Carbon foot print

Al GORE’S “OPEN SEWER”

(Extracted from L. Ian Macdonald, “Al Gore Should Know Better,” The Gazette, Montreal, May 8, 2013)

In an interview with The Globe and Mail Al GOre referred to the Alberta oil sands as an “open sewer.” Al, the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to educate the world on climate change, recently sold his cable-TV network, Current, to Al Jazeera, owned by Qatar which produces and exports oil, for $500 million.

Al the environmentalist is no doubt aware that green-house gas emissions from coal-fired electricity stations in the US are 40 times those produced by the Alberta oilsands. (European emissions from the same sources in Europe are only 30 times more than the oilsands.) In contrast, Energy Alberta states that the oilsands are responsible for only 6.8 per cent of emissions in Canada and 0.15 per cent of emissions worldwide. Joe Nocera of the New York Times notes that “Extraction technology has improved to the point where there is almost no difference, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, between sands oil and old-fashioned drilling… Indeed, for all the hysteria of the environmental consequences of the oilsands, there is oil in California that is dirtier than the oil from the sands.” US Ambassador David Jacobs has said that “Canada is the largest supplier of every form of energy to the United States’ – 100% of its imported electricity, 85% of its natural gas imports and 27% of its oil imports – more than twice as much as the US imports from Saudi Arabia. The effect of Al’s campaign on the US economy – to say nothing about that of Canada – would be disastrous.

But Al should know what he’s talking about since he’s been on this issue even before he invented the Internet.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

RSVP

: HoistThat Rag (05/19, 7:13PM)

“Unless you have some RELIABLE sources to cite that support your claims, I am going to continue to believe that the climate shift we are experiencing and the fact that our population/pollutant levels have significantly ballooned in the last two hundred years, is NOT just a coincidence.”

Would it be possible to ask for your criteria of “reliability” for that assertion? Which sources, for example, do you find “reliable” and which not? On what basis is your distinction made?

Why do you continue to “believe” in the climate shift? That is a significant word since the debate over anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has become a matter of faith among the adherents of the conflicting views on the subject. Can you specify the grounds on which your belief rest?

There are three broad groups in the debate over AGW:

(1) Those who believe, as you do, that global warming is the result of AGW, of man-made CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.

(2) Those who believe that global warming exists but is the result not of AGW but rather of natural, cyclical changes in the earth’s climate at various stages in the past (i.e., the Vikings finding wine grapes on the shores of “Vinland,” now called Nova Scotia).

(c) Those who believe that pollutant levels have NOT significantly ballooned in the last two hundred years, that the so-called “hockey stick” indicating a spike in the earth’s temperature in the past, is simply a fabrication of the alarmist “warmists” or Jeremiahs.

On what basis, then, do you “continue to believe” in (1) but not (2) and (3)?

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

RSVP

: HoistTheRag (05/20, 12:07PM)

(1) The Multiple Sources Criterion of Reliability.

Your answer to my question about your criteria of reliability – multiple sources, reports of field scientists and so on – suggests that groups (2) & (3) do not have such multiple sources. However it seems that you have only assumed this to be so but never demonstrated it to be the case. Since you claim to know a lot about this subject about which you have spent years researching, it seems a rather glaring omission not to have researched those scientists who are found in groups (2) & (3), like, for example, Ian Plime (“Heaven & Earth: Global Warming, The Missing Science,”2009). Also, your “multiple sources” may be little more than the multiple publications of the International Panel on Climate Change which, given its mandate to publicize climate change, does not reflect or take into account alternative views on the issue. views on the issue. So I think we can drop the”multiple sources” criterion as definitive of reliability.

(2) The Accelerated Rate of Global Warming

You state that “shifts in the earth’s climate is happening a lot more hastily in the recent decades than it has in the past.” But you are simply parroting what you read in (1) above. No evidence is given to support your claim. There are those who reject this outright. See, for example, Christopher Booker’s “Look at the graph to see the evidence of global warming” (London Sunday Telegraph, 9 March, 2013) where he shows that the net rise in temperature over the past century has been only 0.8 degrees centigrade. So I think we can drop the accelerated rate of global warming as decisive in the debate over climate change.

