A Taste for Freedom

Some nations pursue liberty obstinately through all kinds of dangers and sufferings, not for its material benefits; they deem it so precious and essential a boon that nothing could console them for its loss, while its enjoyment would compensate them for all possible afflictions. Others, on the contrary, grow tired of it in the midst of prosperity; they allow it to be torn from them without resistance rather than compromise the comfort it has bestowed on them by making an effort. What do they need in order to remain free? A taste for freedom.

Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revolution, Bonner, tr., pp. 204-205.

'No Idea'

Sean Carroll on Bayes' Theorem:

Whether you admit it or not, no matter what data you have, you implicitly have a prior probability for just about every proposition you can think of. If you say, “I have no idea whether that’s true or not,” you’re really just saying, “My prior is 50%.”

This is the kind of claim one not uncommonly sees from people hawking the Bayesian snake oil, but it deserves to be called out more, since it is at least problematic -- the 'whether you admit it or not' is effectively a 'regardless of your large amounts of evidence apparently to the contrary' -- and on closer investigation doesn't have all that much to recommend it. There are a lot of propositions of which we can think yet have no reason to think we have any prior probabilities for unless you assume Carroll's second sentence -- for instance, propositions we don't understand, or are only just now coming to understand.

But the second sentence is doubtful at least outside very specific contexts. For one thing, claims about having no idea are claims about inquiry -- "I have no idea whether that's true or not" at least implies that I do not regard myself as having done any inquiry that would be appropriate for coming to a conclusion -- whereas claims about prior probabilities are not.

For another, even if we take "I have no idea whether that's true or not" to mean just "I have no belief that that is true and no belief that it is not", this is not equivalent to "My belief in that being true is equal to my belief in that not being true", which is the usual Bayesian interpretation under degrees-of-belief assumptions. Not having started on leaning is not the same as leaning to each side equally; but this particular take on the principle of indifference cannot distinguish the two at all. Saying that the probabilities on each side are undefined is not the same as saying that the probabilities are equal. Bayesians like Carroll are really denying that the former is possible (on what grounds is always vague enough, since we always get this kind of 'whether you admit it or not' move), but the point is that "I have no idea" allows it as a possibility and "My prior is 50%" does not, and thus that they will not always mean the same.

In addition, because Carroll holds that "there is no objective, cut-and-dried procedure for setting your priors" in other cases, it's odd that we have a cut-and-dried procedure for setting our priors for that one case, out of infinitely many mathematically possible cases, at 50%. The problems with simply assuming a principle of indifference without further clarification are well known, but if there's no procedure for priors, there's actually no reason to think that people will always, or even usually, have only one prior. Have several, and get a range, or at least a diversity of answers that may be more scattershot or less scattershot. If there's no objective, cut-and-dried procedure for setting priors, and, as we certainly can to some extent, we can imaginatively or sympathetically participate more than one perspective, it seems entirely possible that we can take a stance on which A is 15% and also take a separate stance on which it is 60%, without knowing at present which is better or on which we'll settle. In such a case, we could say we have no idea whether A is true or not, and yet the probability assignment for is not at 50% at any point at all. Allowing that we can do this arguably explains some probability mistakes people often make -- we are confusing two different assessments for the reason that we are making both and not actively distinguishing them -- and, again, without an objective procedure for setting priors, it's difficult to say why one would think it impossible.

Of course, there are some independent reason to take probabilities, including priors, as things only having meaning within the context of a particular inquiry establishing them (a possible take-away, to give just one example of such a reason, from both Bertrand's paradox and proposed responses to it); and if one takes such a view, as I do, there is independent reason to reject Carroll's claim -- one would take seriously the first point above.

Fortnightly Book, January 8

What is often called the Third Generation of post-war Japanese novelists began to come into prominence in the early 1950s. (The Third Generation author best known to English speakers is currently Shusako Endo.) The Third Generation was heavily interested in combining literary craft with daring message; it was a generation of authors that, seeing themselves as transitional, did not in general expect to have a lasting fame, which freed them to try things that might not have been fashionable or popular. The Third Generation was not a merely transitional era, though; it has been highly successful in its own terms. It was also a period that saw an explosion in women taking up the pen to write for the love of writing. Among these, one of the more popular was Ayako Sono.

Sono was born in 1931. She attended college at the University of Sacred Heart in Tokyo and, while there, began writing stories, first for various fanzines and then for more widely read publications, which were often nominated for awards. She wrote a series of bestselling novels, only a few of which have been translated into English. One of these translated works is Kami-No-Yogoreta-Te, which means something like 'The Dirty Hand of (the) God'; the English translation, however, is titled, Watcher from the Shore, and it is the next fortnightly book. The translation is by Edward Putzar; it apparently has some abridgements and revisions, but they were authorized by the author herself.

Dr. Sadaharu Nobeji is a gynecologist and obstetrician in a small town not far from the ocean. His little clinic deals with the usual kinds of cases -- ordinary births, infertility, miscarriages, abortions, children born deformed. He has a ten-year-old girl and a wife; he and his wife are not exactly at odds, but she is often gone, and has affairs with other men. He is devoted to his patients, a quiet, humble man hoping to make life better for them, and foregoing all possibility of a much more lucrative career in order to do so. He tries, beyond that, to be detached, not judgmental, not involved in the moral decisions of his patients. But things are not so simple. Cases differ widely, and some of them do not so allow him much room to be hands-off; patients, for instance, sometimes need advice and do not know who else to turn to, or they will demand things that Sadaharu cannot help but think dubious or damaging. Being a good doctor who sees his patients as people, and thus as moral agents, he cannot help but see their choices as moral choices, and as a devoted doctor sometimes cannot avoid being right in the middle of those choices. And as time goes on, he increasingly realizes that his moral framework is simply not good enough for dealing with the choices he finds himself making. It is difficult standing alone, buffeted by the wind.


