Von Neumann's Axiom

This is what I want to write on most of my students' exams papers:

There's no sense in being precise when you don't know what you're talking about.

Actually, they're generally not precise - but they certainly don't know what they're talking about!

Why do you see right through me?

Not Pretty Enough

Am I not pretty enough?
Is my heart too broken?
Do I cry too much?
Am I too outspoken?

Don't I make you laugh?
Should I try it harder?
Why do you see right through me?

I live, I breathe, I let it rain on me
I sleep, I wake, I try hard not to break
I crave, I love, I've waited long enough
I try as hard as I can

I laugh, I feel, I make believe it's real
I fall, I freeze, I pray down on my knees
I hope, I stand, I take it like a man
I try as hard as I can

Am I not pretty enough?
Is my heart too broken?
Do I cry too much?
Am I too outspoken?

Don't I make you laugh?
Should I try it harder?
Why do you see right through me?

- Kasey Chambers

Reason and Religion

I like his style!

But some are so strangely prejudiced against Reason (and that upon sufficient reason too, as they think, which yet involves a flat contradiction) as that they look upon it not as the Candle of the Lord, but as on some blazing Comet, that portends present ruine to the Church, and to the soul, and carries a fatal and venomous influence along with it. And because the unruly head of Socinus, and his followers, by their meer pretenses to Reason, have made Shipwreck of Faith, and have been very injurious to the Gospel; therefore these weak and staggering apprehensions are afraid of understanding any thing; and think, that the very name of Reason, especially in a Pulpit, in matters of Religion, must needs have at least a thousand Heresies couched in it. If you do but offer a Syllogism, they’d straightaway cry it down for carnal reasoning. What would these men have? Would they be banished from their own essences? Would they forfeit and renounce their understandings? Or have they any to forfeit, or disclaim?

- Nathanael Culverwel, An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature, 1652

Henry More, but not Henry More, grandson of Thomas More

To me, this seems a strange way to begin a biographical chapter in a book on Henry More, "Cambridge Platonist":

From Sir Thomas More, the former Lord Chancellor of England executed in the Tower in 1535, descended two grandsons named Henry, who were cousinds and Catholics. Neither of these was the Cambridge don, born in 1614...

Hmm.

Militant atheists are wrong!

Click here.

Sentimental hymns lead to murder!

OK, not exactly, but Byron has commented on a great quote from Hauerwas.

Click here.

Canned Snoopy

Architects and engineers compete to see whose team can build the most spectacular structure using little more than cans of food at Canstruction, the 13th annual NYC Design and Build competition in New York.

All these cans will go to the food bank afterwards.

But I'm dating a geek!

What Kind of Guy Will You Fall For?
	You would fall for the gentleman. Keep an eye out for your love at your next formal or field trip to the opera. Watch out for bad boys who walk on the inside of the curb and don't hold the door for you, and you'll end up with the guy who's suave, sophisticated, and classy through-and-through.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Light

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen – not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else.

- C.S. Lewis

Against objectivity

What matters is our loyalty to other human beings clinging together against the dark, not our hope of getting things right.

- Richard Rorty (1931-2007)

Beware the killer bunny rabbit!

Or, How to make a Liberal Party scare campaign ad.

The Captain

Is this the least feminist song ever written?

Well I don't have as many friends because
I'm not as pretty as I was
I've kicked myself at times because I've lied
So I will have to learn to stand my ground
I'll tell 'em I won't be around
I'll move on over to your town and hide

And you be the captain
And I'll be no one
And you can carry me away if you want to
And you can lay low
Just like your father
And if I tread upon your feet you just say so
'Cause you're the captain, I am no one
I tend to feel as though I owe one to you

Well I have handed all my efforts in
Searched here for my second wind
Is there somewhere here to let me in, I asked
So I slammed the doors they slammed at me
I found the place I'm meant to be
I figured out my destiny at last

You be the captain
And I'll be no one
And you can carry me away if you want to
You can lay low
Just like your father
And if I tread upon your feet you just say so
'Cause you're the captain, I am no one,
I tend to feel as though I owe one to you

Did I forget to thank you for the ride?
I hadn't tried
I tend to run away and hide

You're the captain
I am no one
And I owe one to you

It's a beautiful song...

I'm a football team!

Click here.

It's a hard life...

BECAUSE WE ARE MEN

If you put a woman on a pedestal and try to protect her from the Rat Race, you're a Male Chauvinist Pig.

If you stay home and do the housework, you're a pansy.

If you work too hard, there is never any time for her and the kids.

If you don't work enough, you're a good-for-nothing layabout.

If she has a boring repetitive job with low pay, this is exploitation.

If you have a boring repetitive job with low pay, you should get off your ass and find something better.

If you get a promotion ahead of her, that is favouritism.

If she gets a job ahead of you, it's equal opportunity.

If you mention how nice she looks, it's sexual harassment.

If you keep quiet, it's male indifference.

If you cry, you're a sheila.

If you don't, you're an insensitive bastard.

If you thump her, it's wife-bashing.

If she thumps you, it's self-defense.

If you make a decision without consulting her, you're a chauvinist.

If she makes a decision without consulting you, she's a liberated woman.

If you ask her to do something she doesn't enjoy, that's domination.

If she asks you, it's a favour.

If you appreciate the female form and frilly underwear, you're a pervert.

If you don't, you're a poofter.

If you like a woman to shave her legs and keep in shape, you're sexist.

If you don't, you're unromantic.

If you try to keep yourself in shape, you're vain.

If you don't, you're a slob.