(3) The Chemical By-Products Argument

Quite simply, you have not shown the relationship between the proliferation of chemical by-products and global warming. It could be, but you have to demonstrate it. So I think we can drop the chemical by-products argument for global warming as irrelevant.

(4) The Many Intricate Balances Argument

Like (3) above, this argument – the migration and extinction of species, etc. – is irrelevant to the issue of global warming. You write that “because we are rapidly changing the environments that they have evolved in, we are losing more and more species at a faster rate” but, in addition to being irrelevant, you are assuming rather than demonstrating the entire question at issue, i.e., the fact of global warming.

(5) The Ad Hominem Argument

You claim that it would be short-sighted and dangerous, in your opinion, not to assume that 7 billion people would not directly affect the environment. But this is just an ad hominem argument – people who do not assume it are just stupid but the issue – you might recall – is global warming. You must demonstrate the connection between global warming on the one hand and the stupid, short-sighted and dangerous assumptions of climate-change sceptics on the other.

(12:21PM)

Your point here is simply an elaboration of (4).

I should say here that I have no idea about the reality of global warming. What I am interested in are the reasons why those who are for it bring in support of their positions. As I said in my previous post, it ultimately reduces to an issue of (religious?) belief. Anyway, nice talking.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

RSVP

;TartanTyrant (05/21, 11:44AM)

You ask, sneeringly, what qualifies me to be the indisputable nay-sayer on everything on global warming? Nothing at all in terms of hard science, but then the same applies to you. However, as I have written before, I am interested in the reasons given by those who support AGW and have found none that are coherent, i.e., not based on anything else than simply their beliefs about the matter.

I will not comment at any length on your post because, in addition to being clearly hostile, I think you will not understand it. However I can say that your first paragraph is incoherent – your misconception of the cause-effect relationship in the case of AGW reduces to the incoherent claim that global warming is the cause of global warming where the cause of the debate is whether it is natural or anthropocentric. That is incoherent.

In the same way, your understanding of inference is lacking. You cannot legitimately INFER from the presence of higher temperatures to their cause being anthropogenic since they are of two different kinds and inference can proceed only between like kinds. Your inference as a consequence is also incoherent.

You also failed to understand my point about the LACK of relation between Hansen’s work in space exploration and his “expertise” in global warming but this seemed to have passed you by. Your response to my point was incoherent.

Your final sentence was also incoherent since I think – like you I don’t know – that Global Warming Skeptics are RIGHT.

A pleasure – well sort of – as always.

Cheerio!

RSVPs

“However, as I have written before, I am interested in the reasons given by those supporting AGW and have found that none are coherent, i.e., not based on anything else than simply their beliefs about the matter. (Montrealman, 05/21, 4:31PM)

For those who have difficulty grasping that quotation, what it means is that I am not interested in the empirical fact of climate change as such but rather in epistemology, in the philosophical grounds on which the proponents of AGW base their beliefs and, as indicated, have found found none beyond a simple confirmation of those beliefs. Put differently, for me it isn’t about the “science” – assuming a “science of climate change” exists when the very models on which it is based is in dispute – but rather what counts as evidence in the minds of those not engaged in such “science.”

At base, given the current general collapse of organized religion, a new secular religion has arisen, one which has been called “scientism” where science has assumed the status of a new theology previously awarded to organized religion, that is, something one “believes in.” So, I hope, you can see the connection between the proponents of AGW and the acolytes of the belief system which I mentioned in my opening quotation. Can you see it? That’s wonderful!

Since a quick review of the latest comments from my “admirers” has revealed nothing new, I shall be brief in my responses.

: HoistThe Rag (6:35PM)

The assumption contained in your first sentence is false. I have never assumed that the skeptics are correct, only that their dissenting opinions have not been shown to be false. I don’t read links. Please demonstrate in a manner free of any subjective assumptions, inferences and so on, that there is a “direct link” between weather phenomena and AGW which you trumpeted to be the case.

No, the assumption you made in your third paragraph is not correct. (Please see my quotation above.) Ah, here comes the old “common sense assumption” again in your fourth paragraph – your common sense obviously trumps mine but it is irrelevant in both cases – but the question was always about the primary cause of AGW and nothing else. Your fourth and fifth paragraphs refer to that old tried and true “stretch of imagination”. Yours, of course, far exceeds mine.

