general remarks on various topics

>Topic: Truth and Critical Thinking

Guaranteeing truth is very difficult, if at all possible. Our physical and conceptual "tools" for discovering truths about the world are poor (they MUST be poor because we have no way of confirming anything we “know” to be absolutely true, and can usually assume that what we know about the world is NOT absolutely true), and human sensation and perception are not at all well-suited for recognizing "truth." But, if you are a fan of science, empiricism, and the like, there is hope that through these and similar methods we can know what about the world is likely to be as well as what is not likely to be. Additionally, there are scientific standards that, if you take them to be competent standards, can help us to decide what things we have good/sufficient reason to believe and what things we do not have reason to believe (regardless of one’s preconceptions). This is one way of seeking knowledge. There are other ways of seeking knowledge, but most aren’t as widely accepted as scientific investigation.

You don’t want to be “blown this way and that by the wind.” I think that’s smart, and I’m the same way. I take a lot for granted, and I’m probably not even aware of most of it. I hope that my experiences and course of study have trained me to think more critically, especially when making a decision or solving a problem (though I did not necessarily choose to study philosophy for this "benefit").

I also take a lot of things to be true that I have done no work whatsoever towards confirming that they are actually true. It just doesn’t seem possible / or practical to worry about whether a man named Abraham Lincoln really did exist, serve as 16th president of the U.S., and succumb to assassination on April 15, 1865. Such worrying would have to consume all of my waking life if I became skeptical of everything I “knew.” It would be a hellish preoccupation.

I am more likely to turn a critical eye to knowledge that concerns my sense of “right” and “wrong,” or topics and questions that are already hotly contested, in the first case because ethical matters are more gripping than ordinary matters and in the latter because controversy seems to be reason enough to become critical.

>New Topic: The tension between Evolution and Irreducible Complexity

I don’t think the complexity of the human organism as a product of evolution is nearly as miraculous as the fact that there is anything at all instead of nothing (which by-the-way is one of the very few indubitable truths we know about the world). (Am I sounding like a twip yet?)

I think that as human beings we may just be too full of ourselves to believe that we evolved from insignificantly simple microscopic organisms via a series of (in our opinion) small changes over a (in our opinion) long period of time. Why is this so miraculous? We are here. Rocks are here. We are just doing what we do. What of it?

I suppose I’m glad I exist, but, as far as I know, I did not have any desire to be conceived or exist at all – I simply was and do. Why do we prefer to think that we are any more miraculous than rocks? After all, a rock, to exist as it does today, probably came about through a process just as precise and remarkable as the supposed evolution of species. Which is more remarkable? Does it matter?

A thing’s remarkable-ness doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the explanation underlying its existence, probably because thinking something “remarkable” is a subjective judgment, while descriptive explanations consist of facts which are either true or false.

So if I put aside my wonder at my own existence or the existence of my species, then I can properly consider whether or not the theory of evolution works or does not work.

From the 2 minutes of research I just conducted…the notion of “irreducible complexity” seems, at best, highly controversial (among the general public) and (as regarded by “the scientific community”) probably not a valid challenge to evolutionary theory.

However, even if irreducible complexity happened to gain widespread support (as a cripple for the theory of evolution), I do not think it would tempt me to “put God in the gap.” That seems to be arguing from ignorance. Should evolution come to be seen as improbable because of disconfirmatory evidence, that would not make the idea of divine intervention (as it pertains to the existence of different forms of life) more possible.

>New Topic: Linguistic Confusions

The world we live in is not “post-modern,” and the world during the 18th and 19th centuries was never “modern,” though we might say so in casual conversation. These are only names that relate specifically to unique periods of human enterprise and their products. We tend to (over)use them a lot and they have become “buzzwords” by our constant bending and blurring of their original uses. See here.

But I'm going to have to undermine myself. Maybe the world we live in today IS a product of human enterprise. Do we live in a postmodern world? What does that mean?

