Saturday, August 9, 2008
Still Alive
Sorry about the no-posting. Summer became busier than I anticipated. I'm leaving Newton tomorrow for vacation with the family, followed closely by the start of school. I don't know when I'll be able to resume regular posting... nevertheless, I don't intend to abandon this space, so if anyone is still out there, check back every month or so. I wish you all the best during summer's slow decline.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
There's a fish in the percolator
The Time Warner folks were supposed to set up the internet at my house yesterday, but this has been delayed until Monday. It's very much an empty house right now. The roomates are still in Europe, and when you've spent four years avoiding socialization because you have studying to do, well, it's hard to find anything to do besides study. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy solitude. Rilke had some very nice things to say about it. But, his poetry is better than mine.
It's hard to be introspective on the internet. I don't want to write anything that I would laugh at if I didn't know it were my own. At the same time, it wouldn't do to devote this space wholly to intellectual piddling and half-hearted stabs at wit. I realize that the creation of a persona with which to present oneself in a specific context is a social convention, perhaps even an expectation, but it's not something that interests me in the slightest. If I'm to maintain a presence on the internet, I want it to represent, as honestly as possible, something like my whole existence (not all of it, but a representative sample). Nevertheless, these personal excursions look very out of place next to literary or philosophical speculations. I could split this into two journals, but my # of posts/ # of readers wouldn't seem to justify that. Then again, if this is mostly for me, that shouldn't matter...
It's hard to be introspective on the internet. I don't want to write anything that I would laugh at if I didn't know it were my own. At the same time, it wouldn't do to devote this space wholly to intellectual piddling and half-hearted stabs at wit. I realize that the creation of a persona with which to present oneself in a specific context is a social convention, perhaps even an expectation, but it's not something that interests me in the slightest. If I'm to maintain a presence on the internet, I want it to represent, as honestly as possible, something like my whole existence (not all of it, but a representative sample). Nevertheless, these personal excursions look very out of place next to literary or philosophical speculations. I could split this into two journals, but my # of posts/ # of readers wouldn't seem to justify that. Then again, if this is mostly for me, that shouldn't matter...
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Thinking about [Thinking about Thinking]
As I’ve mentioned, I’m trying this summer to get a basic grasp on cognitive science (the study of how knowledge is represented in the mind, and how processes act upon knowledge to produce cognition). This is in preparation for a project I’ll officially begin next year, in which I explore cognitive science’s potential to inform literary theory. Yesterday, however, as I was walking down the street, I was struck by a sudden fear that the questions I’m asking might be too solipsistic.
Let me explain myself. To my mind, there are Big Questions and little questions (questions being any topic for thought). While there is nothing wrong with the latter (we have to address them to make intellectual progress/ make a living/ function), we should never lose sight of the former*. When it comes to academic inquiry, an especially pernicious class of little questions are those that are self-referential. While most little questions naturally point towards larger ones, these do not (or do so obliquely—see my note to the next sentence). The best example I can offer is that of metafiction**. Don’t get me wrong—I love metafiction. My favorite book is House of Leaves and I have an unnatural fondness for Nabokov’s Ada, both very metafictional. Despite this, fiction’s value lies in its ability to illuminate all aspects of human existence in a multitude of ways, most of which do not rely upon self-referentality. Furthermore, when one considers the amount of metafiction produced today, one sees that writing about writing has become a rather lazy way of finding something to write about (a professor I once had pointed out that in postmodern fiction, we find the hitherto ubiquitous messiah figure replaced by that of an author [or reader]). To cut to my problem, I wondered if the same issues might arise with regard to thinking about thinking. Wouldn’t a better way to address life’s Big Questions be to think about things in the world, rather than thinking itself? I am referring here specifically to the “philosophical” potential of fields like psychology and cognitive science, not their real-world applications—these, to be sure, need no defense. In order to clarify the above and move towards an answer, let me make explicit what I consider to be Big Questions:
1. What is the nature of the universe?
2. What is human nature?
3. What is our relationship to the universe?
It seems to me that the first question demands answers from the domain of natural science; the second from a synthesis of natural science and the humanities; and the third from philosophy (informed, perhaps, by the natural sciences and the humanities).