(9:35PM)

The last sentence in your post is incoherent. Read my quotation over again at the top. I neither “acknowledge” that climate is changing nor think that humans have anything to do with it since I don’t know. Using the same “ad hominem” on you as you use on me, all I do know is that those who claim it is (like you) and that they do think humans have something to do with it (like you again) are pretty scary people.

: Captain (05/22, 8:33AM)

“But I believe MM had at least a couple of good points as well, although outdated.”

I don’t suppose you could tell us just how those points were, simultaneously “good” and yet “outdated”, could you? Don’t outdated points cease to be good by the very fact that they are outdated? Also, I note that old word “believe” again. Any epistemological grounds- you do understand the phrase, don’t you? – for your belief? No, I didn’t think so.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

RSVP

: Tartan Tyrant (05/22, 10:45AM)

“It has become obvious to me that montrealman is only fence sitting this issue because he is a hipster.”

Oh dear, in spite of my cautious reminder at the beginning of 05/22, 10:06AM and the first two paragraphs which expanded on it, Tartan Tyrant has still failed to grasp its import. What was that import? Its import was that my interest lay not so much with the fact (or not) of AGW but rather with the reasons invoked by the warmists to support their claim. In other words, it wasn’t the “science of climate change” but rather the philosophical epistemology to which the warmists appealed which was front and center. So Tartan Tyrant’s charge of “fence sitting” is misconceived because it is irrelevant and her further charge of my being a “hipster”, while totally correct in other contexts, is totally obscure in this one.

“Quite apparent in this debate is montrealmans (sic) complete lack of knowledge on this subject. Fortunately for him, philosophers are natural bullshitters.”

Sadly, Tartan Tyrant continues on her merry journey, oblivious to the fact that such “knowledge on this subject” is irrelevant. Rather, given the disputed nature of the debate, it is a matter of belief. Whether philosophers are or are not bullshitters is a matter for further debate. It depends, of course, on what you mean by “bullshitting”, an opaque and elusive concept.

“In his most recent floundering attempt at trolling, montrealman has questioned the validity of science.”

Oh dear, Tartan Tyrant has misconceived the issue once again. I never questioned the validity of science, only its mindless adoration by those who worship at the altar of “scientism,” a belief state comparable to that of organized religion. Remember the old saying: “It isn’t the case that those who stop believing in God will believe in noting. Rather, they will believe in anything.” Clearly, in the matter of worshiping at the altar of scientism, Tartan Tyrant has taken her place in the first pew.

“The responsibility for seeing the ‘truth’ to (sic) this matter has fallen on the shoulders of our esteemed philosopher, whom we all admire, and is clearly the only one to debate this issue. If this is not your intent, montrealman, maybe you should attempt to be more coherent in your posts.”

Oh dear, the sarcasm. Anyway, Tartan Tyrant, you must read over my introduction to 05/22, 10:06AM once (or twice) again where I make no claim to seeing the “truth” to the global warming debate or anything else for that matter but am interested only in – oh God, I can’t repeat it again. But, Tartan Tyrant, one is either coherent or one is incoherent – it’s an either-or deal – so your demand that I be “more coherent” is itself incoherent. You do understand that, don’t you?

FYI: I have maintained that the skeptics are “correct” or “right” only in the diminished sense that they have never been demonstrated to be “incorrect” or “wrong.” The debate, your assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, goes on. As it was written, HoistThatRag’s sentence WAS incoherent since it ascribed a false belief to me.

Well, time for tea.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

RSVP

: HoistThatRag (05/22, 10:15PM)

Good morning Rag. (As a matter of curiosity I was wondering if the “rag” refers to a shredded flag or to some kind of feminine hygiene product. But let it pass.)

Well, I see that once again you have misconceived what I’m doing on this thread which is not scientific in nature but rather philosophical, i.e., examining the the basis of the coherence of the reasoning given by those supporting AGW. I glanced at your links by John Roach and Matt Rosenbeg and found what was to be expected – the usual. But, and this is the important part, I’m not in a debate with either of them. Since their articles are set pieces, I cannot enter their minds, debate with them, and see on what grounds they support their position. With you, however, I can and, I believe, have successfully done so at least so far unless, that is, you deliver a surprise knock-down blow.

