Avatar (Film) Review – A film about blue aliens with tails doesn’t have to be unrealistic.

What can one say about Avatar that hasn’t already been said a hundred times before (by people who actually get paid to offer their opinions no less)? The answer is, probably not much. Nevertheless – believe it or not, I have devoted only a miniscule portion of my life to reading reviews or commentary on James Cameron’s epic new piece, and so, while I don’t doubt that what I say will greatly overlap with what you may have read several times previously, you can rest assured that my review is at least sincere and underivative – like a pure, unspoilt, and innocent alien species. That’s blue. And still human looking enough to be attractive.

So first a confession or two: I missed the first fifteen minutes of the film due to the tardiness of the restaurant I was attending previously. You might consider this a damning factor which renders my review redundant – however I wager that in fact the first fifteen minutes are quite easily sacrificed. Here’s what I imagine roughly occurs in that first quarter hour (correct me if I’m wrong): in some manner, the film explains that it’s set some time in the future, when everyone relies on a natural resource (ridiculously named Unobtainium), which has been mined to exhaustion by the foolish and short-sighted; but technologically highly capable; humans (of Earth I guess). So – these desperate people look to space for an answer to their troubles and are overjoyed to find a luscious planet or moon: (colloquially named?…) Pandora, which is rich in that most unobtainable of substances: Unobtainium (but absolutely no abundantium ironically). The only problem is that Pandora is infested with a bunch of nature-loving; tribalistic; blue alien hippies – with slightly bigger noses, amongst other physical features which slightly differentiate them from humans – but not enough to stop them being sexy (Cameron’s notes: must have a love interest). Now upon making this discovery you might have expected the technologically and militarily powerful humans to hold their hands up and leave Pandora alone, however if you did then you’re a tree-hugging fool (there I said it), because in this world of realpolitik; capitalism; and Western imperialism: might equals right, and guns sure as hell beat bows and arrows (you’d think) no matter how tall or azure you are. And so – the plan to drain Pandora of its, *sigh*, Unobtainium – is formulated. The gunships are prepped and ready; the commandos are fired up for the assault, and all that stands between the desperate humans and the destruction of Pandora is a nominal ‘humanitarian’ effort to ‘persuade’ the blue aliens (more imaginatively named Na’vi, rather than Alienarians as would have been appropriately in-keeping with the Unobtainium theme) to move out of their sacred hometree and relocate to somewhere more accommodating to the invaders. This effort is conducted by “limp-dicked science majors”, who communicate with the native Na’vi by jacking into bodies that resemble their own, known as Avatars – thus, the Avatar programme is born. Now I’m sure that’s not EXACTLY what happens in the first fifteen mins., but I’m close enough, right? In any case, this constitutes a fair summary of the situation in Avatar; the rest of the plot can be pretty easily predicted on the basis of this little intro. Great or otherwise, Avatar’s not a film to shock or surprise – I could have spelt most of the plot out to you before I arrived at the cinema.

So what else happens? Well, the lead: a wheelchair bound marine, again experiences the thrill of working legs via his Avatar body, and thus cockily runs out of the medical suite before he’s properly learnt how to control his sensory motor skills. He initially fully backs the human mission, and is mentored by the (obviously, and one-dimensionally, horrible) Commander of the military – who has a southern American accent to make it clear that he’s an evil militarist. However, having been sent down to Pandora in his Avatar body, under the wing of tough but lovely Dr. Grace (played by Sigourney Weaver) – a scientist, and therefore the intellectual and liberal counterweight to the military Commander, he comes to identify and empathise with the Na’vi – not least because he falls for the first one he meets after she reluctantly saves his life from a pack of alien ‘dogs’. After thanking her for her rescue, she disdainfully retorts that she should not be thanked for killing innocent other beings, who did not have to die but for his ‘baby like’ antics. Thus the tone is set and Cameron’s point with the Na’vi is made. Through further revelations, it transpires that the Na’vi live in total harmony with their world. Moreover, they are able to mentally communicate with its animals via a cabled uplink created by meshing their ponytails with the animal’s long… mental uplink connector… tubes; and to upload memories and thoughts by linking their ponytails with sacred trees. In short, Pandora’s world is not merely a place to the Na’vi, but an interconnected constituent part of their existence – to use the film’s analogy, it’s like the neural pathways of a brain:  each little neuron, and thereby each Na’vi or other animal; or tree, is a part of the whole. However, as later transpires, this is more than the animism or pantheism of primitives; there is a genuine scientific basis for the Na’vi’s connection with the world – to the surprise of the scientists, and the disregard of the men in charge of the human mission – what the nature loving Na’vi mystically and mysteriously speak of is the truth. Our marine lead discovers all this as the film progresses, and in doing so, integrates and gains acceptance with the Na’vi tribe he’s living with. He also gets the Na’vi girl he fell for at the beginning. No prizes for guessing what happens next.

From here on I’ll be providing some sweeping revelations which may constitute spoilers (if you somehow lack the imagination to work out what happens on your own – if you’ve been lobotomised for example). Thus, if you want to remain entirely in the dark then stop reading now, otherwise continue (you have been warned).

Continuing from where I left off, and relieving you of your unbearable suspense, yes: our hero marine begins to sympathise with the Na’vi plight. Perhaps it IS unjust for powerful invaders to simply force their way into someone else’s home and then either intimidate the natives out or eradicate them with superior gun power, he thinks. Perhaps it’s wrong for anyone to rape the natural world for the sake of unchecked advancement and the greed for power, he wonders. Could it even be that it’s unacceptable to cut down one tree on the basis that there are others to take its place (there’s a line that sounds a bit like that in the film)? These ethical revelations strike our simple but good hearted marine, and thus – having come to the conclusion that doing obviously evil things is wrong – he decides to rebel against his human compatriots, eventually gaining the aid of two or three of the more enlightened members of the human horde, and then by inspiring all the Na’vi tribes to come together by rousing them via a reenactment of the exploits of one of their great legendary heroes (riding a massive red bird). Needless to say, he succeeds, with the Na’vi counter-intuitively demonstrating that future Blackhawk helicopters are no match for wooden bow and arrows and alien pterosaurs, and sending the humans home; presumably to revert to a Na’vi like tribalistic state as a result of their dwindling Unobtainium resources (one assumes wind farms must never have taken off – which is fair enough given that they positively ruin the views from the windows of hundreds of moronic wankers).

What to say about Avatar. Well, first off – everyone is right about it. It is insanely epic in terms of its scale and its phenomenal special effects (which are truly wondrous in three dimensions). It is sort of an inspiring rallying cry for environmental concern – although it is a little too hippified to appeal to any of the more backwards conservative types; and a little too spiritual to appeal to intellectuals. It’s also extremely formulaic and painfully predictable. Every character is insanely one-dimensional, and there’s not even an inkling of sympathy generated for the human cause (which is somewhat unrealistic given that our own history demonstrates the ease by which countries can gain mass support for similar actions). Avatar’s biggest and overarching flaw is its obviousness. It’s simplistic and blatant – both in terms of its storytelling and its message. As mentioned previously – there’s nothing here plot wise that you haven’t seen before, or that you wouldn’t have been able to guess as soon as you heard the words ‘aliens’, ‘human invaders’, ‘undercover Avatar agents’, and ‘Unobtainium’ (come on – what’s going to be the defining quality of this fascinating element – it’s squishiness?) . In terms of the message – unrenewable exploitation of nature is bad and self-defeating / animals aren’t mere commodities, but other sentient beings / fire power doesn’t entail superior rights / perhaps even the old ‘Noble Savage’ idea. Yes – all of these are relevant observations (with the possible exception of the latter) – but they are also positions that have and do face heavy opposition, whether explicit or implicit, in our actual world; by many divergent people. The truly magnificent feat would have been to acknowledge that opposition and to show it to be flawed, short-sighted, immoral, irrational, ignorant, but nevertheless: seductive to A LOT of ‘normal’ people; rather than to sum it all up in a superficially horrid, big bad invading force, that everyone but Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin would hate. Another plot alteration which would have improved the film at least ten fold would have been to add an extra sprinkling of frank realism: to have the Na’vi lose. As George Monbiot has observed[1], the plight of the Na’vi bears no small similarity to that faced by the Native Americans upon the arrival of the European explorers. Just as the peaceful, nature loving native Americans were systematically and almost totally wiped out by the invading Europeans – who took themselves to have a god given right to take the Americas – Cameron would have infinitely improved Avatar by showing the Na’vi’s tribal defences to be as useless as they realistically would have been against the human technology of the future (or now for that matter). Show them valiantly make their final stand, and be crushed and swept aside with zero casualties to the invaders. Show their homes obliterated and their forest’s destroyed to make way for human installations. Show their remaining numbers penned in to ‘reservations’. Show the nominal efforts to appear civilised on the part of the human invaders; and if you dare – show (and quote) the religious justification. In short, show Pandora scream and then gradually, painfully, die as it’s coldly and systematically raped by its human dominators. Perhaps Cameron considered this too upsetting an end for his 12A film; or maybe he considered a victory more inspiring for the purposes of his environmental message, than a defeat, however I think an allegory on the arrogance and cruelty of Europe’s past; and the short-sighted and greed-fuelled exploitation of the world’s present and future, would be far more poignant and moving than a Hollywood happy ending.

