Introduction

Continued from here.

The introduction states the two main theses of the book and gives a brief summary of each of the chapters.

The two main theses are: (1) Unconstrained reasoning leads to radical choices and (2) Such radical choices are hard to extricate ourselves from.

The book has two main parts: an account of the various dangers that result when the ideals of reason are fully pursued (Chapters 2 to 4) and suggestions on how reason can be prevented from disgracing itself (Chapters 5 to 7 ).

For the first part of the book, we are given an account of how unconstrained reasoning leads to:

paradox and incoherence (Chapter 2);

dialectical illusions of either an absolutist or relativist flavour (Chapter 3);

a skepticism that closes down the rational enterprise altogether (Chapter 4).

There are two ways that unconstrainted reasoning leads to radical, stark, compelling and apparently mutually exclusive “either X or Y” choices. In Fogelin’s words:

“Reason, pursued without constraint, tends to drive us in one of two contrasting directions. The first is the way of metaphysics, which at least in its traditional form, is an attempt to produce a purely rational account of the unchanging, underlying structure of reality. The second contrasting tendency is for reason, when driven to its limits, to undercut itself, yielding radical skepticism or radical relativism.”

On dealing with such choices, Fogelin writes:

“The point of this work is not to offer guidance in making such choices, but to try and understand how they arise, and how, if at all, we can extricate ourselves from them. A central thesis of this work is that such radical choices emerge when reason us given unrestricted employment. A further thesis is that extrication from these choices can be difficult and perhaps, in some cases, never completely successful. These choices generate what Wittgenstein calls “deep disquietudes.” They do so by placing us in the following paradoxical position: The very act of taking such a radical choice seriously walls us off from just those considerations that could extricate us from it. Furthermore, it does not help to tell this to someone wrestling with a radical choice. To him or her, any such suggestion will sound shallow, question-begging, self-sealing, or, as William James would put it, like a “shuffling evasion.” This built-in resistance virtually guarantees that no treatment of the anxieties generated by a radical choice is likely to seem fully satisfactory to anyone deeply immersed in it. One possible strategy is to draw a comparison with some other radical choice that the person does not find compelling. Perhaps by exhibiting the underlying similarity between Lewis’s choice (Boon’s comments: Either something is certain or nothing is even probable) and Dostoyevsky’s choice (Boon’s comments: Either there is God or everything is morally permissible), we can break the spell of someone’s obsession with Lewis’s choice; Dostoyevsky, Satre, and Nietzsche may not be a crowd with which that person wishes to associate. Unfortunately the opposite can also happen: Our subject may, for the first time, take Dostoyevsky’s choice seriously, thus doubling his or her troubles. Contagion spreads.”

[This post consists mostly of material taken directly from the book.]

Next post on the book here.

I’ve always been interested in the limits of reason: how much can reason achieve e.g. in truth versus proof limitative results like Godel’s Incompleteness theorems; how reason breaks downs and gives rise to contradictions in paradoxes like the Sorites paradox; and how excessive reasoning can limit one’s ability to function properly in daily life (analysis paralysis) or in religious life (e.g. Zen parables commonly illustrate how fixation on concepts and dualism buries and obscures the direct experiential connection with a reality that transcends the rational mind).

Since Robert Fogelin’s Walking The Tightrope of Reason: The Precarious Life of A Rational Animal deals with some of these issues, I’ll be writing a series of posts on the book, summarizing the contents of all his chapters except Chapter 1, which I find least interesting. In some cases, I’ll just quote him extensively because I don’t feel I have much more value to add. In case you are curious, Chapter 1 is aimed at correcting the misconception that cause thinkers, poets and philosophers like Heraclitus, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman and Nietzsche to reject the law of noncontradiction (It is not the case that something is both the case and not the case. In the symbolism of propositional logic: ~(p & ~p) ).

Next post on the book here.

Happy New Year everyone! I survived 2005! What a watershed year for me.

Here’s something damn cool for all you guitar players out there. Rock on with the keyboard and shred away!

Click here and follow the instructions. There are two parts: a lesson and interactive flash animation story of Mr Fastfinger, a mysterious guitarist who travels to the Mountain of Tapping Dwarfs and defeats the devil during a guitar vs accordion duel.

And if that was fascinating, check out the interview with the guy behind Mr Fastfinger here.

Man, maybe I can aspire to be metal shredder….Like what a friend of a friend said, “Nobody’s born that way!”. Heh, private joke.

My friend, Sonny Lim, is quite like me. He took a really long time to start blogging (6 months?) after I started a blog for him. Well, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Sonny Lim’s Opera Recordings, a site where he shares his reviews of opera cds with the world!

In his words:

“I’ve just set up my first-ever blog! But as I don’t relish the idea of blogging about personal matters to the whole world, I’ve chosen a small focused area : Opera.