I consider these to be the three central questions under which one may organize all human inquiry. Like the ever-so-popular Trinity (best known for its appearance in Desert Book the Second), the three may be construed as one, but in this they lose much of their utility (I intend, at some point, to post my thoughts on Truth vs. Utility). This is more or less from-the-hip philosophizing; I freely grant that the selection of these questions requires an explanation and defense far more extensive than anything I’m prepared to offer right now. Nonetheless, they should have an intuitive appeal, and it is on the strength of this that I justify using them to help solve my cognitive science conundrum.
Assertion: cognitive science (and other fields concerned with thinking about thinking) need not be wary of solipsism as long as the ways of thinking that it attempts to illuminate remain general and diverse. This is because cognitive science tends to ask questions that address Big Question No. 2 in a more direct manner than metafiction, the sociology of academia, the free elaboration of mathematical ideas with no known real world or philosophical significance, etc. I don’t wish to imply that such pursuits are worthless, or incapable of leading towards insight about larger questions. Indeed, this happens all the time through serendipity or diligent efforts to bend such work back to the larger picture. I do wish to stress, however—and this is the point of all that has come before—that given a certain set of assumptions about what all intellectual pursuits should or do lead to (my three Big Questions above), thinking about thinking does not need to justify itself in the same way as writing about writing. Now, if cognitive scientists begin en masse to study how cognitive scientists solve problems, we’re in trouble.
Some postmodernists may cry that I am inserting my telos where it doesn’t belong, but if I answered every such critique I wouldn’t have the time to write about anything interesting. I am speaking naturally of implied critiques; I don’t have enough readers to elicit actual ones. In fact, if anyone does go to the trouble of posting an actual critique (question/ comment/ etc.), I can promise you a moderately thought-out reply.
I think that’s it.
Notes:
*A value judgment that I will not defend right now. This is the closest I will ever come to asserting a religious belief (even the comparison makes me uneasy), except in reference to Metal Gear Solid, the godliest series of video games ever to grace our screens.
**Many naive literary scholars attempt to magnify their own importance by positing absurdly that the nature of reality is, at some fundamental level, textual. Thus, writing about writing isn’t just about writing, it’s about everything! While inquiries into how literary texts act upon themselves and interact with one another can help us to understand certain elements of human thought (this is part of my project), they do so obliquely and they do not speak about the natural world as it exists independently of humanity. As in all domains, the conclusions that purveyors of metafiction (or their interpreters) present about the human condition should be contextualized and qualified in the name of intellectual honesty; this is as much my argument here as my assertion of cognitive science’s inherent value.
---------
PS: I am considering posting here a series of reviews of Italian sandwiches from various eateries. Is this something that would interest the reader(s?) of this blog? Please indicate Yes or No.
Let me explain myself. To my mind, there are Big Questions and little questions (questions being any topic for thought). While there is nothing wrong with the latter (we have to address them to make intellectual progress/ make a living/ function), we should never lose sight of the former*. When it comes to academic inquiry, an especially pernicious class of little questions are those that are self-referential. While most little questions naturally point towards larger ones, these do not (or do so obliquely—see my note to the next sentence). The best example I can offer is that of metafiction**. Don’t get me wrong—I love metafiction. My favorite book is House of Leaves and I have an unnatural fondness for Nabokov’s Ada, both very metafictional. Despite this, fiction’s value lies in its ability to illuminate all aspects of human existence in a multitude of ways, most of which do not rely upon self-referentality. Furthermore, when one considers the amount of metafiction produced today, one sees that writing about writing has become a rather lazy way of finding something to write about (a professor I once had pointed out that in postmodern fiction, we find the hitherto ubiquitous messiah figure replaced by that of an author [or reader]). To cut to my problem, I wondered if the same issues might arise with regard to thinking about thinking. Wouldn’t a better way to address life’s Big Questions be to think about things in the world, rather than thinking itself? I am referring here specifically to the “philosophical” potential of fields like psychology and cognitive science, not their real-world applications—these, to be sure, need no defense. In order to clarify the above and move towards an answer, let me make explicit what I consider to be Big Questions:
1. What is the nature of the universe?
2. What is human nature?
3. What is our relationship to the universe?
It seems to me that the first question demands answers from the domain of natural science; the second from a synthesis of natural science and the humanities; and the third from philosophy (informed, perhaps, by the natural sciences and the humanities).