I enjoyed Avatar, a lot. I wasn’t bored while I was watching it, and I didn’t feel the need to check my watch at any point during the show. In fact I was surprised how quickly the two and a half hours slipped by (…it felt more like two hours and fifteen minutes to me. Ha. Ha.). Nevertheless I was a tad disappointed, though unsurprised, that it wasn’t the great rallying cry for environmental concern and respect for human and non-human ethical considerations that I’d wished for. It looked incredible. Contrary to the claims of some, it wasn’t cringeworthy, and the scriptwriting was far from the worst I’ve seen (although bear in mind that I play a lot of videogames). If I had kids, I’d certainly be happy and eager to show them Avatar – and who knows, perhaps it would be through their young eyes that I’d see Cameron’s rationale for his happy ending and superficiality of purpose. Maybe a ‘can do’ attitude towards an ethical future would speak to a child in a way that it can’t to me, and perhaps an accomplished and esteemed film director like James Cameron knows that, while I do not. Regardless, I can only speak for myself, and I say this: Avatar is admirable and wonderful, but it’s not great.

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[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jan/11/mawkish-maybe-avatar-profound-important

Christmas Thinkings

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here and so, as you’d expect, I have a backlog of things that desperately need saying. Who knows what’d happen if I weren’t to write them all down here – I have a few ideas… but I won’t trouble you with them since I am going to write – now. Right now. Write here, right now. Ignore that and keep reading.

Did you really think illegal downloading wasn’t a crime? You didn’t? You know it’s stealing, right? Then why the rage, old chum?

Are you a filthy thieving downloading piece of scum? If so, Peter Mandelson is after you. Mandy hopes to push through a plan that would see the web connections of Internet pirates disconnected – a move that has met quite considerable condemnation from the young and tech. savvy members of the British populace (you know: the ones who do most of the downloading). Here I don’t wish to focus on whether or not Mandelson’s plan is practical; nor whether it could even be properly applied without risking punishment to those who have genuinely done no wrong (having had their internet connections high-jacked, for example). No – what confuses me in this case is the genuine outrage, shown by those who participate in the illegal filesharing practice, to this decision. Their condemnation isn’t directed at the unworkable nature of Mandelson’s plan; nor at any other factor related to implementation. Rather, they’re disgust is aimed squarely at the suggestion, the mere idea, that those who steal intellectual property via the Internet should be punished for their legally acknowledged crimes. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not myself condemning filesharing here (and neither am I supporting it). Like an adolescent, zit-covered David Cameron attempting to smoke a poorly constructed spliff, I must confess to having partaken in the practice in my early teenage years. It was a given to fourteen-year-olds in those Napster days – and then it was just music, with each megabyte taking at least a minute to download. Now films; TV series; games; software; and even operating systems can be downloaded in but a small number of hours. And many, many, many people are doing it. “Good luck to them” you might say, “it doesn’t affect the multimillion pound music / film / games industry anyway” you might rhetorically continue. I’m not entirely sure you’re right, but fair enough. As crimes go, downloading ‘Fight For This Love’ by Cheryl Cole is nothing major (well, the filesharing part isn’t), but come now: certainly it is still a crime. Whatever you think of the people who own the data you’re stealing – however rich they are – and however little your theft will affect them, you are still undeniably committing a crime: the crime of theft. You can’t legitimise stealing a millionaire’s doormat by pointing out that he’s rich and can easily afford the loss. The shoplifter’s excuse that the supermarket won’t suffer, and that it accounts for the existence of thieves, goes no way towards morally or legally legitimising their actions. And don’t pretend that your filesharing is in anyway justifiable on a kind of Robin Hood-esque basis – I’d wager that you could afford whatever you’re stealing – and if you can’t, I’d certainly doubt that you strictly needed it. As I said, I’m not here to rain moral condemnation down on anybody. I’ve benefited from the filesharing of others. I’ve taken part in it years ago. And I don’t particularly think worse of those who I know still do it. But it is crime. It is theft. And, like a shoplifter, surely the response to being caught out must be to put one’s hands up and say “fair enough” – not to bleat on about how evil Peter Mandelson is for trying to uphold our country’s laws. Few pickpockets have arrived at the police station only to erupt into a fuming tirade over how despicable it is to restrict their freedom to pick pockets – even if they stuck exclusively to the superrich.

‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’. Yeah, it glorifies terrorism you know. Yeah seriously… No, it does! …No it doesn’t you impetuous pawn.

The largest ever entertainment release – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – is now available, and is being enjoyed by countless millions of gamers the world over, some responsible; some stupid; some clever; some mature; some hopelessly childish; some (due to awful parenting) actually children; some PhD students; some secondary school dropouts, and so on and so forth. Why is this game in particular important? Well – because it features one of the most controversial sections of a videogame to date (so controversial in fact that the game asks you if you want to skip it before you even start playing). For those who are interested in seeing more or less exactly what happens in the game, watch the video below (but note the spoiler):

The scene has the player, along with three or four non-playable characters, casually enter an airport in Moscow and open fire on the unarmed civilians there-in. The civilians flee, the player’s character and the others continue to fire. Security guards are easily cut down, as are people trying to help injured others to their feet. Wounded people try to crawl away only to be shot in the back, and by the end of the level the player leaves the airport with a bloodbath in his wake. The context is that the player’s character is a member of an elite military task force, who goes undercover in a terrorist organisation in order to bring down their highly dangerous leader. In order to stay undercover, he’s forced to take part in the airport massacre – and, like him, you the player must actually be there pulling the trigger – there’s no escape from liability in the form of a cutscene, you actively take part in the entire section of the game – every murdered civilian falls as a result of you genuinely opting to pull the trigger with your crosshairs aimed squarely at their backs. Controversial enough for you? Predictably, both sides have gone to war, competing to see who can provide the more painfully inane argument. On the anti-COD (Call of Duty) side, we have suggestions that the game is excessively violent; glorifies terrorism and killing; and might influence others to behave in the way the game portrays, while the pro-CODers spout the usual ‘it’s just a game’; ‘it’s not real’; and ‘you don’t have to play it if you don’t like it’ rubbish. Let’s be clear – in the form of the preceding arguments, both sides are wrong. With regard to the anti-CODers – the game is not excessively violent. To be excessively violent would be to include violence that was inaccurate to the realities of the situation (i.e. war and terrorism). The game doesn’t do this, and is certainly less gory (and bloody) than a number of other, far less controversial, titles currently available. It categorically does not glorify war or terrorism – war itself is presented as chaotic and terrifying, and the terrorism scene is one of the most uncomfortable and troubling portrayals that I’ve ever come across, in any form of artistic media, succeeding dramatically where many other games have tried and failed. It positively didn’t promote the idea that acting as the character does in the game might be ‘fun’ or ‘cool’; and no more glorified callous murder than did Schindler’s List. The pro-CODers are just as wrong. The fact COD:MW2 is a game, and not real, does not thereby earn it a free-reign to portray just about anything it wants. There is a reason the BBFC exists, and it’s not simply to calm the constantly raging tempers of the Daily Mail reading masses. It is certainly possible that COD could have portrayed the terrorism scene unacceptably. If the game had suggested that terrorism were a good thing – or if it had made mocking reference to a real life murder – or if it had screwed up in any number of other possible ways, the BBFC would have been well within their rights to condemn it. A game in which you play a jolly paedophile who has to search out and abuse children in exchange for points to spend on your computer rig would not be acceptable – despite the fact that ‘it would be a game’ and ‘it wouldn’t be real’. The same applies to the suggestion that you don’t have to play it if you don’t want to. This idiot excuse comes out of modern relativism, and the idea that rightness and wrongness apply no further than one’s own personal feelings. The idea is that if COD:MW2 is wrong ‘for you’, then there is nothing necessarily compelling you to play it. However, you have no right to assume it’s wrong ‘for other people’, who themselves are free to play so long as they don’t force you to watch. Again, this is utter nonsense – if Infinity Ward (the game’s developers) had done wrong, I’d be just as correct to condemn them, despite not having fallen victim to their crime, as I would to be to condemn a murderer, despite not having suffered his. Moral condemnation can still be applied by those who aren’t directly affected – hence the existence of our (or any) legal system. So who’s right? Well – ultimately, it’s the pro-CODers, though not due to any of the previously mentioned ‘arguments’. The game’s terrorist scene is handled maturely and frankly, and is a complete success in its goal of leaving the player feeling awkward; uncomfortable; and utterly disgusted (at their own actions, not at the game’s inclusion of the level). Contrary to (one of my heroes) Charlie Brooker’s suggestion, I felt the interactivity of the scene was completely justified, managing to create an atmosphere and sensation that just would not have been possible via a cutscene portrayed utterly outside of the player’s control (as has been the case with a number of games featuring ‘moral choices’). If there’s a negative point to be made it’s that the rest of the game’s campaign fails to be anywhere near as absorbing, and the plot as a whole struggles to be engrossing or involving, which is a shame given that the fundamental ideas are very good. Thus, the terrorist scene sort of just pops-up, not particularly in context, and not captivating in the sense of it bringing you any deeper into the plot – but that’s not a condemnation of its highly successful content; just as a bad war film wouldn’t, in its struggling storytelling, thereby delegitimise its inclusion of battle footage. COD:MW2’s terrorist scene is legitimate, justified in its inclusion and interactivity, rightly available (to adults) in the UK, and utterly horrible all the same.