The issue, to remind you once again, rests on the grounds for accepting AGW by those who are not themselves scientists. Why do they do so? My claim is that they do so on the grounds of a blind belief in the “truth of science,” what I have called “scientism” and nothing more. But the fact is that there are many scientists who do NOT agree with AGW. I clicked on Wikipedia’s “Scientists opposing the mainstream consensus on global warming” and found: “Scientists questioning the accuracy of IPCC climate projection models” – 6; “Scientists arguing that global warming is caused primarily by natural factors” – 22; “Scientists arguing that the cause of global warming is unknown” – 9; “Scientists arguing that global warming will have few negative consequences” 4. To avoid boredom I have not listed their names. You can check them out if you want.

My point was simply to show that there are two sides to the global warming debate which, where a decision by the non-scientist is to be made, raises the question as to what grounds she does so. This returns us, as I hope you can see, to my initial departure point, that of examining the justification of the judgements of those who come down on the side of AGW. This, of course, is not itself a scientific question as I have been at pains to point out but rather is a philosophical one – in particular an epistemological one – that is, one inquiring into the grounds of knowledge claims. In the absence of such grounds the debate reduces to rank opinion, relativism, fist-shaking and ultimately to incoherence.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

RSVPS

: HoistThatRag (05/24, 11:03AM)

You must understand, Rag, that your reference to “someone” is very selective if by that you mean anyone on this site. Since my published have appeared in scholarly philosophical journals and are not available at the supermarket checkout, you must understand that they would have never been read by ANYONE on this site. I know that you will not understand that.

: Captain (11:07AM)

Sure, I’ll substantiate it. Are you the one who is asking that question? Yes, you are. Then that question is self-referential because it is you who wants an answer. I know that you will not understand that.

Of course listening to the workings of the “minds” of one’s interlocutors is all based on my interpretation of their minds. Since I do not have direct, intuitive and unerring knowledge of those minds which is in any case impossible, my interpretation is all that there is. I know that you will not understand that

Of course such interpretation may be influenced by my interlocutors’ inability to express their minds but – and this is the important point – that inability does not invalidate my interpretation of their minds but rather reinforces it. The fact that they lack the ability to express their minds (which, by the way, I believe is a fallacy since those who possess a mind have, by definition, the ability to express it) and that grammar plays a role in such interpretation merely supports my viewpoint, not undermines it. I know that you will not understand that.

Finally, your reduction of interpretation to unsupported opinion gives me a very good insight into your own mind. See my quotation at the beginning of my last post (10:41AM) where I refer to “rank opinion,” the same thing which you equate with all interpretation. No chance of supporting that claim by any chance, is there? So if everything is rank opinion then your own assertion, “But, you know, that’s just like … your opinion, man,” while masquerading as knowledge, is itself little more than itself rank unsupported opinion. You have unknowingly, as the old saying goes, “hoisted yourself on your own petard.” But I know that you will not understand that.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

RSVPs

: HoistThatRag (05/25, 3:17PM)

“I don’t know what it’s like where you come from (montreal?) but when I was raised, it was to have more respect for women that that.”

Sorry for the delay in getting back, Rag, but my comment had nothing to do with a lack of respect for women. Quite the contrary, I have great respect for women, far more than I have for men, generally speaking. But my comment was based on the fact that, to my knowledge, the term “rag” referred to either a tattered flag which was to be hoisted as a sign of defiance against a fierce enemy or, more vulgarly perhaps, to a Kotex pad as in the expression, “she’s on the rag.” Being in ignorance of the existence of both the song “HoistThat Rag” as well as the singer whose name I have already forgotten, the second option seemed the more likely. Of course, there was that inimitable ingredient of Motrealman humour stirred in for good measure. Nevertheless, I would be interested in your views on my comment and it’s relationship to Freudian psychological theory. Write back soon.

: She Sang (05/26, 2:42PM)

Your welcome for the coherent response, SS. I must say that I found it more coherent than your observation regarding your friend – “he didn’t even have to try to be even half annoying” – which puzzled me. If he didn’t even have to try to be half annoying, does that mean that he would be fully annoying if he did try? How does one mark off degrees of annoyance? Is the remark intended for my benefit? But I’m not trying to be annoying SS, just patiently seeking out the truth which, come to think of it, might be annoying for some.

