First Past the Post

Electoral Reform

Key: FPPTP = First Past the Post; AMS = Additional Member System; SYV = Single Transferable Vote; JAV+ = Jenkins Alternate Vote Plus; PLS = Party List System; CC = Cellular Constituencies. For explanations of these systems, please read the electoral reform FAQ. For more information about electoral reform in general, visit the Electoral Reform Society or Make My Vote Count.

	FPPTP 6
	AMS 5
	STV 5
	JAV+ 3
PLS -21
CC -14

You should support: First Past the Post (FPTP). This is the system currently in place in the UK by which a single MP is elected from each constituency by simply getting the most votes. This system is simple to understand, familiar to the electorate and maintains a direct link between MPs and their constituencies. It also tends to deliver an overall majority to a single party. It is very poorly representative in terms of how the number of MPs a party receives relates to their share of the vote.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

(HT: NWW)

It doesn't really surprise me; I don't care much at all about the precise way the vote is determined, as long as it is stable and not changed lightly. I despise the Party List System, however, and any other mechanism in which parties are given an inflated importance, and fiercely dislike anyone who thinks that a vote actually counted can genuinely be wasted, as well as anyone who thinks that a system of election should be reformed merely because another system would have given them more power. They get my hackles up. At least, my passions are as intense on this matter as they ever are on politics; which is to say, my dislikings are always subject to my most intense passion about politics: bored impatience. I'm a little surprised that First Past the Post is quite so close to the others, though. I think it is a bad idea to talk about legislative representation as if the main thing were representation of votes at election time rather than representation of people all the time, so I think that people who fuss about the failure of a system to represent votes precisely (or, at least, precisely in the way they think they should be represented) are a little dangerous -- they haven't even figured out the first principle of legislative representation, yet want to go about tampering with things.

Two More Poem Drafts

Orbs

The sun is not a ball of fire
but the sum of one desire:
to lure; and thus must it appear
to thoughtless eyes a burning sphere.
But all this rolling globe of light
is more than what appears to sight;
less like a flame, more like a word
in which the thought and deed are blurred,
it rolls, and in a single thought
all the paths of light are caught
and bent around it like a sea
extending to infinity;
it speaks, commanding: Come to me.

Some have thought the earth to fly
like a droplet in the sky;
a little water, a bit of earth,
a thing like nothing in its worth.
But they who ponder on the skies
study better, grow more wise,
and know: each star in its course
is subject to its endless force;
all the glories near and far
are affected where they are
by whispers born of ecstasy.
The whispers say: Come to me.

The stars are moved; each like a thought
has searched the sky and gently sought
the paths and ways by which things flow;
each is a word to those who know,
a gesture to each thing and kind
that the seeking soul can find;
each calls out to eternity,
each ripples out upon the sea,
each beckons, saying: Come to me.

Hagia Sophia

I am light;
I leap cat-like;
I dance on walls.
My swiftness is lightning.

I am fire,
purest aether,
each flame a thought,
each ray a truth,
that leaps into the darkness.

Like the oil of gladness,
like the glad heart,
I pour down,
each word a speaking glory.

The world breathes;
its spirit brings to life
the myriad creatures.
I breathe the world.

I played in the darkness;
like a child I played,
and hiding and seeking
I play in the morning.

Cease wandering in folly;
come and be wise!
For I am the origin
and I am the end
and I am the hope of your dreams.

The White Shell; and Duhem's Realism

We selected our differential equations or, what comes to the same thing, the principels they translate, because we wished to construct a mathematical representation of a group of phenomena; in seeking to represent these phenomena with the aide of a system of differential equations, we were presupposing from the very start that they were subject to a strict determinism; we were well aware, in fact, taht a phenomenon whose peculiarities did not in the least result from the initial data would rebel at any representation by such a system of equations. We were therefore certain in advance that no place was reserved for free actions in the classification we had arranged. When we note afterwards that a free action cannot be included in our clasification, we should be very naive to be astonished by it and very foolish to conclude that free will is impossible.

Imagine a collector who wishes to arrange sea shells. He takes seven drawers that he marks with seven colors of the spectrum, and you see him putting the red shells in the red drawer, the yellow shells in the yellow drawer, etc. But if a white shell appears, he will not know what to do with it, for he has no white drawer. You would, of course, feel very sorry for his reason if you heard him conclude in his embarrassment that no white shells exist in the world.

The physicist who thinks he can deduce from his theoretical principles the impossibility of free will deserves the same feeling. In manufacturing a classification for all phenomena produced in this world, he forgets the drawer for free actions!

Duhem, Physics of a Believer.

