eternalstoke's Xanga

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:53:37 GMT

I attended a clinical lecture this morning by an esteemed neurologist, who, in evaluating a case of ciguatoxin poisoning, elaborated on the history of the toxin in Hawaiian culture. The toxin comes from reef fish that feed on reef algae, where the dinoflagellates grow- but the Hawaiians did not know this. When they dipped their weapons in the wading pools infested with the toxin, to make them more lethal, they thought that immoral persons had drowned or been slain there. But now we know better.

In contradiction to this, from G.K. Chesterton's 'Orthodoxy':
"But we cannot say why an egg could turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a bear could turn into a fairy prince. As ideas, the egg and the chicken are further away from one another than the bear and the prince; for no egg in itself suggests a chicken; whereas some princes do suggest bears... Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there myst be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, where there is none. A forlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love; so the materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide. In both cases there is no connection, except that one has seen them together. A sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because, by a dark association of his own, it reminded him of his boyhood. So the materialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet a sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should not grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country."

So... while there is a connection between dinoflagellates and ciguatera poisoning, the connection is no MORE sensical than if an immoral Hawaiian had been slain there. While it is true that the Hawaiian makes a 'category mistake' in giving a moral explanation for a natural event, this is no sillier than what modern scientists do, which is to give a physical explanation for a moral event. (Your conscience is a product of survival + heredity, etc.) If there ever was a 'category mistake' to poke fun at- let's poke fun at that one.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:55:59 GMT

Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. And the natural way to learn a language, is to first speak it, then worry about grammar later on. This book accomplishes just that, easing you into grammatical understanding, but not before offering rich dividends. This is probably the most prayed prayer in all of human history, speaking worldly, judging from Christianity's overall numbers, and widespread monasteries. This is also the language it has been most commonly prayed in:

Pater noster, qui es in coelis,
sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Adveniat regnum tuum,
fiat voluntas tua, sicut in coelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,
et dimmite nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos dimmitimus debitoribus nostris.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem,
sed libera nos a malo.

Friday, August 07, 2009

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:29:30 GMT

A leftie I caught last week.

Also, my first ever surfing photo courtesy of my beautiful bride.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:30:40 GMT

According to scientific naturalism, (the assertion that nature is all that exists, or can be studied) physical phenomena ought to be given physical explanations. Whereas the ancient Greeks attributed a lightning bolt to the wrath of zeus, in modern times we have learned to think primarily of meteorological explanations. The ancient Greeks were making a 'category mistake,' confusing the physical with the spiritual. Some scientific naturalists might say that even though spiritual explanations may serve to explain spiritual phenomena, we ought to intentionally separate all that is physical from all that is spiritual, including explanations for each. Some would use the principle of 'Occam's Razor' in defense of this, a principle which forbids the multiplying of explanations, and which supposedly forbids spiritual explanations when physical ones will suffice.

But
1) since spiritual things are higher than physical things, spiritual explanations may serve to explain both spiritual and physical phenomena. A lightning bolt may be explained by both the wrath of God, meteorology, or both. no effect is greater than its cause, and if a spiritual thing is greater than a physical thing, it may cause a spiritual effect, a physical effect, or both.

2) there are pseudo-spiritual phenomena which seem more reasonably given spiritual explanations. two examples of this are human consciousness, and the intrinsic binding authority of the human conscience. (does anyone say that it's sometimes okay to disobey one's conscience? despite the fact that it presumably has a natural origin, according to the naturalists?) these sorts of phenomena ought not be given physical explanations (according to Occam's razor) when they can be suitably given spiritual explanations. That is, assuming of course, that science in general, conceived in a general way as a sort of searching for explanations, and Occam's Razor in particular, do not forbid the use of spiritual explanations for observable phenomena. Presumably, if a phenomena is observable, whether by sense (lightning bolt) or by psychological or logical intuition (conscience), then it may be given any sort explanation required by it. The modern scientific naturalist may thus by criticized for the prioritizing the type of explanation, (physical over spiritual) as opposed to prioritizing the necessity of finding any sort of explanation at all, for any phenomena which is at all observable.