Anyway, I have never “partaken” of paid public speaking engagements but I have delivered a landmark “guest speaker’s” appearance at a graduation exercise. I was the first teacher to do so since even the administration, not known for their philosophical acumen, realized that they had a thinker on the staff. As my title I chose “An Existential Moment” – this is true – and described that existential moment as it applied to the parents, the school administrators, the teachers and, most particularly, the graduating students. Someone in the audience laughed but he, the buffoon, was immediately shushed. As you can imagine, it caused quite a stir, similar to the stir my philosophical reflections cause on this site. A few years later a student came up and told me that he didn’t know what I was talking about but soon came to appreciate its import. This was not a bad thing even at the time because, pedagogically speaking, the speech worked to destabilize his taken-for-granted assumptions and what more can a teacher ask than that? Keep singing, SS.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

RSVP

:SheSang (05/28, 9:09PM)

“AN EXISTENTIAL MOMENT (As printed in the yearbook. Part I.)

Mr. Principal, Distinguished Guests, Members of the Faculty, Graduating Students, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Five years. In many ways it doesn’t seem like five years since the opening of Pierrefonds Comprehensive, and the graduating class here this evening were eager, delightful seventh graders, On the other hand…

Five years eating cafeteria food!
Five years losing countless brain cells a day to oxygen deprivation!
Five years listening to Mr. MacDougall’s socking laughter echoing down the soiled halls!
Five years watching Mr. McNaught’s odd dramatic productions!
Five years continually being interrupted by …”Mike Kirk to the office please, Mike Kirk to the office!

(Excuse me… a message. Thank you. If Mike Kirk is in the auditorium, would he report to the office? Mike Kirk to the office!)

Five years… tell me, has it REALLY been five years??? (Graduates: “Yes, it really has been five years!!!”)

Yes, it’s established. It really has been five years. But the next question obviously is: What about it? What has it all meant? Has your value position changed over the past five years? What is the basis of your value hierarchy? What is value? What is education? What are the criteria of your self-definition?What is the meaning of meaning? What are the ends of human action? Who are you?

In his book “Existentialism and Education” Van Cleve Morris makes reference to something he calls the “existential moment.” The existential moment is that point in life, usually about the age of sixteen when the individual comes to a double awareness of both himself and the universe. On the one hand the existential moment consists of the intuitive grasp of one’s absolute solitude in the world, a grasp of one’s utter apartness; but at the same time the existential moment also gives evidence of the nearly infinite possibilities of self-creation.

The existential moment is associated with the realization that one is a microscopic speck inhabiting a ball of mud that is a minor planet of a star in a galaxy we call the Milky Way, one we are told, of any such galaxies. This feeling of isolation is deepened by the concurrent realization that this universe may be objectively meaningless, lacking any clear purpose and direction. However, the existential moment also gives rise to the appreciation that all meaning, all purpose and significance one creates for oneself. The existential moment brings about the realization that to be self-aware, to be “authentic”, one must, by continual self-confrontation, choose oneself.”

End of Part I.

SS, if you want part II let me know.

A pleasure as always,

Cheerio!

RSVP

: SheSang (05/29, 4:21PM)

AN EXISTENTIAL MOMENT (Part II)

This convocation may be seen, to a considerable degree, to be such an existential moment, for it is a time when we all individually confront ourselves. For the parents here this evening, the existential moment may consist of the bittersweet realization of the passage of time, of a change in the nature of their relationship with their child and consequently of a change in the nature of their relationship with themselves. This change may be prompted by the appreciation of a new center of consciousness and purpose in those whom they previously saw in terms of extensions of themselves.

For the teachers the existential moment of self-confrontation may suggest questions concerning the distinctive forms of justification and criteria for truth in their subject areas, the character of the logical concepts which their teaching is intended to induce, whether “successful” teaching is the same thing as “good” teaching.” For the school administrators, the existential moment may involve considerations relating to the degree to which the teachers’ goals have been implemented in the school, considerations touching upon the nature of the relationship between learning and logistics, between meaning and measurement, between significance and structure.

