I've been a bit lax in the weblog neighborliness department, so here's an update on various blogs who have linked to me in one way or another.
First, those that have put me on their blogroll:
* wood s lot: this is a good site for those interested in poetry and portraits;
* Mormon Metaphysics: I confess I don't know much about Mormonism beyond occasional contact with the Mormon branch of my dad's side of the family, but this weblog is very well done, and I'm learning interesting things while digging through the archives;
* Doing Things With Words: a new philosophy blog that's getting a good start;
* Giornale Nuovo: easily one of the coolest blogs in the blogosphere
I'm picky about who goes on my sidebar, but all these are candidates in varying degrees, some closer than others. DTWW is a bit political at present for my taste, but I'll be keeping my eye on them all. And then I'll have to get around to revising my sidebar, at which I've also been a bit lax. Also, I'm on the 'blinks' page for emptydog, which appears to be still under construction and not yet sorted out. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I'm similarly on one of the bloglinks pages at Scott's Space.
Several linked to my "Blogscholars" post (it was a rather lightweight contribution; but it apparently helped clarify a point in the discussion, so that's good):
* The Little Professor
* Amardeep Singh
* The Conquering Poet
Several people also have linked to my "Spiritual Almsdeeds" post, including Commentariat and Under the Sun.
In addition, from my sidebar, Cliopatria, Rebecca Writes, and Early Modern Notes have linked to me several times; and some sort of acknowledgment seems in order.
I think that's it; as I said, I've been a bit lax about keeping up with this and so might have missed a few (but I haven't listed any of the ones who linked to me entirely because of the Philosophers' Carnival).
Saturday, September 18, 2004
The World of Tomorrow
I saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow yesterday. It's fairly good, but I think it didn't entirely come together in the way it should have. It would make a better radio play than movie. But people don't listen much to radio plays anymore, do they? One of the radio stations here had classic radio theater for an hour every Sunday night, until they moved it to an AM station I can't get where I'm at (I was so annoyed that I switched radio stations entirely and never went back). We need more radio theater....
In any case, as a movie it manages to work fairly well. The heroine should have a bit more moxy, but Paltrow isn't bad. Law is quite good, and ends with a quip that, in the theater I was in, at least, had the whole audience laughing and clapping.
In any case, as a movie it manages to work fairly well. The heroine should have a bit more moxy, but Paltrow isn't bad. Law is quite good, and ends with a quip that, in the theater I was in, at least, had the whole audience laughing and clapping.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Cooperative Distributed Argumentation
One of the things I find interesting about the recent arguments on the Killian memos is the sort of argument for the conclusion of forgery that was manifested. It was, if you did not keep a close eye on it, rather difficult to follow because 1) it was in motion; 2) it was distributed.
I think we can see the argument by thinking about it in terms of its exploratory frontier. This (continually changing) frontier consists of the arguments and counter-arguments that are currently in play at a given time, each of which functions as a sort of vector. Unopposed, the vector moves the argument forward; met with an opposing vector in a counter-argument, the argument on that point can be stalled or moved in the opposite direction. Throughout much of the past week, new vectors have been added by both sides (with the side arguing that the memos were forgeries massively outpacing their opponents in laying down new vectors, both completely new vectors and vectors designed to neutralize their opponent's vectors). At the edge of the frontier there's considerable floundering on both sides - both sides are struggling to find a good formulation of what they are trying to say, both are trying to filter out misinformation, both are trying to correct their misunderstandings of the facts, etc. Things get tried out and discarded because of objections; other things endure objections to move the frontier forward (whichever direction one might consider 'forward' to be).
This is complicated by the fact that the argument was highly distributed: in other words, there was no one place you could go to find "the argument"; it was a complicated argument whose basic points were scattered among many different sites. To some extent the problems arising from this were neutralizing by establishing nodes of information that turned the scattered distribution into an argumentative net: e.g., some weblogs did very high-quality postings on particular issues in the argument and became heavily linked to because of it; some did a bit of metablogging and kept track of news; others did simple communication, notifying readers of their sites as to new elements they had found. Nonetheless, it's still the case that pinning down the precise argument and how it fit together became very complicated very quickly. Nonetheless, the elements of the argument did hang together, in great measure because of the information nodes; one of the major mistakes made by critics of the forgery claim was that they did not recognize the distributed character of the argument, and therefore treated each element as if it were an element of its own. (Another mistake, I think, was that they failed to recognize that the supporters of the forgery claim were developing their arguments by assimilating new information.)
