Your body as an incorrigible servant

Mind over matter, right? When your body aches and begs to stop running, you tell it to keep moving. When your body wants to go to sleep, you exert the will to make it to stay awake, or you make its arms pour coffee into its mouth. We make our bodies drive our cars to work lest those utility bills don’t get paid and “We” will suffer the consequences. Nietzsche began Chapter V of the Gay Science with the following quote as an illustration of his own conception of fearlessness (attributed to Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne (1611-75) a great French general):

Sometimes during a battle he could not help trembling. Then he talked to his body as one talks to a servant. He said to it: “You tremble, carcass; but if you knew where I am taking you right now, you would tremble a lot more.”
“We” are in charge, right? Except when we are not. I can think of no better example than when we are nauseated, and our body dramatically takes over, the reverse peristalsis hurling out the offending food, dominating even our minds, until it’s over. Only then can “we” take over again. Consider food traveling in the other direction, too. So many of us tell our bodies to stop eating, yet our bodies keep eating. Day after day. We remind it to look in the mirror and we tell it about our tighter-fitting clothes, yet our bodies don’t care.

Continue ReadingYour body as an incorrigible servant

Snow

We got a good blast of snow yesterday. This is the view out the front door that greeted my children this morning, right after they heard that school had been canceled.

Continue ReadingSnow

Tim Wu discusses slow photography

Many of us, much of the time, run around snapping lots of photos to document our lives. There is an alternative to this "fast photography," as described by Tim Wu at Slate. It is a technique for enhancing our experience of the moment:

[S]low photography is the effort to flip the usual relationship between process and results. Usually, you use a camera because you want the results (the photos). In slow photography, the basic idea is that photos themselves—the results—are secondary. The goal is the experience of studying some object carefully and exercising creative choice. . . . Step 1 in slow photography is spending a long time studying the subject. As one guide enjoins, "pay more attention to your subject than to your camera." . . . When you look carefully and avoid trying to label what you see, you inevitably start to notice things that you mightn't have otherwise. . . .Step 2 is the exercise of creative choices—the greatest pleasure that our automatic cameras rob us of. What should be in the frame and what should be excluded is the most obvious decision, but there's also exposure, depth of field, and more technical choices beyond that. Making such deliberate decisions requires a little bit of courage, for you cannot blame the camera if the results are bad. Yet these choices are, to my mind, the whole game. They are what individualizes photography, what puts the stamp of your personality on the photo.

Continue ReadingTim Wu discusses slow photography

Addicted to Risk without a backup plan

The BP oil spill was one of the more recent examples of overconfidence, according to Naomi Klein. Also consider the financial collapse and overconfidence that was rampant prior to our military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. Klein states that we are addicted to risk. Instead of asking how how to proceed prudently, we ask bizarre questions such as these: - What is the latest possible moment we can act to remedy a major problem? - How much hotter can we let the planet get? These questions are being driven by economists rather than scientists. Greed and hubris are factors in this mindset, and fear of failure seems to be lacking. Klein gives the illustration of a 35-year old banker who is taking home more than 100 times as much salary as a brain surgeon. That banker seeks a narrative other than thinking that he is a good scammer who gamed the system. He will likely start believing that he is a genius and that he is somehow contributing to society, or at least not hurting others. But he does absorb the narrative that he is a genius, and being told that you are a genius who is born to rule is a "peril of privilege." People in these positions adopt traditional narratives that enhance their feelings of superiority over others. These archetypal narratives include the following "fairy tales": - Newly discovered frontier and conquering pioneer; - Manifest destiny; - Endless growth; - We don't need to change our lifestyles; - Apocalypse and salvation. We will be "saved" in the end with technology. They also embrace deep narratives that Mother Nature is there to be conquered and yet she is always forgiving and resilient; there will always be a frontier. Klein argues that these are lies, and we are running up against severe physical limits. We have already exhausted easy energy and we are now into the era of "extreme energy." This means we ravaging the earth to get to dramatically diminishing returns. Exhibit A is the tar sand region of Canada which, to produce oil, requires ripping away the trees and contaminating huge amounts of water. Vast landscapes are being decimated (see the video for some of these dramatic images). It takes three times as much energy to produce a barrel of oil this was as it takes to produce conventional oil. In terms of greenhouse gases, this is "insanity." This is how civilizations "commit suicide." Klein states that we need new heroes with new kinds of stories that will replace the current linear narrative of endless growth with circular narratives of what goes around comes around.

Continue ReadingAddicted to Risk without a backup plan

The illogic of Atonement

Over the years, many well-meaning Christians have tried to convince me to give Christianity "another chance." All such people have walked away frustrated with me. I don’t reject religious beliefs because I’m stubborn (but it probably looks like it). Rather, I reject such stories because I insist on credible evidence, especially fantastic stories about ghosts. I also insist that stories should have internal consistency. I insist on a tight underlying logic before I'm willing to believe extraordinary claims. What is illogical about Christianity? The following story is not meant to offend, but rather to illustrate some traditional Christian beliefs in an unfamiliar way. I offer it to all of those people who have tried to convert me over the years. Imagine that you heard the following Assimulated Press story on the radio. What would you think?

Today, we are reporting on a bizarre story. Until last month, an old man had been living with his numerous children in his sprawling mansion, which included a vast garden. Last month, he kicked all of his children out of his garden. Since then he has been threatening to slowly burn some of his children in a big pit in his basement—the ones at risk are those who have misbehaved or otherwise upset him. One week ago, this unusual man committed suicide by nailing himself to a tree on a small hill in his backyard. Since he died, some of his friends have written a book of 66 sub-books describing the old man in megalomaniac terms. Many passages of this book are vague and self-contradictory. For instance, in these letters, he is described as having insisted that he committed suicide to "save" his children from being burned by him. According to the stories, the old man was purportedly trying to save his children from himself. Police contacted the children's mother recently, and she claimed that the old man was the true father even though she had never actually had sex with him. Neighbors have been complaining that she often spoke of her husband as her "son." The most amazing thing, though, is that after this purported "sacrifice" of killing himself on the tree in the backyard, some of the 66 books indicate that his children are still at risk of being burned in the basement. Some people are questioning whether the suicide was necessary at all. Nonetheless, the old man is currently being called a hero by many in his community for having “atoned” for the moral deficiencies of his children by committing suicide, so that he would burn fewer of them.
-- See also, the four other “Assimulated Press” stories at Dangerous Intersection. Here, here, here and here.

Continue ReadingThe illogic of Atonement