An antique shop in Amsterdam

An antique shop window in Amsterdam.. Delight of browsing through objects survived distant past. Just think about care, craftsmanship and love embedded in these objects, and happiness or sorrow they caused in fellow beings who are no longer with us. These objects whisper us stories they witnessed, life dramas they were part of. Alas we can't hear them.

The Avenue

Slender women with veil, every few hundred meters prostrate themselves on wide pavements of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, a small plastic cup in their sun burnt hands. Passers, mostly tourists gazed at them briefly with indifference as they continue their stroll before large, bright shop windows.

The sun rapidly sets beyond the colossal arms of the Arc de Triomphe, small black cars and vespas are busily circling around it like fire flies attracted to bonfire.

Tourists, Europeans, Americans, Australians, Arabs, Chinese, Japanese, with track-pants, sneakers, and backpacks are scanning surrounding buildings in every direction, looking at reliefs above window frames, reliefs partly covered in gray exhaust dirt, watching the crowd below with a contemptuous look.

Native Parisians who just left their offices heading home choose to walk briskly on the road side, as shop fronts are packed with tourists.

A group of men is in desperation to grab attention of passers by; they play loud Arabic music and encourage crowd to dance. 

A security guard controlled tourist queue is hanging out of Louis Vuitton shop.

The Avenue, once a symbol of Parisian attitude, turned into a globalization showcase, its hay days are long gone and its distinct glamorous character was left behind like an old sweetheart’s sigh.

Nexus causality

According to John Tooby,  Professor of Anthropology, UC Santa Barbara:

Causality itself is an evolved conceptual tool that simplifies, schematizes, and focuses our representation of situations.

Nexus causality on the other hand is a different tool.

InWar and Peace, Tolstoy asks: 

'When an apple ripens and falls, why does it fall? Because of its attraction to the earth, because its stem withers, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it….?'

Nexus causality is what Police and FBI will be using in the analysis of Boston marathon bombings:

“For how long the suspects have been planning the bombings? How did they build the bombs? From whom, where and how did they get logistic support? Etc.”

But the analysis will stop, when bigger questions are asked:

“Is there a link between this event and US foreign policy in the Middle East and why?”

“Should US administration continue to support religious fundamentalists in the Middle East, especially in Syria and why?”

As simply stated by Tooby:

“Our minds evolved to represent situations in a way that highlighted the element in the nexus that we could manipulate to bring about a favoured outcome.”

References:

http://edge.org/annual-question/2011/response/11211

http://www.elisa-dbi.co.uk/blog/38-tools-for-beautiful-data-visualisations/

Too bleak?

Recently I watched a movie called 'Biutiful' directed by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, the protagonist played by Javier Bardem.

Most critics found the film too bleak. It was indeed. You need stomach to watch it in its entirety. I couldn't, as the movie reached its climax towards the finale, I threw the towel, and had to escape to my room, my wife whereas, was braver, she finished it.

But I still score the film 9 out of 10, simply because performances of actors were brilliant and too real, the story, despite being too bleak, taught me something valuable, I realized and absorbed something that I could learn or experience in no other way.

I was however shocked when I heard that two film critics whom I admire, Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton gave low scores to the film, mostly on the basis of it being too real.

I too like what Tarantino qualifies as 'movie movies', ie. movies that entertain via fantasy, or via glossed reality. But I also like when reality strikes, when I capture something essential, something I missed out until then. I think crying and getting emotional for those bleak stories is ok, they are as real as they get, and the experience becomes an honest contract between the audience and the film maker. No packaging, as if you buy a completely transparent telephone with messed up ingredients, ready for you to face reality, understand and consume.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biutiful

Friction

The Physicist Laurence Krauss said:

"Philosophers are threatened by science because “science progresses and philosophy doesn’t."

I imagine Philosophy is like an annoying five year old, constantly bombarding an adult (Science) with deceivingly simple but in essence deeper questions.

According to late Physicist Richard Feynman ‘doubt’ constitutes the central tenet of Science.

“Now, we scientists … take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure — that it is possible to live and not know. But I don’t know whether everyone realizes that this is true. Our freedom to doubt was born of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle. Permit us to question — to doubt, that’s all — not to be sure. And I think it is important that we do not forget the importance of this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained. Here lies a responsibility to society.”

Hence “doubt” it seems an area of agreement between Science and Philosophy.  Both use doubt as a key in their quest to understand the nature of reality.

Note Feynman also stated:

“We can't define anything precisely. If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers… one saying to the other: "you don't know what you are talking about!". The second one says: "what do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you? What do you mean by know?"”

Indeed Science and Philosophy have conflict of interest, a point of friction. Science is most notably progressive. It marks whatever in its checklist, and after removing shadows of doubts moves on with new doubts. Whereas Philosophy it seems is stuck with questions and doubts with little intent to seek answers. One strongly favours seeking answers; the other one favours seeking questions.

Having said that progressive nature of science should not mean ‘anything goes’. It should not be “blind progression” regardless of moral questions or despite humanity. Scientists should have and do have moral responsibilities. 

I do think classical education and understanding Philosophy of Science are crucial tools for scientists to understand their role and responsibilities in the society, in answering questions like where they come from, how Science progressed, and what are moral and social challenges they are confronted with.

But I also think there may be a simpler reason for Krauss’ and others’ strong reaction against Philosophy, in essence it may indeed be a reaction against “Science Denialism”. They may be seeing Philosophy as a breeding ground for that. This would of course be a bold generalisation; nevertheless I believe has been a factor.