The argument was able to be distributed because it was not deductive. I suppose one way to characterize it would be as an eliminative argument, although that makes it sound (given the restricted way in which we normally use the label) as if it were somehow an argument from ignorance rather than an attempt to marshal positive evidences in favor of one conclusion to the exclusion of the others. So my recommendation is that we call this sort of argument a "circumscriptive search" or "search by cumulative circumscription": it is an argument that uses positive considerations in a cumulative way to "zero in" on one solution.
(Incidentally, were I to give an award for the most unforunate post on the argument(s) from someone who should know better, it would have to go, alas, to this post by Brian Weatherson at "Crooked Timber." First, the particular element of the argument he is discussing is clearly not deductive; why Weatherson thought it could only be interpreted as a deductive argument, and therefore charged with a deductive fallacy, is beyond me. Second, the particular element is clearly only one element in what is a more extended argument; evaluating the element requires placing it in the context of the larger argument, which Weatherson does not do. Third, by his own lights he doesn't translate the argument correctly, because he drops the 'virtually' from the translation (and then - and here I must assume that I am just missing something in his reasoning - criticizes the argument for it?!). Fourth, even on the assumption that the argument was intended as a deductive argument, this is not a freshman logic class. When we find arguments that apparently commit formal fallacies in the real world, we need to consider the possibility that they are enthymematic, i.e., that they only appear to commit the fallacies because of a premise that is not explicitly stated. This Weatherson doesn't seem to do, either. This is all quite unfortunate, because Weatherson is a top-notch mind; he could do better.)
For an exercise in seeing how this distribution of the elements of the arguments works, see how the argument starts fitting together by looking at this small, incomplete sample of some significant nodes in the argument (listed in no particular order):
* CBS Killian Document Index at "Little Green Footballs"
* CBS Against the World at "blogicus"
* Typographic Problems with the Bush Memos at "Digitus, Finger, & Co.
* The IBM Selectric Composer at "The Shape of Days"
* Flounder.com (non-blog node)
* Power Line (several different blog posts, all of them very influential; start at September 9)
And some of the counter-vectors (which respond to, and have responses, among some of the above):
* Bush's Exam Doc -- Real or Fake at PC Magazine (non-blog node)
* TANG Typewriter Follies; Wingnuts Wrong at "Daily Kos"
* IBM Executive Typewriters at "Amygdala"
* and, of course, CBS News (lots of links; non-blog node)
The complicated character of the discourse is almost enough to give one a headache. And yet, if we think about it, this exploratory frontier, focused as it is on one particular issue and occurring in a very accessible medium, is very small and simple compared with many of the cooperative distributed arguments we deal with as a society. In my view, this is an issue that needs to be considered at greater length by philosophers and others who do work on the use of argument in social discourse.
I think we can see the argument by thinking about it in terms of its exploratory frontier. This (continually changing) frontier consists of the arguments and counter-arguments that are currently in play at a given time, each of which functions as a sort of vector. Unopposed, the vector moves the argument forward; met with an opposing vector in a counter-argument, the argument on that point can be stalled or moved in the opposite direction. Throughout much of the past week, new vectors have been added by both sides (with the side arguing that the memos were forgeries massively outpacing their opponents in laying down new vectors, both completely new vectors and vectors designed to neutralize their opponent's vectors). At the edge of the frontier there's considerable floundering on both sides - both sides are struggling to find a good formulation of what they are trying to say, both are trying to filter out misinformation, both are trying to correct their misunderstandings of the facts, etc. Things get tried out and discarded because of objections; other things endure objections to move the frontier forward (whichever direction one might consider 'forward' to be).
This is complicated by the fact that the argument was highly distributed: in other words, there was no one place you could go to find "the argument"; it was a complicated argument whose basic points were scattered among many different sites. To some extent the problems arising from this were neutralizing by establishing nodes of information that turned the scattered distribution into an argumentative net: e.g., some weblogs did very high-quality postings on particular issues in the argument and became heavily linked to because of it; some did a bit of metablogging and kept track of news; others did simple communication, notifying readers of their sites as to new elements they had found. Nonetheless, it's still the case that pinning down the precise argument and how it fit together became very complicated very quickly. Nonetheless, the elements of the argument did hang together, in great measure because of the information nodes; one of the major mistakes made by critics of the forgery claim was that they did not recognize the distributed character of the argument, and therefore treated each element as if it were an element of its own. (Another mistake, I think, was that they failed to recognize that the supporters of the forgery claim were developing their arguments by assimilating new information.)
