"MC Rove"

This is probably the most disturbing thing I have ever seen:



1. Bush serves up the jokes at meal

As part of the evening's entertainment, comedians Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood from the US TV show Whose Line is it Anyway got White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove to join in a rap song poking fun at Mr Rove's hobbies: stamp collecting and quail hunting.

Shouting out "I'm MC Rove", Mr Rove danced about the stage and postured like a rap star, much to the delight of the watching press.

Life-saving animals

1. Dog saves US owner with Heimlich
2. Rabbit saves diabetic from coma
3. Dog praised for life-saving call

Description and transcendence [draft]

Note: This was the start of two other (much longer) posts, Philosophy as such and The entertainment value of metaphysics. I was browsing through some old drafts, and thought this one was interesting enough in its own right to deserve being posted.

--

Last week I was browsing the Oxford University Press website to see if Jesse Prinz's The Emotional Construction of Morals was out yet in the U.S. (it isn't/wasn't) when I stumbled across a book with a most peculiar title: The Riddles of Existence by Earl Conee and Theodore Sider.
1. Oxford University Press: The Riddles of Existence

This really says it all (click for a larger view):



One thing that seemed particularly odd about this is that metaphysics is described as one of the deepest sorts of intellectual thought, yet "nothing is resolved." In lieu of any progress or conclusions from metaphysics, entertainment value is provided. There is supposedly "fun" in trying to indefinitively tackle the biggest of life's questions, these riddles of existence.

...

Again, I emphasize:

"Philosophy simply puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything.—Since Everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain. For what is hidden, for example, is of no use to us." —Ludwig Wittgenstein

Or more bluntly:

"PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing." —Ambrose Bierce

I'll carry this a few steps further:

1. Experience contains no paradoxes and no contradictions. These can only occur between statements and propositions—that is, in words. (The word 'contradiction' does well to emphasize my point: contra dicere would roughly translate to "to say against".)


2. There's no such thing as a philosophical problem outside of the bounds of artificial and non-representational constructions of language, nor does a "philosophical problem" or "riddle of existence" have any practical implications. [seducing]

The Devil's Dictionary

1. Project Gutenberg: The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce


Some personal favorites:

• ART, n. This word has no definition. [...]


• DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.


• ESOTERIC, adj. Very particularly abstruse and consummately occult. The ancient philosophies were of two kinds, -- exoteric, those that the philosophers themselves could partly understand, and esoteric, those that nobody could understand. It is the latter that have most profoundly affected modern thought and found greatest acceptance in our time.


• LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. The question, "Is life worth living?" has been much discussed; particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written at great length in support of their view and by careful observance of the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of successful controversy. [...]


• LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion -- thus:

  Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.
  Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore --
  Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.

  This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.


• MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.


• NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.


• PAINTING, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic. [...]


• PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.


• POSITIVISM, n. A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.


• PREHISTORIC, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood. [...]


• PYRRHONISM, n. An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.


• REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.


• REALITY, n. The dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain in the cupel if one should assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.


• RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable. [...]


• SELFISH, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.


• SENATE, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.


• UGLINESS, n. A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility.


• UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse. [...]

Mark Z. Danielewski on Only Revolutions

1. KCRW: Book Worm — Mark Z. Danielewski

(The interviewer sounds kind of creepy¹ or uncomfortable.)

¹I'm going to resist the urge to put that word in purple . . .

Emotion and morals

I read these a few days ago:

1. Brain Injury Said to Affect Moral Choices
2. How the Heart Can Rule the Head
3. Study: Brain split on morals
4. Kill One to Save Many? Brain Damage Makes Decision Easier


Some minor excerpts:

"I think it’s very convincing now that there are at least two systems working when we make moral judgments," said Joshua Greene, a psychologist at Harvard who was not involved in the study. "There’s an emotional system that depends on this specific part of the brain, and another system that performs more utilitarian cost-benefit analyses which in these people is clearly intact."

"Moral decision making is based on our emotional reaction to situations as much as it is to any kind of rational thought," says Mario Mendez, a neurologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "When [the former] is taken away, you have a Mr. Spock, who's just rational about decisions."

The studies in those articles distinctly reminded me of a visiting lecturer that was at KU not long ago. He was engaged in cross-disciplinary work between psychology and philosophy.

I actually still have the notes that I took from my laptop during that lecture:
5. "The Emotional Basis (Construction) of Morals"

In addition he has a sample paper on his website on the subject, titled "The Emotional Basis of Moral Judgment":
6. The Emotional Basis of Moral Judgment

...as well as a recently published book with a similar title. I've found an excerpt here:
7. The Emotional Construction of Morals

.
.
.

It also appears that this blue-haired psycholophilosopholelogist has somewhat of an infatuation with drawing faces and homunculi. The drawings are actually quite good:
8. Heads

Poem 21

A haiku for poetry class:

Seldom a hand calls
men forward after winters—
spring is too tender.


Not very good, I know. I wrote another before deciding on that one...

A branch casts shadows
across pale window curtains
dappled with leaf prints.

Looking back, I like that one better.

The Mars Volta live: Roulette Dares

Give it a chance, it takes a while for them to get going.

(5 or so minutes in...)




3/24 update:

A curious thing with the Mars Volta is that their (Cedric's) lyrics are so bizarre. Phonetically, they're absolutely beautiful... but you kind of need to take their words as painting surreal scenery or establishing an eclectic mood rather than telling an easily relatable narrative in order to get something out of them. Just let it carry on with the music... otherwise the only thing you'll be thinking is "this is awful poetry..."

"..." 6

"Nature is always so interesting, under whatever aspect she shows herself, that when it rains, I seem to see a beautiful woman weeping. She appears the more beautiful, the more afflicted she is."

—B. de St. Pierre

Poem 16

Without audience,
a leaflet writhes open on the ground—
          whisked to and fro.

At once   a hand settles on it;
          raises and unwrinkles--

          the leaflet's ink and paper
          met by a slender glance.

          (A short poem stares back.)


At her lips, she reads :

          a pool of water
          a scent of autumn
          welling beneath a tree
          . . . . . . . . . . .

and finds herself in a meadow
          beneath red leaves.


From them     she sees          glottal droplets

          dripping.


          at her feet.

and ants drowning in the welling tarn.


Leisurely, she skips a rock across it,
          but only her reflection lingers
          in those murky shallows.

                    Ripples of her scattering
                    in its mirror sheen.


At once.

     The ink is forgotten;
not a leaf should fall and float and skid upon the water—

Only her and her meadow, with passing clouds to draw upon


          until the leaflet, like an intruding hand, recoils

          and withers out of water.

NYC: nigger

1. Racial slur banned in New York: [t]he city council of New York has voted to ban the use of the word "nigger".
2. Should racist word be rehabilitated?

Also interesting: a wikipedia list on the emphases of profanity in various languages.


Personally, I think this law is unenforcable and sets a bad precedent¹, even though I'm white and would personally never use the word "nigger" out-of-quotation-marks, so to speak.

I also think it's cute that the first article includes a picture of Chris Rock.

¹If individual words are suspect, what stops one from arguing that freedom of speech only pertains to political expression? "Freedom of speech doesn't include the right to shout 'fire' in a crowded room," but it should certainly permit words. If one wishes to offend, there is a sufficient reserve of vocabulary to offend in an equivalent manner. The violation shouldn't be the use, nor necessarily the meaning, but the broad consequence of one's utterances, all things considered.


...

There's a different group to get pissed off at you in this country for everything your not supposed to say. Can't say Nigger, Boogie, Jig, Jigaboo, Skinhead, Moolimoolinyon, Schvatzit, Junglebunny, Greaser, Greaseball, Dago, Guinea, Whop, Ginzo, Kike, Zebe, Heed, Yid, Mocky, Himie, Mick, Donkey, Turkey, Limey, Frog. Zip, Zipperhead, Squarehead, Crout, Hiney, Jerry, Hun, Slope, Slopehead, Chink, Gook. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of those words in and of themselves. They're only words. It's the context that counts. It's the user. It's the intention behind the words that makes them good or bad. The words are completely neutral. The words are innocent.

I get tired of people talking about bad words and bad language. Bullshit! It's the context that makes them good or bad. The context. That makes them good or bad. For instance, you take the word "nigger." There is absolutely nothing wrong with the word "nigger" in and of itself. It's the racist asshole who's using it that you ought to be concerned about. We don't mind when Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy say it. Why? Because we know they're not racist. They're niggers! Context. Context. We don't mind their context because we know they're black. Hey, I know I'm whitey, the blue-eyed devil, paddy-o, fay gray boy, honkey, mother-fucker myself. Don't bother my ass. They're only words. You can't be afraid of words that speak the truth, even if it's an unpleasant truth, like the fact that there's a bigot and a racist in every living room on every street corner in this country."

—George Carlin