But it is for the students that the existential moment has its fullest impact for YOU must now or shortly hereafter begin to choose yourselves. To use Bob Dylan’s expression, there are no “roadmaps for the soul.” In any ultimate sense there is little that I or anyone can tell you except, perhaps, to maintain for now and always the existential moment. Continually confront yourselves, your value hierarchy, your self-definition. Keep yourselves “off-baance” so to speak, for the worst illusion IS the illusion that you have no illusions. Cultivate self-awareness, the awareness that you are the author of your ideals and values. View the affairs of life from without, as a spectator, as an independent center of consciousness. But at the same time act upon the world on the basis of your freely-created value system. Do not submerge yourself in society’s masses, in the community, in the collective, in the shadow world of popularity and status. Define yourself, “yourself” meaning not some entity within and apart from you, but yourself as that which you do, for you are what you do, no more and no less. Create for yourself your inner world of absolute integrity. Do not escape from your freedom.

Apartness, solitude, self-awareness, the internal world of absolute integrity… all this has been said before and better by the philosophers of classical antiquity, as the Classical History students well know. If they will bear with me for one more time I would like to finish with a quotation from the “Manual” of the Roman stoic philosopher Epictetus who, while perhaps excessive to the modern taste in his ethic of total renunciation, points the way to the world of absolute integrity.

“Remember that you must behave as you would at a banquet. A dish is handed around and comes to you; put out your hand and take it politely. It passes you; do not stop it. It has not yet reached you; do not be impatient to get it but wait until your turn comes. Bear yourself thus towards husband, wife, children, office, wealth and one day you will be worthy to banquet with the gods. But if, when they are placed before you, you do not take them but you despise them, then you shall not only share the gods’ banquet but you shall share their rule. For by so doing Diogenes and Heraclitus, and others like them, were called divine, and they deserved the name.”

Thank you.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

RSVP

: SheSang (05/30, 6:58PM)

You’re welcome, SheSang.

Would you happen to have any philosophical reflections, or otherwise, on “An Existential Moment”? One assumes that you are not in full agreement with it in its entirety so there must be something with which you wish to take issue. I await your insights with alacrity. (“Alacrity” is my small, nervous dog.)

More importantly, we have now reached the position of #1 in the “Most Discussed” category.
While not even close to “Going Huntin’ On Friday” which Gary More and I boosted to well over the 500 comment mark, it is nothing to sneeze at. He was for hunting, I was against and in support appealed to Freudian psychology to demonstrate a subconscious sexual dimension to the activity. I suggested that the hunter, on killing the deer, should lie down, put his head on its shoulder, and have a post-coital cigarette. I trust you will agree with that.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

RSVP

: SheSang (05/31, 3:37PM)

Thank you for your thoughts, SS, but in the spirit of philosophical dialogue I would like to make some observations – even to take issue – with some of your reflections.

I found your comment to the effect that the quotation from Epictetus made you “laugh your ass off” puzzling since he was not known, as far as I am aware, for his after-dinner jokes. The question, of course, is WHY the quotation made you laugh your ass off. Was it the style? Was it the content of the quotation? While I didn’t laugh my ass off I do wonder about the possibility of one being so utterly autonomous – to banquet with the gods one must despise not only the shadow goals of popularity and status but also those things which normally provide life with its meaning. In other words, it seems to me that while admirable in its intention, Epictetus’ philosophy of total rejection of everything other than continuously confronting his values and beliefs – his unceasing searing introspection – lacked that which we might call “love.” The question I would ask Epictetus – and yourself since you appeared to be in total agreement with him – relates to the role of love or, for that matter, even friendship and companionship in human life. Aristotle called friendship life’s greatest boon. So SS, perhaps you might like to philosophically engage the concept of love and its place in the scheme of things.

A point of information only: Mike Kirk was the general factotum at the school – AV technician and all that – but he was continually being paged on the PA, usually in the middle of a class, often at its orgasmic intellectual climax. As a joke I had a fellow teacher come up from the teachers who were assembled in ranks on stage behind the microphone – we looked rather striking in our full academic gowns and hoods I must say – and pass me a piece of paper. At the time the teachers were threatening an “action” and I later learned that one of the administrators, the one in charge of the proceedings actually, nearly passed out thinking the message was to call a strike then and there and shut the proceedings down. He recovered his composure when I read the message – “Mike Kirk to the office please. That’s Mike Kirk to the office.”