I feel like all I'm doing is creating linguistic confusions. Wittgenstein thought (as have many others) that philosophy isn't really about answering the "big questions" or making genuine discoveries (those are for science), but that philosophy is "the untangling of linguistic confusions achieved by examining our words as they are ordinarily used, and contrasting that use with how the words are misused in philosophical theories and explanations" (Soames, The Age of Meaning).

"The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of plain nonsense and of bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits of language. These bumps make us see the value of the discovery." (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations)

Here's an unrelated Wittgenstein quotation that I want to remember:
"Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination." (Philosophical Investigations)

first day of classes tomorrow

Tentative course list:

PHIL2074 - Modern Theories of Knowledge
PHIL2082 - Sex and Death: Philosophy of Biology
ENGL2056 - Renaissance and England
PHIL3071 - Adv Continental Philosophy

I may be dropping Mod Theories of Knowledge (PHIL2074) for the course Adv Analytic Philosophy (PHIL3072) since I've gotten permission to take it. I should be up to my ears in reading regardless.

Oh right, and the standard undergraduate degree takes 3 years to complete in Australia -- then some go on to a 4th year for Honors but you have to maintain I think at least a Distinction level ("D") across all of your classes to be an Honors student. If you're in your first year at university, you're a "first year," and likewise for second, third, fourth year, etc. I kept calling people sophomores and juniors and I was getting funny looks until someone kind of mentioned "I've always thought it was cool that you guys have a name for each year." Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior were so foreign to most people that they didn't even know the order. I kept getting "so 'junior' -- that's like your second year?" or "'sophomore' isn't that your first year?" It was amusing to me to have to constantly explain that.

The university grading system is different, too. At the ANU they have High Distinction (HD) which is 80-100%, Distinction (D) 70-79%, Credit (C) 60-69%, Pass (P) 50-59%, and Fail (F) below 50%. I've heard different things about how difficult the grading system is. Someone told me that it's pretty tough to get all High Distinctions and that it can even be difficult to get a Distinction in a class. I guess that's as it should be.

I practiced cricket for the first time today. I can pitch the ball pretty well, but I still haven't gotten the hang of batting, nor gotten used to the idea that you don't (can't) strike out in cricket.

They do a lot of competitive inter/intra-college (college = residence hall) sport here. There's a huge running event called "Inward Bound," or usually just "IB," where participants get blindfolded and taken out to some unrecognizeable destination at 9 in the evening (so it's dark) at which point they then take off their blindfolds and compete in groups of 4 to make it back to campus before all the other groups. This event comes in a few different levels or distances. There's a 20K, 100K (!), and a few intermediate distances. But the distances listed are decieving because you also have to "find" your way back and are likely to run more kilometers than are listed. Right now I'm training for the 20K -- we'll see...

I'm going to give Rugby and Australian rules football a go as well. I'll let you know how that goes.

So there was an Eastern Bloc Bar Night in the Buttery the other evening, then we had a huge campus wide toga party two nights ago (complete with an eating-of-strange-things competition, a cardboard tube javelin throw event, and interpretive dancing), there's a masquerade ball tonight, and more to come. All the events are probably going to slow down a bit since classes start tomorrow, but other things like sports are going to be picking up.

Huge Nine Inch Nails concert in Sydney tonight. Didn't get tickets in time and would have had to miss classes tomorrow. I'm still planning on going to a few concerts while I'm here, though. Definitely want to visit Sydney and Melbourne, and I'm starting to think it would be pretty easy to catch a cheap (so I'm told) ferry to Tasmania while I'm in Melbourne. I'm still working out dates and times. It's going to be good though. That's basically my feeling right now.

