Archive for October, 2012

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

The Same Inescapable Topic Yet Again

Posted October 18, 2012 By John C Wright

A reader who has far more patience for this long dead topic than it deserves asks:

 I believe that the question that Dr. Andreassen has been trying to ask with the convoluted Mechaspeare thought-experiment is, do immaterial things impact the trajectory of material things? So, for example, if Shakespeare were sitting at a desk and we had the God-like power to instantly analyze the entire physics of the universe would we absolutely know what he would physically do next?

If we would, Dr. Andreassen concludes, then there is no need believe in immaterial things as they add nothing to predictive power. If we wouldn’t, Dr. Andreassen concludes, then in theory, and at some point in the future, physicists could develop an experiment to show that immaterial things exist. He then is interested in how the immaterial things change the trajectory of material things.

I solemnly assure you that I understand the purpose and point and every nuance of Dr Andreassen’s hypothetical. We have flogged that particular horse of conversation to death and then with additional whip strokes torn the carcass from the bones.

The original conversation consisted of very few exchanges, and then month after month after month of impasses, where neither side said or could say anything new.

His disagreement with me is metaphysical, and since does not believe metaphysical questions are meaningful, he can neither ask nor answer meaningful questions about his position.

It was a question I answered two years ago, and again every few months since.

My answer is and was this: Immaterial things do not suffer physical motion from material things nor impart physical motion to material things. Only material things impart physical motion to material things.

Read the remainder of this entry »

125 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Reasonings

Separated at Birth?

Posted October 17, 2012 By John C Wright

In German folklore a walking ghost who looks just like you is called Doppelganger. Being a science fiction fan, I first saw the word not used in its original meaning, but as a word to refer to your alternate self from a parallel timeline.

But I am using the word neither in its folklore sense nor its science fiction sense, but to refer to a man who shares my spirit (such as the dry humor and the hatred of irrationality) and shares the spirit of what happened to me, even in some of the details (such as accusations of insanity from people I had thought were friends or colleagues) when I say I have met my Doppelganger.

Good Grief! The man even quotes Aristotle! We are practically twins.

Here is the article, from State Press Magazine (http://www.statepress.com/2012/09/27/from-atheism-to-catechism/)

Read the remainder of this entry »

4 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Apologetics, Only Posting a Link

From the Archives: Defining the Indefinable, Defending the Indefensible

Posted October 16, 2012 By John C Wright
A reader recently asked my opinion on this issue. Since this article from January of last year is already written and at hand, I thought it simpler to reprint it.

Defining the Indefinable, Defending the Indefensible

In reference to this essay here (http://www.scifiwright.com/2011/01/gnosticism-in-action/), a reader asks:

“This may be an odd point to ask this, but how are you defining ‘leftist’? For example, are you describing a garden variety member of the Democratic party or something else?”

This is not odd at all. A call for a definition is always in order, since most disagreement is based on improperly defined terms.

Alas, I am not defining the word Leftist. I cannot. They have spent so much of their time and effort to avoid, elude, evade, and weasel out of defining themselves, that no mere mortal has any ability to find a label that can fit on them.

I do not think the movement, for which I have no satisfactory name, can be defined.

Read the remainder of this entry »

9 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Musings, Reasonings

From the Archives: Parable of the Chessman

Posted October 16, 2012 By John C Wright
This article appeared in February of this year, and originally appeared the year previous. An inattentive reader made the unlikely claim that I was reluctant or unable to answer the question addressed here. I reprint the article as a reminder that I suffer from the opposite problem; namely, a chivalrous (or, perhaps, a neurotic) inability to stop discussing the issue even after it is clear that discussion is futile.

Parable of the Chessmen

I have been asked whether the electrons in a brain move “according to” the laws of physics as opposed to moving “according to” the willpower of the thinker.

The question is ambiguous because there are two meanings of “according to.” The dichotomy proposed by the question is a false one — the choice is not between a brain-electron moving “according to” (meaning 2) someone’s will OR moving “according to” (meaning 1) the laws of Newton.

Note the differences here between a proscriptive and a descriptive use of the phrase “according to”. If I shake my head to signify a negative, that is according to my will and according to the convention that a head-shake means ‘no’. That is proscriptive, in accord with a final cause. If Jack Ketch chops my head with an ax, the fall of my head into the basket is “according to” Newton’s laws of gravity. That is descriptive, in accord with a mechanical cause.

