Daybook 13.

Common sense.

Sometimes people say about someone: “he’s very clever but he’s got no common sense”. (The third sentence of George Eliot’s novel ‘Middlemarch’ is: “She was usually spoken of as being remarkably clever, but with the addition that her sister Celia had more common-sense.”) But how is that possible? After all, cleverness is a state of sense more advanced than common sense (common sense is just basic rationality whereas cleverness is sophisticated rationality) and so you would have thought that the former would include the latter. For example if Jack can figure out tensor calculus then he can figure out a train timetable surely. The only exception to this that I can think of is, suppose Jack has never encountered a train system before, then in those moments when he does encounter it for the first time and is figuring it out, he will seem stupid to all of us for whom the train system is as familiar as the weather. Similarly if Mary is unfamiliar with any form of domestic activity and we tell her to take all the pots from the dining table to the kitchen. And she takes them a couple at a time going back and forth taking more than one trip, then we say: “use a tray! that’s just common sense”. But not to her who has never used or even seen a tray before. Maybe another example would be where a foreign clever person might seem stupid to us when they speak in broken English.

Famous.

There are some people and things that you are only familiar with from having seen them on a public screen (TV, movies). Then, when you see them in real life, it feels strange. The converse of this that there are some things that you are only familiar with from having seen them in real life. Like the street where you live. Then, when you see this on a public screen (for example on the TV news when there has been a crime in the house next door) it looks weird.

Underground.

I had a simple question. What is underneath my feet? Exactly. Down to, let’s say, a depth of 1,000 metres. I understand there are a few layers. But what is each layer is made of? I don’t want to know so much how these layers got there although, if I need to be told that to understand what they are made of, then sure fair enough. - So, my question is about geology and earth science. But I have trouble getting an answer to my question. When I try I sometimes find an answer written in the form a treatise on geology, but I don’t want that. I just want the straight facts, maybe with a simple diagram. I find stuff that seems to be answering some question that is more complicated than the one I am asking. - When I start reading it the text I am reading will fairly quickly, and quite casually, refer to the ‘age’ of rocks. And I think: no wait, you need to explain that a bit more! The idea of rocks having an 'age' isn't an obvious one. In the same way that it's not obvious to talk about the 'age' of water. You wouldn't say that the water in the Atlantic Ocean is older than the water in the Pacific Ocean. - Is the 'age' of a rock how long since it was formed? But what does it mean for a rock to have been formed? - Like I said, talking about the age of rocks is like they are answering a question I haven’t asked yet. That question being: look at all these different sorts of rocks, what is the process which has made them all so different?

Fraud.

The official national UK Postal Service tells me on their website “When you move home, don’t forget to redirect.” Because: “A few items of mail sent to an old address is all fraudsters need to piece together your ID.” And I think: really? How do they do that with just a few items of mail? When I search online to get the answer it seems as if I am searching for: how to commit ID fraud? Which looks very suspicious. And so I don't persist and but then will have to remain ignorant.

Facts.

What does the word ‘fact’ mean? How come “true fact” is an expression? All facts are true so the ‘true’ here is redundant.

Philosophical fiction.

If you’ve got an idea then just tell it to us. Why do you need to put it in a story? Sure you can get literary about it if you really want, for example by being creative about how you describe your idea. Like Einstein and all that business about imagining travelling on a beam of light. But why would you need to write a whole novel?

Noble savage and blond beast.

Rousseau said that life used to be great, the noble savage lived on the fruit of his efforts (hunting and gathering) and was free and answerable to nobody. Then someone came and built fences around land saying “this is mine” and the noble savage was hemmed in and enslaved.

Nietzsche said that life used to be great, the blond beast lived by the fruit of his power and wits and was free and answerable to nobody. Then the weak slaves persuaded him this was wrong and he submitted. (By the way this blond beast must have been pretty dumb to have been fooled by some stupid slaves.)

Trousers.

Men wear trousers and women wear skirts but, if you go by anatomy, it should be the other way round. It’s men that need the space.

Loser.

You can’t be a loser if you don’t (if you refuse to) play the game.

Help.

Mary: You’ve got to help me! Everybody ignores whatever I say. They just don’t listen at all! And when I persist they pretend that they didn't hear and just ask me to repeat myself.

Jack: Sorry, what did you say?

Mary: I said that people don’t listen to what I am saying. And even when they do they still don't pay attention to what I am saying. But they will make out that they have done so and just humour me.

Jack: Yes that is so annoying isn't it. But what can you do, eh?

Mary: And then, to top it all, they will offer me some generic moronic advice from the century before last.

Jack: Have you considered praying at the Church. It will help you so much!

Political personalities.

At elections it is often said that the campaign should be about policies not personalities. But actually politics, in the sense of someone being in charge of something important (like a country) is about personalities not policies. Because often everyone agrees about the policies but what they need is someone who can implement the policies in the face of forces which oppose them. Which needs the qualities of ingenuity, diplomacy and strength of character. It also needs to be someone who is fine with changing the policies they are pursuing depending on what the electorate says. Normally this is taken as a meaning that the politician lacks principles. But maybe I am confusing ‘politician’ with ‘business manager’. In government the latter will be civil servants. I think these latter are often overlooked in politics. The civil servants are really the people who are running the country.

Political opinions.

I don’t know if I have any properly thought through political opinions. And here I am mostly referring to opinions about how the economic system should be set up (often stated as the opposition between capitalism and socialism). I tend to think in moral terms, of which there are two things I often find myself turning over in my mind.

First, wage differentials seem wrong to me: why should you get paid more because you happen to be clever at something, stupid folks work just as hard.

Second, progressive taxation seems to be also wrong. You earn more so must pay more for the same thing? Why?

Of course these two things kind of go together. It’s as is if we came up with the second to counteract the first. But two wrongs don’t make a right.

Welfare State.

People are pleased that they get all these free services: health, education, social care. But often a lot of them are of rather poor quality. Like those cars you used to get in the Soviet Union. The NHS is like the Lada of healthcare systems.