Life at the ANU and in Australia

~You can see students playing rugby and Australian rules football all the time throughout campus.
~There’s a licensed student-run bar in my residence hall.
~Single rooms are surprisingly spacious!
~Students wear gowns fairly frequently for special occasions (I’ll get my own soon).
~Internet is a pay as you go service. We pay a rate of $1 per 100 megabytes of information. This means that streaming/downloading music and video make internet use very expensive. For instance, I’m going to avoid using youtube if I can help it.
~Electronics seem to be cheaper here than in the U.S., but other conventional things are more expensive.
~Most stores, restaurants, and shopping centers close around 4 or 5PM. I was walking around Canberra’s central mall/shopping center around 5PM and all the shops and dept. stores were closed.

the expectations of others

a lot of the time I feel this great pull to care about the same things that other people care about. other people seem to expect it and want it from me. i was pretty unhappy for a while because i didn't want to fake anything and yet i felt compelled to meet the expectations of others. now i'm more and more accepting the consequences (whatever those may be) of being more genuinely *me*. a lot of times this has the affect of making me feel at odds with other people in general, but now i have a greater appreciation for people who are engaged in this struggle to be genuinely themselves.

in the process of redefining my values, it has been most difficult to figure out how i want to live. for a long time the only options i thought i had were the options people told me i had -- and they seemed abundant enough when i was younger. but now i reject the idea that other people have any say in what *my* options are. now i'm searching for a way to retain some kind of integrity of the self and at the same time afford the costs of society.

begin Australia

So this is my sixth day in Australia, third day in Canberra at the ANU. It has been 6 flights, 30hrs in the air, and many more hours in airports getting here. I spent my first 3 days in Cairns ("Cans") at AustraLearn's "program orientation."

Cairns was a great time. About 30 of us AustraLearn students shacked up in a hostel called Serpents. This was the *dodgiest-place-ever.* I roomed with seven other guys (four of them frat brothers from a Connecticut university) in this rectangular space with bunk beds. Our room was basically wrank, the carpet was stained all over from god knows what, and the communal bathroom down the hall was a sauna in itself because if there was any ventilation, it wasn't working. There's a hostel for you. Right, and it was so humid in Cairns that whatever swimsuits or towels we used never fully dried. The climate in that part of Australia (Queensland) is best explained by the term "wet tropics" (as opposed to dry tropics) because it's tropical (rainforesty is the official term, I think) and super wet. So lots of rain and humidity is pretty standard there. It was also very sunny and hot. Something like 30+ degrees Celsius every day, which is like upwards of 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, Cairns had been and still is on alert for dengue fever which is a tropical disease carried by mosquitoes and your friends. You get aches, fever, weakness, and sometimes a rash. It really sucks.

But like I said, Cairns was actually a great time.

Day 1 (on arrival in Cairns):
~At the airport we met up as a group and with our 4 AustraLearn coordinator dudes/dudettes, who were all pretty cool. The AustraLearn reps were all fairly young. Two were Americans who had been living in Australia/NZ for a while and two were native Aussies. They were in truth pretty cool people and ridiculously fun guides. After traveling on planes for more than a day without showering, we were all pretty grimy, so the guys in my room and I dropped our stuff and went straight to the hostel pool. Then we played volleyball a bit and finally took showers. Later that evening I went to the hostel pub with some new friends, had a few drinks, went up to bed around 10-ish, opened up a book to read, and promptly fell asleep.

Day 2 (Cairns):
~This was RainForeStation day. We went on a bus up a mountain that had undergone a rock/mudslide earlier that morning. On the way up this thing we were looking out the bus windows and saw a car that had fallen off the edge of the mountain road and down onto the side of the mountain in the bushes. Good stuff. Anyhow, when we got to the Rainforestation Nature Park we learned about the rainforest there, held snakes, koalas, learned about cane toads (Australia's national pest), and hung out with kangaroos whom we were able to feed, pet, and just chill around with. Kangaroos seem like the furry, mellow, marsupial versions of velocirators. At the park we also watched an indigenous Australian dance, threw boomerangs, played the didge, and had a good time.
~then volleyball and swimming back at the hostel
~Later that night... most of us when to this pub/restaurant and we all sat at these long rectangular tables and drank and ate and yelled back and forth just to talk to each other. Well, it was a good time.

