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Sound Reasoning

For fans and foes of Daniel Dennett, here is a page that has links to several audio files of recent interviews with the feisty philosopher. They are big files, so they take a minute to download and get running.

Unnatural Acts

In a previous post about C.S. Lewis’s book Miracles we began to look at his treatment of the Natural vs. the Supernatural. In Chapter 3 Lewis rolls out the argument that serves as the necessary underpinning for the rest of the book; he calls it The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism.

Then Play On

I know today’s post was supposed to follow on the previous item about C.S. Lewis, but in this morning’s email was a very interesting note from my friend Gus Spathis.

More Than This

It is always with happy anticipation that I begin reading a book; I wouldn’t have taken it up in the first place had I not some reason to think that I would profit by it, and when the writer is someone I admire as much as C.S. Lewis, I know that I will be in the company of a man of immense erudition, elegant refinement of style, and – perhaps most fascinating to me – one who is both a skeptic and a believer. So it was with great interest that I opened his book Miracles, which deals directly with a question that has been vexing me no end lately – the question of Natural vs. Supernatural.

With Friends like That…

Having got up and off to work earlier than usual today, gone off to Don Alias’s funeral (a sad affair) up in Harlem at midday, strained my brain for hours afterward writing code, then spent the evening at the kwoon, I’m just too tired to write much tonight. So I will just pass along an interesting item from the New York Times’s website (with a tip of the hat to Eugene): The Gospel of Judas, a manuscript dating back to the fourth century A.D. or so, has just been translated. One of the “Gnostic Gospels“, it paints Judas in a more favorable light; in fact it depicts him as Jesus’s most valuable ally, as the one who made his sacrifice possible. Read more here.

Bang the Drum Slowly

In a further example of what is becoming a depressing trend, another musical friend has left the building. Percussionist Don Alias was only 66.

Man of Action

In the mail yesterday came an envelope from my good friend Jess Kaplan, who is, due to his sharp and perpetually curious mind, a constant source of fascinating material. Inside was a printout of a lengthy essay, by one Arthur M. Young, on the subject of science and consciousness. I am embarrassed to say that I had not heard of the man, because when I looked him up I discovered him to be, quite obviously, one of the brighter lights of the twentieth century, a restless and productive polymath who, among other accomplishments, invented the magnificent Bell helicopter – a task he apparently set himself simply as an exercise for the training of his mind and the growth of his wisdom.

Heavy Weather

I’ve been a bit out of touch, as readers will understand, and have just noticed two recent items in the scientific news. Both have to do with the climatic effects of largish objects colliding with the Earth.

April, Come She Will

It was a beautiful spring day in New York; much-needed balm, as I was deeply weary and full of dark thoughts.

I went for a long walk in Prospect Park, where the sun was shining in a clear blue sky, the air was fragrantly astir, and the daffodils were blooming. I saw thousands of smiling happy people – gamboling and frolicking in the Long Meadow, thumping away at Drummer’s Grove, playing at the ballfields, pedaling their bikes, sitting on the benches, tossing footballs, pushing strollers, and sleeping on the grass. There were Jamaicans playing cricket, and Russians playing chess. I saw Muslim women in hijab, Lubavitchers in long black pants, and sunbathers in bikinis. Two middle-aged white guys were playing Gypsy guitar music, very well indeed, while a few feet away attractive young woman was telling the equally attractive young man she was playing Frisbee with that she was sorry she didn’t speak German so that they could understand one another better. She said she felt badly about it, but the only languages she spoke were French, Spanish, English, Italian, Arabic, and a little Farsi.

And there were children everywhere, in all sizes, shapes, and colors – in strollers, on foot, slung upon their daddy’s shoulders fast asleep, laughing and shouting and crying, and eating ice creams, and nursing at their mother’s breasts, and drinking at the fountains, and flying kites, and running around and falling down and getting right back up.

And all the time the Sun was shining on down, same as always. And tomorrow it’s supposed to rain, same as always.

I feel much better now.

Back In Black

I’m home in Brooklyn once again, and should be able to resume thinking and writing after this mensis horribilis.

Sorry, all, to have let things lapse so badly around here; the place feels neglected. I’ll open the windows tomorrow and let a little spring air in.