Sexism.

I once remarked that there were hardly any women in the past that achieved anything great. Like making scientific discoveries, creating great works of art, running a large country. Which sounds a rather sexist thing to say. But my point was that if you take a group of people and deny them any sort of education and constantly tell them that the best way for them to live is in a condition of domestic servitude then they are unlikely to do anything great. My statement is just a fact about what women did in the past. There's a difference between saying they didn't do great things and that they were somehow incapable of doing them.

The Internet.

Suppose you bump into some person you were acquainted with years ago, maybe you used to work in the same place. Then you both feel obliged, at the very least, to acknowledge each other. Say with a discreet nod or a wave of the hand. And also maybe, depending on how much you previously associated with them, you might feel you need to stop and chat and “catch up”, by which I mean find out where they are working these days and that sort of thing. But none of this makes any sense. Really you should just walk past them saying nothing. (Even if it was someone who you associated with quite a lot in the past.) Because when they ask: “how are you, what are you doing these days?” they don’t really want to know. If they did they could have found you on the internet and asked you. So, at the very most, you should just nod or wave as acknowledgement. If they ask you anything you can refuse. You could say: if you had seen me on the other side of the street you wouldn’t have crossed to talk, would you? So this “catching up with old acquaintances that you have lost contact with but who you accidentally meet somewhere” is something that has been made obsolete by the internet. Another thing the internet has made obsolete is taking pictures of places you visit. Because, no matter how obscure the place you visit, there will always be pictures of it on the internet already.

Revolution.

The Earth goes round the Sun. Sometimes I hear the question stated: “does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth?”. (For example in a National Science Foundation Survey, mentioned HERE.) As if these two things were the opposite. But the opposite of “the Sun goes round the Earth” is actually “the Earth revolves on its axis”. As if to confuse things even more sometimes the fact that the Earth goes round the Sun is often stated as: “the Earth revolves around the Sun”. But revolving is something else entirely.

Transport.

In Britain first there were canals. Then the railways. And then roads. They should have just picked one and stuck with it. Now the country is littered with channels and lines and crossings, many not used. What a mess.

Fair.

Suppose you found a way to jump the queue without anybody noticing? Or some way of getting the best food from the store whereas it would normally be more fairly distributed? Would you use this trick? Or would you not because it was not fair. Maybe a better example is: what if you found that your electric meter was under-measuring the amount of electricity you were using. Would you inform the electricity supply company?

Question.

Jack: What question did you ask him?

Mary: “What time is it?”

Jack: It's four thirty.

Mary: What?

Movie scene.

Why are they still making James Bond movies? It’s just the same movie over and over again for the past 60 years. Having said that, one of my favourite scenes from any movie is from ‘Live and Let Die’. It’s the pre-credits bit where there’s a New Orleans Jazz funeral procession. “Whose funeral is it?” a bystander asks. And gets the reply “yours” after which he gets killed and pushed in the path of the procession where the coffin bearers place the coffin over him and he gets scooped up into it. The bare dialogue in this scene reminds me of: “ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

Belief.

For unbelievers religious belief is disturbing because it shouldn’t be the case that there are some people who are completely convinced of the truth of something and yet are completely wrong. Ideally all the people who are completely convinced of something should be right. (Because there are plenty of things the unbelievers themselves are completely convinced about and they don’t want to think that they might be wrong about these things.) It should only be people who aren’t that sure about things who are wrong. Of course, as I think I have mentioned elsewhere, the people who aren’t that sure about something are more likely to be right than someone who is quite certain.

Patriotism.

When a country’s sports team wins something then the people of that country are pleased. So if England win the football then English people will say something like “it makes me proud to be English”. And they will also use the word ‘we’ as in “we won”. As if they contributed to the victory. Or as if, in some sense, they own the victory. But they had nothing to do with it! At the very most the only group of people that might take up an attitude of pride without contributing is “footballers”. It would make more sense for some footballer (of whatever country) to say, on hearing of the English team winning, “it makes me proud to be a footballer”.

More generally people think they are entitled to the fruits of the achievements of the group that they belong to. More entitled than people who do not belong to that group. For example British people feel entitled to the achievements of British science. Even though not all of these British people contributed to those achievements. But they are not justified in their attitude. It would make more sense for scientists (of whatever country) to claim a share in the achievements of British science.

Bullying.

Everybody says they hate this. For example: “Hundreds of academics have been accused of bullying students and colleagues in the past five years, prompting concerns that a culture of harassment and intimidation is thriving in Britain’s leading universities.” This is from a report in The Guardian newspaper HERE. (They also describe similar things in politics HERE.)

But bullying is just how we do things all the time. For example the basic free market transaction of buying and selling is composed of the threats: “give me this for a lower price or I'll go and buy this elsewhere” and “give me more money for this otherwise I won't sell it to you”.

And our democracy is based on the will of the majority, even a very narrow one. Which means that 51% of the people bully the (very large) minority into their way of doing things. (And in practice in democracies the word ‘majority’ ends up referring to a number that is actually less than 51%).

So all this shocked indignation at bullying seems rather fake to me.

It’s like the MeToo movement. People act surprised but didn’t we all know about this kind of thing already. What did they think that line “who did you sleep with to get this job?” was about?

The Relativity of Motion.

Suppose I am floating in space (ladies and gentlemen) and I see an object pass by me. I don’t know if it is that I am stationary and the object is moving past me or if the object is stationary and I am moving past it. There is no way for me to know that. No measuring device can tell me that. But this is more than just a point about knowing. We are also saying that there’s no difference between these two scenarios. Like if I show you a black and white stripe pattern. And I ask: “is this black with white stripes or is it white with black stripes?”. It’s both or either.

Emotions.

There are lots of these. Many unnamed ones we don't notice and yet they are the equals of love, fear, hate. (Rather like the (alleged) way in which some people have many words for all the different sorts of snow.) At this point I should give some examples of some of these unnamed emotions. But, because they are nameless, it's hard to do! How about: the feeling of satisfaction you get when the traffic light turns green just as you arrive at it.