Quite true. By the way, "Physics of a Believer" is one of the most brilliant essays in the history of the philosophy of science. It has often been misunderstood, I think; the misunderstandings aren't all as utterly bizarre as V. I. Lenin's portrayal of Duhem as a Machian Kantian who was almost a dialectical materialist, but they are sometimes fairly serious. The argument toward the end, that physics as a whole, and thermodynamics in particular, suggests a (broadly) Aristotelian metaphysics, is especially misunderstood, despite the fact that Duhem explicitly denies the stronger claims that are sometimes attributed to him. It's the strange thing about Duhem; he's always saddled with interpretations that cut against what he explicitly says. "Physics of a Believer," in fact, was a response to just such an interpretation, the claim that "Duhem's scientific philosophy is that of a believer". As Duhem points out, the only senses in which this is true are (1) that Duhem himself is Catholic; and (2) that if Duhem's account is true, it would be impossible for science to disprove Christian doctrine (or prove it, for that matter).

In any case, the essay is a good source for understanding how it is that Duhem manages to be a positivist and yet also be a scientific realist in the modern sense (which, in fact, he is; for instance, he sharply rejects naive scientific realism about physical theories, but when he rejects the view that theories in physics are true he does so by arguing that they are approximate), or as close to a modern scientific realist as makes no real difference. For a good discussion of some of the issues surrounding the question of whether Duhem is a realist, see Karen Merikangas Darling's paper, Motivational Realism: The Natural Classification for Pierre Duhem (Word document). I don't think her discussion is quite right, because I think the basis for the anti-realist interpretation is somewhat weaker than she makes it out to be. I've already mentioned the crucial point about approximation (Duhem doesn't consider himself a realist because the view that physical theories are approximate rules out what he calls realism), but there are other issues. For example, by 'physical theory' Duhem means mathematics constructed for the purposes of physics; and it isn't clear that someone who tends instrumentalist about the role of mathematics in physics is automatically a scientific anti-realist, particularly when we have this other element involved, namely, the experimental laws that physical theory organizes. The case for Duhem's realism is also slightly stronger than she makes it out to be. To name just two points, Duhem quite explicitly says that science adds to the treasury of common sense, which cannot possibly be interpreted in an anti-realist way, and he insists that physical theory provides a "simplified picture" of what common sense knows to be true and certain, which also sounds realistic (in our sense).

And Darling is quite clearly wrong to say that, since the realist intuitions Duhem insists upon are not scientific or logical "they are unable to ground any pro-realist arguments" (p. 15); how she can regard this as true, given that Duhem is quite clear that the intuitions of common sense are what ultimately ground all arguments, is unclear. Since they are intuitions, we cannot justify them themselves; but since they must be believed by any rational person, this is not a problem. Just as basic intuitions about space don't need further justification, but are what justify our thought about space, so basic intuitions about natural classification and the unity of science don't need further justification but are what justify our (metaphysical) thought about science. This is Duhem's Pascalianism; in the Pascalian aphorism he likes to quote, with regard to the basic principles common sense provides, "We have an impotence to prove that is invincible to any dogmatism and an idea of truth that is invincible to any skepticism."

Darling's claim that Duhem would not consider these on par with scientific theories or logical conclusions will be simply incomprehensible to anyone who actually reads what Duhem says about the intuitions of the heart. And this is not surprising. One of the things we know by intuition of the heart (Duhem is, of course, following Pascal here) is geometry, which is founded on principles that are properly neither scientific nor logical. And perhaps, ultimately, this is where people go wrong with Duhem: they read as anti-realist (in our sense) claims that, in fact, merely mean that realism (in our sense) about physical theory is neither a physical theory nor an experimental law, despite the fact that Duhem's conclusion is undoubtedly right: physical realism is neither a physical theory nor the generalization of a physical experiment. Of course, Duhem thinks this is because nothing in the physicist's method actually justifies scientific realism. Physicists are scientific realists in the way they are realists about the external world: it's something metaphysical that overarches their work in physics, not a conclusion in physics at all. That's not anti-realist either, but perhaps that's where people are misinterpreting him.

But despite the severity of my criticisms, it's a great paper, and worth reading if you are interested in Duhem. You might also like this short paper, which gives a good introduction to Duhem's brilliant recognition that crucial experiments are not possible in physics, and the almost prophetic way in which he argued for this claim.

This post turned out completely different from what I expected to write when I started it; I expected to say something about free will, and ended up talking about scientific realism instead.