The head might indeed make the same motion, but asking for an account of the mechanics is not the same as asking for an justification for my refusal.

It is not an ‘either-or’ question.

Read the remainder of this entry »

20 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Reasonings

Poetry Corner

Posted October 15, 2012 By John C Wright
TO A POET A THOUSAND YEARS HENCE
by: James Elroy Flecker

I WHO am dead a thousand years,
And wrote this sweet archaic song,
Send you my words for messengers
The way I shall not pass along.

I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure the cruel sky,
Or build consummate palaces
Of metal or of masonry.

But have you wine and music still,
And statues and a bright-eyed love,
And foolish thoughts of good and ill,
And prayers to them who sit above?

How shall we conquer? Like a wind
That falls at eve our fancies blow,
And old Mæonides the blind
Said it three thousand years ago.

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.

Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand,
I send my soul through time and space
To greet you. You will understand.

4 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Poetry Corner

Voting Yourself Out of a Vote

Posted October 13, 2012 By John C Wright

What is a significant, if not the crucial, issue of this election? I fear it is one I have not yet heard discussed.

Libertarians, and men rightly disgusted by Republican stupidity and evil, this candidate is not ideal; but if he is not sufficiently conservative, he can be voted out of office, because the electoral process will be somewhat trustworthy.

I cannot say the same if he does not win.
Read the remainder of this entry »

4 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Musings

Voting Yourself Out of Work

Posted October 13, 2012 By John C Wright

What is the crucial issue of the current election?

Hint: it is not about borrowing money from the Red Chinese to fund roughly five percent of the nonprofit yet multimillion dollar Children’s Television Workshop.

Read the remainder of this entry »

3 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Musings

Paterson’s Field Guide to the Left

Posted October 13, 2012 By John C Wright

I have written many posts about how to recognize a Leftist in the wild or whom I mean by the word ‘Leftist’, but I will give a brief summation here. Because it is a brief summation, it is sadly inaccurate.

The Left is a coalition rather than an organization, by which I mean, there is no one center, no single guiding principle except their opposition God, to reason, to reality, most particularly to the realities of economics.

No one Leftist believes all parts of the Leftist doctrine because no one can or would. They pick and choose. What they are picking and choosing is which part of reality they want to deny.

Read the remainder of this entry »

30 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Musings

Science Hatred in Science Fiction

Posted October 12, 2012 By John C Wright

Time for an anecdote:

When I was young, in the days before STAR WARS when only a small and happy band of what are now called geeks read science fiction, I actually believed the propaganda recited by such figures as Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov that the science fiction readership was smarter, more interested in ideas, more insightful than the general public.

Several things diminished my faith in that bit of flattery over the years. Once was a science fiction convention where I served on a panel with some gray haired member of the old guard, a fan from the days of John W Campbell Jr.

The topic of abortion came up. I asked him only about the scientific facts of the question without inquiring into his moral stance. I asked him, for example, if the “fetus” (his terminology, not mine. He did not know that the word refers to a stage of development, not to a species of organism) were alive. He said no. The fetus is potentially alive, not actually alive.

He did not know the scientific definition of life every High School student knows. I forbore from asking him how the allegedly nonliving organism managed to grow, etc.

I asked him if the fetus had an XX or XY chromosome pair? In other words, was the fetus definitely male or female?

He said no. A fetus with XX chromosomes was only potentially female. Biologically and scientifically speaking, the organism in question was as sexless as an amoeba.

I asked him if a organism is halfway out of the womb, let us say the lower half is out, but the upper half is still lodged in the birth canal, is the lower half sexual  but the upper half sexless? Would the cells composing her sexual organs, for example, define her sex? But the brain cells in its brain did not?

At the moment when the organism was exactly halfway out of the womb, was the organism a nonliving fetus from the middle up, but a living human being from the middle down?

The conversation moved to another topic, and I did not get an answer to this question.

I also did not get a chance to ask him if he had flunked High School biology.

Read the remainder of this entry »

41 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Musings

Well Said

Posted October 12, 2012 By John C Wright

Today seems to be my day for coming across men saying what I think more clearly than could I.