In particular, I blog about several opera recordings of one particular opera, so that it may help you choose which opera recording to buy. There are guidebooks available but I couldn’t find anything on the Internet, so my blog is a small contribution to this gap.

Naturally, I am not trying to be comprehensive. I will just share whatever it is that I happen to be writing about.

And what I have been listening to in recent months are two Mozart operas: The Magic Flute and Cosi Fan Tutte. I’ve been comparing different recordings of each of these operas. But of course, the interesting thing about reading blogs is what you pick up along the way – the personal idiosyncracies, the prejudices, the colour of a life – right? In my blogs, I don’t have to pretend to be detached and objective, as I have to be when I do official reviews.

Do take a look. It will be of interest to you because you are all either interested in music, opera, Mozart, or singing. Or want to be.”

Go visit him now!

While surfing logic and computation blogs, I stumbled upon Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity and chanced upon some poems of Yehuda Amichai. I was immediately transported back to many years ago when I was browsing books at Borders and chanced upon a collection of Amichai’s poems. I remember being so struck by his poems that I bought the collection of poems I was reading.

Here’s part of a poem You mustn’t show weakness posted on Vanity of Vanities (I think he has the same translation of the poem as I do), which I’ve overlooked in my book:

And you mustn’t show weakness.
Sometimes I collapse inside myself
Without people noticing. I’m like an ambulance
On two legs carrying the patient
Inside myself to a no-aid station
With sirens blaring.
People think it’s normal speech.

Here’s another Amichai poem from me:

I Walked Past a House Where I Lived Once

I walked past a house where I lived once:
a man and a woman are still together in the whispers there.
Many years have passed with the quiet hum
of the staircase bulb going on
and off and on again.

The keyholes are like little wounds
where all the blood seeped out. And inside,
people pale as death.

I want to stance once again as I did
holding my first love all night long in the doorway.
When we left at dawn, the house
began to fall apart and since then the city and since then
the whole world.

I want to be filled with longing again
till dark burn marks show on my skin.

I want to be written again
in the Book of Life, to be written every single day
till the writing hand hurts.

“Throughout his career, he was written about memory and the burdens of memory; about the lingering sweetness and simplicity of his parents’ lives set against the perplexities of his own; about war as loss and love as a hedge against loss…Amichai holds on tightly to whatever he has lost. “What I will never see again I must love forever” is his first article of faith. That is why there are so many elegies of love here…What Amichai loves best is the ordinary human being with his pain and his joy, a museum in his heart and shopping baskets at his side. ”

From the Foreword to The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell.

Links:

I experimented with solid food today. Conclusion: I’m not ready for it yet.

While making trips to the loo, I managed to clear some work emails at home and stumbled upon Slow Wave, which provided me some bizarre cheer. Slow Wave is a collective dream diary authored by different people from around the world, and drawn as a comic strip by Jesse Reklaw. Hope it provides you some cheer too.

Here’s an amusing comic strip:

Here’s a bizarre one:

Finally, my favourite one:

Argh! I’ve got food poisoning!

But I shall overcome (with the help of medicine, rest and girlfriend’s care)!

@#&$&^%

Sigh. I’m sick. Very miserable too. On MC for two days. Yesterday, I was mainly bedridden. Even at that state, I can’t take care of myself (In general, I can’t take care of anything, including myself). Luckily, my girlfriend put some wet towels on me last evening and made me feel better. She also bought porridge (half of which I had to waste due to my lack of appetite unfortunately) and flu medicine for me. Thanks for taking care of me dear!

Been so busy at work, I’ve been totally out of touch with my friends and hobbies. Feel so miserable, alienated and isolated. Haven’t been able to get on top of my personal life (in exercise, hobbies, keeping in touch and spending time with the friends that I miss so much) and my work life in dealing with all the work that I’m supposed to deliver. Fatigue, apathy, aversion to action, and a lack of motivation and energy overwhelm me and I don’t feel like doing anything at all.

Friends, if you are reading this post, forgive me for not meeting up and talking to you as much as I used and not replying your emails for the larger part of this year. You are still dear in my heart and I constantly miss you and think of you and wish I could see you more. Thanks for still making the effort to keep in touch with me. Hopefully, I can see most of you soon.

Touching excerpts from Illusha’s Funeral. The Speech at the Stone.

Alyosha went into the room. Ilusha lay with his hands folded and his eyes closed in a blue coffin with a white frill round it. His thin face was hardly changed at all, and strange to say there was no smell of decay from the corpse. The expression of his face was serious and, as it were, thoughtful. His hands, crossed over his breast, looked particularly beautiful, as though chiselled in marble. There were flowers in his hands and the coffin, with flowers, which had been sent early in the morning by Lise Hohlakov. But there were flowers too from Katerina Ivanovna, and when Alyosha opened the door, the captain had a bunch in his trembling hands and was strewing them again over his dear boy. He scarcely glanced at Alyosha when he came in, and he would not look at anyone, even at his crazy weeping wife, “mamma,” who kept trying to stand on her crippled legs to get a nearer look at her dead boy. Nina had been pushed in her chair by the boys close up to the coffin. She sat with her head pressed to it and she too was no doubt quietly weeping. Snegiryov’s face looked eager, yet bewildered and exasperated. There was something crazy about his gestures and the words that broke from him. “Old man, dear old man!” he exclaimed every minute, gazing at Ilusha. It was his habit to call Ilusha “old man,” as a term of affection when he was alive.