Another point of information: “Carbon Foot Print” wasn’t just “this morning’s most discussed topic” since the runner-up went back to Christmas, 2010. In other words, it was the “Most Discussed” in recent history. This raises the question, of course, as to where “Goin’ Hunting on Friday” got to. I’m hypothesizing that the “Most Discussed” category – probably the others as well – are changed when a new Moderator appears on the scene. Perhaps she can comment on my hypothesis.

Your comment to the effect that change is “the only true constant we can know” would seem to identify you as a Heraclitean who famously observed, “We cannot step twice into the same river twice as fresh waters are forever flowing in upon us.” But is this true? Is change the only constant we can know? Does this not imply a descent into confusion and ultimately into complete chaos? Parmenides, another pre-Socratic, maintained that on the contrary nothing ever changers, only the appearances of an unchanging substratum to existence.

Yes, your comment regarding the applicability of my message for the teachers as well as the grads contains a large element of truth. High school teachers, and certainly not elementary school teachers, are not intellectuals. They are not given to self-examination in any sustained manner. They would “laugh their asses off” at someone like Epictetus. I was the first teacher selected to give a commencement speech – usually it was done by some worthy from outside the school – since, I have reason to believe, that I was viewed as “odd” by other teachers and certainly by the administration. Other teachers, well one or two, followed in my footsteps but I found their talks flat, commonplace and largely uninteresting. The reason was quite simple: They had nothing of any depth to say.

Alacrity thanks you for the virtual scratches behind the ears.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

RSVP

: SheSang (06/03, 6:38PM)

Good morning SS. I checked in “Carbon Foot Print” the past couple of days and, not seeing any comment from you, assumed (incorrectly as it turned out) that you had given up the ghost. I’ve just come off posting on “God Is Not An Idiot” to which you might like to give a squint and possible a thought or two.

Anyway, I’ll wait until you post this morning as you indicated you would rather than engage
your question, “Are fluidity and chaos the same thing?” right now. As a teaser I could claim that it is all a matter of perspective but this raises the question of relativism which, of course, raises the question of that upon which such relativism is grounded, i.e., relative to what?” which, I think, might lead us back to the Heraclitus/Parmenides debate. I’m not sure if a consideration of the sub-atomic resolves much since one can view that world from either a Heraclitean or Parmenidean perspective, i.e., fluidity or chaos respectively.

I’ll be looking out for you.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

RSVP

: She Sang (06/08, 4:35PM)

Sorry for not getting back sooner but I had thought you had given up the ghost until I read your comment at the end of “Friggin’ Cat” and it worked its way slowly down until it registered on my consciousness that you might be dropping a hint and, yes, I was right, you were. So, just a few observations on your very thoughtful treatment on the nature of love.

I do notice some philosophical difficulties which crop up in the course of your analysis. You initially point out that love is totally relative to the individual, that it “is personal to each being within their past experiences, present perspectives, and future expectations, whether they realize it or not.” Being totally amorphous in terms of any substantive general content beyond the individual level, the question immediately arises as to just how you knew this. In other words, it appears to be a self-refuting assertion, i.e., that you know that which, by definition, is totally relative to the individual and consequently unknowable where by “unknowable” means bringing love under a concept.

However, we soon come on “love as a concept” which appears to be similar (identical?) to linguistic determinism since “it works in us much the same way as language does.” So, how does language work in us? What happens is that “we become defined by, perhaps even ‘owned by,’ a system outside of ourselves”. Struggling to escape this linguistic determinism we may “try to experience being (love) as a state and not just a concept.” But it’s no good since “we are still enslaved by the concept of definition itself, owned by language.” But what has happened here? Passing by just what experiencing being as a state might mean as opposed to just being a concept – a concept after all, is the vehicle of understanding – it seems that what was originally amorphous and completely relative to the individual has now become a conceptual straightjacket. We are the helpless pawns of language, slaves to the concept of definition itself.

But wait. “Once we engage the concept of love,” you write, “it would seem we are always
in varying states of love.” Does that mean the state of being in love and the concept of love have been reconciled? Or is the reconciliation only verbal since one cannot, one supposes, simultaneously possess the concept of love while experiencing the state of being in love. I think that the “philosophical difficulties” I referred to earlier crop up as a result of this confusion. Presupposed, of course, is whether experiencing the state of being in love can be brought under a concept at all.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts on love.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!