This time it is Princeton professor of politics Robert P. George:

Scientific premise:  The life of a human being begins at conception, when the union of gametes brings into being a new organism–the embryo–that is both functionally and genetically complete and distinct.  The embryo is a living member of the species Homo sapiens–a human being in the earliest stage of his or her natural development.  The adult human being whom we know as Joe Biden, for example, is the same human being who, at earlier stages of his development, was a young adult, an adolescent, a child, an infant, a fetus, and an embryo.  He developed by a gradual, gapless, and internally-directed process from the embryonic stage into and through the fetal, infant, child, and adolescent stages, and finally into adulthood, with his determinateness, unity, and identity intact.  The living member of the human species that is the adult Joe Biden is the same living member of the species who many years ago was the embryonic Joe Biden. For confirmation of these biological facts, the place to look is not the Bible or the Catechism, but rather any modern work of human embryology or developmental biology.  The Church holds that the embryo from the beginning is a distinct living member of the human species for the simple reason that it is an established matter of scientific fact.

Moral premise:  Every human being possesses inherent dignity, and is equal in fundamental rights; all have an inalienable right to life and to the protection of the laws.  No one is superior or inferior to others on account of age, size, location, stage of development or condition of dependency, just as no one is superior or inferior to others on account of race, sex, ethnicity, and the like.  Just law, therefore, protects the rights of all, and anyone who supports the withdrawal of legal protection from some bears personal guilt for the grave injustice against them.

The Church has no special revelation pertaining to the scientific premise.

It holds that the moral premise is accessible to human reason on the basis of philosophical reflection, but also finds it confirmed in Scripture (especially Genesis 1:27) and the firm and constant tradition of the Church.

Joe Biden’s idea that the Church teaches that we are required merely “personally” to accept the teaching of the Church against unjust killing of the unborn and observe it in our private lives is absurd. The teaching of the Church is that we are required under strict obligations of justice to support the equal right to life of all.  Otherwise, we ourselves stand condemned for injustice towards those whom we would expose to unjust killing. Any way you look at it, Biden is in violation of the teaching of the Church (as he would be if he were to say, “I personally would never kill a Hungarian, since the Church teaches that Hungarians are human beings with an equal right to life; but I favor laws that permit the killing of Hungarians”).

Ryan hit the nail on the head when he said that his position on abortion is based on science and philosophy as well as faith.  It is.  Biden, by contrast, ignored (or simply doesn’t understand) the science, got the philosophy all wrong, and misrepresented the teaching of the faith he claims as his own.

4 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Musings

Saint Ambrose of Milan, Pray for Us

Posted October 12, 2012 By John C Wright

In the life of every writer and journalist comes that moment where someone else says just perfectly the thing you wanted to say. Fortunately, in the Information Age, you can just link to him, and ask your readers to read his post. In this case, it is Dr Marshall at Canterbury Tales:

http://cantuar.blogspot.com/2012/10/pontius-pilate-and-pro-abortion.html

In last night’s US Vice-Presidential debate, our Vice-President said that he was a faithful Catholic and that he personally believed that life begins at conception. However, he is pro-choice because he doesn’t want to impose his belief on other people.
What if Pontius Pilate said: “Me, personally, I believe you are the Messicanic Son of God. But I don’t want to impose that belief on the angry mobs outside. Sorry. You’re going to die.”
Or what if he said, “Me, personally, I believe Americans enslaving Africans is morally evil. But I don’t want to impose that belief on America. It’s a very emotional topic. Let’s allow each plantation owner decide for himself.”

Well said, sir. Well said.

Read the remainder of this entry »

20 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Musings

National Suicide

Posted October 11, 2012 By John C Wright

Alan Silverman asks why Mr Obama getting a second term is tantamount to national suicide.

By good fortune, I happen to have written a short essay answering that exact question earlier this fortnight:
http://www.scifiwright.com/2012/09/what-is-this-election-about/

Now, keep in mind, that I could not in good conscience cast a ballot for Mr Obama even if I were convinced that his opponent would be the death of the Republic rather than he, for reasons I list here http://www.scifiwright.com/2012/09/for-the-undecided-catholic-voter/

But in this case, we need not reach the question of what the loyal partisan of conservatism thinks might be the wiser choice of political policy, nor reach the question of what the faithful Christian is and is not allowed to do according to the authentic moral teachings of the Magisterium. We need only deal with the question of survival.

American shall not go the way of Greece when she spends herself into oblivion. The economy of Greece I assume is less significant than the economy of Vermont. We shall not go the way of Spain. Spain I assume is economically equal to Washington State.

