Determinism and free will 4

I have been reading 'The Concept of Mind' by Gilbert Ryle.

Although I think the problem of the false dichotomy between determinism and free will is adequately dealt with in my previous posts, this gives the option of another way of looking at it.

If a person decides they are going to do something, or desires something, then the actions they take to do that thing or to achieve that aim will be determined by the interaction of the environment and their efforts. So the whole thing is, in that sense, determined.

That doesn't alter the fact that the person is doing what they want. The apparent contradiction between determinism and free will appears to be due to a misunderstanding or misapplication of the term 'free will.' 

Is art bourgeois?

In a comment on my blog post Art theory and my art theory rant Paul Bolton writes: 

My disagreement with the stuckists stems from the approach to art as an invention. But an invention that stems from bourgeois ideologies.

New poetry from Narrow Gate Press

Do you like poems that speak to the mind as well as the heart?

My latest venture is the publication of a book of poems by my late friend and former teacher David Henschel. I only knew of these poems after he died.

Listen, be glad, 
but turn and sleep again 
until the swords and songs both say 
‘now peace is in awakening.’

I have created a separate blog for these poems. I shall post a full poem monthly on that blog, with weekly thoughts on short extracts.

Talk to the prawn - 2

I realised yesterday that talking to a prawn might not be as crazy as first seems. Or alternatively it is, and we all are.

I was thinking a particularly loud thought, as one might do sometimes while communing with nature in the smallest room, or while driving a familiar piece of road. Suddenly a word popped out of my mouth unbidden. The word was part of a sentence in my totally useless and automatic thought process at that time.

When we are children we tend to recognise that people who talk to themselves are nuts. They generally are and are usually adults. When we have something to say as children, we tend to say it. As we grow up we have more and more thoughts that we don't say, and we start talking to ourselves internally. This is laughingly known as thought and supposedly is what distinguishes us from lower forms of life.

Nowadays of course it is much harder to spot nutters, as we all have mobile phones, so people can and do walk about talking to themselves with their heads on one side all the time paying scant attention to external reality.

Given that this is going on anyway, why not talk to a prawn? At least the prawn is out there in the real world, albeit the prawn is non-English speaking and actually dead. Nevertheless it is a step up from talking to oneself.

I suspect if we all had a plastic prawn (a real one might smell after a bit) in our bathrooms so that we could go in there and talk to it when we wanted to have a random thought, we should be embarrassed at how mundane most of our thoughts are.

I look forward to hearing from anyone who thinks I've got this all wrong.

Art theory

Some while ago I wrote a rant on art theory. E.J emails me that my essay is flawed.

E.J says that If someone thinks a trash bin full of garbage is more interesting than a Rembrandt, that is their view and they must have reasons for it. He goes on to say that Your assertion that he is wrong to feel that way and that you could walk up to him and say, "Wrong! Change how you feel and your experiences!" is crazy. He also says that we should not enlist a tyranny of the majority to decide on what is considered good and what is considered bad.

As to the first point, I acknowledge it. If someone gets enjoyment from a rubbish bag (whether displayed as art or otherwise) then so be it. Foxes do.

As to the second point, I don't think I wrote anything resembling it.

Regarding the accusation that I wish to enlist a tyranny of the majority, I do not. All tyrannies are to be avoided.

The question with any piece of art is, what is its aim? If its aim is to amuse foxes, then we can judge that piece of art by how successful it is at attracting foxes. If its aim is pleasant decoration, then so be it. If its aim is to induce nausea, or the self-aggrandisement of the artist, then again it may be successful by either of these criteria. And if its aim is to enlarge our humanity and our sense of beauty, then the artist must strive for that.

Hung parliament - talk to the prawn

A little anecdote I feel should not be entirely lost in the fading memory of time: Round the corner from the Cheese Shop in Greenwich, London, is a small shop selling excellent fresh fish. On the day of the election results my informant who works in the Cheese Shop observed a man outside, evidently the worse for drink, come round the corner from the fish shop and, taking a large prawn from a bag, held it in front of him. Staring into its beady black eyes he intoned: "It's a hung parliament! A hung parliament!" Just thought people should know.

Badia Tower, Marsala, Sicily

If you want a romantic holiday for two, Marsala in Sicily is a beautiful baroque town with plenty to see in and around. We stayed in the Badia Tower (booked through Solo Sicily), a converted folly set in the gardens of an old aristocratic estate. Click here for my poem.

You can't easily get any wine that is not made in Sicily, and that is no problem because Sicilian wines are excellent.

We hired a car, which is necessary, but the Sicilian drivers are the worst I have encountered anywhere (and I have been in taxis in Moscow and Turkey), and driving requires constant vigilance and a willingness to swerve frequently. I do not know how we got through Palermo in rush hour unscathed.

Take care not to get double charged on insurance - better to book car hire insurance at the airport because booking the insurance on-line was not recognised by the car hire firms at the airport, so I paid twice. The booking agency refunded my booking fee but nothing else: if you use a booking agency you never know who your contract is with so it's hard to get anyone to take responsibility when it all goes wrong.

Anyway, you will understand from the above that the collision damage waiver is essential for peace of mind.

Having said that, a wonderful holiday and the locals in Marsala were very friendly.

Recommended in Marsala:
La Sirena Ubriaca - a friendly wine bar in which you can taste many local wines before purchase, or just have a glass of wine and some small but very high quality bar nibbles (a nibble is smaller than a snack). (I don't think their mermaid is as pretty as mine.)
The best restaurant is tucked away - from the main square go towards the eastern gate and turn left down one of the narrow alleys before you get to the gate. I'll post more precise details when I find them.
The bar on the main square is good for a savoury pastry or delicious cake and a beer.

The Quackometer duck sells ear candles

I am not so happy with the little black duck at www.quackometer.net. The quackometer is an experiment to see if it is easy to spot quack medical web sites just from the language they use, however it gave a score of 10 canards (the standard international unit of quackery) to my sister's hypnotherapy web site at www.keyhypnotherapy.co.uk, which seems unfair because she says Clients will always be encouraged to follow the advice of their GP or hospital consultant.

What's more that little duck is advertising ear candles.

The saucy site owner one Andy Lewis says you can contact him via the about page on his web site, but there isn't one. I used the internet time machine at www.archive.org to extract his email address from the Akharshic records.

I've emailed Mr Lewis and await a response.

My old home page reinstated!

A blog is all very well, but my old home page was all right, so I have reinstated it. There is a new link to a bizarre cartoon strip Katastrophe Qat I did in my youth (i.e. before the dawn of time). Go to Qatastrophe Kat's new home page. (Katastrophe Kat is a cat, not some weird drug that makes your teeth go a funny colour.) He tries to clean up with a get-rich-quick scheme.

'I' do not exist

'I', in the sense of my own subjective self, does not exist.

Consider the following definition of 'exist':

A thing exists if there is a way for at least two independent observers to verify it, such that their observations match sufficiently.

Now, whereas 'I' (that is, Dace associated with this blog) exist in a certain sense (for you I am a you or a him), my interior subjective 'I' is not accessible to any of you except me. Therefore 'I' fails the test of existence as defined above.

Therefore, 'I' do not exist.