The argument was able to be distributed because it was not deductive. I suppose one way to characterize it would be as an eliminative argument, although that makes it sound (given the restricted way in which we normally use the label) as if it were somehow an argument from ignorance rather than an attempt to marshal positive evidences in favor of one conclusion to the exclusion of the others. So my recommendation is that we call this sort of argument a "circumscriptive search" or "search by cumulative circumscription": it is an argument that uses positive considerations in a cumulative way to "zero in" on one solution.
(Incidentally, were I to give an award for the most unforunate post on the argument(s) from someone who should know better, it would have to go, alas, to this post by Brian Weatherson at "Crooked Timber." First, the particular element of the argument he is discussing is clearly not deductive; why Weatherson thought it could only be interpreted as a deductive argument, and therefore charged with a deductive fallacy, is beyond me. Second, the particular element is clearly only one element in what is a more extended argument; evaluating the element requires placing it in the context of the larger argument, which Weatherson does not do. Third, by his own lights he doesn't translate the argument correctly, because he drops the 'virtually' from the translation (and then - and here I must assume that I am just missing something in his reasoning - criticizes the argument for it?!). Fourth, even on the assumption that the argument was intended as a deductive argument, this is not a freshman logic class. When we find arguments that apparently commit formal fallacies in the real world, we need to consider the possibility that they are enthymematic, i.e., that they only appear to commit the fallacies because of a premise that is not explicitly stated. This Weatherson doesn't seem to do, either. This is all quite unfortunate, because Weatherson is a top-notch mind; he could do better.)
For an exercise in seeing how this distribution of the elements of the arguments works, see how the argument starts fitting together by looking at this small, incomplete sample of some significant nodes in the argument (listed in no particular order):
* CBS Killian Document Index at "Little Green Footballs"
* CBS Against the World at "blogicus"
* Typographic Problems with the Bush Memos at "Digitus, Finger, & Co.
* The IBM Selectric Composer at "The Shape of Days"
* Flounder.com (non-blog node)
* Power Line (several different blog posts, all of them very influential; start at September 9)
And some of the counter-vectors (which respond to, and have responses, among some of the above):
* Bush's Exam Doc -- Real or Fake at PC Magazine (non-blog node)
* TANG Typewriter Follies; Wingnuts Wrong at "Daily Kos"
* IBM Executive Typewriters at "Amygdala"
* and, of course, CBS News (lots of links; non-blog node)
The complicated character of the discourse is almost enough to give one a headache. And yet, if we think about it, this exploratory frontier, focused as it is on one particular issue and occurring in a very accessible medium, is very small and simple compared with many of the cooperative distributed arguments we deal with as a society. In my view, this is an issue that needs to be considered at greater length by philosophers and others who do work on the use of argument in social discourse.
Christian Carnival XXXV
The newest Christian Carnival is up at Rebecca Writes. My submission is here. This Carnival is organized on a George Herbert theme, which is nice; Herbert, I think, is one of the best short-poem writers in the English language. His poetic diction has the quality that is the perfect blend of what would have once been called courtesy and homeliness - roughly, nobility like that of the royal court and at-home-ness like that of everday life. This is great for religious poetry, and indeed, for religious prose, as Julian of Norwich's works show. In any case, some of the entries I found especially interesting:
* Conditions of Love at "CowPi Journal," on unconditional love, of course
* Even a Drugstore in the Middle of Nowhere Can Be a Teacher at "Belief Seeking Understanding," about Wall Drug at Wall, South Dakota. I've been there (I spent two years of high school in South Dakota)
* Sunday Shopping at "ChristWeb," a reflection on blue laws and shopping on Sunday.
* "Parableman" has The Name of the Trinity
* There are also several remembrances of September 11; I recommend reading them all
Go see!
* Conditions of Love at "CowPi Journal," on unconditional love, of course
* Even a Drugstore in the Middle of Nowhere Can Be a Teacher at "Belief Seeking Understanding," about Wall Drug at Wall, South Dakota. I've been there (I spent two years of high school in South Dakota)
* Sunday Shopping at "ChristWeb," a reflection on blue laws and shopping on Sunday.
* "Parableman" has The Name of the Trinity
* There are also several remembrances of September 11; I recommend reading them all
Go see!
I'm a Caring, Thoughtful, Confident, Humbly Intolerant Good Listener....
Which Old Testament Character are you?
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You are the Lighthouse of Alexandria!
Always there to help, you are a caring and
thoughtful person. A good listener and loyal
companion, you avoid the spotlight and any
confrontation. As the Lighthouse of
Alexandria, you strive to give support to
others and to be a friend during times of
trouble. Dependable and trustworthy, you are
the one person that anyone can talk to when
they need an ear. Often indecisive, you prefer
to give in rather than to fight.
What Wonder of the Ancient World are you?
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I suppose I never really thought about lighthouses avoiding the spotlight....