Maybe the emotions I am talking about here are nameless because not everyone feels them.

More examples might be got from emotions which are nameless in one on language but not in another. Like ‘litost’ as described by Milan Kundera. Or some others listed on this BBC website story HERE.

Fragile.

Humans are the only creatures who can die due to injuries caused by just falling over.

Free markets.

Capitalist countries have rules against cartels and monopolies. But how are those things different from any other sort of free market transactions. All of which (also) consist of the intentional exploitation of scarcity? It’s inconsistent to outlaw some practices and not the others. You are not allowed to create scarcity and then exploit that fact to your advantage but scarcity that just happens by chance you are allowed to exploit that. So if I accidentally find some oil, a naturally scarce commodity which nobody else has, then I can charge whatever price I like for it. But if I deliberately made oil scarce (by buying all the oil in the country) and charge whatever price I like. That’s against the law.

Evil.

In the same way that a large pool of green-looking water is composed of individual drops of water that, on their own, don’t look green at all, then large acts of (what you might call) evil where many people suffer and die (such as wars, famines, disease epidemics, poverty of body and mind) are all also composed of the behaviour of individuals towards each other where these individual acts are, considered in and of themselves, not noticeably bad. At the most these individual acts are careless rather than uncaring. They could be things like buying cheap goods without knowing why they are cheap (maybe workers somewhere are being horribly exploited), wanting to be ahead of others in the queue without thinking that this is unfair and selfish, making a casual unkind remark (which cumulatively harm people). -- We tend to think of evil as the behaviour of individual nasty people. But individual nasty people are made up of (the result of) lots of tiny actions by others. Actions or inactions: if you carelessly fail to attend to the development of the characters of others then they will develop into evil people.

Studies.

About a scientific study reported HERE.

The headline is: “Sugar in fruit juice may raise risk of cancer, study finds.”

The immediate thought resulting from this is: “what, only sugar in fruit juice? Is all other sugar OK?”.

The article doesn’t mention this. Although just the fact that the article (in the first paragraph) clarifies it as “all kinds of sugary drinks” makes a nonsense of the article title.

Next it should immediately address the issue of control. So the study found that people who drank more sugary drinks were more likely to develop cancer than people who did not. But was that the only difference between the two groups? It’s not clear that it was the only difference in diet between the two groups. And it’s certainly not clear that there weren’t other differences, for example level of physical activity. For example what if the group who drank sugary drinks were less physically active. (Or, more far-fetchedly, what if they have a predisposition to cancer which also makes them crave sugary drinks!)

Without any of this it’s like saying that we have found an association between living in Glasgow and having heart disease. So then we deal with the problem by evacuating Glasgow.

Reading.

Everyone thinks it’s a really good idea to get children reading more. As if reading constitutes the kind of mental quality we desire. But it doesn’t, rather it is the effect of the desirable mental quality. And that quality is being interested in things. If you are interested in things then you will read more. It seems as if we take reading to be a desirable thing to do because we assume that it will be present as the outcome of the desirable quality. But it might not be. Children might be reading trash novels. Or they might be reading more just because they have been told to do so. This is all confusing effect for cause? Like: if you are healthy then your cheeks will be red (assume this is true) then people start painting their cheeks red because that will make them healthy.

Working Class.

I ask the question “the phrase ‘working class’ - but there are plenty of people who work but are not ‘working class’, why’s that?” In response to which you might say: “forget about it, it’s just a figure of speech’. But looking into it further will probably yield some interesting information.

Political.

Being a socialist or a capitalist is often taken as a statement of a political position. But no, these are opinions about how you want the economic system to be. A statement about your political position would be an opinion about how you want the political system to be. By ‘political system’ I mean how collective decisions get made. (And one of the subjects of such decisions will be what the economic system should be like so maybe this is where the confusion comes from.) In the Cold War the conflict was stated as between democracy and communism. But democracy is about politics and communism is about economics. And when we talk about there being monarchies in the past. This says nothing about what the economic system was. In principle you could have a socialist monarchy. Although it’s unlikely. Monarchy is usually associated with the economic system of feudalism. So there must be some affinity between these two things.

Children.

Isn't it amazing how you can have children and then do what you like with them pretty much. Of course there are laws limiting how badly you can treat them but they are fairly limited. They prevent you from hitting children but that’s about it. Someone can still have a child and then, for example, fail to give it sufficient care and stimulation and instruction so that, as an adult, it lives a life of poverty (material and spiritual). For comparison: suppose you went to an existing adult not living a life of poverty and you did something to put them into a life of poverty. Then you would be arrested and punished. -- In general it's pretty amazing that you can have a child and then you can make it into anything you like. It's up to you what religion they believe in. If you surround it with Christian stuff they will probably become a Christian.

Talking.

I said to someone once: “Russell's Set Paradox — I find it quite difficult to get my head round that.” And he said: “Really, it's not that difficult, it's quite straightforward actually”. And I thought: that’s not the sort of response I was looking for! Maybe he was trying to be encouraging. But the tone came across as: “what?! you don’t understand something so straightforward? How stupid are you!”. But they didn’t see that that’s how they sounded.

Study.

Many Wikipedia articles (and other things) about some subject X will start by saying: “X is the study of”. Like it says: “Physics is the natural science that studies matter and its motion and behaviour through space and time and that studies the related entities of energy and force.” But the word ‘study’ here is not very informative. If I say “geology is the study of rocks” I might be sitting here looking at rocks carefully and drawing them. That’s studying, yes? But what else am I doing that’s what we need to say. It could be many different things. Classifying according to a schema, saying things about the composition of, saying things about the origin of. What exactly? - Also (this is a separate point) biology is the study of biology. That’s confusing!

Size.

Empires are judged by their size. The Roman Empire was this big. The Umayyad Caliphate covered a massive area. The British Empire was so extensive that it was always daylight somewhere in it. We are supposed to be impressed. But why? Was the life of somebody in any of these Empires better because of how big the Empire they were in was? Is it not possible to have a small region do things just as well enough (if not better) for its citizens to enjoy a good life. Is there some optimal size where benefits of size reach a maximum?

Internet content.

There are lots of places on the internet where people can comment on things (life, science, art). And there are lots of comments. Somewhere amidst all that verbiage there will be things that get said that (just by the sheer force of quantity) are of at least as much value (if not more) than what is said by those whose actual job it is to comment in a valuable way on things. Someone should sift through all the material to find the good bits.

History.

Almost all countries are now (early 21st century) more or less bog standard liberal capitalist. Especially the ones that bitterly fought with others while being (or because they were) something entirely different. By which I mean: Nazi Germany, Japan, China, Vietnam. (Yes I know China now isn’t at all democratic but it’s not as bad as it was, credit where it’s due.) So we could have just skipped all that craziness. We could have just cut to the chase and avoided killing millions of people. People could have gone to sleep 31 December 1899 and woken up 1 January 2000 and been glad they missed all that stress.

Burden.

This can be comforting: “I’d be lost without my burden” someone might say. A burden gives your life a purpose: namely dealing with it.

Generals.

Surely a general is only as good as his troops.

Gravity.

People keep saying “Newton discovered gravity”. I know they don’t mean it. I know they mean “Newton discovered the laws of gravity”. But still.

God.

How is true that the Bible is the “word of God”? Some of it is just letters written by St Paul. Similarly, how is it true that God created everything? Obviously He didn’t: He didn't create this flower over here which just grew a few months ago, it wasn’t created at all. And he didn't create this house which was made by people: I saw them doing it.

Conflict.

Could you have a general theory of conflict. Which would cover both minor arguments in a household and major geopolitical incidents.

Rebels.

Some rebels reject the hypocrisy of middle-class bourgeois morality. This hypocrisy is that they (the middle-class people) say they believe in equality but then they maintain the class structure. Or they believe in marriage but then they are unfaithful to their spouses and have affairs. So then I would expect the rebels to be better behaved. But they are just as immoral as the bourgeoisie. It’s just that they are not hypocritical in the sense that they don’t claim to be otherwise.

So maybe they will be petty criminals. Because they reject bourgeois laws. And their rebelliousness is celebrated by left-wing people who hate the bourgeois capitalist system.

But this doesn’t quite right. I want people who are rebelling against bourgeois capitalism to be better behaved than it. I think maybe the rebel in the movie 'Rebel Without A Cause' was like that. He was involved in a car race where someone got killed. He suggests doing the right thing and going to the police about it but his father says no.

You and me.

We all believe in freedom but not the ultimate freedom because we force children to exist. Nobody gets the choice about whether or not to be born. (Except in Samuel Butler’s ‘Erewhon’.) This is what the Creature in ‘Frankenstein’ is so angry about! On the other hand, if who we are is the outcome of circumstances then it’s not our parents who forced us to exist. If I hadn’t been me then somebody else would have been. (Does that make sense?)

You couldn't have been born in a different time. Because then you would have been a different person, you wouldn’t have been you. You might think: what if I had been born in Ancient Rome? But then you would have been a different person. This is related to the idea that Alexander Pope expresses in his ‘Essay on Man’. Which is that you shouldn’t think: “how come humans aren’t better than they are: stronger and more clever?” Pope says: because then they wouldn’t be humans. In reply to him we could say: yes, but does somebody have to be human?

New.

Watching films or reading novels is odd. Each one is new and you don’t know in advance if you will like it. When you pick up a novel to read it’s not the same as getting some food to eat. With food you will have eaten some identical food previously. For example all chocolate bars of a particular type are exactly the same. But any novel will be unique. You won’t know in advance whether you will like it. This is why movie studios like making sequels. With a sequel the audience has a better idea of what to expect. With a new film less so. Note that telling an audience what a novel is about (as in rough idea of the story) isn’t as much good as you might think. Because with a novel the way it is written, the style, is as important as what it is writing about. In fact I would say that style is more important than content. But, as I have said elsewhere, novels don’t get categorised according to style rather than story. But they should be.

Rich people.

When you have a situation where there is a class system and some people don’t work and some do. I think that, in England, the word ‘gentleman’ was used to refer to someone who didn’t work. But then these people were also more wealthy than most people who did work. You would have thought that they would be satisfied with not having to work. And not also insist on a higher income than the people who did work. Talk about adding insult to injury.

Patriotism.

Does everybody think that their country is the best in the world? Surely there must be at least some people who think that where they live is a shit-hole or, at the very least not as good as it could be if people just pulled their socks up.

Evolution.

Variations are random and heritable. Variation is a random process rather like shuffling a pack of cards. By chance a fit variation emerges. But won’t that just get wiped out by the next shuffle of the cards? How does it persist? I know that it will help the particular individual to survive and reproduce. But whether it gets passed on is a separate issue. Are we saying that once a fit variation is produced that then the shuffling stops? This is just a technical question about the process. Questions like this could be misinterpreted as an attempt to show that evolution is wrong. (But I’m just asking it the way you would when you are trying to understand something better.) Like I was some kind of ‘Intelligent Design’ believer. I can’t begin to describe how ludicrous I find all that kind of thing. What I really hate is how much they misunderstand what science is. They think that’s it’s some kind of vehicle for anti-religious interest groups. Just because their beliefs are a vehicle, they think everybody else believes things in the same way!

Also religious people take the Darwinian “The Theory of Evolution” as something which says: “Life (including humans) evolved over time and wasn’t created by God”. But (and I might be wrong here but) I think the Theory is a detailed account of the processes by which this Evolution happened. The Theory didn’t introduce the idea that creatures evolved, just how they did. The idea that they did evolve was already common I’m sure. I doubt very much that before Darwin came along people thought all creatures were created by God exactly as they were. And then Darwin came along and presented a different view point. Because people had seen evolving forms in, for example, dog breeding. It’s not much of a leap to think this happens spontaneously in nature.

Life.

When religion was integrated with life, it made no sense to ask: “what's your religion?”.

Jack: “what’s your food ritual?”

Mary: “What do you mean ‘ritual’? I prepare and serve food. I don’t do any ritual.”

Jack: “Yes but what ceremonies and rituals do you perform to achieve this end?”.

Mary: “I have recipes which I follow and then I put the food into these bowls here.”

Jack: “So you do have rituals then! The particular order in which you mix the ingredients. The way you sit and eat.”

Mary: “They’re not rituals. They’re just things I do to achieve the end of eating a meal.”

Jack: “People who go to church and say prayers. They are also just doing things to achieve a certain end.”

Economics.

The difference between the price and the cost is the profit. The cost is the real price! But wait: isn’t the cost also a price? What’s the cost of a widget? It’s the price of other things. Components and labour. This point arose in my mind while listening to a recent episode of the Planet Money. This is one of those podcasts that take a long time to say very little. - Having said that there was recently (2018?) a good episode about shipping costs. It addressed one of the (many) questions I have had in my mind somewhere for ages. Which is: when you post something to another country you pay the postage cost to the postal service in your country. So then how does the postal service in the other country get paid?

Striving.

If you carry on working (or exerting any sort of effort) after you are exhausted (or even in pain). This is the kind of thing that people brag about and which is kind of admired. Pushing yourself to the limits. But it’s clearly a bad thing to do. For example running a marathon is considered an achievement but it seems stupid to over stress your body like that. I can see how stretching your self a little gradually over time would yield results. But stretching yourself crazily like that seems wrong. It’s like if I am trying to increase the size of a natural object like a pot mould. I will gradually push it out while adding more matter. If I just pushed it quick it would just break. - A related point here is: does physical exercise strengthen your body or just wear it out? - This question is interesting because it’s one of those science vs common-sense things. Similar question would be: “why keep warm when you have a chest infection, isn’t that just going to incubate the bugs and make them more numerous?”.

Metric.

We should call the metric system the ‘water system’ because in it one litre of water has a mass of exactly one kilogram. This is by definition (1795). - I hate it when people mix metric with imperial and say something like “3.8 pounds”. If you’re using pounds then use ounces! Don’t be making use of the conveniences of decimal place notation. You’ve made the decision to use imperial so stick to it! - For long distances though I pretty much still use miles not kilometres. Or I constantly try to use both at the same time and so confuse myself. I have the conversion of 8 to 5 in my head. - And another thing is that I still say ‘dozens’ not tens. - What’s the equivalent of ‘hundreds’ in non-metric?

Corporation.

A particular business will be about the production of some single commodity. It will produce fruit or cars or insurance. But what if we set up a business in a town which produced all (anything and everything) that needed to be done in that town. All the fruit, cars and insurance that the people of that town wanted. And, at the same time, this business employed everyone in that town. That town would then be the business.

Account Code.

To access some account suppose I have an eight digit account number with four digit pin code. That's just the same as having a twelve digit code to access the account. Where four of those digits are known only by me.

Reality.

Walking around I see a busy traffic junction. And I think this could have been a row of residential streets. Or a field. Maybe I suffer from a lack of imagination but somewhere in my mind is the thought that it had to be what it is, ie a traffic junction. Like I can’t imagine it being something else. This is a bit like the way I think that there’s something special about the number 100. It’s a “round number”, I think to myself. But it’s not. I just think that because I use the decimal number system. And so 100th anniversary celebrations are also arbitrary. Similarly, on a Sunday when things are quieter I think that this is because of something intrinsic to the day Sunday. But actually it’s not. Sunday is really just another day.

Death.

The Epicurean view that “death doesn’t matter because it’s nothing” is hard to get your head round. When you think about it, it makes sense but there’s something about it that your mind refuses to accept. Similar is the worry about what happens to your reputation after you die. That worry is irrational too. Because you won’t be there. So what does it matter? For example suppose your reputation is as a fine upstanding sober chaste individual. But actually you are a drunken sot who hangs round loose women. You don’t want people to find that out after you die. But what does it matter? it does somehow.

Old places.

Walking around towns in Northern England it seems as if the people living there are squatting in the ruins of some greater but now gone civilisation. (And I use the terms ‘great’ and ‘civilisation’ in the quaint unreconstructed Victorian sense.) It’s like the barbarians have moved in and driven out the previous inhabitants and then made a ruin of all their great works. Modernised 19th century terraced houses and churches turned into carpet warehouses. Maybe it would be better to just demolish any buildings older than “living memory”. They don’t belong to us and anything we do to them will be very far from what we should be doing with them.

Harmony.

I don't want to live “in harmony with Nature”! Have you seen Nature? It’s “red in tooth and claw”, I’ve heard. A life in harmony with that is one that can only be “nasty, brutish and short”.

Essential.

What is more essential to life: heart or lungs? Which one contributes more to life? This question makes no sense.

Self-sufficient.

I think it would be nice to live in a self-sufficient town. Where you knew where everything came from. And where you knew personally all the people who produced the stuff you used.

There are places like these: HERE and HERE. But I think they are only self-sufficient in energy, not in food and stuff.

What would the size of a self-sufficient town be? Say a population of 20,000 people of which 60% are economically active. Is that enough? How much land per person would you need. How about one hectare per person. (For living on and food production.) This is 100 metres square. Which is 0.01 km2 each. So total needed would be 200 km2. That’s about 14 by 14 km square. Which is about 9 by 9 miles square. Everything that is used in the town would be produced there: food, clothes, furniture, buildings.

Housing density: if you can have four people living in a building which occupies a ground area of 10 metres by 10 metres. Then 20,000 people need an area of 1.4 km2. It would all need to be organised for efficiency. You might do this now by having it as a business. So suppose a billionaire bought all the businesses (the capital of) in ZigTown.

(Suppose it’s 100,000 GBP per person. So that’s 2 billion GBP.)

And merged them into one business called ZigTown Inc. One multi-tasking business which did all the things that needed doing in that town and which employed everyone in the town. In Feudalism it was a bit like that. The Lord of the Manor owned all the land and all the people were under his command. Did it ever happen that one of these Lords reorganised their Manor in a hyper-efficient way. Or would that not have crossed their minds. Or maybe there were rules preventing them from doing this.

Living life.

Suppose Mary has been a traveller and been in adventures not always pleasant. Then she meets Jack who lives a quiet unassuming life taking care of his two pet cats and has never been anywhere. She thinks what? That he has missed out on so much that he could have done. Her life is ‘fuller’ than his?

Understanding other people.

If someone eats some ice cream on a hot day I can understand that. I can imagine doing that. I can understand the motivation. But if someone robs someone I don’t understand that. By which I mean I can’t imagine doing it. Or if they go to Church and pray. I can’t understand that either. But then what are the limits of my understanding? I suspect I understand others a lot less than I have so far assumed I do. Can I understand even an ordinary person who likes watching football and hanging round with his mates? I think maybe I understand them as little as I understand Christians. How different am I from other people I don’t know? How much is my psychology different from that of other people? Even at a basic technical level. Do I do mental arithmetic the way they do it?

Individualism.

You are not an individual. I’m thinking now of where ‘individualism’ is taken to mean that individuals should not be (‘can not be’?, ‘are not’?) hindered by the collective. That there are no duties or obligations that they owe to other people. Apart from the ones that they freely enter into. But this is not true. Individuals are born of parents who have obligations towards their children and the latter have obligations to their parents. Created largely by facts of dependency. I’m not saying that this is a good thing. Very often it’s not. The obligations that are created are onerous and destructive in many ways. In recent history the dependencies are even stronger. Individuals are more dependent on the collective because so much of the stuff individuals rely on can only be produced by the collective. So I don’t like the sort of individualism which just flat out denies all these links of dependency and obligation. But it is still true that individuals should be given the maximum freedom possible. The links of obligation should not be abused. Are individualists making the mistake of confusing abusive collectivism with collectivism in general. - Maybe THE basic political problem is that people like living in a society with other people. For the massive benefits you get from working together. But they don’t know how to live together. Or rather they shirk the necessary amendments they need to make to their (natural) human behaviour when they are living with others. It’s like they’re not house-trained.

Anomalies.

- Apart from the Sorites’ paradox there are other similar things that you find in everyday life.

- One example. Suppose there is a law which says that for a new migrant individual to become classed as a resident of a country they have to have been in the country for 12 months continuously. But then there have to be exceptions to that rule. Because, for example, what if someone went across the border for a couple of hours one day during that 12 month period? You couldn’t say that the 12 month time period clock has to start again just because of that. But then the law has to describe exactly what the exception is. In general there has to be an answer to the question: “how much of a gap between two periods of time is allowed for them to be classed as still one period?”

- Another example is with taxation. Often there is a rule which says that, when calculating how much tax an individual is liable to pay on their income, there is a certain amount they are allowed to earn to which the taxation does not apply. This is called the “tax allowance” or “personal deduction”. For example if an individual earns £10,000 in a year then they don’t have to pay any tax. But anything they earn over £10,000 then they are liable to pay 20% of that. So if they earn 10,100 then they are liable to pay £20. For this rule to be applied tax liability has to be assessed in terms of fixed periods, normally years. If the rule says “any earnings under £10,000 are not taxed” then it also has to say for what period this applies. But then you get anomalies where tax liability can vary depending on distribution of the same amount of earnings over a number of years. If, over two years, Jack and Mary both earn £14,000 each. But Jack earns £14,000 in year one and nothing in year two. Whereas Mary earns £7,000 in year one and the same in year two. Jack has to pay £800 in tax and Mary pays nothing. To deal with which, he might try to persuade the people who pay him to hold off paying £4,000 of his £14,000 until year two.

Success.

People use the term ‘successful’ in the abstract. You get “how to be successful” books. But successful at doing what?

Protestants.

They are considered more individualistic. Is this because they don’t believe in any priesthood mediating between them and God? But on the other hand they believe in faith or grace and not works. But you don’t, as an individual, choose faith or grace. If they had believed in works then they would have been properly individualistic because what works they do are up to them as individuals.

Other people.

Suppose Mary hates everyone and then she asks herself: what is it? what is it about other people that means I don’t like them? Is it because they are loud or boring or what? Once she has answered that question then she can actively seek people who lack the characteristic that all people she doesn’t like have. But that characteristic might just be the fact that they are not her. In which case she will never find anybody that she likes. Because everyone is not her.

Stupid.

When the weather is nice outside but I am busy doing some necessary job inside. Then I find myself wishing that the weather was not so nice. So that I won’t feel like I’m missing out on something. But this makes no sense. It’s not as if the weather being bad at that time will mean that it will then be more likely to be nice when I am free to go outside. Also, by wishing it was bad I am depriving other people of nice weather for no reason.

Psychology.

You can’t deliberately get distracted or lose attention.

The wretched poor.

We have a tendency to lump weak foolish people with bad people. Maybe there is some religious root to this. A devout wealthy man might say that he has been favoured by God. So then it follows that poor people are disfavoured (or, at the least, ignored) by God. And if God treats them like that then so should we. The word ‘wretched’ applies here. This means someone who is in a bad state, not necessarily through anything they have done. But it also means a despicable person. Even the word ‘fault’ contains this ambiguity. If I say: “Mary, it’s your fault”. That means she’s to blame. But, taken literally, it means that there is a fault with Mary. Like she has some kind of impairment in her being.

Flaws.

Suppose Mary gets a nice new jacket but then notices that there is a tiny little spot on the back. It’s so small that, really, you would only notice it if you were looking for it. But it bothers Mary. Wearing the jacket she imagines people noticing it. These are the kind of things which bother people. Why?

Misunderstanding Kant.

Kant said that objects conform to our knowledge rather than the other way round. This is a statement of some kind of ‘subjectivist’ position. The Romantic poets took it to mean that our knowledge is determined by some deep part of our inner being, our inner dream world. Something like that. But this would be to misunderstand Kant who was saying something more mundane and technical and far less exciting. The poets’ confusion is rather like thinking that because scientists are materialists who don’t believe in souls that therefore all scientists are cold, heartless, selfish people who don’t appreciate art and who spend all their time (when they are not doing science) accumulating big houses and fast cars and other shiny toys.

Calamity.

Disasters bring people together. Like if a train crashes (let’s assume nobody hurt) then we, the passengers, feel like we’re on a bit of an adventure. We start chatting to each other in a way that would not have been appropriate otherwise. We might even wish this kind of thing would happen more often. With nobody getting hurt, of course. Although even if a few people got a little bit hurt, it would be worth it, wouldn’t it?

First impressions.

We have a tendency to judge people by appearance because we see so many people who are strangers. And so we have to judge based on appearance because we don’t have anything else to go on. If we lived somewhere where we all knew everybody and were never introduced to someone unless we also fully got to know them. Then it would be different.

Where I live (and what is happening there).

- I don’t know anything about the way things are really. I am so distant from my surroundings, the reality I live in. I am talking here mostly about what people do. For example there is some farmland near where I live but it would be extremely difficult for me to find out what happens on this farm, how it works and what it does. It’s easier for me to find out about the composition of the rings of the planet Saturn than it is to find out about this farm.

- It’s rather like I live in city X and yet I often find myself thinking: “I wonder what life in city X is like?”. From reports people might hear that city X is a very cultural place. So people might think that if you go live there you will be hobnobbing with artists. But you won’t. A city can have a reputation as a cultural place even though only 0.1% of the population are involved in the cultural scene in any way.

- There are many things which form large parts of peoples’ lives but because they don’t talk about it openly (because it’s private?) then I (and others) don’t know about it. For example the exact details of how people bring up their children. Or what exactly they do at work.

- What if there was some thing X that everyone used to do 60 years ago but now they don’t and we’ll never know about it because nobody made a note of what it was. It would be nice to be able to see the details of people’s lives that you don’t normally see.

- You get “fly on the wall” documentaries. Such as the ones by Frederick Wiseman. But then I think: this isn’t real. People will be behaving differently due to the presence of cameras!

- Why aren’t there more semi-professional autobiographies. First-hand accounts of life by people like participants in minor conflicts in history. Or directors of production facilities. That kind of thing.

Signs.

When I see a sign that says: “Welcome to Placename. Please drive carefully.” I think: does that mean the sign thinks you weren’t already driving carefully? Or that, before that sign, it was not required for you to drive carefully? They should also have a sign that says “You are now leaving Placename. Please stop driving carefully.” OR “You are now leaving Placename. Please drive however the f**k you like now.” I once saw a sign that said: “Welcome to Placename. Striving to be a safe community.” This means that, as of right now, it’s NOT a safe community. That’s just something they are striving towards. It’s just an aspiration.

Language.

Should we amend language where this seems like it’s being negative about a certain group of people. For example the phrase “a black day” means a bad day but then doesn’t this associate bad with ‘black’ people? Maybe. But on the other hand I’m not sure that our minds automatically associate things just because the same word is used. For example the name ‘Lincoln’ applies to a city in England city and also to an American President. But it never happens that when I hear the name of one that I also think of the other. In fact when I noticed they have the same name it was a surprise to me.

Famous.

What is it that impresses us so much about meeting in person someone who is really famous? And there is something special about it. Even if you don’t think you are susceptible to it you are. Is it anything like if we met the king? I mean in the days when kings meant something.

Probability.

Say the probability of x happening on any particular day is 1 in 100. So it’s very unlikely to happen on any particular day. But it’s very certain to happen once in a year. So then what is the probability that it will happen on the last day of the year when it hasn’t happened yet? The probability of that latter event seems to be two things. First: the probability of it happening on a particular day. Second: the probability of it happening once in that year. But these two are different! Confused!

Jesus and Socrates.

John the Baptist saying he can’t teach Jesus anything. This is like when the Delphic Oracle telling Socrates that Socrates is the wisest man.

Rebel with a cause.

When I was a kid at school I found it to be pretty awful and there were plenty of things I might have rebelled against. But I didn’t. Because all the other kids who were rebelling for reasons I didn’t want to be associated with. And which I would have been associated with if I spoke out. All the troublemakers just got lumped together. I should have complained about, for example, the poor quality of teaching. But others were complaining about things like the rule that said “no smoking/swearing/spitting in the classroom”. In fact, when I was at school, everyone was a rebel for one reason or another. In the 1970s and 80s it was glamorous to be rebellious at school. Although by the 1980s it was becoming a little passé.

Fight.

Are all social relations conflicts ones? Even socialising is a fight. In a group of people talking you need to dominate to be heard. By dominate I don’t mean aggressively. It might just be by saying more clever and funny things than anybody else.

Fat.

What if it was not at all unhealthy to be fat. Or even if it was actually healthy?

Odd.

Still looks odd when I see someone really old successfully operating a smartphone.

Average.

When people use the word ‘average’ of some set of numbers they are referring to the Mean. Which is the sum of the all the numbers divided by the number of numbers. So this set of numbers: 1, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. The mean is about 17.7. A different sort of average is the Median which is the number in the middle of an ordered list of numbers. So the Median for this same set of numbers is 20.

The reason I was thinking about all this was because I recently heard a caller on a talk radio station complaining about some politician who had said, about some group of people, that most of that group were above average. The caller was criticising the politician for making a stupid mistake. I suspect the caller was thinking, like maybe I have been too, that, for a Mean average, it’s always true that half of the people are above it and half are below. But that’s true for Median not Mean. (It’s possible that both the politician and caller were talking about the Median but that’s unlikely. When the word ‘average’ is used in ordinary talking it means the Mean.)

Security.

When you buy a house, the previous owner might still have a set of keys!

Logic.

Mary: “this is poison but it’s not lethal. You won’t die if you eat a bit.”

Jack: “What? If I eat a bit then I won’t die. What, ever?”

Socialising.

People say “I like socialising” (or “I like eating” or “I like movies”). Yes, but with what sort of people? (and what kind of food? and which movies?) By socialising they mean meeting and talking with people. So do they mean they like meeting and talking with anybody? Surely not.

The only way in which it might be true that you would like socialising with anybody was if there was a rule that the ‘anybody’ had to make an effort to be interesting and polite.

Hot.

There are (at least) three different kinds of feeling hot. Each distinguished by the cause: weather, physical exertion, fever.

Contradiction.

Some things seem contradictory but they aren’t. For example recently I heard on a radio advert: “are you expecting unexpected guests?”.

Holiday.

Having flu and being zonked out for a few days. Afterwards you feel like you’ve been on holiday. You go out and everything looks new and fresh the way you see things after you have been away.

Unfree Speech.

I believe in unfree free speech. Saying what you want is not only permitted but is also compulsory.

Flying.

In the park walking under the branches of a line of trees. I pretend I am flying and that the branches are beneath me not above me.

Nasty.

People think It’s acceptable to make nasty comments to their close friends. I don’t mean jokey comments not to be taken seriously but things that you really mean. And where what you mean might not even be justified. Like if Mary forgets to get the jam that her friend Jack told her to get for him from the shops. Jack might get (unreasonably) angry. And shout at her or say: “you’re bloody useless, you”. Let’s assume this is very rare thing for him to do. But it’s still horribly wrong. Maybe more wrong than if he was consistently nasty to her. If he was consistently nasty to her she would just ditch him and never associate with him again. Perfectly sensibly. But by being nasty just once it’s as if Jack is taking advantage of the fact that this once is not enough for it to have any negative consequences for him. - And there are other negative sorts of behaviours which you see in so-called friendships.

Couples.

For an older couple that got together when they were very young. The reason they are still together is not the same as the reason they first got together.

Workers.

Wandering around a lot in a (British) town with a significant population of Asian (subcontinental) origin (up to third generation I’d say) I have never seen one working at a job like road working or emptying bins. On the other hand all the private hire taxi drivers in the region for miles around are Asian. I once found myself in Castleford, a place which is so white you’d never know for sure that you had seen a ghost. And here I was amazed to find that the taxi drivers were Asian! As I think I might have mentioned elsewhere it’s as if (but not really the case that) there is some sort of a caste system in operation. (Another thing about road workers, while I’m on the subject. In my experience I would say that about 70% of the ones I see are very overweight late middle-aged white men with a cigarette hanging out of their mouths. - Just to clarify, my point here isn’t about race and employment in particular. More it’s just (and I will go into length about this in some future post) I feel horribly ignorant about the way things work. The how and why of what people are doing the jobs they are. How it all gets ‘decided’.

Exploitation.

Have I mentioned this before? The word ‘exploitation’ used to have a positive meaning. It just meant effectively using some available resource for the benefit of people. Now it means: “taking advantage of”.

Clever.

People sometimes say “oh, you’re so clever”. Like when at work I fixed some glitch in someone’s computer operating software. They said: “you’re so clever!” and I would say: “yes but you’re only comparing me to you, so that ain’t saying much”.

Elites.

People complain about the liberal elites and I suppose there is some truth to this. The “(white) working class” feel nagged by rich middle class professional people who tell them that they must not be against immigration and that they need to cut down consumption to ‘save the planet’ and that sort of thing. And maybe more basic things like the lower classes don’t like being looked down on just because they don’t like strange foreign food and opera.

Greedy.

Are religious people greedy? They’ve got a life. And then they want another one after that!

Out running.

I was out for a run and I saw a particular road that was a short cut. I started down it before I stopped myself. Taking a short cut only makes sense if the aim of your travelling is to get from A to B quickly. But I am out running where the aim of the travelling is not that at all. - I feel elated when, while out running, a motorist gives way to me at a junction I need to cross. (At last, some recognition!) I salute them as I go by. Holding my hand up to them as I run by in a gesture of appreciation. Although this is also partly to make sure they don’t suddenly start and run me over.

Sometimes I find myself running past a bus on the road which is going in the same direction as me and on the same side of the road as me. And then I see a bus stop ahead and I think: “I hope the driver doesn’t think I am running for the bus and then stop and then I run past”. But then I think: no, they will know from experience how to spot the difference between someone running for the bus and people who are (like me) running for no reason at all. And then I think that when the bus driver went to bus driver training school this probably wasn’t something that they taught. There must be so many things that bus drivers need to know which isn’t explicitly taught.

Stories.

Why do I need to read stories/novels? Why can’t I just make them up myself? Why can’t I just daydream instead of reading? Pretend I'm in different places the way that novels show me different places. - Conversely, what if the experience of reading a novel was like that of having a dream.

Unattractive.

Geeks and nerds are less physically attractive than ‘normal’ people. Is this true? If so then what is the significance of this fact? Is that why they are geeks?

Empire.

Does imperial power make sense economically? Empires are built by the imperial power controlling countries whose resources they wish to acquire. But controlling a country is quite costly. What with having to maintain order and everything. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just let the country rule themselves and buy the materials from them?

Sad stories.

Some story of tragedy and suffering. This is significant to everyone except someone who has undergone the tragedy depicted in the story. To them it is either irrelevant (because they have experience it for real) or it is a mockery.

The right honourable.

When someone asks me the same question again that I have already answered once. Then I say: “I refer the honourable lady/gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.” This is a reference to some archaic procedure in the House of Commons which I barely understand. But the person I say it to has even less knowledge of the procedure than I do. Usually they are completely ignorant of it.

[14 August 2019]