I consider these to be the three central questions under which one may organize all human inquiry. Like the ever-so-popular Trinity (best known for its appearance in Desert Book the Second), the three may be construed as one, but in this they lose much of their utility (I intend, at some point, to post my thoughts on Truth vs. Utility). This is more or less from-the-hip philosophizing; I freely grant that the selection of these questions requires an explanation and defense far more extensive than anything I’m prepared to offer right now. Nonetheless, they should have an intuitive appeal, and it is on the strength of this that I justify using them to help solve my cognitive science conundrum.
Assertion: cognitive science (and other fields concerned with thinking about thinking) need not be wary of solipsism as long as the ways of thinking that it attempts to illuminate remain general and diverse. This is because cognitive science tends to ask questions that address Big Question No. 2 in a more direct manner than metafiction, the sociology of academia, the free elaboration of mathematical ideas with no known real world or philosophical significance, etc. I don’t wish to imply that such pursuits are worthless, or incapable of leading towards insight about larger questions. Indeed, this happens all the time through serendipity or diligent efforts to bend such work back to the larger picture. I do wish to stress, however—and this is the point of all that has come before—that given a certain set of assumptions about what all intellectual pursuits should or do lead to (my three Big Questions above), thinking about thinking does not need to justify itself in the same way as writing about writing. Now, if cognitive scientists begin en masse to study how cognitive scientists solve problems, we’re in trouble.
Some postmodernists may cry that I am inserting my telos where it doesn’t belong, but if I answered every such critique I wouldn’t have the time to write about anything interesting. I am speaking naturally of implied critiques; I don’t have enough readers to elicit actual ones. In fact, if anyone does go to the trouble of posting an actual critique (question/ comment/ etc.), I can promise you a moderately thought-out reply.
I think that’s it.
Notes:
*A value judgment that I will not defend right now. This is the closest I will ever come to asserting a religious belief (even the comparison makes me uneasy), except in reference to Metal Gear Solid, the godliest series of video games ever to grace our screens.
**Many naive literary scholars attempt to magnify their own importance by positing absurdly that the nature of reality is, at some fundamental level, textual. Thus, writing about writing isn’t just about writing, it’s about everything! While inquiries into how literary texts act upon themselves and interact with one another can help us to understand certain elements of human thought (this is part of my project), they do so obliquely and they do not speak about the natural world as it exists independently of humanity. As in all domains, the conclusions that purveyors of metafiction (or their interpreters) present about the human condition should be contextualized and qualified in the name of intellectual honesty; this is as much my argument here as my assertion of cognitive science’s inherent value.
---------
PS: I am considering posting here a series of reviews of Italian sandwiches from various eateries. Is this something that would interest the reader(s?) of this blog? Please indicate Yes or No.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Lebensraum
G. has departed for Germany and I have a job interview tomorrow. I've been supplementing my academic reading with Woolf's Orlando. Still no fresh tea at the house, but maybe that will change soon.
I've been trying to cultivate what I call (to myself) "philosophical domesticity." Domesticity has a bad reputation as being bourgeoisie and boring--much better to be a 21st century beatnik and not clean up your dirty clothes--but the activities that go into maintaining one's living space have tremendous potential as a space in which to express one's values and draw nearer to attaining self-actualization. Granted, not everyone needs or wants this--good for you if you don't. But a house is the perfect place to implement aesthetic ideals or sustainable practices if these things are important to you. They are often impossible to fully realize in a space shared with more than one or two roommates. Of course, domesticity should always be a means, not an end. Space should serve a purpose, not exist for its own sake. That said, I think that many people could benefit from closer attention to their material existence, and its alignment (or non-alignment) with one's social identity.
If that was too stuffy, let me counter it by saying I'll be having a party in the near future if I get this job. Beer! I'll Facebook if it's a go.
I've been trying to cultivate what I call (to myself) "philosophical domesticity." Domesticity has a bad reputation as being bourgeoisie and boring--much better to be a 21st century beatnik and not clean up your dirty clothes--but the activities that go into maintaining one's living space have tremendous potential as a space in which to express one's values and draw nearer to attaining self-actualization. Granted, not everyone needs or wants this--good for you if you don't. But a house is the perfect place to implement aesthetic ideals or sustainable practices if these things are important to you. They are often impossible to fully realize in a space shared with more than one or two roommates. Of course, domesticity should always be a means, not an end. Space should serve a purpose, not exist for its own sake. That said, I think that many people could benefit from closer attention to their material existence, and its alignment (or non-alignment) with one's social identity.