Bye, Mom

It’s over. My mother died today at 12:10 p.m. Pacific time. My father and I were on our way to the hospital; her best friend, Shirley, was at her bedside.

She had not really been conscious since late Sunday night; since yesterday afternoon she had been in a deepening coma.

It is a great relief that this awful time is over, and that her long years of pain and struggle are at an end. I will write a proper farewell to this extraordinary woman as soon as I can find the right words.

A remarkable thing happened later this afternoon.

Kind of a Hard Day

For better or for worse, this page has temporarily been taken over by my family’s crisis. I know that there are many of you who have been checking in here to see how things are going. So:

My mother is now in an unresponsive state, and is in a Cheyne-Stokes respiratory pattern. She is receiving intravenous saline, morphine to control her pain (at 5 mg/hr.), and no nutrition.

The last coherent words she exchanged with anyone were with me, as I left her room late on Sunday night. She is already gone; perhaps she will still be breathing in the morning.

The staff at Tri-City Medical Center, in Oceanside, California, and her doctors, Daniel Vicario, James Brinkman, and Chris Lewis, are nothing short of saintly. I have seen quite the opposite often enough to appreciate it.

Thank you all. Added to my list of topics to visit upon resuming normal operations here is the book “Miracles”, by C.S. Lewis.

12:09 A.M., Room 220, Ramada Inn, San Marcos, CA

I really don’t want to use this space for family updates, but these past few days I have been so completely occupied by family matters that I have had no opportunity for preparing any posts, certainly not the sort of posts I want to be writing.

When I dashed back out to California on Thursday, I had every reason to imagine that my mother would already be gone by the time I got here. However, since all involved have decided to give up on treatment and switch to palliative care, she has bounced back a bit, and although she is terribly weak and frail both physically and emotionally, she is able again to speak with us.

Curtain

I may not be posting again for a day or two. The situation in California has declined very suddenly, and the end is at hand. My father and brother are with my dear mother, but she is now beginning the private part of her journey, and is already slipping beyond earthly awareness. I am flying back to be with them tomorrow.

Ah, my heart… how very sad this is.

How It’s Done

So to cheer up, I decided to read some Perelman. Here, from Are You Decent, Memsahib?, is young maharaja Lam Chowdrie proposing to buxom stripper Sherry Muscatel:

“Oh, moon of my delight… Life has bruised your wings, my little shama thrush. All I ask is a simple boon. Let me spend the rest of my life catering to your smallest whim.”

al Coda

This is another sad day for my family. Though my mother has fought valiantly to endure a last-ditch round of chemotherapy, today she and her doctors (James Brinkman and Daniel Vicario, who have cared for her as if she were their own mother) have agreed that her battle is unwinnable, further suffering pointless, and that hospice care is what is needed. She may have a week or two.

It is proving to be difficult for me to get back to any real writing here during this difficult time. Though there is much that I want to get back to, I simply can’t focus properly right now. Dennett et al.will be dealt with in due course.

Cold Spring, NY

Today marks the vernal equinox, but you’d never know it around here. There’s a chill wind blowing, and it’ll be down in the twenties tonight. Quite a contrast from San Diego, where I spent most of last week.

I blame that bloody groundhog.

The Long Bomb

I’ve been away, and haven’t properly attended to my duties here for weeks now. There is much that I want to write about; in particular I want to air a few thoughts about Daniel Dennett’s new book, Breaking the Spell, and about some of the questions it raises. But meanwhile…

Eye of the Storm

Back in good old Brooklyn again tonight, for a little while at least. The outlook is grim in California, but I will resume normal operations tomorrow, at customary levels of pith, insight and wit, for as long as circumstances allow.

Thanks to all for your patience and support.

Gone, But Not Forgotten

I’m in California still, looking after my gravely ill mother, and opportunities for thinking the longish thoughts needed to generate an interesting post are scarce.

I would, however, like to take a moment to remember, on the first anniversary of his cruelly premature death, my good friend, the gifted bassist Wayne Pedzwater. Here is the post that I wrote immediately following his memorial service.

If you should see this, Patty, know that you are in my thoughts.

