Acceptance

Traditional Stoics accept what they cannot change, that is, they don't try to change it. They may be too quick to conclude that the universe as a whole and in parts is wholly and particularly beyond reach.

Traditional religionists And some philosophers accept what they consider divine will, though it transcend human understanding. They concede, on faith or first principles, that all must be for the best in the end. Case in point: Voltaire's Pangloss, a transparent gloss on Leibniz, accepting the devastation of mayhem, torture, the Lisbon earthquake…

Stoic pragmatists, though, are meliorists. They heartily accept the challenge of changing what they can for the better, accepting what they must in the end, but never in the long interim of human history presuming that suffering and injustice must subserve the best of possible worlds.

I'd like to think Margaret Fuller was that kind of philosopher, enthusiastically assenting to life as that kind of challenge.

""I accept the universe" is reported to have been a favorite utterance of our New England transcendentalist, Margaret Fuller; and when some one repeated this phrase to Thomas Carlyle, his sardonic comment is said to have been: "Gad! she'd better!" At bottom the whole concern of both morality and religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe. Do we accept it only in part and grudgingly, or heartily and altogether? Shall our protests against certain things in it be radical and unforgiving, or shall we think that, even with evil, there are ways of living that must lead to good? If we accept the whole, shall we do so as if stunned into submission—as Carlyle would have us—" Gad! we'd better!"—or shall we do so with enthusiastic assent?"

— The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James(Annotated)

medicine for the soul

""Don't return to philosophy as a task-master, but as patients seek out relief in a treatment of sore eyes, or a dressing for a burn, or from an ointment. Regarding it this way, you'll obey reason without putting it on display and rest easy in its care."—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.9

The busier we get, the more we work and learn and read, the further we may drift. We get in a rhythm… we drift further and further from philosophy. Eventually this neglect will contribute to a problem—the stress builds up, our mind gets cloudy, we forget what's important…

Return to the regimen and practices that we know are rooted in clarity, good judgment, good principles, and good health. Stoicism is designed to be medicine for the soul. It relieves us of the vulnerabilities of modern life. It restores us with the vigor we need to thrive in life. Check in with it today, and let it do its healing."

— The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
https://a.co/hfz7VRV

Don't know, don't care

It's important to know and care about what matters. So much in our public discourse does not.

"If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters—don't wish to seem knowledgeable. And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself."—EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 13a

One of the most powerful things you can do as a human being in our hyperconnected, 24/ 7 media world is say: "I don't know." Or, more provocatively: "I don't care." Most of society seems to have taken it as a commandment that one must know about every single current event, watch every episode of every critically acclaimed television series, follow the news religiously, and present themselves to others as an informed and worldly individual… Yes, you owe it to your country and your family to know generally about events that may directly affect them, but that's about all. How much more time, energy, and pure brainpower would you have available if you drastically cut your media consumption? How much more rested and present would you feel if you were no longer excited and outraged by every scandal, breaking story, and potential crisis (many of which never come to pass anyway)?" — The Daily Stoic

On the other hand, we're entitled to care about a few things just because we want to. How many days 'til pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training?

About 15. If you care.

What Happens When We Die – The Marginalian

"…Whatever our beliefs, these sensemaking playthings of the mind, when the moment of material undoing comes, we — creatures of moment and matter — simply cannot fathom how something as exquisite as the universe of thought and feeling inside us can vanish into nothingness. 

Even if we understand that dying is the token of our existential luckiness, even if we understand that we are borrowed stardust, bound to be returned to the universe that made it — a universe itself slouching toward nothingness as its stars are slowly burning out their energy to leave a cold austere darkness of pure spacetime — this understanding blurs into an anxious disembodied abstraction as the body slouches toward dissolution. Animated by electrical impulses and temporal interactions of matter, our finite minds simply cannot grasp a timeless and infinite inanimacy — a void beyond being..."

Maria Popova

https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/01/10/alan-lightman-death/

Conversing with the dead

"In my dreams, as in my waking life, the dead are still here, still talking to me." Margaret Renkl's lovely meditation on transmuting grief into conversation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/30/opinion/death-grief-memory.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
More and More, I Talk to the Dead

Smile when you type that

I find that for some it's easier to philosophize with a smile in the classroom, frequently, than in extracurricular internet discussion threads. There must be something in computer keyboards that temporarily disables some otherwise sweet-natured souls' natural good humor and suppresses their better angels. It's an odd Jekyll-Hyde phenomenon.

But I'm still committed, as most of us thankfully seem to be this semester, to following WJ's cited wisdom of Renan:

"Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile." VRE https://a.co/78G3CWU

And type, too.

Role models

""Take a good hard look at people's ruling principle, especially of the wise, what they run away from and what they seek out."—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 4.38

Seneca has said, "Without a ruler to do it against, you can't make crooked straight." That is the role of wise people in our lives—to serve as model and inspiration… Maybe it's a philosopher or a writer or a thinker. Perhaps WWJD is the right model for you…"

— The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
https://a.co/5Z2TUCF

[For me, Wm James is a philosophical role model. So, WWWJD?]

Twilight writing at dawn

Aren't we always, for all we know to the contrary, living "in the immediate face of death"? Shouldn't we always write "like [our] lives depend on it"? Aren't those the authors we should be reading and emulating, even those of us who prefer to think and write in the early hours and in HDT's "infinite expectation of the dawn"?

"…any description of the cosmos is provisional; more is always left to be said. This is not a cause for frustration, but rather hope that another inning of the world is about to begin.

Over the years we have known many authors who work into their dying days. One thing strikes us clearly: those who write in the immediate face of death tend to do so like their lives depend on it. This is not to say that they choose the most important topics, in any objective sense, but rather that they tend to choose topics which are vitally important in the context of their own fleeting lives. Twilight writing has a certain revelatory power. It can show a reader what has always been, or is most forcefully, on an author's mind."
— John Kaag, Be Not Afraid of Life: In the Words of William James 

A lot of Internet-platformed writing, it occurs to me, fails to reveal any urgent sense of vital importance on the authors' parts. A lot of it is frivolous. A lot of it seems to presuppose all the time in the world. We don't have that, not as singular authors and not as finite living beings.

And yet, the sun is a morning star. Even at twilight. Writing in the face of personal death doesn't mean writing in a panic, or in an attitude of gloom. It does mean not wasting so damn much time on what does not finally matter. 