Christmas time. Mistletoe and whine. I hope the adverts start in June next year.

It’s exactly a month until Christmas today – the day of the birth of our Lord. And what I want to write about here is how damned annoying it is that everyone’s forgotten about how it’s HIS day, and how we need to be honouring Him! Oh, and about the Jews… Not really… Christmas nowadays is nothing to do with Jesus, or Christianity, and that’s a very good thing. It has, quite naturally and without cultural intervention, evolved into a time that genuinely belongs to all people (or any that want it). Sure, there are the moaners: those who say it’s nought but a materialistic free-for-all – a time for retailers to exploit shoppers, and for children to exploit parents, and for DFS to exploit everybody – and there are those who whinge that “boo-hoo the adverts are on even earlier this year!” or that “Tesco’s are playing Christmas music, and it’s only October!” as if the sight of a Christmas tree on TV, or the sound of Noddy Holder’s horrible, horrible, voice exclaiming “it’s Christmas!” causes them internal bleeding, or something else worthy of such persistent complaint. Well to those people I say: “shut your faces you miserable bloody stupid gits” (and I’d encourage you to use the same phrase). Of course Christmas is utilised by shops trying to sell their wares; and of course children get overly covetous when they see an opportunity to get some toy they’ve been yearning for (since they saw the advert in October); and yes everybody (apart from tirelessly joyous w*nkers) loathes Christmas music – - But it’s no worse than JLS’ or Ndubz’ mindless Casio keyboard adapted ‘beats’, which were playing previously! And contrary to what the moaners suggest, the adverts aren’t on all THAT early – it’s not as if they’re so constant that we can’t even tell Christmas time apart, from, say, Easter (which starts in about February by the advert calendar, leaving January as a useful buffer for those of us who set our watches by commercial campaigns). Yes Christmas, as a retailing / self-serving / annoying / marketing time extends from late September to New Years, and yes, if you must, you can count that as a negative. But look too at the positives. Who, but the most jaded, or the most unfortunate (the former who have themselves to blame, the latter who obviously don’t), doesn’t have fond memories of at least a few of their Christmases? For whom has some Christmas not been a particularly special time – at some point in their pitiful little lives? I’m talking about the actual day here – when the children’s greed has done its job, and when the retailers are out of time, and when nobody goes to the shops to listen to awful Christmas music because they’re all closed. On Christmas day, December 25^th itself, it is a truly happy and special occasion. This is so, for despite complaints, the massive build up does actually manage its purpose, and Christmas day is left feeling like a genuinely satisfying climactic event. Everyone feels a happy obligation to make an effort to enjoy the day rather than let it pass by unnoticed (apart from the most awful people on the planet). Children are happy, friends and family are united, work and daily life temporarily cease, and – if you do it right – peace and good will truly do extend to all men (…in your local vicinity, the war continues, despite yuletide). It’s nothing to do with Jesus (for most); and it’s nothing to do with the Winter solstice, as was the case in the Pagan festival the Christians initially commandeered; and indeed why should it be? What more beautiful a thing to have Christmas in its current carnation; as a time when families and friends unite to try and enjoy each other’s company, to make one another happy via generous gifts, to reflect on the year and the positives in life; than to worship a long dead carpenter (or builder, apparently carpenter’s a mistranslation). Stop complaining about Christmas – even if you do hate the adverts, or the music, or the lights, or the children’s happy laughter. There was a time when you were that six year old, looking forward to a day of toys; games; and grandma – and if you get over your melodramatic self-pity – you might just learn to enjoy it all over again.

Why Choosing Morality Doesn’t Make You Irrational – Consideration of Richard Dawkins’ “Atheists for Jesus”

If you know anything about me, you’ll know that I’m a fan of Richard Dawkins. I adore his scientific literature; I rage at the myriad slanderous attacks thrown at him; I swoon over his intellectual courage; and I admire his sheer level of attainment and his devotion to a life in search of truth and genuine meaning. However, though I usually have little sympathy for the accusation, based on his ‘God Delusion’ book, that he’s an incompetent (amateur) philosopher – I feel I must acknowledge that his standard certainly drops in his essay: ‘Atheists for Jesus’.

It’s not the fundamental sentiment that I think is in error. Dawkins’ essential point is that, out of a selfish and amoral naturally selected set of sentient beings, some (i.e. humans) have gained the ability to act unselfishly in a way that is genuinely not in service to their genes, and moreover – a subset of them (the ‘super nice’ in his phraseology) – do so to such an extent that they rightly warrant the title of ‘saint’ (or ‘sucker’ some might say). Jesus, according to Dawkins, is a rather prominent example of a ‘super nice’ being. He states that:

“What was interesting and remarkable about Jesus was not the obvious fact that he believed in the God of his Jewish religion, but that he rebelled against many aspects of Yahweh’s vengeful nastiness. At least in the teachings that are attributed to him, he publicly advocated niceness and was one of the first to do so. To those steeped in the Sharia-like cruelties of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, to those brought up to fear the vindictive, Ayatollah-like God of Abraham and Isaac, a charismatic young preacher who advocated generous forgiveness must have seemed radical to the point of subversion.”

It’s not here that I disagree with Dawkins. By the standards of his time and place, assuming the accounts of his more charitable actions are true, Jesus would rightly be counted among the ‘super nice’. Dawkins then moves on to his second point – the apparent cruelty of natural selection – and the necessity of an ultimately selfish attitude (from a gene’s eye view) in order to survive in a primitive brutish wild world. Though he acknowledges that there are evolutionary pathways to reciprocal altruism and certain degrees of social cohesion, he points out that these can’t be pushed to the level of the ‘super nice’. In brief, there are no means by which acting in a ‘super nice’ fashion could ultimately be functioning in an evolutionarily selfish capacity – from a brutish, natural selection based, point of view: to be ‘super nice’ is to be of lesser fitness:

“Human super niceness is a perversion of Darwinism because, in a wild population, it would be removed by natural selection …from a Darwinian point of view, human super niceness is just plain dumb.”

This is, of course, all true. If a wolf were to ‘attempt’ a ‘super nice’ strategy, it would certainly put him at a disadvantage against his peers. If, for example, he spent his time distributing food among the starving woodland creatures; or protecting them from attack, while receiving nothing in return, he would surely fall behind his brothers and sisters who spent their own time hunting and conserving energy. Where Dawkins goes wrong, I think, is in his deduction from these two facts – that to be ‘super nice’ is irrational.

Dawkins is a smart man. He’s a supporter of the Great Ape Project[1]; he acknowledges the moral necessity to be vegetarian[2]; he utterly opposes the ridiculous notion that if God is dead, everything is permitted (i.e. if we merely evolved, we’re ethically free to live as brutes) – in brief, he’s not the kind of man to easily fall prey to the naturalistic fallacy: that what is natural is therefore necessarily right – that what is is what ought to be. As such, I’m sure Dawkins’ use of the word ‘irrational’ is more for effect than an actual reflection of his genuine thinking. Nevertheless, it is a damaging word to use, even purely for impact. The notion that the morally just, the ‘super nice’, are inherently irrational renders the position unattractive to those who wish to live a rational life. Indeed, it runs counter to Dawkins’ own warnings about the severe danger of believing on faith. It’s almost as if he has adjusted his entire thesis from “believe reasonably, not faithfully” to “don’t believe bad things faithfully, but go right ahead for nice beliefs”. Indeed, this worrying notion is supported by his subsequent discussion of how religions, like the advertising industry, manage to propagate memes virally – and how this might be augmented in service of spreading ‘super niceness’. Having for so long stuck to a fine philosophical challenge against the irrationality and immorality of faith, Dawkins seems to undermine himself by seemingly legitimising it when it comes to nice beliefs he’s in favour of. What’s the obvious problem here? Why not downgrade our criticism of religion from a challenge to its faith-based fundamentals to a mere quibble with the details of its negative claims? Well, because the religious and we have different definitions of what is a nice belief and what isn’t. If it’s ok to believe things faithfully when those things are nice, then what possible counter has Dawkins got to the religious belief that a newly fertilised human egg deserves the same rights as a full grown; sentient; sapient man? Certainly in the religious mind this is a nice belief: they’re protecting someone’s immortal soul for God’s sake! (Literally). Can Dawkins bring them down with accusations of irrationality? No, because he’s claimed that his own faith based ‘nice’ belief (in being ‘super nice’) is irrational. Can he suggest that the pro-life attitude of the religious believer is not really nice? On what grounds? Why is their faith not legitimate while his is? It’s not enough to say faith is ok when you’re believing nice things. If faith is the wrong way of coming to beliefs in one case, it’s the wrong way of coming to beliefs in all cases.