If you buy her flowers, you're after something.

If you don't, you're not thoughtful.

If you're proud of your achievements, you're up yourself.

If you don't, you're not ambitious.

If you ask for a cuddle, you never think of anything but sex.

If you're totally whacked after a hard day's work, you don't give a stuff about other people's needs.

If she has a headache, she's tired.

If you have a headache, you don't love her any more.

If you want it too often, you're oversexed.

If you don't, there must be someone else.

Am I a feminist?

Craig referred to me as his "feminist reader" on his blog (nice that he linked to my post, though). I'm not sure I would consider myself a feminist. I'm not really into labels, particularly when the terms are not at all well-defined.

One of my friends once told me that I was "too Martha Stewart" to be a feminist!

Is feminism still needed?

(I wrote this a number of years ago. One of my friends from uni decided to start an email debate about whether or not feminism was still needed. As I recall, I was the only one arguing in support of feminism. I recall one of my female friends saying that feminism was no longer needed because in her workplace, there were more women than men. My thoughts on this topic are far from firmly settled, but I think it's an important issue to consider, so I decided to post this here to see if anyone has any thoughts to share...)

There is a problem with this topic, though. It assumes that there is only one feminist argument/movement. Feminism can not be characterized as a single viewpoint. There are many different views within feminism, from radical anti-male feminism, to a more moderate view that might not even be recognized as feminism. So, the question is, what feminism are we talking about? However, all these different viewpoints have something in common. As Kaz Cooke puts it, “The myriad variations on feminist belief all revolve around equality of opportunity and freedom of choice: choice to be a full-time parent, a rocket scientist, a labourer or a florist, and the freedom to be respected for any of those choices.”

This is something women still do not have, and this is partly the fault of feminism. Women are now often expected to be able to do it all – have a family and a successful career. It seems, though, that there is just not enough time in the day to do this. Also, women who try to juggle family and career are discriminated against. Employers prefer men who don’t have commitments outside work – who don’t have to leave by 5pm on the dot so they can pick up their kids from day-care, who can work more overtime because they don’t have kids to look after, etc etc. Employers in general are more likely to hire a man who won’t be requiring maternity leave at some point. Australia is also behind most of the world in offering compulsory paid maternity leave. Unfortunately, in some ways compulsory paid maternity leave would make things worse – employers may be even more reluctant to hire women. This is a real problem for women in the workforce. Women are often demoted after returning from maternity leave. Of course, women have to be the ones to give birth, but there is nothing wrong with a man taking paternity leave to look after kids while the woman returns to work. It does happen, and perhaps if it happened more, there wouldn’t be as much discrimination against women.

But then, men are generally paid more. Wages are not equal yet. The salary for women is often much less than for men – tens of thousands of dollars less in some cases, for the same qualifications and the same work. Rob said “There are many positions that socially only women (and homosexuals) can fill, whereas traditional male strongholds such as the construction industry are now falling under siege from female recruits.” Which positions are these? Describing the construction industry as being "under siege from female recruits" only continues the problem. Why shouldn’t women enter these industries? If they can do the job as well, what’s the problem? Is it that men feel they are losing their authority and exclusivity? Women should have the same opportunities as men, unless they are genuinely inhibited by physical aspects. Some form of feminism is still needed to fight for this. One workplace favouring women does not mean that the problem has been solved. And even if there is a ‘filter effect’ at work, feminism is still needed to make sure it happens!

Even if you think that women have equal opportunity in the workplace, there are still many other issues facing women today: domestic violence, pornography, rape, sexual harassment, ‘the beauty myth’, eating disorders…

In short, I think feminism still has its place. It depends on what kind of feminism we’re talking about, though. If feminism means that women are anti-men, and want to keep men under their feet as inferior beings, this is no different from what feminism is fighting against. However, if feminism is taken as a fight for equal opportunities and freedom of choice, then it is eternally valuable. I think feminism has a tendency to come in cycles. One group of women will rise up against the oppression of men and fight for their rights. The next generation, however, tends to take for granted what has been won for them, and feminism dies out a bit, and women become oppressed again. Then, the next wave of feminism comes, and fights for those rights again.

I think at the moment feminism has taken a bit of a down turn. We’ve all grown up taking for granted the rights that have been won for us – the right for education, equal pay etc. It’s perhaps not until these things are denied, or we come across some discrimination that we take up the cause of feminism again. However, I think it would be a good idea to keep in mind what feminism has done for women (although there are negatives) to ensure that things don’t go backwards.

Love

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

- C. S. Lewis

Does exercise really make us thinner?

Ultimately, the relationship between physical activity and fatness comes down to the question of cause and effect. Is Lance Armstrong excessively lean because he burns off a few thousand calories a day cycling, or is he driven to expend that energy because his body is constitutionally set against storing calories as fat? If his fat tissue is resistant to accumulating calories, his body has little choice but to burn them as quickly as possible: what Rony and his contemporaries called the “activity impulse”—a physiological drive, not a conscious one. His body is telling him to get on his bike and ride, not his mind. Those of us who run to fat would have the opposite problem. Our fat tissue wants to store calories, leaving our muscles with a relative dearth of energy to burn. It’s not willpower we lack, but fuel.

Read more.

Philosophers and science

Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for
science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and
probably wrong.

- Richard Feynman

Arguing with Craig

I'm having an argument with Craig over at the blog formerly known as "These Infinite Spaces." Unfortunately, I'm about to go out, so I'll have to delay further responses until later.

I've been meaning to post on these issues for awhile. I'd be interested to know people's thoughts...