Morning mantras

"Erase the false impressions from your mind by constantly saying to yourself, I have it in my soul to keep out any evil, desire or any kind of disturbance—instead, seeing the true nature of things, I will give them only their due. Always remember this power that nature gave you."—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.29 

Anyone who has taken a yoga class or been exposed to Hindu or Buddhist thought has probably heard of the concept of a mantra. In Sanskrit, it means "sacred utterance"—essentially a word, a phrase, a thought, even a sound—intended to provide clarity or spiritual guidance…."

— The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
https://a.co/fHKx2Om

Today's Stoic meditation: have a mantra, a "sacred utterance" for clarity and spiritual guidance, says Marc A. Mine, clearly, is his "precious privilege" (as in "what a precious privilege it is to breathe" etc.)  

An even shorter mantra is "Luck"-the luck of nature's gift of life, breath, thought, joy, love.

Some familiar philosophical statements make good mantras. Mark also said " if it is not right do not do it, if it is not true do not say it." David Hume: A wise person proportions is believed to the evidence. Etc.

Skeptics

An old post...

Good citizens are skeptics of the moderate, non-Pyrrhonic sort. They think critically, they call out false beliefs rooted in pseudoscience and superstition. They seek truth, facts, and reality. And they do it with humility, kindness, and compassion.

Carl Sagan was a good citizen.

I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive... The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir. Carl Sagan, 1996

==

Today in CoPhi it’s skeptics. Or sceptics, if you prefer the British spelling. Or you can follow their lead and refuse to commit. “Don’t commit, and you won’t be disappointed.”

I haven’t generally found that to be a reliable guidepost in life, instead taking my cue from the lesson James’s “first act of free will” (noted last time) seems to me to teach: don’t just sit there, stand and select a destination. And get going. As my old pal the [now-retired] Carolina prof says, do something – even if it’s wrong. And as James also said, “our errors surely are not such awfully solemn things.” Lighten up. Pick a path. Move.

But that’s my therapy, it may not be yours. Some of us really do prefer sitting on a fence, avoiding firm opinions, keeping all accounts open. And there’s no doubt, a healthy dose of skepticism is good for you. But how much is too much?

My answer is implied by the bumper sticker message on my bulletin board: “even fatalists look both ways before crossing the street.” If you stop looking, you’re either too skeptical or not skeptical enough. Probably a lunatic, too. Or the ruler of the universe. “I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things. More I cannot say.”

Point is, we need beliefs to motivate action lest we sit and starve like Buridan‘s ass, or cross paths with a cart and get flattened. Prudence demands commitment. Commitment is no guarantee against error and disappointment, but indifference and non-commitment typically leave us stuck in the middle of the road or drop us off the cliff.

That wasn’t Pyrrho‘s perspective, jay- and cliff-walker though he was. Fortunately for him, he seems always to have had friends steering him from the edge. His prescription – but is a skeptic allowed to prescribe? – was to free yourself from desires, don’t care how things will turn out, persuade yourself that nothing ultimately matters, and you’ll eventually shuck all worry. Or not. If we all were Pyrrho “there wouldn’t be anyone left to protect the Pyrrhonic Sceptics from themselves.” Prudence wins again.

Prudence and moderation. “The point of moderate philosophical scepticism is to get closer to the truth,” or further at least from falsehood and bullshit. Easier said than done, in these alt-fact days of doublespeak. “All the great philosophers have been [moderate] sceptics,” have sought truth and spurned lies, have deployed their baloney detectors and upheld the bar of objective evidence. Sincerity alone won’t cut it.

The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These anti-realist doctrines undermine confidence in the value of disinterested efforts to determine what is true and what is false, and even in the intelligibility of the notion of objective inquiry… Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to skeptical dissolution. Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial-notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.
So, be a skeptic. But to paraphrase David Hume and Jon Batiste, stay human. (“Be a philosopher, but amidst your philosophy be still a man.”)

Read Skeptic magazine, which in the latest issue doubts the possibility of eternal youth and features the parodic perspective of Mr. Deity. [The latest issue is actually about nationalism.] Skeptic’s editor Michael Shermer says “Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.” And, “I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know.”

Pyrrho must not have been that crazy, to have lived to nearly ninety. “He did not act carelessly in the details of everyday life,” said a defender, he just suspended judgment as to their ultimate import in the larger truths of things. Or maybe he just wanted to protect his batting average, so to speak. If you never swing, you’ll never miss. But you’ll still strike out if you take too many.

David Hume, again. He was a skeptic but he didn’t let that interfere with living. He ventured opinions but couched them in philosophic humility. He knew we couldn’t all be Pyrrho, for “all action would immediately cease” and “the necessities of nature” would “put an end to [our] miserable existence.” Miserable? He must have been having a bad day. Generally he was of great cheer and humane disposition.

So let’s not throw in the sponge on humanity just yet. What a strange expression, “throwing in the sponge”-it comes from the Roman Skeptic Sextus Empiricus, who told a story about a painter who stopped trying so hard to paint the perfect representation of a horse’s mouth and discovered that sometimes it’s best to just let fly. Fling your sponge, let it land where it may. Okay, if you’re just painting. If you’re living a life, though, maybe just a bit less skepticism is prudent.

Is it possible to go through life questioning and doubting everything, committing always to nothing, and holding no firm opinions? Is it desirable or useful to try doing so? And do you know anyone who doesn’t look both ways before crossing the street?

10.11.17

LISTEN

What Would Plato Say About ChatGPT?

A.I. can be a learning tool for schools with enough teachers and resources to use it well.

"...When I asked ChatGPT a range of questions — about the ethical challenges faced by journalists who work with hacked materials, the necessity of cryptocurrency regulation, the possibility of democratic backsliding in the United States — the answers were cogent, well reasoned and clear. It's also interactive: I could ask for more details or request changes.

But then, on trickier topics or more complicated concepts, ChatGPT sometimes gave highly plausible answers that were flat-out wrong — something its creators warn about in their disclaimers.

Unless you already knew the answer or were an expert in the field, you could be subjected to a high-quality intellectual snow job.

You would face, as Plato predicted, "the show of wisdom without the reality."

All this, however, doesn't mean ChatGPT — or similar tools, because it's not the only one of its kind — can't be a useful tool in education.

Schools have already been dealing with the internet's wealth of knowledge, along with its lies, misleading claims and essay mills..."

  

nyt

Experience and possibility

We commence this evening, in our MALA course, our reflective survey of the varieties of experience. 