[Elvis Presley, "An Evening Prayer", a song mentioned and quoted in the book.]

Two New Poem Drafts, Two Poem Re-Drafts

My Love, I Dreamed I Knew You Yesterday

My love, I dreamed I knew you yesterday:
the sun was raising crops from seed to grain,
the wind was walking lightly down the way
as clouds drew nigh that rumbled, big with rain,
and, soft, our eyes were looking far away
to futures never born; and then the pain
broke softly on my heart, like clouds of gray,
and thus the dream began to fade and wane.

Eden

The Word gave word to man;
the Adam woke with joy
and named the world anew
to humanize it through,
across creation's span,
as if it were a toy;
each word reflected true.

Crowns

One early morn I walked a road
past ancient oak trees bent and bowed;
the grass was dewed, the sky was dark,
the breezes played with shadows stark.
Afar arose a mountain high
with vastness sheer that touched the sky;
behind, the sun shed glory bright:
a shadow-king with crown of light.

My mind afar went walking, too.
I thought of me, I thought of you,
the wishing hopes that never found
a way to grow in thorny ground.
Astute aurora slowly spawned;
melancholy burst the dawn
like tales I've heard since I was born
of peasant king with crown of thorn.

In life we walk a darkling night,
and peace is rare without a fight.
But faces through the years grown worn
still memories with hopes adorn,
like sunrise red. Our shadowed mind
will someday leave our fears behind,
when elders throw their bodies down
before the Throne, and cast their crowns.

Certainties

The heart still beats in Peter's hall.
The world still turns upon the cross.
In silent gardens shadows fall
on leaves that do not heed their loss.
In holy skies the stars still burst
and milky still the stream is seen;
for sweetest light the mind still thirsts
as moonlight lends the lake its sheen.
How fair, how pure, the evenings are
that bring a respite from the day!
And, sure and safe and lit by star,
the road of Christ lies where it lay.

Exemplary Ritual Activity

Confucius's belief that sociopolitical harmony could be achieved without force, without action, is one of the cornerstones of his philosophical vision. Law and coercive punishment, while perhaps necessary evils, simply do not promote human morality effectively, nor do they create a social order based on mutual respect. Rather, an exemplary person and exemplary ritual activity are much more helpful guides. According to Confucius, without coercion of any sort they have the power to inspire in others model social behavior, born not of fear but of voluntary respect for others. In short, a man of virtue--the North Star--using ritual expression helps promote among the people a sense of shared values, creating thereby a strong communal identity, or what one scholar called "a fiduciary community based on mutual trust."

Daniel K. Gardner, Zhu Xi's Reading of the Analects, Cambridge UP (New York: 2003), p. 123. The quotation is from Tu Wei-ming's Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Chung-yung.

Brightness

...[W]hen we see men devoted to worldly wisdom and far from belief in Jesus Christ brought out of the depth of their error and called to an acknowledgment of the true Light, it is undoubtedly the brightness of the Divine grace that is at work: and whatever of new light illumines the darkness of their hearts, comes from the rays of the same star: so that it should both move with wonder, and going before lead to the adoration of God the minds which it visited with its splendour. But if with careful thought we wish to see how their threefold kind of gift is also offered by all who come to Christ with the foot of faith, is not the same offering repeated in the hearts of true believers? For he that acknowledges Christ the King of the universe brings gold from the treasure of his heart: he that believes the Only-begotten of God to have united man's true nature to Himself, offers myrrh; and he that confesses Him in no wise inferior to the Father's majesty, worships Him in a manner with incense.

St. Leo the Great, Sermon 36 on the Epiphany

Whom Stars and Seraphs Sing

Epiphany
by Christina Rossetti

'Lord Babe, if Thou art He
We sought for patiently,
Where is Thy court?
Hither may prophecy and star resort;
Men heed not their report.' –
'Bow down and worship, righteous man:
This Infant of a span
Is He man sought for since the world began!' –
'Then, Lord, accept my gold, too base a thing
For Thee, of all kings King.' –

'Lord Babe, despite Thy youth
I hold Thee of a truth
Both Good and Great:
But wherefore dost Thou keep so mean a state,
Low-lying desolate?' –
'Bow down and worship, righteous seer:
The Lord our God is here
Approachable, Who bids us all draw near.' –
'Wherefore to Thee I offer frankincense,
Thou Sole Omnipotence.' –

'But I have only brought
Myrrh; no wise afterthought
Instructed me
To gather pearls or gems, or choice to see
Coral or ivory.' –
'Not least thine offering proves thee wise:
For myrrh means sacrifice,
And He that lives, this Same is He that dies.' –
'Then here is myrrh: alas, yea woe is me
That myrrh befitteth Thee.' –

Myrrh, frankincense, and gold:
And lo from wintry fold
Good-will doth bring
A Lamb, the innocent likeness of this King
Whom stars and seraphs sing:
And lo the bird of love, a Dove,
Flutters and coos above:
And Dove and Lamb and Babe agree in love: –
Come all mankind, come all creation hither,
Come, worship Christ together.