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Resident Evil (But It's Not a Resident of This Blog)
I keep intending to say that I saw Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse last Friday because 1) I wanted a break from thinking; 2) I misremembered the date for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow; 3) I had seen Resident Evil on TV earlier that week. My brief review:
Obviously, the RE movies are not going for prestige-piece awards, but for simple, straightforward video-game action. I think they both succeed very well in this. The chief flaw in the first movie was an occasional cheesiness to the special effects (I mean beyond the cheesiness one would expect from a non-horror zombie movie). RE2 avoids this, I think; however, it substitutes another flaw in its place. In RE Jovovich's character, Alice, does surprisingly little for an action heroine; in RE2 her action is the real center of the movie. But the actual scenes I found to be way too fast and chaotic: it was very difficult at times to tell what was going on. One reason slow motion special effects have become so popular in action movies is that they allow you to have, as far as the imaginative participation of the audience is concerned, extremely fast action sequences in which the audience can clearly see at every moment what is going on. RE2, surprisingly, never uses slo-mo for any major fight sequence. It would have been improved by a judicious use of slo-mo. Another weakness is that it's a bit talky for a cinematic video game. But other than that it's an enjoyable pause from anything serious. (If you're expecting any profundity from a movie based on a video game and called Resident Evil: Apocalypse, I'm not sure what to say to you.) The ending sets up for a sequel, and I've heard that it's in the works (condional on this one doing well). I'll go to see it, of course, although I expect the usual deterioration that comes with the Third Movie. As long as they keep showing Jovovich's eyes, I'm sure I can bear it.
Obviously, the RE movies are not going for prestige-piece awards, but for simple, straightforward video-game action. I think they both succeed very well in this. The chief flaw in the first movie was an occasional cheesiness to the special effects (I mean beyond the cheesiness one would expect from a non-horror zombie movie). RE2 avoids this, I think; however, it substitutes another flaw in its place. In RE Jovovich's character, Alice, does surprisingly little for an action heroine; in RE2 her action is the real center of the movie. But the actual scenes I found to be way too fast and chaotic: it was very difficult at times to tell what was going on. One reason slow motion special effects have become so popular in action movies is that they allow you to have, as far as the imaginative participation of the audience is concerned, extremely fast action sequences in which the audience can clearly see at every moment what is going on. RE2, surprisingly, never uses slo-mo for any major fight sequence. It would have been improved by a judicious use of slo-mo. Another weakness is that it's a bit talky for a cinematic video game. But other than that it's an enjoyable pause from anything serious. (If you're expecting any profundity from a movie based on a video game and called Resident Evil: Apocalypse, I'm not sure what to say to you.) The ending sets up for a sequel, and I've heard that it's in the works (condional on this one doing well). I'll go to see it, of course, although I expect the usual deterioration that comes with the Third Movie. As long as they keep showing Jovovich's eyes, I'm sure I can bear it.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
New PLoS Biology Issue
This month's issue of PLoS Biology is an especially worthwhile read. Some recommendations:
* The Case of the Noisy Neurons, which summarizes the equally interesting (but much more technical) Amplification of Trial-to-Trial Response Variability by Neurons in Visual Cortex.
* The Conservation Business, on the increasing tendency of conservationism to use economic categories
* From my favorite PLoS Biology feature, "Unsolved Mystery," What Is Life—and How Do We Search for It in Other Worlds? There's some great food for philosophical thought here. (I notice, though, that the article by Pace which he cites actually has a much stronger argument for the universal nature of biochemistry than one can get from the article. McKay makes it sound as if Pace argues for it by appeal to natural selection: "because there is one best way to do things and that natural selection will ensure that life everywhere discovers that way." This would be an extremely bad argument. But having looked it up online (it's free only in extract but I can see the full article because I'm looking at it at the University of Toronto, which has a subscription), I don't see that this is Pace's argument at all. Pace's article (which is worth reading) argues that we should expect all life in the universe to have more or less the same biochemistry for chemical and physical reasons. He mentions natural selection as a qualification to this, citing it as a reason to expect some definite biochemical variation. This is clearly a much better argument.)
* Paradoxes of Difference, on the politics of sex and race in scientific research as portrayed in the play "Relativity"
* Bridging Psychology and Mathematics: Can the Brain Understand the Brain? an interesting article that seems marred, alas, by a rather absurd ending
* the two primers, Adaptation and Immunity and Hormonal Regulation of Plant Growth and Development
This issue's even better than usual. I can't wait until PLoS Medicine comes out (19 October). In the meantime, I'll be perusing the articles above at a more leisurely rate.
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