No Moss Gathered

Once again, I am afraid to say, waka waka waka might lie fallow for a day or two. I must hie back to California first thing in the morning to help with my parents’ deteriorating circumstances, and have been rather frantically attending to my many other duties and obligations in preparation for being away for a few days.

I have here a good opportunity to practice what I have just preached in the previous post.

Pressure Points

In times of stress, our breath tends to rise in the chest. The shoulders lift and tighten. The jaw clenches.

Over the past thirty years of kung fu (and other inner work), I’ve devoted a good deal of attention to this. When I watch inexpert students sparring, the signs are always there, and always the same. The students are nervous: they are putting their skills to the test, and they might receive a painful blow at any moment. Also, their egos are on the line, and they are being watched. I can see the tension in their shoulders, the stiffness and jerkiness of their movements, the quick and shallow breaths, the lack of connected power in their techniques.

Oh No You Didn’t

If you are interested in logic and philosophy, or are just plain argumentative, here is an interesting site that I found out about over at Bill Vallicella’s place: The Fallacy Files.

Onto the sidebar it goes.

Walter Browne Throws One Down

I was poking around online the other day and came across this outstandingly brilliant game by the great American grandmaster Walter Browne. When I was a teenager I used to come into New York with my friends to play in tournaments at the old McAlpin Hotel at Herald Square; Browne was always the one to watch. You could always tell where his board was by the crowd gathered round.

This is a game from one of those tournaments, way back in 1973. Enjoy.

The More Things Change

A Zen saying:

Before enlightenment,
I chopped wood and carried water.
After enlightenment,
I chopped wood and carried water.

Crab Nebula

And here is a story about something you have seen before (I’m quite sure about that, because until a few days ago, nobody had) – a lobster covered with “silky white fur”.

Kind of looks like he should be holding a pair of maracas. I’d like to know what that “fur” is made of; as I recall it is only mammals that grow hair.

C’est la Vie?

There is a buzz and twitter on the network today from NASA; according to the Drudge Report, they are about to announce that there appear to be geysers of liquid water on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

If true, this is a big deal.

Bright Idea

I’m sure we have all, at one time or another, had the experience of being dazzled by a bright light. The other day it happened to me, and I noticed something quite surprising about it.

Cowboy Leg Beautiful Pole

I had to share this, which came to me by way of Eugene Jen.

Bon appétit.

Are We Not Men?

My friend Jess Kaplan, who often sends me interesting tidbits, has called my attention to a curious item from Turkey. It’s a story about a group of siblings who some are saying exhibit retrograde evolution.

The Bright Side

I’ve finally taken up Daniel Dennett’s latest effort, Breaking the Spell : Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. The book is an attempt to apply the methods of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology to a critical examination of the possible reasons for our fondness for religion. It has unsurprisingly ruffled a few feathers, something Dennett seems to relish.

OK, We’re Back

First of all, thanks once again to all of you. We’re back in Brooklyn now, after a brief trip to San Diego to visit my ailing mum.

I’m going to write one more rather personal post here, before returning to the usual bloat and blather.

Back Soon

Very sorry not to have been providing any “content” here the past few days. I’ll be back on Sunday.

Meanwhile, here is a link, from my friend Jess Kaplan, to an essay that makes some interesting points on the value of promoting democracy in foreign cultures. In particular:

America basically inherited its institutions from the Anglo-Saxon tradition and thus its experience over 230 years has been about limiting despotic power rather than creating power from scratch.

Discuss.

Thank You All

Many, many thanks to all of you who have commented and emailed with kind words of solace and comfort. I am blushing a bit – I never meant this site to tilt so far toward the private and personal, but one writes about what is in one’s thoughts, and my thoughts have been occupied by little else since hearing the bad news about my mother. I had no idea, frankly, that so many of my friends and relatives had been visiting this site. Thank you all for that as well; it’s easy to get the feeling that writing a blog, for all its world-wide visibility, is little more than shouting up a drainpipe.

I’ll write what I can in the days to come, and I’ll try to get back to the usual pretentious rubbish as soon as possible.

Thank you again.

