philosophers such as epistemic logicists, and Kant (there, I fulfilled my quota of mentioning Kant in every blog posting).
Lets run with the idea of the loaf entailing a baker; this is a pretty weak inference, it is perhaps inductive, this is perhaps Hypothetico-Deductive. Lets assume a baker DID make this loaf I see. What I cannot infer, however is this:
- Does the Baker have a son?
- Is the baker male or female?
- Is the baker heterosexual?
- Is the baker white and has a beard?
- Does the baker care whether we fast?
- Does the baker care about us?
- Did the baker create anything else?
- Does the baker have two arms?
- Does the baker have eyes?
- Does the baker love us?
- Will we ever meet the baker?
- Does the Baker have 3 parts?
- Is the baker the only existing baker
I hope you can see what this analogy is suggesting…maybe there is a m/b (aker); but the fact alone that there is a baker tells us nothing more than that. Not whether he has three parts, loves us, has a son, or that we will ever meet him.
Maybe the baker is a murderer who is going to kill us; that’s just a speculation, but that speculation, if unjustified means that we must not doubt that he is NOT a killer. So we should be afraid of the baker, just to be safe.
If we are to fear hell and its possibility; why not fear the murderer baker who made your bread, maybe the guy who fitted your bathroom is a rapist, why not be afraid of him? It is at least possible that the murderer is a baker. If it is absurd to believe that the baker is a murderer, then it is also absurd with consistency to fear hell. Iff (this is a key operator) we do not fear both on minimal Cartesian skeptic grounds, then we don’t need to worry about this fear. One thing is certain; if you threaten people with the possibility of hell, why not threaten them with the possibility that the postman is a pedophile, the pastor is a rascist, the baker is a murderer and the bathroom fitter is a rapist.
Solve the problem of skepticism, if not, <edited obscenity, Michael>
Destre
What is this garbage you are watching, I want to watch the news/”…this IS the news!”
This is a brilliant video. Thrash at its finest. I like the bit when the two hands shake and then there is an explosion, that’s pretty cheap (00:59). Also; this is the first video where the meme which has been highly parodied until today; namely, the bit when the dad comes into to the room and says he wants to watch the news, and then his kid says…”this IS the news”, that’s so funny. Of course there is a serious point in it back then.
Active and passive consumption
There is a big literature in cultural studies about whether we consume cultural objects passively (accepting things without thinking) or actively (critically assessing before accepting, or maintaining a critical distance from the artefact). This is an interesting cognitive question. Perhaps some of the most critical people must begin as dogmatists to learn (I accept I am in this camp), and the most crticial are the most learning-ambivalent. How far do we resist objects as sources of information?
Is this a question of psychology, or cultural politics?
Furthermore; when we women of letters learn, how far do we be dogmatic; do we doubt what we have read, even if we don’t accept what is said?
Adults, and children are dogmatic if they consider their source reliable; my idiot parents accept popular science.
[edit 06.06.2008]
-Sinistre
Megadeth remake a classic: A Tout le Monde
Megadeth has remade their classic song from the Youthanasia album “A tout le monde”. They have even put in a little surprise, if you like Lacuna Coil you have got to see this…I wish they put in a Finnish guy….*cough*. Anyhow, here is their original version; consider the following, Marty Friedman’s solo, the sepia colouration, the idiosyncratic voice of Mustaine that has come to be loved in earlier Megadeth work. I hope the band has learned their lesson from the album Risk.
Look at the new version; consider change in tempo, the gentler timbre of Mustaine, the backing vocals, the two crucifixes attached on Mustaine, the ‘Lacuna Coil’ factor (which I very much enjoy), the new guitar solo – NOT Friedman style – but a bit more technical. They re-did Hangar 18, so why not redo this! I love this song, Megadeth are awsome. Take a look
Noumenal Realm 