3) It is far sillier to take a spiritual phenomena, such as the human conscience, and give it a physical explanation, than it is silly to take a physical one (lightning) and give it a spiritual explanation (the wrath of zeus). Why? Because, if Occam's razor's strict interpretation may be disobeyed, then all physical phenomena may have dual explanations (wrath and zeus AND meteorology), whereas spiritual phenomena cannot have physical explanations at all! (blind, ruthless evolution ---> authority of human conscience?! i don't think so) Thus the modern scientific naturalist is sillier than the ancient Greek. They both confuse basic categories, but the modern does so at the expense of his sanity. The ancient Greek merely saw the mythological, poetic impressiveness of every natural phenomena, whereas the modern naturalist sees the impressiveness of his own godlike ability to give virtuoso-like explanations (I think of Freud's 'ladies and gentlemen!' at the start of his lectures) of seemingly spiritual phenomena.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:47:32 GMT

So I spent my first week as a working doctor, not working much, and mostly figuring out how to kill roaches around our new little cottage. Five poison smoke bombs were detonated last night and, so far, there are no survivors. Betsy and I both have intense roach phobias reaching all the way back into our childhoods... now we've got to stay strong for our own daughter. Yikes.

I read Kreeft's entire 'Socrates Meets' series in about a month. Socrates meets Machiavelli, Sartre, Descartes, and Marx. I've never devoured so many books so fast. Socrates Meets Hume comes out later this summer, and for the first time ever, I've known about a book, and waited for it to be released. The series is fantastic because it not only trains you in genuine analytic skills, but also seriously engages the modern thinker and exposes the reader in detail to the classic they wrote.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:44:41 GMT

Lewis's poem entitled 'Prayer':

Master, they say that when I seem
To be in speech with you,
Since you make no replies, it's all a dream
--One talker aping two.

They are half right, but not as they
Imagine; rather, I
Seek in myself the things I meant to say,
And lo! the wells are dry.

Then, seeing me empty, you forsake
the Listener's role, and through
My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake
the thoughts I never knew.

And thus you neither need reply
nor can; thus, while we seem
Two talking, thou art One forever, and I
No dreamer, but thy dream.

Btw, I graduated from medical school:

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:33:01 GMT

My wife Betsy delivered our baby daughter on Good Friday! Name is Hanalei Annabelle Cook. She is just over six pounds and quite cute. We have been resting at home all week but we took our first walk with her in one of those slings that you wear. I play guitar for her when she's not sleeping and she just stares forward wide-eyed...

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 01:56:10 GMT

'You will feel awe because you are riding one of the horses of the gods. Of all the metaphors for waves, perhaps the best is stallions. While the offshore wind wips the crest of the approaching swells and leaves a halo of white spray behind each wave just before it plunges over, and if they are backlit by the sun, you will not be able not to see the waves as heavenly horses with wild white manes, ghost riders from the sky who disappear as quickly as they come.'

'There are two kinds of philosophy. Some philosophy is simply bullshit. Philosophers are smart, and therefore they can fool people pretty well. They are very clever at disguising bullshit as wisdom. The other kind of philosophy is really wise and wonderful and helpful. Socrates is my favorite example of it. If you don't know that both kinds of philosophy exist, you are not fully educated in philosophy.'

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:18:01 GMT

This was a difficult book to read but its insights are profoundly attractive to the heart as well as the mind. JP II was a phenomenalist (hence the insightful profundity) as well as a thoroughgoing Thomist (hence the difficulty, and the almost mentally insupportable clarity). It's quite clear where he's doing a little of each, or a bit of both.

His central argument is integrative. Man's capacity is most complete and most fulfilled when it reconciles, or integrates, man's existence as both subject and object, both observer and observed, lover and loved. In the depths of our own psychology, one of the interesting phenomena we observe, is our experience of shame at being watched, the naked object of another's subjective observation. And at the same time we long to give our own bodies away, and to experience sexual urges toward the opposite sex which put us in the place of a subject. Thus, we experience two contradictory phenomena: we can only love as a subject, and we can only be loved as an object. Yet we long to be loved, but we detest objectification... and so we long to be loved in a way that protects our reciprocal role as a subject as well as an object of love. There is a part of us that experiences our own being loved as a higher, sublimated form of objectification... a kind of objectification that respects the subject.

How do we solve this problem? How do we achieve true intersubjectivity which is also fulfilling in the bodily, sexual sense? How do we protect this precarious thing, responsible-mutual-self-giving? By 1. the practice of chastity within marriage, and by 2. avoiding artificial contraception.