Infinitude

An interesting post on divine infinity at "RazorsKiss". By coincidence, I've recently been thinking of this issue. As I've noted before, Malebranche makes a big deal about infinity; it plays an immensely important role in a number of key arguments. (I recently got a search engine hit from someone looking for Malebranche's argument for the existence of God; Malebranche's argument is based on infinity.) Necessity, immutability, eternity, and universality all show up, of course; but they are treated as subordinate and derivative properties.

But the arguments generally assume that only God is infinite. Now, I think it is quite right that only God is absolutely infinite -- infinite in His very being, we might say. But I'm not at all convinced that creatures are incapable of being infinite; my inclinations are toward the view expressed by Aquinas, that creatures can be relatively infinite. Indeed, on Aquinas's view it seems to follow that every creature actually is relatively infinite. Material things are materially infinite, and forms not completely contracted by matter are formally infinite. Material infinity is not particularly impressive; it is a potential infinitude rather than an actual infinitude (I use 'infinitude' rather than 'infinity' because 'infinity' suggests a real collection of some sort, which is not quite what Aquinas is getting at). The interesting creaturely infinitude is formal infinitude, because if Aquinas is right, Malebranche is wrong in thinking that we must be ontologists, i.e., we must hold that ideas are actually in God; or, at least, Malebranche's major argument to this effect is wrong. A scholastic can answer Malebranche's challenge by denying the assumption that most clearly allows one to get around the problem he notes. (I suggested this possibility before, but only speculatively; I hadn't thought to look at Aquinas in this connection.)

On the other hand, if either Aquinas or Malebranche are correct about this matter, no purely naturalistic account of the mind is possible; the naturalist must argue against Aquinas's view that the soul is formally infinite, but because of that must find another answer to Malebranche's challenge to provide a non-question-begging account of our ability to recognize that things are infinite. (For my more analytically-minded readers, Malebranche's arguments are somewhat similar to Thomas Nagel's arguments about the infinite in The Last Word, with somewhat different emphases; the two sets of arguments actually complement and strengthen each other quite well.) Malebranche, I think, completely demolishes the typical, and rather unimpressive, empiricist responses to which people usually flee. Empiricists can't get a genuine infinite. Berkeley recognized this in his notebooks, which is why he is forced to conclude there that the Pythagorean theorem is a useful calculating device that, strictly speaking, is false (because it can only be true at infinite precision).

Hume against Slavery

I had said previously that when Hume talks of slavery he often isn't thinking of slavery but oppression under tyranny. On further reflection, though, I was forgetting the passage in the essay on the Populousness of Ancient Nations. It's worth quoting in full. It's an aside, it's only one passage, it still considers the matter only under the rubric of tyranny, and it doesn't address at all the larger issues of race and how "the unhappy part of the species" should be treated instead. And it is full of a common Humean type of ambiguity, where it isn't always clear whether a sentence is a conclusion, an aside, a restatement, or a qualification (which is one of the big reasons why Hume, who seems to write so clearly, is so very difficult to interpret). But, while I don't want to soft-pedal Hume's absurdities on this topic (they are too often soft-pedalled, since it is a real and important question as to just how these absurdities cohere with Hume's general principles), I also don't want people going away with an unbalanced view of his position.

The chief difference between the domestic economy of the ancients and that of the moderns consists in the practice of slavery, which prevailed among the former, and which has been abolished for some centuries throughout the greater part of EUROPE. Some passionate admirers of the ancients, and zealous partizans of civil liberty, (for these sentiments, as they are, both of them, in the main, extremely just, are found to be almost inseparable) cannot forbear regretting the loss of this institution; and whilst they brand all submission to the government of a single person with the harsh denomination of slavery, they would gladly reduce the greater part of mankind to real slavery and subjection. But to one who considers coolly on the subject it will appear, that human nature, in general, really enjoys more liberty at present, in the most arbitrary government of EUROPE, than it ever did during the most flourishing period of ancient times. As much as submission to a petty prince, whose dominions extend not beyond a single city, is more grievous than obedience to a great monarch; so much is domestic slavery more cruel and oppressive than any civil subjection whatsoever. The more the master is removed from us in place and rank, the greater liberty we enjoy; the less are our actions inspected and controled; and the fainter that cruel comparison becomes between our own subjection, and the freedom, and even dominion of another. The remains which are found of domestic slavery, in the AMERICAN colonies, and among some EUROPEAN nations, would never surely create a desire of rendering it more universal. The little humanity, commonly observed in persons, accustomed, from their infancy, to exercise so great authority over their fellow-creatures, and to trample upon human nature, were sufficient alone to disgust us with that unbounded dominion. Nor can a more probable reason be assigned for the severe, I might say, barbarous manners of ancient times, than the practice of domestic slavery; by which every man of rank was rendered a petty tyrant, and educated amidst the flattery, submission, and low debasement of his slaves.