America shall fall as Rome fell, if there were no Byzantium to preserve our civilization, taking all the currencies of the world with us, and all the debts we owe the Chinese become worthless as a Continental.

We take the whole world with us when we go.

Read the remainder of this entry »

25 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Musings

The Triumph of the Trivial

Posted October 11, 2012 By John C Wright

Are you seriously taking about Big Bird? Talk ab0ut this, instead, thou mewling epitome of shallowness:

http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/10/kill-list-democracy/

Barack Obama has a kill list.

Its legal justification is a secret. Its contents are secret, too. You don’t get to see who’s on it. Nor do any members of Congress. Nor any federal judges. Basically no one does.

How does someone end up on it? Obama decides. He decides with a small group of people, all of whom hold their jobs at his pleasure.

Whatever methods they use, they’re secret, too. The evidence — you guessed it — is secret. If there even is any.

We don’t know much about the kill list, but we do know a few things. We know it can include American citizens. That’s already happened. We know it can include American citizens who are minors. That’s already happened, too.

My comment: I hope no one can possibly doubt my credentials as a warhawk only a hair’s breadth shy from being a blood-crazed berserker when it comes to advocating, in the strongest possible terms, a full, robust, wrathful world-wide war against the Jihad, and all who support it, tacitly or openly, foreign or domestic. I am in favor of a Crusade, for Christ’s sake!

So it is safe to say that I am far, far beyond the norm of what polite society is willing to contemplate when it comes to aggressive use of ugly, brutal force; nor have I any romantic illusions about the horrors and costs of war.

But assassinating American citizens, including a minor, without any legal process, death warrant, or writ of a magistrate?

That is a cost of war even I deem too high to pay. What profits it a nation to win a war and lose her soul?

This abrogates not only the Constitution, but the medieval Magna Carta, and all notion of the Rights of Man or Rule of Law. Even the victims of the Star Chamber, or the Terror of the French Revolution enjoyed the mockery of a mass trial: that was more legal process than this.

Both political parties support this practice, namely, assassination by fiat of American citizens deemed dangerous.

Neither political party would not dare support this practice unless you, the public, either tacitly supported it, or by your lack of public outcry, permitted it.

No doubt I would cast my vote for Mr Romney anyway, merely because the only alternative, a second term for Mr Obama, is tantamount to national suicide; but I solemnly assure you that I would cast such a vote with far fewer misgivings if Mr Romney publicly repudiated this abominable and unlawful practice, and vowed a return to what are ironically called the Laws of War.

Read the remainder of this entry »

13 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Musings

Superversive on Tolkienian Diction

Posted October 11, 2012 By John C Wright

By all means, if you have not read it already, read the latest offering by Tom Simon the Superversive, on the careful and brilliant use J.R.R. Tolkien made of diction, vocabulary, and style of speech both in dialog and description. I shall certainly have to reread the Trilogy again, keeping an eye out for the nuances mentioned.

http://superversive.livejournal.com/142478.html

As ever, the critics badly underestimated the craft and art which Tolkien’s generous genius lent to him.

Who else in our beloved genre has such a command of high voices and low? All Robert Heinlein characters talk like Heinlein, and all Jack Vance characters talk like phantasmagorical apparitions. Bradbury and LeGuin have real accomplishments in their poetic diction, but even they do not, I deem, command the same wide diapason of voice as Professor Tolkien.

Until the professional critics learn to read Tolkien without preconceptions and without the goad of their political agenda pricking them, until, in other words, they learn to read as little children, they will not enter into an understanding of why his is the best and rightfully best beloved novel of the Twentieth Century, and the novel most adroitly capturing the mood, motifs, melancholy and the dark concerns of the Twentieth Century.

 

8 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Fancies

Voyage to Venus by CS Lewis

Posted October 9, 2012 By John C Wright

I had the opportunity to reread PERELANDRA, the second in CS Lewis’ Space Trilogy. As I mentioned in my previous column on OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET, Lewis’ first in that trilogy, it is interesting to note the difference reading it as a youth compared to as a greybeard. I will report that the change is entirely favorable. As I grew, the book got bigger.

As with the previous article, I write for readers who have read the Space Trilogy, so spoilers abound. Wise readers will read the book before reading this essay. You  are warned.

Read the remainder of this entry »

23 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
Filed in Fancies
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »