Ventiak - an island somewhere in the brain

Gettier Day

14 April 2007

For those of you who don't remember (and those of you who probably don't care) Trevor celebrates every April 14th as Gettier Day. I presume that he lit his customary candle at midnight and for most of the daylight hours he has been flying kites. The weather has been kind - the skies blue, the air still but with just enough heft to get his best kite to soar. This is a two metre tall diamond made of black cotton with the rubric 'Sum ergo cogito' - a proposition that annoys Rupert intensely. Trevor's point, not without merit in my opinion, is that in order for anyone to make or understand the statement 'Sum ergo cogito' the statement has to be true. Alternatively, if the statement cannot be made in a meaningful way(e.g. there is nothing in the world but rocks, parrots and cabbages) then it cannot be true. Trevor calls this pragmatic self-evidence. Rupert calls it nonsense.

Rupert has, however, been instructive about Amanda's blog of yesterday. (I have to say I am uneasy about introducing topics that are so obviously important in real life but, I suppose, a certain amount of contamination is probably inevitable.)

The case for action on climate change goes something like this:

  1. The world has got warmer over the last hundred or so years.
  2. The warming is cause by human activity.
  3. If the warming continues the consequences could be disastrous
    socially and economically.
  4. If we act now we can stop the warming and avoid the disaster.

Two of these points, 1 and 3, are not in dispute. The argument between sceptics and believers is all about the connection between 2 and 4.

Unfortunately, 4 does not follow from 2. It could be that it is already too late to do anything even though we have caused the problem. Point 2 may be true and point 4 false, in other words. Of course, it's unlikely that point 2 is false and point 4 true - if we haven't caused it we probably can't fix it - but other than this the connection between 2 and 4 remains problematic.

Here are the possible combinations:

  1. We act and the disasters don't happen.
  2. We act but the disasters happen anyway.
  3. We don't act and the disasters happen.
  4. We don't act and the disasters don't happen.

According to Rupert, case 1 proves nothing. The sceptics could claim that the action was irrelevant. Case 2 proves nothing either. It may simply be that action was too late or too little. Case 3 proves nothing because the disasters might have either man-made or natural causes. Only in case 4, is there any resolution. This would tend to show that the sceptics were right.

Maybe this all points up why there is so much heat and so little light in this debate. The issue can't be resolved logically or scientifically. In our present state of knowledge it is a matter of belief, of politics if not profit, as Amanda says.

A Change of Climate

13 April 2007

Hello, Amanda here. He's feeling a bit under the weather (out with friends last night, which means he probably OD'd on philosophy) so I volunteered to do the blog for him. His brain must be seriously disrupted because he agreed. No doubt he'll live to regret it or, at least, to complain about it at length.

What I want to talk about is climate change or, at least this silly debate that's going on in the country between two groups of weathermen (they are all men, I notice. I doubt women would waste their time like that). One side is saying that a recent major rainstorm, accompanied by disastrous flooding, was just a foretaste of things to come. The other, the sceptics, maintain according to this morning's paper that 'science hasn't yet proven that human activity is responsible for global warming and that climate change hysteria is driven by fear, guilt, politics and profit.' Who's right? Who knows?

The point is, though, that from the point of view of this country, politics and profit are the only things that matter. Our carbon emissions are so tiny compared to the rest of the world's that whatever we do to reduce them is of almost no account at all. On the other hand, it is absolutely vital that we convince all those green-leaning politicians in the countries where we want to sell our exports that we are carbon neutral or better. If we don't they are liable to dump us for using all that fossil fuel to ship our goods half-way across the planet.

So, the important thing for us isn't what's true but what people believe. Of course, we would be utterly cynical and hypocritical if we went about preaching action against climate change without believing it ourselves but, even if the sceptics are right, there is no reason we can't be believers in a simple pragmatic sense. Suppose it's true that science has proved human activity is responsible. That doesn't mean it isn't responsible and given the consequences are so dire, the most sensible thing to do is to assume it is responsible and get on with doing something about it.

Vote for Me!

12 April 2007

Oh dear, another of those awkward moral dilemmas. I notice that Netguide (www.netguide.co.nz) is running the annual awards, which include a vote for best blog. Will anyone vote for Ventiak, I wonder?

I could vote for myself, of course, but it would be entirely pathetic if I finished up with only one vote, my own. I would feel I had joined the ranks of those desperate self-promoters like Liliana aka TheAnomalieInfinite. I wouldn't mind if there were only a few votes - a handful or two. There would be a certain caché in that - a suggestion of small but perfectly formed, if you like. Indeed, I feel a few votes would be preferable to thousands (well, not really but that would be more in line with a reasonable expectation).

One option is to plead for votes through the blog. LeafSalon seems to have no compunction about doing this. However, it feels a little awkward to be begging and, in any case, if no one reads the blog, then no one receives the plea. Ah, well.

Janice will vote for me, I'm sure. Amanda certainly won't. Felix would except for the fact that he is a technophobe who couldn't cope with an online voting form. As for Rupert and Trevor, they would both have good intentions but would almost certainly forget to follow through. Perhaps I'll ask McEgg what to do. He is wwwise in these matters.

The Ceremony

11 April 2007

Comments on yesterday's picture of the Buddha of the Teapot suggest that I need to give some explanation.

Buddhism is not a majority religion here. Indeed, on last count, there are no majority religions, only a wide range of minorities embracing all faiths from High Church Agnosticism to Mystical Materialism and Non-worshipping Pantheism. The majority of the inhabitants no doubt believe in something but quite what that something is remains a mystery even to themselves.

Some people of my acquaintance (I think of Janice, in particular) seem to change their religious beliefs as frequently as they change their shoes and to less purpose. However, who is to say that loyalty in these matters is a desirable characteristic? Unless we believe that our particular faith has a monopoly on truth, there seems no reason not to change it as our needs require. Indeed, I have sometimes thought there might be a nice little business to be had in developing boutique religions - Designer Dogma, one might call it. After a short interview with a trained theologian and a battery of personality tests, the seeker after truth could meet with the design team, who would come up with a full package of beliefs culled from the World's Great Faiths to meet every spiritual circumstance. We could mix elements of sun worship with a list of God given moral precepts, Jungian psychology and...

I mustn't get distracted, though. The question at hand, or one of them, is the nature of the tea ceremony. It is not, as some have supposed, Japanese in origin, although Teapot Buddhism does bear some resemblance to Zen. To find its derivation one must go beyond the Far East to the Even Farther East, which ultimately turns into the West. The tea drunk is English Breakfast or, occasionally, Earl Grey, and must always be served in a reconstructed teapot. The drinking is usually accompanied by ritual statements regarding the weather and the ceremony ends with a remark from the master that is intended as a subject for the day's meditations. For novitiates, this is often the central admonition of the Teapot faith:

Remember to breath.

A Local Shrine

10 April 2007

The Buddha of the Teapot

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