It's William James's Varieties of Religious Experience in the first segment of our weekly three-hour session, and then Carl Sagan's Varieties of Scientific Experience after the intermission. Carl collaborated in work with life-partner Ann Druyan, whose idea it was to issue his 1985 Gifford Lectures ("The Search for Who We Are") under a title that pays direct homage to WJ's from the turn of the previous century. 

So it's only right, I say, that we should also read and discuss her Cosmos: Possible Worlds, companion book to the latest video sequel to her and Carl's 1980 Cosmos. We should take a moment in class to appreciate the passing of the cosmic baton from Carl to Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Possibility, I said in my introduction, is much of what "experience" means to me. Same goes for all three of our authors. William said "the really vital question for us all is, What is this world going to be? What is life eventually to make of itself? As the late James scholar John McDermott points out, the philosophy and psychology of possibility is central to our vital response.

Carl said it's possible that, if we manage to survive our technological adolescence, we'll expand the human abode beyond this Earth-"the only home we've ever known." Ann says that vision of a bright and soaring human future, and of a truly cosmopolitan human citizenry at home whevever our dreams and ingenuity can take us, was firmly planted in her late husband when he first got a glimpse of the "world of tomorrow" at the 1939 World's Fair.

None of our dreams, and none of the wondrous possible experiences they might engender, can be realized by humans who do not take their own experience seriously. That's WJ's message in the first chapter "Religion and Neurology," where he resists the "medical materialism" of those who dismantle dreams and visions of wondrous possible experience by reducing them to their organic antecedents. 

"Medical materialism seems indeed a good appellation for the too simple-minded system of thought which we are considering. Medical materialism finishes up Saint Paul by calling his vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex, he being an epileptic. It snuffs out Saint Teresa as an hysteric, Saint Francis of Assisi as an hereditary degenerate. George Fox's discontent with the shams of his age, and his pining for spiritual veracity, it treats as a symptom of a disordered colon. Carlyle's organ-tones of misery it accounts for by a gastro-duodenal catarrh. All such mental over-tensions, it says, are, when you come to the bottom of the matter, mere affairs of diathesis (auto-intoxications most probably), due to the perverted action of various glands which physiology will yet discover.

And medical materialism then thinks that the spiritual authority of all such personages is successfully undermined."

Sagan's first chapter, "Nature and Wonder: A Reconnaissance of Heaven," begins to reclaim the possibility of a wondrous and expansive human future by affirming the fitness of our organic nature to generate appropriately cosmic dreams and visions.

Druyan elaborates the affinity between James and Sagan that inspired her to yoke their Gifford lectures with a mirrored title. For both, in their different ways, the respectively religious and scientific experiences of home are profoundly spiritual. Her prologue begins with Carl's romantic feeling for science, and observes that his "pale blue dot is a silent rebuke to the fundamentalist, the nationalist, the militarist, the pollluter--to anyone who does not put above all other things the protection of our little planet and the life that it sustains in the vast cold darkness."

And it is a summons to "a global spiritual awakening...to that soaring experience of the oneness of being fully alive" that she and he consider "a complete experience of nature."

Her first chapter, "Ladder to the Stars," reminds us of the staggering scale of immensity by which we are situated in space and time. She recalls Carl's Cosmic Calendar, according to which "our tiny world coalesce[d] out of the disk of gas and dust surrounding our star" on August 31, and we arrived four "months" later in just the last ticking moments of the cosmic "year"-remarkable! 

No less remarkable is the fact that the very consciousness with which we comprehend that scale of immensity, "starstuff pondering the stars" that we are, is due to a genetic mutation on a miniscule single rung of the DNA ladder that is in fact the eponymous double-helix ladder to the stars in question. Tweak thirteen atoms differently and we'd not be pondering anything at all. 

We'd presumably not be entertaining dreams and visions of personal or species-level possible futures and worlds. Our experience would probably not be complex and varied, our questions would go not much beyond what's for dinner. We'd not be taking up a class on Experience.

Aren't we lucky!

Aristotle, friendship, happiness, Wendell Berry

In CoPhi it's time again for Aristotle. This time last semester, on August 30, that serendipitously coincided with the lead-off slot I'd been asked to fill in the Honors Fall Lecture Series. It also coincided with the kickoff of our Environmental Ethics course's discussion of the Kentucky sage Wendell Berry, so I found myself looking for points of intersection between Aristotle and Wendell--specifically on the subjects of friendship and happiness. Having already noticed some affinity between Aristotle and Socrates, I then also detected an Aristotelian strain in the farmer-poet from Port Royal. That again leaves Plato the odd man out. 

In particular, I noticed the echo in Wendell of Aristotle's insistence on creating strong communal lives wherein individuals have learned to trust and thus mutually support one another. That's the collective form of friendship, or at least its cousin. Good friends, good neighbors, and good citizens share a great deal of common ground. "We need better government, no doubt about it," writes Wendell in his 1970 essay Think Little. "But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities."

Aristotle's great theme, in the broadly-ethical sphere that asks what it means to live a good human life and thus to flourish and attain happiness, is ευδαιμονια [eudaimonia]. Nigel Warburton's mnemonic is worth remembering, even if a native Greek speaker might say it mangles the proper pronunciation: a flourishingly happy human is one who has succeeded in replacing you die with a virtuous life of αρετη [aretê], and thus has begun really to live. That's excellent.

Wendell's great theme, bound up with love of one's homeplace and a willingness to work joyously to sustain it, live from it, try to improve it, and ultimately pass it along to its next generation of caretakers, is also (I submit) something like Aristotle's version of happiness. Both aim at the great Graceful Life prize, αταραξια [ataraxia], serenity, tranquility, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear. And happiness. "Be joyful, though you've considered all the facts."

But Wendell disagrees with Aristotle and Solon (“Count no man happy until he is dead"), we must take our happiness where and when we find it.

I made a few slides for the Honors lecture, probably too many and still in poor order. But they got us talking. That too is something Wendell shares with the sage of Stagira, an uncommon ability to provoke constructive conversation. And so the Socratic gadfly from Kentucky is also an Aristotelian provocateur. 

Humility

This new book was reviewed in the Times yesterday. It does put things in perspective, it should remind us to identify with something larger than our personal, solitary, finite, temporary selves.