So is it irrational to be ‘super nice’ (which given a proper definition appears to be to live a morally just and considerate life; and to maintain the effort to do so wherever humanly possible – something few people can genuinely claim)? Well – the entire assumption in favour of that claim is the notion that what is evolutionarily beneficial in a state of nature[3], is what is rational – and whatever isn’t is irrational. Or at the very least – any behaviour that doesn’t serve to ultimately benefit the evolutionary fitness of your genes – is irrational behaviour. This, of course, includes ‘super niceness’. But why would one think that? The rationality or irrationality of behaviour is contingent on its intended goal. If my goal is to get fit, running everyday is rational behaviour – it would only become irrational if running everyday was counter to my end of ‘getting fit’, or was counter to another goal of equal or higher importance to me. In the same way, if my goal is to commit suicide, it’s rational for me to ingest tablets that will commit fatal damage to my body’s ability to function. Perhaps the claim then would be that in order for an end (rather than a means) to be rational, it must ultimately conform to genetic selfishness. If so – again, why? Simply because behaviour up to this point has been dictated as such, doesn’t mean that it should be so, from a rational or moral perspective. It’s not ordained from on high – and logic doesn’t dictate it. Indeed, even nature never intended it, so to speak, in its utterly non-teleological state. It simply is (or was) the case before we developed the ability to cognitively take on ends that ran counter to it. The mere fact that we couldn’t do this before has no bearing on whether or not we’re rational – or right – to do so now[4].

So can we rationally live morally, nicely, even ‘super nicely’ – even though it would lower our survival fitness to do so in a state of nature – and even though others inevitably will refuse to do so? Yes we can. How? Because we, and we alone[5], are capable of setting our own ends. Ends that run counter to our own survival, or our reproductive ability. We can do this because we can reason, not despite it. It’s my rational ability to infer your; or your baby son’s; or the wretched slaughterhouse pig’s suffering, from my own – coupled with my knowledge of my own desire to not suffer – along with the end that where preventable none should suffer unnecessarily, which comes out of my evolved sense of empathy – that leads me to behave in such a way that would prevent your suffering, even at the cost of my own.

To give a non-moral example, there is Dawkins own case:

“The most transparently un-Darwinian misfiring is contraception, which divorces sexual pleasure from its natural function of gene-propagation.”

However, it’s not the contraception that’s a misfiring – it’s the sexual pleasure. The ‘error’ is not one’s use of contraception, which is rational behaviour in service of the end of avoiding pregnancy and the heavy requirements that go along with it – an end one is perfectly rationally capable of holding despite its contradiction of inferred evolutionary ‘function’. If anything could even come close to being called ‘mistaken’ or ‘irrational’, it’s one’s body’s automatic reward of pleasure for doing something that’s evolutionarily unfit – however even this becomes patently nonsensical when we remember that nature (and your body with it for that matter) is intention-less, as are genes, and that neither are tied up with logic. Is it irrational to exploit this natural ‘mistake’? No – at least no more irrational than it is to exploit the functioning of one’s colour perception to distinguish between notebooks when that functionality were originally ‘intended’ for picking out fruits; or to exploits one’s ability to do sums in order to study calculus despite the fact that that capacity may have spawned from a need to track offspring. Even if love is partially just an exploitation of emotions originally intended to get us shagging – that alone doesn’t entail its irrationality.

Perhaps our altruistic sentiments – our ability to empathise – have selfish gene origins. No: they definitely do – there’s no question about it. However having awoken to sapience: to the ability to reason to the full extent of the word; to consider far into the future; to divorce our considerations from our immediate desire to survive and reproduce, there is no more shame, and no more irrationality, in our use of those altruistic functions in rational application to our own post-state of nature ends, than there is in using any of our evolved features and functions, to do anything. We alone – with our unique capabilities – are able to choose to acknowledge ethical requirements, and to live a moral life. Of all known species, humans alone have the freedom to choose to be ‘super nice’ – and to reiterate: this is so because of our rationality, not despite it. We don’t have to resort to faith in order to coerce or manipulate people into living an ultimately irrational lifestyle – we can instead, as we should with all things, turn to reason in order to persuade people to fulfil their own human potential.

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_project#Great_Ape_Project_.28book.29

 

 

[2] http://www.pointofinquiry.org/richard_dawkins_science_and_the_new_atheism/

[3] The state of a non-human animal, seemingly incapable of genuine rational reflection and ethical consideration, driven predominantly or wholly by impulse and emotionality (which itself is driven ultimately by genes).

[4] I.e. Now that we do have the cognitive ability to reason in light of foresight, and take account of considerations beside our own immediate survival and reproduction.

[5] …At least in scale.

I Was A Philosopher, Damn It!

I’m going to place my philosophical naïvety and ignorance on the line. You may or may not be aware (depending on whether you know me / have any interest in me / are psychic) that I am a philosophy graduate of the University of London. There I gained a graduate level understanding of Philosophy of Mind; Metaphysics; Logic and Phenomenology, amongst various other modules. It is however from those four modules in particular that I will be drawing my motivation and justification in this article. It’s been over a year since I finished my study, and I must confess to having a rather poor memory. I’m also lazy – and so I’m not going to go wildly out of my way to fully reference things herein (would you really be checking anyway?). But I miss philosophy. I was good damn it! I could’ve been the best! So I’m going to bore you with some. With that proviso, here I go.

There has been some talk recently (and throughout the last few decades) of downloading a human mind onto a computer chip, and thereby gaining the ability to exist continuously in a mechanical rather than biological casing. Similarly, there are suggestions that; in the not too distant future; parts of the human brain (and body) might be replaced by mechanically engineered substitutes that would function as well as (or better) than their biological counterparts[1]. If this is a plausible possibility (which it appears scientists consider it to be) then, in theory at least, one could gradually – piece by piece – replace the entirety of their brain and body with mechanical substitutes and, so the idea goes, come out the other end as the same person – composed entirely of technologically generated components.

Now, as far as my basic experience in the relevant philosophical fields inform me, most modern philosophers and scientists have no particular philosophical concern here. Whether eliminativist; reductionist; property dualist or whatever – more or less nobody now questions the idea that (in some sense) the mind is the brain. In other words – there is no separate substance that is ‘mind’, as opposed to the substance that is ‘brain’. Déscartes was wrong. This is not a notion that I object to in any way; on the contrary I fully support it. It is also a fact that, gradually, all of our biological material is naturally replaced so that eventually our bodies are made up of entirely different atoms from those that they were earlier composed of.[2] So far, so excellent. The amalgamation of these two ideas is that, over however long a period, the matter which composes your brain – and as such: your mind – will eventually have been completely replaced by new biological material at a later date. This is reality – the only way this could not be the case were if either (1): biological matter remained consistent from birth to death; or (2): the mind were composed of different substance to the brain. Both (1) and (2) are extremely unlikely, if not patently false, and thus we must at least accept the inevitable fact that, for any one person, their ‘one’ brain is made up of entirely different matter at distinct points throughout their life.

The question faced by people like me is this: if nature is already automatically replacing my biological matter with new biological material – if over an extended period, nature gives me a ‘new’ brain, in terms of it’s material make-up – what possible objection can there be to us humans doing precisely the same thing, only replacing the old biological matter with synthetic material instead?[3] Granted – the human replacement process would be a lot quicker; and probably in larger quantities on any single occasion, than the natural process – but surely in principle, they’re one and the same. I find it very difficult to answer this objection; probably because it’s unanswerable – the two practices are theoretically equal. If different feelings are elicited from one rather than the other, they are probably due only to the relative conspicuousness of a speedy human replacement operation as opposed to the years-long flow of change in natural recycling, and a natural fear of the unknown.

What does all this entail? That a person – a mind – is reducible to it’s thoughts; feelings; and beliefs: it’s mental states in the philosophical jargon. It doesn’t matter whether those mental states are actualised in a biological brain, on a computer, or in some combination of the two. All that’s necessary for something to rightly be described as ‘me’ is for that thing to be realising my mental state-set – that’s why, so the idea goes, you can download ‘me’ (my mental state-­set / mind) onto a computer and thereby grant me immortality as a machine. Is this idea objectionable? Is there more to a mind than its mental states? Intuitively I feel there is – and perhaps some of the objections I’m going to raise later on imply so – but far cleverer men (and presumably women, I just don’t know any in particular) than I have said not. David Hume, the great Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, tried to find something to the mind once all the thoughts; beliefs; ideas and so on were stripped away – and found nothing.

What’s my problem then? I accept that the mind is of identical substance to the brain; and that our biological material is always being recycled; and I can’t put my finger on an alternative definition to mind minus any mental states. What the hell am I objecting to?! First of all – easy! We’re just having a nice little debate here, Mister (Misses / Doctor / Sir… / Your Majesty). I have no particular argument or proper objection per se. Rather, there are a number of thought experiments that trouble me (and a sneaking suspicion that there is an obvious answer to all this, that might not have occurred to enthusiasts lacking philosophical knowledge). The key problem I have concerns what this entails for identity. Isn’t this all rather reminiscent of the Ship of Theseus paradox?[4] If you replace bits of a brain, piece-by-piece, until it’s of an entirely new substance – can it rightly be described as the same brain? Of course, we’ve already briefly covered a positive answer to this question – that so long as the brain continues to realise (some degree of) the mental state-set – it retains its identity. I suppose in this sense, there is a difference between a brain replaced piece-by-piece, and a ship recycled in the same way: the identity of the brain is in the mind that ‘comes off’ of it; while the identity of the ship is nothing more than it’s basic physical properties – it has no corresponding mental properties.[5] But – as with Theseus’s Ship – what would we have to say if we were somehow able to collect and reconstruct all that old biological matter that once made up your brain, thereby recreating it anew and reawakening its realisation of your mental state-set? Which would be ‘you’? Both? If so, had your old brain not been reconstructed, would its instance of ‘you’ have been dead? Do we all have a trail of deaths behind (the current) us? This point is better demonstrated with reference to technological advancements. Suppose we take a possible world (A) in which, over twenty years, your brain and body is replaced by synthetic, but equivalent, parts. As this gradual replacement occurs, we dispose of each discarded biological component that has been replaced, which then rots away back into the earth. By the end of the twenty-year period you feel and think the exact same way you would have done had none of these technological alterations been made – but you are now entirely synthetic.[6] Now consider possible world (B): where instead of actually putting these synthetic components in you, the scientist merely stockpiles them. Then on December 31^st, nineteen years later, he puts them all together (as well as upgrading their ‘software’ with your current mental state-set). Thus, the scientist constructs something exactly identical – Leibniz’s law identical – to the ‘you’ of possible world (A). The only difference is that, in possible world (B), the biological ‘you’ is still alive and well. Our instinct is that the synthetic ‘you’ of possible world (A) is really you – all the scientist has done is replicate nature’s normal behaviour. Indeed – if he hadn’t replaced your parts with synthetic components, we know that they would have naturally been replaced with ‘new’ biological ones anyway. But what about the synthetic ‘you’ of possible world (B)? Here, on the contrary, our instinct sides with the biological ‘you’ as the genuine ‘you’ (stay with me). The synthetic ‘you’ seems an impostor – a clone at best – and yet he’s logically identical to the ‘you’ of possible world (A)! So what do we say? Are there now (in (B)) two ‘you’s? Some philosophers suggest things like physical continuity in cases like this so –while there was a continuity between the old biological, and the new synthetic ‘you’ of (A), while not in (B) – that justifies our intuitive distinction, but frankly that just sounds like arbitrary nonsense to me.

With a few alterations, this thought experiment applies in multiple different cases. For instance, consider the well-known idea of a ‘matter’ transporter – as in ‘The Fly’.[7] Here we have the idea of a machine which breaks down a material body, and then transmits information for it to be constructed in a separate second machine, thus allowing the body to seemingly move almost instantly from one location to another. The idea of such transporters, far from being confined to science fiction and thought-experiments, are now seriously considered,[8] and yet surely they entail the same identity problems we suffered with the previous example. Take one possible world (C) where a transporter is used normally, and thus a young man – Brian – is materially deconstructed in London and has his constructive information relayed to New York where a second transporter reconstructs ‘him’ in a flash. When ‘Brian’ steps out of the routinely used transporter in New York, he goes to work; has a normal day; then heads back at 7:00pm to be zapped back to London. Now, consider possible world (D), where the transporter in London scans and reads Brian’s constructive information but malfunctions and doesn’t materially deconstruct him.[9] Thus, information is relayed to New York, and the second transporter duly constructs ‘Brian’s’ body; however the Brian that stepped into the transporter in London is still there, wondering what’s going on. Again, as with the synthetic ‘you’s’ of (A) and (B), the New York Brians of (C) and (D) are identical – but one seems to be Brian, while the other seems not. Why?

The simple answer is that our notion of identity is a mess. One assumes identity is obvious – I am the ‘me’ of ten minutes ago; and of yesterday; and of last year; and of ten years ago – and yet what makes it so? Bodily continuity? Consistency of mental states? Causal connection? Something else entirely? Some of these can be ruled out from the offset, others seem arbitrary and wide of the mark. The reality is probably that identity is something of an illusion, and the best we can hope for is a practical definition which externally applies in most cases, and helps us adjudicate in ethical cases. Really – there’s not much making the ‘me’ of five years ago the ‘me’ of today. But is that right? Is there really nothing more fundamental than thoughts; ideas and impulses? Is there not a consistent experiencer, to which those mental states are applied – but that isn’t reducible to them? In some important way, a synthetic clone of me – whether the old me is around or not – just doesn’t seem like ‘me’, even with all the same mental states in place. For that vague reason I just can’t buy into the notion of an eternal existence as a machine, nor a Star Trek style teleporter. I can’t tell you precisely what’s wrong with the thinking behind them – but something tells me there is. That’s the best I can give you at this point. Want a proper explanation? Send me money for a PhD.

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[1] For a very interesting discussion of this idea, by a proper scientist – Michio Kaku – not a sub-PhD blogger, see here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0087fn6/Visions_of_the_Future_The_Intelligence_Revolution

 

[2] The common idea is that this takes seven years, although it’s not clear where this originates. However, irrespective of the amount of time taken – it is certainly the case that the matter which made up the ten year old ‘you’ will not be identical to that making up the eighty year old ‘you’. For more discussion, see here: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_the_human_body_regenerate_every_7_years

[3] Note here I’m not talking about any ethical objection (if there are any). I’m referring to any theoretical objection – is there any relevant difference in the situation stated?

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

[5] I realise I’ve implied a simplified conclusion to the aforementioned paradox, but it makes a relevant point in contrasting with the brain case that I’m focusing on.

[6] To eliminate changes to your mental state-set that might have come about as a result of your technological replacement operations, let’s imagine that they all occurred completely out of your knowledge – while you were sleeping. So, twenty years later, you have no idea that your body is entirely synthetic – you still believe yourself to be a completely normal, biological, being.

[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_%281986_film%29

[8] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/breakthrough-brings-star-trek-teleport-a-step-closer-451673.html

[9] Remember, the idea of these machines is that they relay the information of how to arrange matter in the form of the object they’re sending – they don’t send the matter itself.

How Do You Annoy Me? Let Me Count The Ways.

This isn’t an important post, at least not in the same sense that I intend some of my other posts to be. Rather, these are just some brief frustrations that I have with the modern way some people act – at least in this country – that I find abhorrent, and that I feel we’d be better off without. Actually, it IS important. Politeness and decorum are much underestimated things nowadays, and people seem to fallaciously reason that just because an excess of these things are bad, so must be the entire institution. Well that’s false – it’s politeness that upholds and retains civility in consciousness, and our abandonment of it may play a larger part in the supposed ‘breakdown of society’ than we imagine. So here they are: stop doing the following.

Licking plates.

My God. I’m happy to say that, as far as I know (or hope), most people are in agreement with me on this one: that the practice of licking your plate after finishing eating is gross. Nevertheless, there are certainly people who do it, and these people need to be stopped – right now. How can anyone possibly think this is acceptable? You’re running your tongue over a dish – which will be used again – by other people… I don’t care if it’s going to be washed; there’s no solvent powerful enough to wash away the memory I now have of your filthy tongue smearing itself across a once pure piece of porcelain, defiling it as you go. Nor do I care if I’m being completely hypocritical in accepting your slobbering over the cutlery which will likewise be put to use again – you can do that discreetly, there’s no way to discreetly salivate over a plate. Just stop it you uncivilised git! (Dogs licking plates is ok though, I don’t know why but it is.)

Not moving aside when someone walks passed you.

Now this is a phenomenon predominant among young men of a lower social class background. There seems to be a prevailing attitude among some of these people that the more boorish; the less courteous; and the lesser your control over your clothing and physical body (think loose trousers; swinging arms; shuffling steps; and slouched heads), the more ‘manly’ you are. I’ve written about this attitude before in my post about the concept of alpha males, but the aspect of specific importance here is the notion that the more of a tosspot you are to others (usually other males) – the more ‘dominant’ a male you are yourself. Obviously, this is nonsense. The reason I step to the side when passing you, boorish youth, on a narrow street isn’t because I defer to you as my intellectual; physical; or social superior – I most certainly don’t. I step to the side because you are walking in the opposite direction to me, and you need to get passed just as I need to get passed you. It’s common courtesy, and I move out of simple recognition that you’re another conscious being whose simple desire to reach your destination is easily accommodated and accepted by me. Actually, scratch that – I’d step aside for an unconscious robot if it passed me on the street – it’s not a god damned issue, and I don’t demonstrate my gender by ploughing into others; thinking that my balls are so big that I’m not required to make a miniscule half-metre detour to let you through. You’re not being a man; you’re just a bloody thug. You’re an idiot.

Not apologising when you gently knock into someone, or when someone else gently knocks into you.

This is something that people of both genders and all social classes are guilty of. I’m not talking about when someone slams into you on their skateboard, knocking you flying – obviously in that case there’s only one person who should be apologising (…the one on the skateboard – for knocking into you and for using a skateboard in the first place). No, I mean when there’s a gentle brush or tap that occurs when in a queue; or standing in a crowded place; or at a busy bar or something. It doesn’t matter whether you inadvertently caused the tap, or whether the other person did, the polite thing – the English thing – to do is to quickly; automatically, say “sorry” to one another (with a polite smile if you can muster it), and then move on. It takes about a fifth of a second to do and leaves both parties feeling content; unscathed; and fully inspired by human dignity (maybe). The correct response isn’t to scowl at the other person as if they’ve intentionally punched your child in the face. Don’t be so petty.

Eating with your mouth open.

Now I think this one ties in to 2’s notion that the more boorish you are – the more manly, or at least the more independent and unconcerned at the judgement of others – you must be. I see this one a lot nowadays among young lads who think themselves tough “men’s men”. There’s not really much further explanation I can give of it as it’s fairly self explanatory. Unless you have some medical condition which renders your mouth too small to masticate with your lips closed – KEEP YOUR LIPS CLOSED. No one wants to see the food in your mouth; no one wants to hear it gradually breakdown into a sludge suitable for sliding down your throat; and no one (aside from other bloody morons) thinks you’re more manly, or carefree, because you haven’t got the decency to move your lower lip and your jaw independently of each other. Honestly, stop it.

Disrespecting the elderly.

Let me be clear here – I’m not talking about the old fashioned idea that young people accept that just because their seniors have been alive longer, necessarily they must have a monopoly on truth which thereby entails all young people must accept older people are right about everything. Often old people are wrong – a lot of them vote Conservative – and it’s certainly a good thing that young people are now capable of respectably disagreeing with them, and moreover, openly doing so. No, what I’m referring to is the basic notion that it’s important to treat old people with a certain extra degree of courtesy; respect; and kindness. I’m being ambiguous. What I mean is that, if you’re one of those rude people who disrespect your peers; who’s selfish and arrogant; who’s a thug – you should at least show a little courtesy to the elderly. At least be ashamed of yourself in front of them if not me. Some might think this is an unjustified and old fashioned attitude, and it probably is, but come on – there’s something nice and; I think; important in the notion of the young treating the old with a degree of reverence, that would be costly to surrender in the damage it might inflict on our traditional, probably even tribal, sentiments of civil hierarchy. I’m not talking about worshiping old people, or giving them any particular power or say purely in virtue of their age. I’m just advocating a basic recognition, in civil terms, that they are our parent generation(s) – and that thereby they’re worthy of the same kind of especially respectful treatment we (hopefully) deliver to our own grandparents. If you have to be a scumbag to someone, delinquents, be a scumbag to me.

Saying: “Are you going X?” rather than “Are you going to X?”

This one really confuses me – and I guarantee every one of you will have come across it (well actually, is it just a southern thing? I don’t know, anyway…). Essentially, this is a place holder for all the lazy grammatical errors that pervade modern speech nowadays. I’m sure the heading is clear enough for you to grasp what I’m talking about here: instead of “are you going to the cinema?” we have “are you going cinema?”, or sometimes just: “you going cinema?” Is this a new more efficient use of the English language, or just lazy slobbery? It’s the latter. If this were to qualify as ‘newspeak’ (to add a touch of Orwellian sophistication to this pointless article), and we were accepting that as a good thing, then we’d also have to qualify: “you go cinema?”; “you: cinema?” and just the word “cinema?” as superior forms of the original question. Or even better, we could just have the ‘Charades’ hand movement for ‘film’ accompanied by a curious look on your face. Where did this come from? I don’t know. Please stop it. Another one, this time from the middle-classes, is the constant misapplication of the word ‘literally’ to sentences that are not literal but exaggerative as in “Oh my God – I was so hungry that I was like literally starving to death!”. As this has rendered the word ‘literally’ meaningless, people now feel the need to add the word ‘actually’ when they do actually mean something literally as in: “No seriously – I was actually; literally so late that I missed the whole thing!”. However as a result of the new redundancy of the word ‘literally’, those who were originally misusing it can no longer employ it to the same potent effect in their stupid sentences, and so ‘actually, literally’ has become the new ‘literally’: “No seriously! I was ACTUALLY, literally so hungry that I was like, anorexic!” It’s hard to see where this will end.

That’s it for now. Of course there are countless more, but I feel I’ve provided enough of an insight into my misanthropic psyche for the time being. Don’t harm one another; and do unto others as they would do unto you (unless you’re a masochist; or a Tory).

Twitter is for Twits, if you spell it wrong.

Twitter confuses me. If I had come up with the idea for it, I’d have rejected it instantly and never told anyone else about it. However, judging by the runaway success of the (sort of) social networking app. it seems my rejection would have been a huge mistake (at least in terms of my finances). Why is this, and what does it mean for those who use it; and our modern society in general? What are Twitter’s cultural connotations?

First of all, what is Twitter? Well, as mentioned previously, it markets itself as a social networking site; like Facebook; that allows its users to post short status updates of 140 characters or less (compared to the 160 of a text message). That’s it. That’s the full extent of Twitter. You can follow other people’s ‘tweets’ (the bird brained connotations being highly appropriate in most cases); and they in turn can follow yours. But that is it. If you can’t transmit your message; whether openly mundane, or strivingly profound; in 140 characters – you’re using the wrong social networking app.

Now what does this entail? Given only 140 characters to work with, what possible function can Twitter updates serve? This is the key point. You can’t transmit a meaningful message in 140 characters (try summarising Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason by SMS); you can barely say a thing. Of course, you can post a link to somewhere else where there’s more room; but that kind of misses the point. The fact is that Twitter provides the ability to post short sound bites (or text bites). These sound bites are necessarily brief and non-exhaustive – they state an ultimate conclusion; but have no room for justification or detail. Thus, their value rests on their slickness – their quotability. Now obviously I’m talking here of the marginally more interesting tweets – not the ones that state drivel like “just went Subway – was good” (which inexplicably still draw interest if written by a minor celebrity). For those conversationally; culturally; hell: entirely, pointless tweets – 140 characters is more than enough room. Indeed, if you listen in on a ‘conversation’ between a bunch of moron riff-raff youths on a bus, assuming you pick anything up over the audible ordure pumping out of their mobile phones, you’ll find that 140 character sentences are plenty to communicate anything they might wish to bark. No, I mean communications someone of interest might have to say: a high-brow comedian; a politician; an academic; a well-respected social commentator. How can these people use Twitter to say anything worthwhile?

They can’t. Even if they have the greatest; most insightful; and most rationally sound point to communicate, all they can do is input the final five or six word conclusion – and then the masses can cheer or boo as they’re thoughtless prejudices see fit. There’s no way a proper point can be made on Twitter – of the mechanisms available for idea transmission – only manipulation (via charismatic wording) is available. Is that all people want nowadays? Is it all their attention spans can bear?

This, I think, is the key point. Of course it’s possible to find thought out discussion on complex subjects; it’s possible to find column inches explaining the details of political manifestos, and highlighting their flaws; it’s possible to find long and detailed cases arguing necessarily complex points – but most people can’t be bothered. Most would rather a brief soundbite, a 140 character message, which they can either approve or disapprove of depending on their pre-existing bias. Without justification; and without reason; without value as anything more than a primitive hoot to excite or enrage the masses. On the back of such paucity of information, moronic conversations are run; votes are cast; and society – from the highest political office, to the lowest chip-shop brawl – remains well and truly buggered. That’s what Twitter is – the all pervading laziness and reasonless impressionability of the modern world.

Whales. Chat. Prostitutes

I’m getting dangerously close to abandoning this blog, which is something that I very much don’t want to do. That being so I’m still uninspired, unfortunately, by any of the latest events or discoveries that I’ve come across since my older (better) posts – or at least, not inspired enough to write anything substantial; in length or quality.

As such, I’ve decided here not even to bother trying. Instead, I’ll share two smaller observations I’ve made over the last week or so and flippantly discuss them in a way that will provide a small insight into my thinking and, more importantly, take up essential column inches.

1: Is Saving the Whale Compassionate?

The title here refers to whales, but really I’m talking about any attempt to save a sentient; non-human animal species. As such, this article covers polar bears; rhinoceroses; manatees; tigers; and any other animals that have been the subject of campaigns to save their species from extinction. My question is this: in what way can saving a species from extinction be considered ‘compassionate’ (by which I mean the opposite of cruel) when a species qua ‘species’ is not sentient – is unconscious – and thereby is unable to suffer any cruelty to be (compassionately) saved from? Now let me explain. Any individual sentient animal can suffer cruelty – can experience pain – and (so long as you’re not a nit-picking philosopher) can suffer. As such, any individual sentient animal (including of course any individual sentient human animal) can be compassionately saved (from cruelty; or death; or whatever). Thus, they would be legitimate subjects of ‘compassionate’ campaigns to save them. However, those who wish to save species that are close to extinction aren’t in the business of compassionately saving individual members. This is obvious due to the fact that imminent species extinction is their motivating factor; and that species close to extinction are their sole focus. As such, what Tarquin the ‘Save the Whales’ campaigner is interested in is retaining samples of whale species on the planet, not in saving any individual whales themselves. That’s why he’s campaigning for whales and not for cows (who, like whales, have individual members of their species ‘go extinct’ daily). In short, Tarquin wants something to exist in the world that the designator “whale” would be applicable to, nothing more and nothing less. Now how can this desire be rightly described as compassionate? Tarquin’s goal (in his campaigning) is not to prevent cruelty to anyone capable of suffering it; it is to retain the applicable application of a concept: that of ‘whale’ in this case, to something in this world. The concept of ‘whale’ (which is what defines the species, since it’s the applicable application of the concept to all individual members that render them members of that species) is incapable of suffering cruelty, and cannot be treated compassionately (only its members can). As such, saving it can’t be compassionate – it’s a category mistake of sorts. Therefore, those who campaign to save animals close to extinction aren’t displaying compassion at all – only a desire to retain the earthly applicability of a vast variety of different concepts. Right?

2: Is Watching Maury Worse Than Visiting a Prostitute?

For those who don’t know, Maury is an American chat show host who specialises (even more than the many competitors) in displaying especially dumb Americans discovering that their idiot husbands, who have cheated on them four times before, are cheating on them again – despite having sworn (since their last appearance on the show) to “always be true” (or stuff in that vein). The stories are stupid and stupefying; and the people are even more so, and thus, naturally, everyone who’s watching finds the Maury show’s moron parade hysterical, and in the case of the studio audience, aren’t afraid to show it. But hang on one cotton-picking minute here. Yes, Luaqtishwa, the blubbering woman currently on stage whinging about her sister’s seven children all fathered by her own husband: Quan is, an idiot. But she’s still human. She still has feelings. And she’s patently quite distraught with her discovery that her husband has shockingly been playing away again (remember she’s an idiot). The Maury show makes even less effort than other similar shows to suggest that it’s really ‘there to help’. Guests are wheeled in an out in brief segments where they reveal their suspicions; have them proven right; weep hysterically; and then get wheeled out to a chorus of excited hoots and laughter from the delinquent audience. It’s a hideous circus, where it becomes patently clear how much the Victorian freak-show spirit still flourishes so long as it’s thinly veiled under a justification of ‘helping people’. Where’s the link with prostitution? Well, first of all let me say that questions on the ethics of prostitution are big ones, that aren’t easily answered. Aside from worries about exploitation by pimps and beatings etc., the key problem people seem to have with prostitution is that it’s a patent objectifying of the poor women involved in it. It’s an exploitation of them as mere bodies – as living sex dolls – that exist only to gratify the sexual urges of seedy men. Now what are the guests on the Maury show? Are they not simple objects of derision – living jokes? The woman on stage is there because she’s stupid enough to believe a man who constantly abuses her trust; and because she’s going to cry when Maury reveals further hurtful realities to her – and that’s funny. That is her function in the eyes of the studio audience; and presumably those of the audience at home. She exists to gratify the hunger for hilarity of her seedy and grotesque peers. Is that really any better than buying a call girl? Maybe it’s worse.

There you are. (I’ll be back later)

How Videogames Reveal the Animal Within

I’d like to briefly share a curious experience found only through the medium of videogames. Anyone who has played an emotionally absorbing game will be aware of it, and should they have paid close enough attention (or allowed themselves to get as shamefully absorbed as I do), they will know that this experience is genuinely unique to gaming despite its apparent similarities to experiences available through other art forms. I’m talking about the emotional / rational dichotomy that occurs when interacting with characters that are supposed to be sentient in the ‘gameworld’ (but of course aren’t in the ‘realworld’). That’s a pretty vague summary, so let me explain with reference to a superb paradigm case.

There’s a videogame that was released exclusively for the Playstation 2 called ‘Shadow of the Colossus’. Even the most hardened sceptic of the notion of videogames as art would struggle to deny the ascription being applied to this beautiful piece of work. SotC worked almost excusively by exploiting the previously mentioned emotional / rational dichotomy of gaming in its requirement that players do little more than slay a number of gigantic beasts, who crucially posessed horrendously realistic AI. These giants would realistically and curiously enquire ; fearfully pull away from fire ; flee; become enraged; and eventually: die, painfully and sombrely. Some were openly aggressive to the player, while others were docile and only defended themselves when attacked.

Of course, as with Magritte’s ‘The Treachery of Images’ (above), none of the images on screen actually exhibited these emotional or behavioural responses – they merely represented them in a way that elicited some level of emotional response in the player. And yet, such was the power of these representations that few managed to avoid a sense of guilt and self-disgust at their in-game actions – and apparently, some weren’t even able to finish the game as a result.

Yet surely nobody was ever tricked into believing that the images on screen were actual; suffering; sentient beings. Every player was aware, at any given point, that their actions were the result of mathematical calculations running on a computational engine implemented by the game’s developers. In reality, they were causing no greater harm through having their represented character plunge a representational sword into a representation of a giant colossus than they would have been by hitting the delete key to remove a misspelt word from an MSWord document. Such was the rational understanding of their actions. But this failed to eliminate the hardwired emotional response to the representations on screen. Indeed, the game would have failed to work entirely should they have been able to eliminate these responses. Thus, despite always being fully aware that they were causing no harm; that they were not interacting with any sentient beings; and that therefore they could not be wronging anyone – players retained an emotional response that would only have been rationally applicable if they had been. And yet it’s precisely this ‘error’ of judgment – this triumph of emotion over reason – that renders the game’s artistic merit.

Though is it a triumph of emotion over reason? In reality: no. As mentioned, the player’s emotional response doesn’t lead them to abandon reason or their rational understanding of what exactly it is that they are doing. In a perverse real-time departmentalisation of the mind, the player simultaneously feels the emotional response elicited by causing acute suffering to a giant terrified beast, and recognises rationally that they are interacting with an unfeeling; unconscious; ‘dead’ computer program. It is this doublethink, these concurrent responses, that render an artistic experience. Through observing one’s own ‘irrational’ emotional responses rationally, the player is alienated from their own interactions; responses and observations. In doing so, the importantly artistic experience becomes an observation of one’s own brutishly (by which I mean arationally) emotional reaction to what’s happening in the game. Thus, one’s rational response becomes just as important as their emotional one.

There are a number of games recently which have played on this quasi-Brechtian notion of half breaking the fourth wall – SotC’s superb predecessor: Ico, in which a young boy attempts to lead an ethereal girl out of a castle in which they are both entombed; Fallout 3, where one plays as a newly emerging survivor into a post-apocalyptic Washington DC; and Bioshock, a fantastic critique of Randian objectivism which includes interactions with ‘little sisters’: little girls infected with a parasite whom the player can choose to ‘harvest’ (to the great benefit of the player, but at the expense of the little sister’s ‘life’) or ‘rescue’ (serving less benefit to the player, but ‘saving’ the little girl in the process)*.

Bioshock’s little sisters serve, perhaps, as an even greater example than SotC in just how bluntly they confront the player with his own emotional ‘absurdity’. Why on earth would anyone opt to ‘rescue’ an artificial representation of a little girl at their own genuine (in terms of in-game benefits) expense? Surely the ‘harvest’ option is the obvious choice given that, in realworld terms, no greater or lesser suffering; or even good or evil; is done either way – and that the ‘harvest’ option affords the player greater genuine realworld benefits (in-game currency that allows for greater gameplay options for the realworld player). So one might expect, and yet I ‘rescued’ every little sister I came across in Bioshock, and I believe most others would tell a similar story. The mere fact that games developers can market these gameplay elements as ‘moral choices’ attests to the fact that this phenomenon does occur, and works.

Through this emotional / rational dichotomy, the player gains a direct insight into the human condition through an alienating observation of their own reactions. It is not a wilful suspension of disbelief that these games ask for – it’s an unavoidable absorption of emotional responses that they render inevitable – leaving behind a rational observer that sees both a videogame as a computer program and a player as a human animal. In doing so, we’re given an insight into the human psyche – our emotional feelings of empathy; pity; love; rage; and even hatred (though I haven’t given examples, many games play on the dichotomy with negative and aggressive emotions as well as sympathetic ones), and just how arational these responses are. This is an experience that no other art form can elicit – if only because no other art form directly involves its observers like videogames do. If you’re STILL not a gamer – you’re missing out on a vast; growing; truly modern art form.

*A superb review / examination of this latter game can be found in my friend Simon T. Kaye’s blog here: http://simontkaye.com/2007/09/21/belatedly-bioshocked/

I’m Still Here

Just so’s you know – I’m not dead, and I WILL be writing more. Maybe something about everyone being unemployed; perhaps something about why it’s reasonable to believe evolution despite lacking expertise. I don’t know – it’s just not ready yet!