“Father, give me a flower, too; take that white one out of his hand and give it me,” the crazy mother begged, whimpering. Either because the little white rose in Ilusha’s hand had caught her fancy or that she wanted one from his hand to keep in memory of him, she moved restlessly, stretching out her hands for the flower.

“I won’t give it to anyone, I won’t give you anything,” Snegiryov cried callously. “They are his flowers, not yours! Everything is his, nothing is yours!”

“Father, give mother a flower!” said Nina, lifting her face wet with tears.

“I won’t give away anything and to her less than anyone! She didn’t love Ilusha. She took away his little cannon and he gave it to her,” the captain broke into loud sobs at the thought of how Ilusha had given up his cannon to his mother. The poor, crazy creature was bathed in noiseless tears, hiding her face in her hands.
...

One of the boys observed that it was awkward for him to crumble the bread with the flowers in his hands and suggested he should give them to someone to hold for a time. But he would not do this and seemed indeed suddenly alarmed for his flowers, as though they wanted to take them from him altogether. And after looking at the grave, and as it were, satisfying himself that everything had been done and the bread had been crumbled, he suddenly, to the surprise of everyone, turned, quite composedly even, and made his way homewards. But his steps became more and more hurried, he almost ran. The boys and Alyosha kept up with him.

“The flowers are for mamma, the flowers are for mamma! I was unkind to mamma,” he began exclaiming suddenly.

Someone called to him to put on his hat as it was cold. But he flung the hat in the snow as though he were angry and kept repeating, “I won’t have the hat, I won’t have the hat.” Smurov picked it up and carried it after him. All the boys were crying, and Kolya and the boy who discovered about Troy most of all. Though Smurov, with the captain’s hat in his hand, was crying bitterly too, he managed, as he ran, to snatch up a piece of red brick that lay on the snow of the path, to fling it at the flock of sparrows that was flying by. He missed them, of course, and went on crying as he ran. Half-way, Snegiryov suddenly stopped, stood still for half a minute, as though struck by something, and suddenly turning back to the church, ran towards the deserted grave. But the boys instantly overtook him and caught hold of him on all sides. Then he fell helpless on the snow as though he had been knocked down, and struggling, sobbing, and wailing, he began crying out, “Ilusha, old man, dear old man!” Alyosha and Kolya tried to make him get up, soothing and persuading him.

“Captain, give over, a brave man must show fortitude,” muttered Kolya.

“You’ll spoil the flowers,” said Alyosha, and mamma is expecting them, she is sitting crying because you would not give her any before. Ilusha’s little bed is still there-”

“Yes, yes, mamma!” Snegiryov suddenly recollected, “they’ll take away the bed, they’ll take it away,” he added as though alarmed that they really would. He jumped up and ran homewards again. But it was not far off and they all arrived together. Snegiryov opened the door hurriedly and called to his wife with whom he had so cruelly quarrelled just before:

“Mamma, poor crippled darling, Ilusha has sent you these flowers,” he cried, holding out to her a little bunch of flowers that had been frozen and broken while he was struggling in the snow. But at that instant he saw in the corner, by the little bed, Ilusha’s little boots, which the landlady had put tidily side by side. Seeing the old, patched, rusty-looking, stiff boots he flung up his hands and rushed to them, fell on his knees, snatched up one boot and, pressing his lips to it, began kissing it greedily, crying, “Ilusha, old man, dear old man, where are your little feet?”

“Where have you taken him away? Where have you taken him?” the lunatic cried in a heart-rending voice. Nina, too, broke into sobs.
...

“What do you think, Karamazov? Had we better come back here to-night? He’ll be drunk, you know.”

“Perhaps he will. Let us come together, you and I, that will be enough, to spend an hour with them, with the mother and Nina. If we all come together we shall remind them of everything again,” Alyosha suggested.

“The landlady is laying the table for them now- there’ll be a funeral dinner or something, the priest is coming; shall we go back to it, Karamazov?”

“Of course,” said Alyosha.

“It’s all so strange, Karamazov, such sorrow and then pancakes after it, it all seems so unnatural in our religion.”

To do memory training when I’m free, especially this section on memorising a sequence of spoken numbers (you can choose to memorise from ten to three hundred numbers) since my ability to process and remember information through my ears is so poor. I can’t even memorise a sequence of ten numbers!