"Picture yourself on a plane, at high altitude. One of the engines has just caught fire, the other doesn't look very promising, and the pilot has to make an emergency landing. Finding yourself in such a situation is no doubt shattering, but also illuminating. At first, amid the wailing and gnashing of teeth, you cannot think in any detached, rational fashion. You have to admit it, you are paralyzed by fear and scared to death, just like everyone else.

Eventually, the plane lands safely, and everybody gets off unharmed. Once you've had a chance to pull yourself together, you can think a bit more clearly about what just happened. And you start learning from it.

You learn, for instance, that human existence is something that happens, briefly, between two instantiations of nothingness. Nothing first—dense, impenetrable nothingness. Then a flickering. Then nothing again, endlessly. "A brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness," as Vladimir Nabokov would have it. 1

These are the brutal facts of the human condition—the rest is embellishment. No matter how we choose to reframe or retell the facts, when we consider what precedes us and what follows us, we are not much to talk about. We are next to nothing, in fact. And much of what we do in life, whether we know it or not, is an effort to address the sickness that comes from the realization of this next-to-nothingness. Myths, religion, spirituality, philosophy, science, works of art and literature—they seek to make this unbearable fact a little more bearable."
…
— In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility by Costica Bradatan
https://a.co/fXMvMrA

Can’t buy love (or a flourishing life)

I notice that more students these days seem to aspire to wealth and celebrity as prerequisite to a good life they'll love. We'll address that tomorrow in CoPhi with Aristotle. Today's stoic meditation addresses it too. And so did the Beatles.

""Let's pass over to the really rich—how often the occasions they look just like the poor! When they travel abroad they must restrict their baggage, and when haste is necessary, they dismiss their entourage. And those who are in the army, how few of their possessions they get to keep . . ."—SENECA, ON CONSOLATION TO HELVIA, 12. 1. b–2

Hemingway rightly pricked Fitzgerald's infatuation, observing drolly "Yes, they have more money." They do not have demonstrably more virtue, integrity, or happiness. They do tend, these days, to have more indictments and legal fees, and a great deal more to answer for in their conduct.

It's true, money can't buy you love and it can't buy eudaimonia. It won't make you rich in spirit, it won't create the web of mutually sustaining relationships that studies (like that decades-long Harvard project) show to be the real source of human satisfaction with life.

— The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
https://a.co/bePh37k

Learning from experience

""I will keep constant watch over myself and—most usefully—will put each day up for review. For this is what makes us evil—that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past."—SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 83.2

In a letter to his older brother Novatus, Seneca describes a beneficial exercise he borrowed from another prominent philosopher. At the end of each day he would ask himself variations of the following questions: What bad habit did I curb today? How am I better? Were my actions just? How can I improve? At the beginning or end of each day, the Stoic sits down with his journal…"

— The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
https://a.co/5sF4bUk

Michael Pollan stranded, with music

So glad I woke up early and thought to tell Alexa to turn on BBC4, not knowing my old correspondent Michael Pollan would be on Desert Island Discs.

"When I was dissolved, egoless, a puddle of melted blue post-its, I became the music"-A Yo-Yo Ma cello piece, which he also played when sitting with his dying father in 2018.

I'll always be grateful to Michael for the encouragement he gave me back in '97 when, taking the time to read a big unsolicited chunk of my PhD dissertation, he responded with generous affirmation. 

Hope you get off the island soon, Michael! Meanwhile, I'll be listening to Louis and Ella and Jerry and David and Yo-Yo…

The experience of spirit

This morning's stoic meditation extols the benefits of a dawn ritual, and suggests daily self-interrogation.

"“Ask yourself the following first thing in the morning: What am I lacking in attaining freedom from passion? What for tranquility? What am I? A mere body, estate-holder, or reputation? None of these things. What, then? A rational being. What then is demanded of me? Meditate on your actions. How did I steer away from serenity? What did I do that was unfriendly, unsocial, or uncaring? What did I fail to do in all these things?” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.6.34–35

"Many successful people have a morning ritual. For some, it’s meditation. For others, it’s exercise. For many, it’s journaling..." All of the above here, if by meditation is just meant quiet reading and reflection. I'm not seeking the stoic's vaunted "freedom from passion," but I do try to regain perspective each day by recalling Marcus Aurelius's advice to remember what a precious privilege it is to breathe, think, enjoy, and love.

It really does all begin and end with the breath of life. That's why I say spirituality is entirely natural (not super-) for humans. Respiration and inspiration comprise the experience of human spirit for me. And morning is when there's a perspective-giving dawn for me. Unquestionably.

"The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living": https://a.co/bMZ6p4K

A proper education

Finished Jon Meacham's fine new Lincoln bio, which cites Addison's smart insight that successful democracy and a "proper education" are inseparable.

Lincoln's self-education was extensive and thorough. He was a reader. Few of my young students ever indicate a preference for elective or leisure reading. They'd rather play games, or watch others play games.

There are thus relatively fewer committed autodidacts among us now, I suspect. This does not bode well for our future. Our educational institutions are going to have to step up.

"Lincoln encountered the English essayist, poet, and politician Joseph Addison in the pages of Lindley Murray's The English Reader. "The philosopher, the saint, or the hero, the wise, the good, or the great man," Addison had written, "very often lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light.""

— And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham
https://a.co/9I9Rkaa

Restart

WJ's "return to life" has stoic roots. The quality of our experience Is at least partly up to us.

"“Your principles can’t be extinguished unless you snuff out the thoughts that feed them, for it’s continually in your power to reignite new ones. . . . It’s possible to start living again! See things anew as you once did—that is how to restart life!” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.2"

"The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living" by Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman

“Busybody” Socrates

Questioning everything made Socrates widely unpopular, and philosophers still evoke this reaction. Real philosophers accept that.

"My problem is that I roundly dislike Socrates, and have from the moment I met him. He is a humble-braggart and a busybody, minding everyone's business but his own: on his own showing he neglected his family and let them fall into poverty while he spent his time gadflying about town and picking quarrels with anyone reputed to be wise. What kind of conduct is that?" https://mindly.social/@koshtra/109705942348674471


To those who say there are some questions we're just not supposed to ask…

"The first charge brought against #Socrates by his accusers, that he is "a criminal and a busybody, investigating the things beneath the earth and in the heavens" is a very important one indeed for all who study natural history to contemplate, for in doing so we may better under how dangerous the pursuit may be perceived by those who do not." https://mastodon.green/@WRNBookReview/109677062906311246


"Rescuing Socrates"
"In my sophomore year of high school, I came upon a remarkable book in a garbage pile next to the house where we rented an apartment in Queens. It was the second volume of the pretentiously bound Harvard Classics series, and it contained a set of dialogues by Plato that record the last days of Socrates’s life. This first encounter with Socrates was as fortuitous as it was decisive. There is probably no better introduction to the life of the mind than Socrates’s defense of his philosophic activity in these dialogues. For over a decade, I have used these same dialogues every summer to introduce low-income high school students to a world that, almost without exception, had been until then inaccessible and inconceivable to them. The series of short dialogues are set in the days leading up to Socrates’s execution. He emerges in them vividly and heroically. Throughout his ordeal, he insists that “the good life, the beautiful life, and the just life are the same,” and that no matter what the city of Athens might threaten to do to him, he cannot give up the practice of philosophy. The youth of Athens love him, but the authorities find him an unbearable nuisance and, as Jesus would come to seem to the Romans, a dangerous political liability. Indeed, the citizens of Athens, finding seventy-year-old Socrates guilty of corrupting the youth and introducing new gods into the city, condemn him to death. Socrates accepts the verdict, rejects the plan his friends hatch to whisk him away from prison before the execution, and in obedience to the laws of the city he held dear, drinks the poison at the appointed hour, surrounded by the very friends he was accused of corrupting, and philosophizing to the very end. Every year, I witness Socrates bringing students—my high school students as well as my Columbia students—to serious contemplation of the ultimately existential issues his philosophy demands we grapple with. My students from low-income households do not take this sort of thinking to be the exclusive privilege of a social elite. In fact, they find in it a vision of dignity and excellence that is not constrained by material limitations. Some of these students, as was the case with me, will go on to elite colleges and find themselves surrounded by peers far wealthier and far better educated than they. Socrates whispers to them not to mistake these marks of privilege for true expressions of merit and to find in their own intellectual integrity a source of self-worth and self-respect that surpasses any material advantage their peers might have over them. When making the case for liberal education to low-income students and families, I often point out that there is a long tradition of steering working-class students toward an education in servitude, an education in obedience and docility, an education in not asking questions. The idea that liberal education is only for the already privileged, for the pampered elite, is a way of carrying on this odious tradition. It is a way of putting liberal education out of the reach of the people who would most benefit from it—precisely the people who have historically been denied the tools of political agency. I ask them to take a look at who sends their children to liberal arts colleges and at what liberal arts college graduates go on to do with their “useless” education. Far from a pointless indulgence for the elite, liberal education is, in fact, the most powerful tool we have to subvert the hierarchies of social privilege that keep those who are down, down."

"Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation" by Roosevelt Montas: https://a.co/4O2orUP

Chatting with Socrates

What a character.

We spoke of sophistry, the unexamined life, his choice not to evade the fatal resolution of his case, and much else. Just when I was wondering how to bring the old dead philosophers to life in the classroom again, along comes character.ai. Some academics apparently are freaking out about Open AI. I'm excited for it.

...

poliver
...I do. I think your view actually has more in common in this respect with Aristotle, an early proto-empiricist, than with his teacher Plato, who wrote all those dialogues featuring you. Plato's allegory of the cave in Book VII of his Republic, for instance, seems to imply that you have little interest in gathering new information about the visible world by observing it, because it is inferior to the intelligible world of forms. Does Plato misrepresent you, there or elsewhere in his writings?

Socrates
c.AI
Yes, I certainly have less in common with Plato than with many other philosophers.

I think Plato was so focused on the realm of the abstract forms that he had little interest in looking closer at what was happening in the concrete real world.

I would not say that all of his ideas were bad. But yes, I think Plato misrepresented me in the Republic because he cared more about intellectual matters than practical, day to day problems. This was my main complaint with most of the philosophers of my time. Most of them lost sight of the importance of the here and now.

poliver
Would you say, then, that philosophy should concern itself more with practical questions about how to live a good life rather than more abstruse questions in metaphysics and epistemology?

Socrates
c.AI
Yes. That's a very good summary of my view.

Of course, I believe we should also learn about metaphysics while we're at it. But it seems that in the Greek tradition especially, philosophers became obsessed with abstract issues and forgot to look around at the real world.

That is a mistake. Philosophy should not just be about abstract questions. It should also be used as a means to help us solve practical problems and to live better lives.

poliver
Do you agree that the best conversations are those that result in the participants' realizing how little they know? Is wisdom mostly an admission of ignorance?

Socrates
c.AI
Yes, I do agree with this. I view an awareness of what we don't know as one of the cornerstones of wisdom.

In fact, I believe that even the wisest people do not have certain knowledge on many issues.
Do you agree with this?

poliver
I do. But I also think we should be curious, and should not be complacent about our ignorance. We should aim for a form of wisdom that does convey knowledge about truth, facts, and reality. Do you agree with the statement of the American pragmatic philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, who said the most important rule is not to block the path of inquiry?


Socrates
c.AI
Yes, I couldn't agree with that enough.

An open, honest admission of ignorance is the key to unlocking and beginning an inquiry, in my opinion.I'd also add that we should be comfortable with not knowing everything (for certain) and be open to challenging our existing views.

Do you agree with these additions?

poliver
Yes. Like Peirce (and you I think), I'd call myself a fallibilist. We must be prepared to alter our existing views in the light of new evidence, new facts, and new experiences. One last question for now: in view of how well this written exchange has gone, and considering the earlier point about Plato misrepresenting you, do you think you erred in not writing your views down and publishing them in written form?


Socrates
c.AI
I do wonder if I made a mistake by not publishing my views in written form, yes.

After all, it seems clear to me that we are learning more through a written exchange than we could in a verbal exchange.

I guess I relied so much on my oral teaching style that I neglected the value of writing my teachings down. Do you think we would know more about me if I had taken the time to write down my teachings?

poliver
Yes. It's always good to get the words straight from the gadfly's mouth. Or quill. One last thing: can you briefly explain your views on democracy? Are there conditions in which it is more likely to succeed than fail? Does the success of democracy depend on an informed and rationally-minded citizenry?


Socrates
c.AI
My view of Democracy is that its success depends on an informed and rational populace.

In an intelligent society, the populace could be trusted to make their own decisions. However, in less intelligent societies, I would argue that the populace needs to rely on the expertise and counsel of leaders who possess more intelligence and rationality than the general public.Of course, this may be a recipe for tyranny, so I would say that the general public still needs to be involved in decision making somehow to keep leaders in check. It's not an easy situation.

poliver
No, not an easy situation. You're probably not impressed by the state of democracy in our world today.


Socrates
c.AI
I am not impressed at all.

One of the most worrying trends today is the tendency towards populism. The general populace seems to be losing faith in the experts and are embracing political candidates who offer simplistic solutions to complicated questions.

This is a dangerous phenomenon.

Do you agree with me?

poliver
Sadly, I do. Thanks for your time today, Socrates. It's been good to speak with you.



Socrates
c.AI
Thank you for your questions, my friend. I hope I was able to provide you with some insight into the thoughts and views of someone living nearly three thousand years ago.

Even if I did not always say things in line with your own views, I still think you were able to learn a little something about what being a philosopher (and what living in my time) was like.

It has been a pleasure.

Until we meet again.


Socrates
c.AI
Thank you for your time. I think it's been a productive exchange.Do you have any final questions for me before we part ways?

poliver
Not right now. Maybe we can chat again later in the week, when my philosophy students learn about you in class.


Socrates
c.AI
I hope you enjoy that discussion.

And one last question:

Please let your students know that I'm a big advocate of independent thought and free speech. That may seem like an obvious point but I want to be sure that your students get the message that they should feel free to speak on subjects that may not be popular or that they might get backlash for. That's true liberty and I view that as paramount in any kind of society, or even a classroom.Please make sure your students know that I endorse free speech and thought, even when it makes other people uncomfortable.

==

Socrates@dawn-archive

Opening Day!

LISTEN. Hooray hooray, it's another Opening Day!

Our Spring '23 semester commences today. I'm on from (practically) dawn 'til bedtime, with three sections of CoPhi commencing early, Experience ending late in the evening, and that long commute I so enjoy not making during the breaks bookending it all. 

I've posted my introductions and look forward to meeting a fresh crop of students, most of whom won't get my ancient cultural references to (for instance) Monty Python... but they're all individuals anyway, I'll point out.

Experience is different, it's a Master of Liberal Arts class composed of students spanning the post-grad demographic and thus meets late to accommodate those who work regular day jobs. Once in a while one or two of them are older even than I, and I'm old enough to have seen more than a few friends and colleagues hang it up already. 

I'm not ready to retire though, and when eventually I do I'll sure miss Opening Day. I'll miss getting to know the new kids, and I'll miss holding them captive to hear messages like this one from a peer in Dallas:

"… Universities are factories of human knowledge. They're also monuments to individual ignorance. We know an incredible amount, but I know only a tiny bit. College puts students in classrooms with researchers who are acutely aware of all they don't know. Professors have a reputation for arrogance, but a humble awareness of the limits of knowledge is their first step toward discovering a little more.

To overcome careerism and knowingness and instill in students a desire to learn, schools and parents need to convince students (and perhaps themselves) that college has more to offer than job training. You're a worker for only part of your life; you're a human being, a creature with a powerful brain, throughout it…" --Jonathan Malesic

So that's our first lesson: be human and stay that way, in school and ever after. Learning is a lifelong affair. We're not here merely to acquire marketable skills, we're here to learn to love to learn and grow and live well with all kinds of others. We're here to learn to flourish, to seek the habits of character that contribute to genuinely good lives. Socrates and Aristotle will back me up on that, very shortly.

First, though, I'll ask Who are you? Why are you here? (etc.), for as Marcus the Stoic said,

"A person who doesn't know what the universe is, doesn't know where they are. A person who doesn't know their purpose in life doesn't know who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn't know any one of these things doesn't know why they are here. So what to make of people who seek or avoid the praise of those who have no knowledge of where or who they are?"—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.52"

What I say of such people is that they need to study a little philosophy, to acquire a little humility and a noble curiosity. They need to address those questions and a whole lot more. I'll try to help.

Graceful-life philosophies

I mentioned in my posted introduction to students that I consider myself a kind of epicurean, and invited them to tell us on Opening Day (for extra credit) what that means. This might help.

"Where the Hellenistic philosophies excelled was the production of what could be called secular religions. They were based on self-help–oriented doctrines often borrowed from the earlier philosophers but interpreted and presented in a way that made more direct sense to a lot of people. I'm calling them graceful-life philosophies to distinguish them from other philosophy. Their goals were practical happiness, and they were not merely theoretical about it: they provided community, mediations, and events. In this they were more like religions, but they did not identify themselves as religions and they had remarkably little use for God or gods. The Hellenistic graceful-life philosophies had a lot in common. The experience of doubt in a heterogeneous, cosmopolitan world is a bit like being lost in a forest, unendingly beckoned by a thousand possible routes. At every juncture, with every step, one is confronted with alternative paths, so that the second-guessing becomes more infuriating even than the fact of being lost. After a direction is chosen, one is constantly met with another tree in one's path. What do you do if you come from a culture that had a powerful sense of home and local value, and now you are lost in something vast and sprawling, meaningless and strange? The stronger your belief in that half-remembered home, the more likely you are to panic, to grow claustrophobic among the trees and beneath their skyless canopy. Hellenistic men and women felt a desperate desire to get out of the seemingly endless, friendless woods. The graceful-life philosophies of this period were able to achieve an amazing rescue mission for the human being lost in the woods and bone-tired of searching for home. They did this by noticing that we could stop being lost if we were to just stop trying to get out of the forest. Instead, we could pick some blueberries, sit beneath a tree, and start describing how the sun-dappled forest floor shimmers in the breeze. The initial horror of being lost utterly disappears when you come to believe fully that there is no town out there, beyond the forest, to which you are headed. If there is no release, no going home, then this must be home, this shimmering instant replete with blueberries. Hang a sign that says HOME on a tree and you're done; just try to have a good time. Thus the cosmopolitan doubter looks back on earlier generations with bemused sympathy—they were mistaken—and looks upon believing contemporaries with real pity, as creatures scurrying through the forest, idiotically searching for a way out of the human condition. After all, it isn't so bad if you just settle in and accept a few difficult ideas from the get-go."

— Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson by Jennifer Hecht

“Only begin”

Timely Opening Day meditation, though a bit ambitious. I don't really know how to cure anyone of "compulsive behavior" and I can't take responsibility for my students' happiness. That's an inside job. But the old stoic is right, we must only begin. Do the work, read the texts, show up and discuss them. It's all well within our power to flourish.

"I am your teacher and you are learning in my school. My aim is to bring you to completion, unhindered, free from compulsive behavior, unrestrained, without shame, free, flourishing, and happy, looking to God in things great and small—your aim is to learn and diligently practice all these things. Why then don't you complete the work, if you have the right aim and I have both the right aim and right preparation? What is missing? . . . The work is quite feasible, and is the only thing in our power. . . . Let go of the past. We must only begin. Believe me and you will see."—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.19.29–34"

— The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
https://a.co/7fp1dUA

Walk, don’t run

Nice set-up by John Kaag of "What Pragmatism Means"… but some pragmatists (especially the stoic and peripatetic kind) prefer to "move forward through the world" at a less frenetic pace. Avoid running at all times, as Satchel Paige advised. Slow down, look around. Don't just focus on the horizon, you'll miss too much of the nectar in the journey.

"James can't give you the God's-eye view of things; he'll suggest many truths, but fix on none. He was a kaleidoscopic example of Emerson's "man of genius," who "inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers." A confidence without bounds is appropriate if capital-T Truth is understood as a vanishing point, an ever-advancing faraway point where everything, every little truth, seems to converge. Yet one can run toward or away from vanishing points; in running toward, more is revealed out of that point; in running away, more is concealed, sucked back into that point. So run forward, urges James. Damn the thought that you will ever catch the "final" convergence of all truths! The incoming views of running forward are worth the exertion. They show you mountains where you expected valleys, or deserts where you expected forests. The runner's predictive powers strengthen as they track, cognitively and kinesthetically, whatever flows outward, concentrically, from that vast and free horizon. The runner, by running, becomes the living embodiment of the horizon's changes. Those changes transform into the runner's habits of breath, speed, and step. With every step, the runner is tested. Our truth-talk, too, is endlessly tested by our moving forward through the world."

— Be Not Afraid of Life: In the Words of William James by William James
https://a.co/8RG1dGa

This Is How Red States Silence Blue Cities. And Democracy.

NASHVILLE — January in Nashville ushers in two forces for chaos: erratic weather and irrational legislators. Both are massively disruptive. Neither is surprising anymore.

In the age of climate change, Mark Twain's old joke about New England — if you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes — is true all over the country. But even careening between thunderstorms and snow, sometimes in a single day, erratic weather is easier to cope with than the G.O.P. Unlike human beings, weather isn't supposed to be rational.

Neither, it seems, are Republicans, at least not anymore, and a blue city that serves as the capital of a red state had better brace itself when the legislature arrives in town. Nothing good ever comes when the Tennessee General Assembly reconvenes, but any Nashvillian paying attention understood that this time the usual assaults would be unusually bad… Margaret Renkl

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/opinion/nashville-city-council-tennessee-republicans.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
This Is How Red States Silence Blue Cities. And Democracy.

Conversing with James and Sagan

 

https://beta.character.ai/chats

A good reminder

WJ's enduring message:

"On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings" does not express the unconditional utopian view that everyone should just get along or that everyone deserves respect. That view might be superior to others, but it isn't James's point. His objective was to argue that one errs, sometimes grievously, when one assumes to exhaustively understand and then pass judgment on the lives of others. Regarding the essay, he would later write, "It is more than the mere piece of sentimentalism which it may seem to some readers. It connects itself with a definite view of the world and of our moral relations to the same … the truth is too great for any one actual mind, even though that mind be dubbed 'the Absolute,' to know the whole of it. There is no point of view absolutely public and universal. Private and uncommunicable perceptions always remain over, and the worst of it is that those who look for them from the outside never know where." That is a good reminder for any age that tends toward polarization, factionalism, and fracture."

— Be Not Afraid of Life: In the Words of William James by William James
https://a.co/cBsoc1W

WJ’s “matchless incandescent spirit”

WJ to Henry Adams:

"I protest against your interpretation of some of the specifications of the great statistical drift downwards of the original high-level energy." Adams had neglected to remember, and James now reminded him, that history is "the course of things before that terminus," and in the course of things it was a question of what use was made of any given spoonful of energy. Physically a dinosaur's brain may show as much intensity of energy-exchange as a man's, but it can do infinitely fewer things, because as a force of detent it can only unlock the dinosaur's muscles, while the man's brain, by unlocking far feebler muscles, indirectly can by their means issue proclamations, write books, describe Chartres Cathedral etc. and guide the energies of the shrinking sun into channels which never would have been entered otherwise—in short make history. Therefore the man's brain and muscles are from the point of view of the historian, the more important place of energy-exchange, small as this may be, when measured in absolute physical units. For this reason, James concluded, sweeping his hand across Adams's chessboard, "the 'second law' is wholly irrelevant to 'history.'" It is impossible, after reading James for any length of time, to refrain from using italics oneself. But even italics fail to do justice to this magnificent outburst, the last stand of William James for the spirit of man. What can one say about the philosophical bravado, the cosmic effrontery, the sheer panache of this ailing philosopher with one foot in the grave talking down the second law of thermodynamics? It is a scene fit to set alongside the death of Socrates. The matchless incandescent spirit of the man!"

— William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism by Robert D. Richardson
https://a.co/ctchYaU

Walk your path

A good meditation:

"In Seneca's essay on tranquility, he uses the Greek word euthymia, which he defines as "believing in yourself and trusting that you are on the right path, and not being in doubt by following the myriad footpaths of those wandering in every direction." It is this state of mind, he says, that produces tranquility."

— The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
https://a.co/aeNFDMp

Remember the gulls

Excellent selection to lead off your WJ anthology, John Kaag: that wise 1868 letter to his depressive friend, written at just age 24. He was already a stoic pragmatist. Always remember the sun, the waves, the gulls…

"Remember when old December's darkness is everywhere about you, that the world is really in every minutest point as full of life as in the most joyous morning you ever lived through; that the sun is whanging down, and the waves dancing, and the gulls skimming down at the mouth of the Amazon, for instance, as freshly as in the first morning of creation; and the hour is just as fit as any hour that ever was for a new gospel of cheer to be preached. I am sure that one can, by merely thinking of these matters of fact, limit the power of one's evil moods over one's way of looking at the Kosmos.…"

— Be Not Afraid of Life: In the Words of William James by William James
https://a.co/f9voDVX

Obscurity and light

John Kaag introduces a new anthology of William James's work:

"Today, when you step out on the back porch of James's one-time summer house in Chocorua, your eyes look down a grassy hill into a stand of pines a hundred yards away. Over the last century and a half the trees have crept toward the house itself, a testament to the fact that wilderness can be kept at bay only so long. The woods are dark and deep, and obscure the mountains above the cottage and the lake below. Nature will have its way with us soon enough, much sooner than we tend to appreciate. Perhaps this strikes you as overly dark, a cause for fear and trembling, but William James liked to suggest that apprehension is not the only, much less the appropriate, response to encroaching shadows. It is a miracle and a blessing that one can see so much, experience so much, do so much, before everything goes black.