Whatever the case: watch this space – it sparkles.

PS. If you have some musical taste, look up M83 and Asobi Seksu, my two most recent favourite bands. If you’re into Razorlight; Coldplay; Keane or Neyo, don’t worry about it.

Enough with the “Militant Atheism” label, you ‘Relativist Militia’

Over the last few years, it has been impossible to avoid the phrase: militant atheist. You will find it almost anywhere, from respectable left-wing newspapers to late night Channel 5 ‘discussion’ shows to scientific journals to philosopher’s blogs. It’s seemingly extremely flexible; being applied in many highly divergent circumstances, and is as effective in closing the ears of the woolly-minded left of Britain as the term ‘infidel’ is in doing the same to the religiously conservative of Iran. What then does it mean?

The ‘atheist’ part seems fairly obvious as ‘one who doesn’t believe in the existence of a god’, although as I’ve mentioned in previous articles – even this is open to more than one interpretation. It can be taken either, simply and literally, as one who lacks the positive belief in a god’s existence; or alternatively as one who possesses the positive belief in the non-existence of a god. And even that latter possibility is still further prone to differing interpretations as either one who considers it more evidentially reasonable to assume there is no god (as we assume the moon doesn’t have a gold core due to lack of evidence and circumstantial evidence to the contrary, despite not being 100% logically certain) to one who does consider themselves 100% certain that no god exists.

If you’re being fair and reasonable – the only interpretation you can positively attributed to someone the moment they inform you that they are an atheist is the first: someone who lacks a positive belief in a god’s existence. This is because such an interpretation is both a necessary condition of being accurately labelled an atheist, and a sufficient condition since it is in itself enough to render someone an atheist. In order for you to add one of the further conditions such as the degree of certitude and / or reasonableness, you will require further information.

What about the ‘militant’ part. This summons images of mobilisation and iron fisted force. Need it? Strictly speaking: ‘no’. The dictionary definition is: vigorously active and aggressive, esp. in support of a cause[1]. One can be vigorously active and still rational and non-coercive. Aggressive is more of a stretch, though I suppose the term might just be shoe-horned into describing a highly passionate debater such as T. H. Huxley supporting evolution against Samuel Wilberforce. Thus, if one so desires, the term ‘militant’ can be understood to mean ‘passionate and vigorous’ with no connotations of dominance or violence. Few, however, would seriously opt for using it in such a fashion. You are unlikely to read of ‘militant Oxfam supporters’; ‘militant peace protestors’; or ‘militant aids charity workers’ unless in reference to riots instigated by one of these groups, and yet if the term was intended to mean only ‘passionate and vigorous’ then there should be no reason why not. As such, I think it is fair to say that the intentions of those who throw the term ‘militant’ in relation to atheists (or anyone else for that matter) around, do so with the notion of force and (at least verbal) coercion in mind.

If I am right, and this is the intention of those who use the term ‘militant’, then its connection to the term ‘atheist’ will in all likelihood be with reference to one of the latter interpretations mentioned above. It is just conceivable how someone who simply lacks a positive belief in a god could be militant about such a position, if they wished to coerce others into relinquishing their own positive beliefs in a god’s existence or lack-of for example, however it’s unlikely given the fact that anyone who held this position must clearly lack the interest in the subject to have examined the evidence (or rhetorical propaganda) and subsequently come down on one side: either as someone with a positive belief in a god’s existence; or someone with a positive belief (to some degree) in the non-existence of god(s). Thus, when you hear or read the term ‘militant atheist’, it’s very likely being applied to someone who possesses a positive belief in the non-existence of god(s). The question is whether or not that’s a fair label.

For many, hearing the phrase ‘a positive belief in the non-existence of god(s)’ will be enough to convince them that the term ‘militant’ is already half way towards being totally appropriate. After all – here we have someone who claims not just to not believe in god, but to also believe that no god exists. How could someone have come to such a position without having long surrendered reason and taken up a position of faith: that is a ‘faith’ in the non-existence of god(s)? This is the thinking that lies behind the now common ‘argument’ of the religious, which states: ‘yes, we have faith that there’s a god – but you have faith that there’s no god, and as such, since we both believe on faith, our two positions are equally legitimate’. If a person openly admits to such a position (a positive belief in the non-existence of god, not ’faith’ in such a belief), and communicates it to others, perhaps even with the intention of having them take up the same position, then surely they’re clearly being militant. How then could anyone object to the term ‘militant atheist’?

Here’s how. If a positive belief in the non-existence of god(s) was a position that could only be held on faith – that is, that couldn’t be given a rational footing – then yes: the only manner by which others could be brought to accept it would be some form of coercion or manipulation. This is so since, without a rational grounding, persuasion (reasoned argument) could not possibly be effective in having others accept the position. One (person A) can’t persuade another human being (person B) that they (person B) are a horse since it would be irrational for them (person B) to believe this. The only way by which one could have someone accept the proposition that they were a horse would be to either coerce or manipulate them into believing it: to play on their deep desire to be a horse until their psyche were to give in to the strain, for example. Thus, if atheists with a positive belief in the non-existence of god(s) (from now on: positive-atheists) were believing on faith and were attempting to bring others round to the same position then necessarily they would be employing coercion and/or manipulation and as such the term ‘militant’ may well be appropriate (presumably they’d have to be rather passionate in their task too for the term to sit perfectly).

The problem for the militant-atheist shouting crowd is that the positive-atheist position need not at all be a faithful one, and this can be seen quite clearly as soon as one recognises the distinction I mentioned above between interpreting the positive-atheist position as one where it is considered more evidentially reasonable to assume there is no god and one where it is considered 100% logically certain that no god exists. Anyone holding the latter interpreted position is faithful: exactly as faithful as the religious. This is so because there exists no evidence (and seemingly no philosophical argument) that would render it a logical certainty that no god(s) exist, just as there is no evidence (and again, no philosophical argument) that would render it a logical certainty that god(s) do exist, as the religious claim to believe. Part of the reason why this is so is because of the intensely vague definition of ‘god’ – by which many people mean many different things and which thereby eludes disproving via infinite metamorphosis; however the bigger reason is that none (or perhaps almost none) of our empirical (sense-informed) beliefs are logical certainties. Since science deals solely in empirical facts, this means that nothing (or perhaps almost nothing) that science reveals is a logical certainty. Does this entail that there are no scientific facts? No, it does not!

Because of the reasons outlined above, there are very few positive-atheists of the logical certainty variety (here-on: faithful-atheists), and certainly none among those most commonly labelled ‘militant atheists’. And yet there are many positive-atheists that do hold the positive belief that no god(s) exist on the basis that science and philosophy heavily imply this to be so (here-on: reasonable-atheists). Does it make sense for reasonable-atheists to hold a positive belief that no god(s) exists, despite lacking certainty (like the faithful-atheists; or the religious in the reverse direction)? Yes, it does – given that it is by the same means that they hold the beliefs that gravity exists; that water’s chemical makeup is H2O; that flowers photosynthesise; that evolution by natural selection explains species; that the earth is round; and that every other scientifically established fact is indeed, a fact. What are these means? Evidence scrutinised under the scientific method, and reason. It may not be a logical certainty that flowers photosynthesise, but given its overwhelming support by the evidence, and place within a rational explanation of the functioning of flowers and the ecosystem, it is still a fact. Thus, one is rational to believe that plants photosynthesise, and irrational to belief otherwise, despite lacking logical certitude. In the exact same way, one is rational to hold a positive belief in the non-existence of any interactive gods due to their lack of explanative function in our understanding of the causal universe – and to a lesser extent: deist gods, who are hewn down not with empirical evidence, but by Ockham’s razor.

As it is rational for reasonable-atheists to hold their position (unlike faithful-atheists; or the religious), it is perfectly possible for them to attempt to bring others round with persuasion rather than coercion or manipulation. As such, no matter how passionate the reasonable-atheist, as long as persuasion (reasoned argument) is employed (rather than coercion or manipulation) the term ‘militant atheist’ will never be appropriate. Is this what we find? Take any one of Richard Dawkins’ television programmes; his book: ‘The God Delusion’; his radio appearances, or as far as I know, any other instance of him discussing atheism and you will find only passionate reasoned debate.

Why is the term ‘militant atheist’ employed if it is so totally inappropriate? For the very reasons which justify Dawkins’; Harris’; Hitchens’ et al.’s passionate and public outspokenness. Many of us hold an unjustified reverence and respect for religion that needs to be removed if we’re to eliminate belief that ‘faith’ is good. As an extension, many fear that they lack the reasoning ability to defend religious belief or the beliefs and positions which it entails (anti-abortion; homophobia; halal and kosher killing methods; abstinence; and jihad are all possibilities). It is easier to label those who reason against religion as ‘militant atheists’, thereby sweeping them aside as some fringe group that need not be addressed, than to face them earnestly with the possibility of being proven wrong. I hope that, in time, people will overcome this cowardice and genuinely put their beliefs on the line. There is less to lose than they may realise, and far more to gain.

 

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[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/militant