According to ancient practice, all checks were on the inferior, to restrain him to the duty of submission; none on the superior, to engage him to the reciprocal duties of gentleness and humanity. In modern times, a bad servant finds not easily a good master, nor a bad master a good servant; and the checks are mutual, suitably to the inviolable and eternal laws of reason and equity.

The custom of exposing old, useless, or sick slaves in an island of the TYBER, there to starve, seems to have been pretty common in ROME; and whoever recovered, after having been so exposed, had his liberty given him, by an edict of the emperor CLAUDIUS; in which it was likewise forbidden to kill any slave merely for old age or sickness. But supposing that this edict was strictly obeyed, would it better the domestic treatment of slaves, or render their lives much more comfortable? We may imagine what others would practise, when it was the professed maxim of the elder CATO, to sell his superannuated slaves for any price, rather than maintain what he esteemed a useless burden.

The ergastula, or dungeons, where slaves in chains were forced to work, were very common all over ITALY. COLUMELLA advises, that they be always built under ground; and recommends it as the duty of a careful overseer, to call over every day the names of these slaves, like the mustering of a regiment or ship's company, in order to know presently when any of them had deserted. A proof of the frequency of these ergastula, and of the great number of slaves usually confined in them.

A chained slave for a porter, was usual in ROME, as appears from OVID, and other authors. Had not these people shaken off all sense of compassion towards that unhappy part of their species, would they have presented their friends, at the first entrance, with such an image of the severity of the master, and misery of the slave?

(He gives several more examples of ancient slavery, but they don't clearly add anything to the argument. In a footnote, however, he does suggest a causal chain in which contempt for slaves causes a taste for gladiatorial combat, which in term is "a great cause of the general inhumanity of their princes and rulers.")

A Poem Draft

By the River of Gozan

Of Epher and Ishi our people sing,
of Eliel and Azriel in Jahdiel's day,
of the mighty hand of Jeremiah,
of the sword of Hodaviah,
in a bygone day, in our days of number,
before our souls were sold in Hermon's shadow,
before we whored ourselves to a foreign god
in Bashan and below Senir.
Where were the mighty when the Lord stirred up,
when the Lord raised up the Assyrians?
Where were the heroes when the Lord called forth
Pul and Tilgath-Pilneser?
They faded like water, and burned like grass,
and disappeared in the raging of war;
and we were brought here, a disconsolate people,
weeping in Hara, Halah, and Habor.

Additional Links of Note

* Race and Racism in the Works of David Hume by Eric Morton. This is an interesting paper on Hume's racism, particularly the notorious footnote I previously mentioned. The paper is not as readable as one could hope; it rushes a bit from one point to another in a sort of tumbling way, and some of the points could use a bit more development and support. But it's a good starting point for inquiry into this problem, as well as for reflection (which genuinely needs to be done) on how this should affect one's approach to Hume's 'science of man'.

* Human Responsibility at "Rebecca Writes"

* I Lost My Poverty -- But I Found It Again at "21st Century Reformation"

* A Secularist Debate on Abortion (HT: Dangerous Idea)

* I found this post at "Butterflies and Wheels" interesting, because it's a clear expression of a view that's (1) plausible; (2) generally accepted uncritically; and (3) definitely but interestingly wrong. Often the first question on a topic brought up for rational consideration is what priority should I give this issue in my reasoning? And part of this question clearly does require asking about the benefits and detriments, because they are relevant to determining whether we need to apportion a greater or lesser portion of our time, resources, and effort to consideration of the question. It's only when the issue of priority is not important -- when there is no cost-of-reasoning reasoning required -- that we should start with the question is this true or false? Likewise, Benson, like most people who just accept the cliches and don't consider this issue critically, misses the point that the benefits and detriments play a role after the inquiry when issues of priority come again, e.g., what priority should I give to persuading people of the conclusion I've reached? If, for instance, a false belief is good for social cohesion, the only reasonable thing to do is to give it a lower priority than false beliefs that are bad for social cohesion, all other things being equal. Priority reasoning is an important aspect of critical thinking. (HT: The 10th Skeptics' Circle)

* Reply to a 14 year old creationist at "Respectful Insolence" (HT: SC10 again). It's good to see good taste in action; and good taste, as I think I've pointed out before somewhere, is the old (as in 18th-century) name for critical thought. (UPDATE: Chris links it with a passage from Galileo's Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, which is also well worth reading.)