Public Access

I’ve been rather torn about whether to write in this space about some very sad things that have been happening lately. My staid British upbringing tends to make me think that airing one’s personal sorrows in public is somehow ill-mannered, but weighing against that is my feeling that it is perfectly in keeping with the aim of this weblog to discuss universal human experiences, especially in the context of our struggle for inner growth and our wish to find meaning and harmony in our lives.

Last Friday I learned that my mother, who had been afflicted by nausea for a couple of weeks, has been diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer, and that the prognosis is very grim.

Hollow Man

Here’s another example of the bizarre lengths that people will go to to construct a personality worthy of that precious commodity, other people’s attention.

In this article from the Rocky Mountain News we meet on David “Race” Bannon, Ph.D., who has written a book detailing his dashing exploits as a covert enforcer for Interpol. If the name sounds familiar, it means that you remember the cartoon series “Jonny Quest”, in which Race Bannon was a tow-headed he-man who was assigned to the protection of the adventurous and peripatetic Quest family.

Dark Days

Again, waka waka waka was dark yesterday. In fact there may be several quiet days coming up this week, as a family medical crisis has diverted my attention, and requires that I travel to California.

I’ll try to post as the opportunity arises, but frankly it might be several weeks before normal operations resume.

But Seriously…

You’ve heard this a million times: Life is short. Live every moment.

But I’m going to say it again, myself, and I really, really mean it:

Life is short. Live every moment.

De Gustibus

One difficulty in developing a coherent philosophical account of consciousness is that the foundation upon which it rests – our subjective experience itself – is not as solid as we take it to be. We tend to think that the features of our inner life – our representation of the world, and the qualia that compose it – are stable and beyond dispute, and that our conscious “now” is a definite, pointlike event – as if there is an inner screen upon which consciouness plays, with Us as the viewer, and that whatever goes up on that screen is a matter of unambiguous fact.

Watch Your Back

The practice of inner work begins with an attempt to observe ourselves. As I have discussed in earlier posts (here and here), it is very difficult for us to notice the edges of our conscious awareness. The more it ebbs, the less we realize it. Most of the time, we do not remember ourselves.

Harboring the Enemy

I have been a bit cut off the past few days – I’ve been out of town, and have lost my Internet connection at home. I missed the papers for a couple of days. So I am rather poorly informed as regards a story that seems to be all over the place – the impending takeover of major port facilities by a corporation based in the United Arab Emirates.

With Regrets

It’s almost eleven PM, and we’ve just got back to Brooklyn from our dacha in the remotest East, only to find that our Internet access is down. I am currently connected using the only available telephone connection, which is a short wire in an inconvenient corner of the room, and I do not propose to linger. Yes, I could draft a post offline, and connect briefly to upload it, but the fact is that I’m rather weary anyway, and so will just offer a bit of shameless filler tonight to keep up appearances.

Far East

I’m in Wellfleet, Massachussets this weekend, with my wife and son. Wellfleet is a picturesque fishing village on the narrow end of Cape Cod, and is a very popular spot in the summertime. In the winter, though, it is almost deserted. The beaches are empty, the restaurants are closed, the beautiful freshwater ponds are rimmed with ice, and the low forests of scrub oak are forlorn and leafless. The pleasure boats that usually dot the beautiful harbor are gone, and the whale-watch crews have relocated to Baja for the season.

Political Suicide

There has been quite a stew about how to deal with the fact that the terrorist organization Hamas is now the democratically elected leadership of Palestine. Many are suggesting that they should be starved out; Palestine’s economy is so utterly barren that a cessation of foreign aid would have a devastating effect. Indeed, why on earth should Israel and its allies feed a virulent enemy who is sworn to its annihilation?

Quite predictably the Left, who have tilted a long way toward outright antipathy toward Israel in recent years (as witness the late Rachel Corrie, who died defending a Palestinian arms-smuggling tunnel), have delighted in the discomfiture of the West at this unfortunate outcome of the nascent democratic process. If we are going to engage in something as arrogant as trying to increase the number of people in the world who can live in free and democratic societies instead of brutal tyrannies, then it serves us right when the whole thing backfires. How dare we?

Anyway, I had myself been leaning toward ostracization of the Hamas government, as the idea of offering any support to their poisonous ideology seemed completely wrong. But Thomas Friedman, writing in today’s Times, has led me to rethink my position.