If that was too stuffy, let me counter it by saying I'll be having a party in the near future if I get this job. Beer! I'll Facebook if it's a go.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Now-Titled Post
The past few weeks have been eventful. Finals, over. I moved into a house, started my summer job, quit it, and quite recently went to a party from which I'm still trying to recover. Three cups of yerba mate while sitting in bed reading didn't do it. Coffee next. I may be waking up all day.
We don't have internet at the house. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it enforce a different lifestyle than the one to which I've grown accustomed. I don't waste as much time looking at dumb things, going to digg, playing, God forbid, flash games--but I'm used to being plugged in. My social life is also inhibited, but the compensatory effect of having one's own place more than makes up for it. If anything, it might improve the blog; I'm thinking of drafting things at home, correcting them, then bringing them to the library to post [edit: yeah right]. That would be easier than just sitting here, trying to think of sentences like I'm doing right now.
Two novels: Murakami's After Dark and The Echo Maker by Richard Powers. I recommend both. In After Dark, Murakami works out of his usual POV. The protagonist (if there is one) isn't another variant on Toru Okada (which I guess was true for Kafka by the Shore as well, so maybe this marks a new trend). I didn't mind the similarities between characters in his earlier novels, but I think he handles the new territory well. I also found After Dark to be a lot more thematically coherent than his other books, though I'm a different reader than I was last year. Maybe being an English major has made me even better at seeing connections where there are none. Oh well: After Dark seems to be an extended meditation on the borders of the self, and on one's ever-renegotiated position within the various networks of power and influence that shape society. Darkness is the condition in which borders become permeable, in which we can grow closer to others or drift away, suffused with nothingness.
This idea of identity, its mutability and dependence on/ existence within others (reminiscent of Hofstadter's view in Le ton beau de Marot and, I hear, I am a Strange Loop) is also present in The Echo Maker, in which neurological disorders are portrayed as explicit manifestations of processes and structures that are already present in normal consciousness. I wonder if Powers's book might be a little longer than it needs to be, and I still haven't fully grasped the significance of his ecological theme (or maybe I have, and forgotten), but I still think it's worth the time. And the cover art is great.
I need to eat lunch now. I'll come back to this later and fix typos. If anyone wants to hang out while I'm still unemployed, please let me know. On the other hand, if you know anywhere that's hiring, feel free to pass that along as well.
[edited 5/29/08; title added, some adverbs eliminated, other changes]
We don't have internet at the house. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it enforce a different lifestyle than the one to which I've grown accustomed. I don't waste as much time looking at dumb things, going to digg, playing, God forbid, flash games--but I'm used to being plugged in. My social life is also inhibited, but the compensatory effect of having one's own place more than makes up for it. If anything, it might improve the blog; I'm thinking of drafting things at home, correcting them, then bringing them to the library to post [edit: yeah right]. That would be easier than just sitting here, trying to think of sentences like I'm doing right now.
Two novels: Murakami's After Dark and The Echo Maker by Richard Powers. I recommend both. In After Dark, Murakami works out of his usual POV. The protagonist (if there is one) isn't another variant on Toru Okada (which I guess was true for Kafka by the Shore as well, so maybe this marks a new trend). I didn't mind the similarities between characters in his earlier novels, but I think he handles the new territory well. I also found After Dark to be a lot more thematically coherent than his other books, though I'm a different reader than I was last year. Maybe being an English major has made me even better at seeing connections where there are none. Oh well: After Dark seems to be an extended meditation on the borders of the self, and on one's ever-renegotiated position within the various networks of power and influence that shape society. Darkness is the condition in which borders become permeable, in which we can grow closer to others or drift away, suffused with nothingness.
This idea of identity, its mutability and dependence on/ existence within others (reminiscent of Hofstadter's view in Le ton beau de Marot and, I hear, I am a Strange Loop) is also present in The Echo Maker, in which neurological disorders are portrayed as explicit manifestations of processes and structures that are already present in normal consciousness. I wonder if Powers's book might be a little longer than it needs to be, and I still haven't fully grasped the significance of his ecological theme (or maybe I have, and forgotten), but I still think it's worth the time. And the cover art is great.
I need to eat lunch now. I'll come back to this later and fix typos. If anyone wants to hang out while I'm still unemployed, please let me know. On the other hand, if you know anywhere that's hiring, feel free to pass that along as well.
[edited 5/29/08; title added, some adverbs eliminated, other changes]
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