1. Chastity within marriage: unless you have self-control, how can you give yourself? You cannot 'give' something unless you 'have' it to the utmost. And if you cannot full 'give' something in the sexual act, namely yourself, then the sexual act becomes merely taking and experiencing. The problem of intersubjectivity fails. Thus, chastity is required, even in marriage, if sexual giving is to rise above mere reciprocal objectification and exploitation. It is also required if we are to maintain 'a conscious attitude towards the sexual instinct: to master the sexual urge means just this, to accept its purpose in marital relations.' Which brings me to the next point:

2. Avoiding artificial contraception. It must be avoided, because it is itself an avoidance of the call to chastity within marriage (a requirement of the rhythm method in natural family planning, as opposed to artificial family planning, which bypasses the involvement of chastity and of the free will to 'give' oneself freely in sex). In bypassing the need for chastity, man does not 'conquer nature', which he conceives to be the connection between sex and reproduction. He instead does harm to the deeper psychological motivations behind sex: to achieve true love between persons which is not objectification and exploitation, but true intersubjectivity. Our deepest longing is to penetrate the 'other', not just their body. To touch their soul, not just their flesh. That is the meaning of true eroticism: the bodily expression of the soul, or the mind, or the subject. The erotic desire for flesh is an extension, or expression of that deeper longing for the soul's bodily expression. Finally, to refute the idea that artificial contraception is a form of rightful control of a natural process: when we say that man has 'conquered nature' we typically mean that he has tapped into some potentiality within nature, some potential power within nature. But the 'potentiality' which lies behind the sexual act is that of procreation. But we have not conquered this in the formal sense- we moderns are as terrified of our fertility as ever. This is the fault of contraceptive technology. Thus we have hardly conquered nature at all, in fact having lost our self control and chastity, we are more enslaved to our fertility than ever. Our fertility seems to loom within us like a dark mysterious, many armed and many breasted pagan god. It is nature which has really conquered man: a) one person's nature (their lust) has conquered man in the soul or subject of the other person, the object of sex: the sexual partner is objectified, and b) nature conquers man within himself also, in man's ability to regulate and master himself as explained above, he is subjugated to his own random and senseless urges, which he does not understand.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:26:17 GMT

Our desire for God seems to be built, according to Freud, on desires for lower things. As such, it is liable to be a projection of a desire for those lower things, such as the peace we crave by having a powerful Father who punishes the injustices of others. How are we to refute this claim of Freud's? LaGrange, one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, does so admirably:

'Following in the wake of Aristotle and St. Augustine, St. Thomas insists on the fact that man by his very nature desires to be happy. Now man's intellect, transcending as it does the sense and imagination of the brute, has knowledge of not merely this or that particular good, whether delectable or useful- a particular food or a particular medicine for instance- but of good in general (universal in predication), constituting it as such, as the desirable wherever it is to be found... it follows that man cannot find his true happiness in any finite limited good, but in the sovereign good alone (universal in being and causation)... Who of us has not experienced this fact in his intimate life? In sickness we have a natural desire to recover our health as a great good. But, however happy we are in our recovery, no sooner are we cured than we realize that health alone cannot bring happiness: a man may be in perfect health and yet overwhelmed with sadness... [But] can it be that this natural desire for happiness, which we all have within us, must forever remain unsatisfied? Is it possible [as according to Freud] for a natural desire to be of no effect, chimerical, without meaning or purpose? ... This desire of the very nature of the will, which, prior to any act, is an appetitive faculty having universal good as its object. The nature of our will can no more be the result of chance, of a fortuitous encounter, than can the nature of our intellect; because, like the intellect, the will is a principle of operation wholly simple, in no way compounded of different elements that chance might have brought together... that natural desire in inferior beings is not ineffectual... in herbiverous animals that natural desire is for herbaceous food... and this is not purely a naturalist's argument... It is a metaphysical argument based on the certitude of the absolute validity of the principle of finality. If the natural desire for true happiness is chimerical, then all human activity, inspired as it is by that desire, is without finality, without a raison d'etre, and thus contrary to the necessary and evident principle that 'every agent acts for an end.' Any agent whatsoever, conscious or unconscious, has an inclination to something determinate which is appropriate to it. Now the end is precisely that determinate good to which the act of the agent or the motion of the mobile object is directed. This principle, self-evident to one who understands the meaning of the words 'agent' and 'end', may be further demonstrated by a reductio ad absurdum; for otherwise, as St. Thomas says, 'there would be no reason why the agent should act rather than not act, no reason why it should act in this way rather than another.'... Indeed without finality, efficient causality is inconceivable: as we have just seen, it would be without a purpose and consequently unintelligible.'

'No one will be able to make us believe that man is a sublimated animal once we can show that within him there is a repressed angel.' -Viktor Frankl