The Bard of Bucks County

I wonder how many of you have ever read any S. J. Perelman, or even know the name. He was pretty much a household world, at least in New York and Hollywood, in his heyday, but fewer and fewer people that I mention him to even seem to know who he was.

Stop Making Sense

Bill Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, wrote a post today called Nirvana as Asphyxiation. He’s been reading Emil Cioran, whom he quoted as having written:

In the Benares sermon, Buddha cites, among the causes of pain, the thirst to become and the thirst not to become. The first thirst we understand, but why the second?

Bill goes on to examine the question of salvation. What lies at the end of the path? Annihilation of self? Why should we desire that? But if not that, then what? Some sort of “life of Riley” upgrade? A fluffy cloudscape, and an eternity of harps and halos? Might wear thin after the first million years or so. An endless carnal romp with a half-gross of raven-haired virgins? Not bad for a weekend in Vegas, but as a reentrant “lockout groove” for aeons without end? I’d rather play the record again. So Bill has set himself, and the rest of us, a philosophical problem. I quote from his post:

It is the problem of elaborating a conception of salvation that avoids both annihilationism and reduplicationism.

But is this, in fact, a philosophical problem at all?

Sea Monkeys

Quite a few years ago I ran across a book – I can’t recall where – called The Descent of Woman, by Elaine Morgan. It puts forward a most unusual idea about human evolution, and it’s worth a mention here. I’m curious to know if any of you are familiar with it.

Les Neiges d’Antan

As it turns out, Sunday’s snowfall was the biggest in Gotham’s history: 26.9″, topping the previous record of 26.4″, set back in 1947. Most of us are a little taken aback; it was a good solid snowstorm, and no question about it, but it didn’t feel like the biggest ever.

Snow Day

Well, after one of the mildest winters I can recall, we are now at the tail end of what our local news-radio meterologist has declared the “second greatest snowstorm in the city’s history”. The greatest was the blizzard of December 26-27th, 1947, which deposited 26.1 inches. The records, of course, only go back so far; if we were to include the Pleistocene, a snow-cover of 26.1 inches would probably fall short of the all-time record by several thousand feet. But such quibbles aside, this is a pretty impressive snowfall. As of ten this morning, the accumulation in Central Park was up to 22.8 inches, and it’s still snowing hard. Here’s a peek out of my back window, taken a few minutes ago:

I’ve always loved dramatic weather, and blizzards are my favorite of all. I’m sure some of this is due to boyhood excitement at the prospect of a day off from school, but I’ve shed many of my other childhood enthusiasms – such as orange soda and Tom Swift books – without any noticeable abatement of my fondness for snowstorms. Of course, here in Gotham we can enjoy all the positive aspects of a blizzard – the muffling of the city’s din, the softening of its angular contours by a wind-sculpted mantle of white, the spontaneous grins and greetings exchanged by down-swaddled pedestrians – without having to put up with any of the inconveniences borne by our ancestors, like having to resort to cannibalism.

Let it Snow

It’s not easy being a dedicated blogger. I think it is important to put something up every day; as Bill Vallicella says, paraphrasing Kierkegaard, Nulla dies sine posta. But the fact is that not every day offers sufficient opportunity or inspiration. Today, for example.

So I’ll just keep it simple and declarative.

It is snowing hard, finally, here in Brooklyn. We’ve had an exceptionally mild winter so far, and most people are glad of that. The city has saved millions on snow removal, and generally everyone’s life has been a bit easier. I’ve enjoyed it too; I won’t deny that it has been nice to be able to gad about in a sweater in mid-January. But tonight we have a real blizzard upon us, a classic midwinter Nor’easter. The wind is howling, the visibility is down, the airports are closed, and the plows are out. This won’t be one for the record books, but for the time being it is snowing mighty hard out there, and I have to say it feels pretty good. We had a little party at the kung fu school to celebrate all the hard work everyone did for New Year’s, and it was a nice example of the simple pleasure of being together with friends in a warm sheltered place while the elements rage. For all that we live in a fast-paced, ever-changing world of sophisticated technological marvels, there is still something profoundly gratifying in satisfying the ancient human needs of community and shelter, and there is nothing that reminds us of this so well as a snowstorm.