Day 3 (Cairns):
~Scuba diving and snorkeling out in the Great Barrier Reef. Scuba diving was amazing. I'd say it's something you should try before you die.
~found out that the father of one of the 4 fraternity students from Connecticut was in the mafia. That bit of information helped me put in perspective the gold chain he wore, why the other frat guys constantly surrounded him like groupies, and his indifference to the nice crack in the screen of his new apple laptop which fell from the top of a bunk bed.
~In the evening the AustraLearn reps did a final information session for us about Australia and dispersing to our unis, which included an orientation wrap-up complete with pictures and memories from our 3 days in Cairns. Being in a completely different part of the world for the first time for even just 3 days is enough time for you to form an incredible number of new memories and a huge impression of the place. Really, our 3 days in Cairns for the AustraLearn orientation was almost in miniature a smaller but similar arc to what will be my entire time here. I arrived, met 30 other students who were going to various other universities in Brisbane, Perth, Canberra, etc., learned a lot about Australia and had a lot of experiences with other students, then exchanged goodbyes and flew off. I had only just met the other AustraLearn students a couple of days before and I was sorta sad that we were all splitting up already. We all shared what was for most of us our first intense experiences in Australia. So when I left Cairns (with 3 other ANU students) to fly to Canberra, I was sort of wishing we had had more time. I can only imagine what it will be like to leave Canberra to fly back home in 5 or so months.

Note: AustraLearn gets my approval. The reps were wicked nice, knowledgeable, and helpful. Made for a great first 3 days in Australia.

Day 4 (CANBERRA):
~Arrived in Canberra at the ANU after a couple of flights and a bus ride. Explored the city a bit. Met heaps of new people (veteran ANU students as well as newbies and internationals like me).
/day 4

This is what I have been telling everyone about my first impressions of Canberra -- Canberra reminds me a lot of Wachington D.C. (which isn't surprising, I'll explain in a second) and New Mexico. Imagine Washington D.C. in the middle of New Mexico surrounded by bush and mountains and nothing else for miles. That's what Canberra's like. ANU is located on the outskirts of the city, and within 15 minutes you can walk to a large mall and shopping centre (one which rivals some of the big malls back in the U.S.). Pubs, restaurants, and grocery stores are pretty abundant too.

Canberra sits inland between Sydney and Melbourne (two of Australia's most happening cities) on the east coast of Australia. For the longest time, before Canberra existed, both Sydney and Melbourne fought it out to be Australia's capital city. Soooo...they planned out and built a third city in between the two and called it Canberra. Canberra was in fact modeled after the U.S. capital D.C. So it's a bit odd when I walk through the city that it reminds of being back in D.C. Except Canberra seems to be on the whole a lot cleaner and less confusing to wander around in. More on the city when I've done more exploring.

So there are major fires tearing apart Australia's southern territory Victoria. In fact, I met a 5th year ANU law student from Victoria yesterday and he was asking me if I knew where Victoria was, and I was like "of course, that's where the fires are" and I guess he wasn't prepared for me to bring that up because he grew quiet for a few seconds and explained that just thinking about it made him feel pretty emotional. The point is, the fires are a huge deal here. I opened a national newspaper the other day and stories about people who had died in the fire or whose houses and belongings had been destroyed filled every page. At least a few of the fires are known to have been arson. It's pretty crazy.

Also, really quickly let me just tell you how weird the idea of unisex communal bathrooms/showers in the dorm seemed to me at first. My first thought: "really!?" But after a few days of bumping into girls pretty regularly in the restroom or showers, well, it's pretty standard and not all that odd now. The bathrooms in my dorm are the only ones I know of to be unisex here. All other restrooms around campus and in the city have been "men" or "women." I think it would be a good debate about whether restrooms and showers should or should not be unisex.