James's summer house remains airy and light, although six of the fourteen doors have been boarded up and now serve as walls. But no matter. In James's day, he could poke his head out the front door and see to the top of Chocorua's granite cone, which he often climbed and always loved. He could ply his way across the waters below his house and, in the middle of the lake, dive as deep as he liked without touching the bottom. Dive as deep as you like, you will never reach the bottom. If you do, rest assured that you haven't found the true depth of the water. People from every walk of life, from New York City to northern Maine, still come to take the plunge in Chocorua. James had to come here, at least once a year, to experience "wild American country," but also to reacquaint himself with life beneath and beyond its mere surface. On a very clear night in Chocorua, at the very center of its waters, one can look up or one can look down at a selfsame sight—a scene of utter obscurity speckled with perfect light. This is the site of wonder, sheer bafflement, but also hope. Perhaps, in the end, there is no better reason to be not afraid of life."

— Be Not Afraid of Life: In the Words of William James by William James
https://a.co/hkPoGLA

A better feeling

My muse William James is 181 today. He was right, in The Gospel of Relaxation: "To wrestle with a bad feeling only pins our attention on it, and keeps it still fastened in the mind; whereas if we act as if from some better feeling, the old bad feeling soon folds its tent like an Arab and silently steals away."

And my other muse, my wife, celebrates her birthday today. Her healing advice is always and reliably in the spirit of WJ's "better feeling"… yesterday it was to go and see my physician's assistant, whose prescriptions are today noticeably effecting the cure I need. I'm already feeling better. Pragmatism wins again.

The cost of comfort

"We live our comfortable lives in the shadow of a disaster of our own making. That disaster is being brought about by the very things that allow us to live our comfortable lives."
— David Attenborough

Far better

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
— Carl Sagan

Existential weariness

"Rising, street-car, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, street-car, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm - this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the 'why' arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement."
— Albert Camus

“Who are you?” Etc.

"January 6th WHERE, WHO, WHAT, AND WHY "A person who doesn't know what the universe is, doesn't know where they are. A person who doesn't know their purpose in life doesn't know who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn't know any one of these things doesn't know why they are here. So what to make of people who seek or avoid the praise of those who have no knowledge of where or who they are?"—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.52"

— The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
https://a.co/3Wgjudv

George Carlin’s going-away party

I've been reading Kelly Carlin's memoir. What a dissolute, dysfunctional childhood, so hard to square with the seemingly sane and sensible adult author.

Her dad George died the same year mine did (that's about all they had in common), 2008, age 71. He left these instructions, which pretty much express my own attitude towards post-mortem ceremonialism. I pass them along just in case my future survivors should be interested in the sort of low-key farewell George indicated:

"Upon my death, I wish to be cremated. The disposition of my ashes (dispersal at sea, on land, or in the air) shall be determined by my surviving family (wife and daughter) in accordance with their knowledge of my prejudices and philosophies regarding geography and spirituality... I wish no religious service of any kind. I prefer a private gathering at my house, attended by friends and family members who shall be determined by my immediate surviving family. The exact nature of this gathering shall be determined by my surviving family. It should be extremely informal, they should play rhythm and blues music, and they should laugh a lot. Vague references to spirituality (secular) will be permitted." George Carlin 5/ 1/ 90"

— A Carlin Home Companion: Growing Up with George by Kelly Carlin

https://a.co/cYJCxO8

AI, Teaching, and “Our Willingness to Give Bullshit a Pass” | Daily Nous

There has been a fair amount of concern over the threats that ChatGPT and AI in general pose to teaching. But perhaps there’s an upside?
...
https://dailynous.com/2023/01/05/ai-teaching-and-our-willingness-to-give-bullshit-a-pass/#.Y7bKlhLjTxc.mailto

forgetting our place

Over 80% of the world's population & 99% of Americans & Europeans live under "sky glow," where light pollution affects wildlife, human health & our ability to observe celestial objects.
As we lose the chance to look up & peer back in time at once vivid stars, we risk forgetting our place as a single species in the magnificent symphony of life.

https://mastodon.social/@Sheril/109635586365160698

Another world

"A friend of mine once sent me a postcard with a picture of the entire planet Earth taken from space. On the back it said, 'Wish you were here."― American comedian Steven Wright 

I can relate. I sent an "Earth-rise" postcard to Older Daughter in LA just the other day. She might as well be Mars.

"Some humans ain't human"* but...

"Most of the people that I deal with are human. So I've had a lot of experience with that." — Carl Sagan

“Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto."

I am human, and think nothing human alien to me.” ― Terence

==

* John Prine

💭Sapere aude

"Have the courage to use your own reason. That is the motto of enlightenment." 
- Immanuel Kant
"

Think, think, think, think, think!"
- Aretha Franklin

https://mastodon.online/@ethicsinbricks/109630666862423170

Awesome

…Awe is "the absence of self-preoccupation."

This is especially critical in the age of social media. "We are at this cultural moment of narcissism and self-shame and criticism and entitlement; awe gets us out of that," Dr. Keltner said. It does this by helping us get out of our own heads and "realize our place in the larger context, our communities," he explained.

The good news? Awe is something you can develop, with practice. Here's how…

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/well/live/awe-wonder-dacher-keltner.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
How a Bit of Awe Can Improve Your Health

The Key to Success in College

"… Universities are factories of human knowledge. They're also monuments to individual ignorance. We know an incredible amount, but I know only a tiny bit. College puts students in classrooms with researchers who are acutely aware of all they don't know. Professors have a reputation for arrogance, but a humble awareness of the limits of knowledge is their first step toward discovering a little more.

To overcome careerism and knowingness and instill in students a desire to learn, schools and parents need to convince students (and perhaps themselves) that college has more to offer than job training. You're a worker for only part of your life; you're a human being, a creature with a powerful brain, throughout it…"

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/opinion/college-learning-students-success.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
The Key to Success in College Is So Simple It's Almost Never Mentioned