Nice To Meat You

Is eating meat objectively wrong? To answer this we have to know what objectively means. Let’s start by pointing out that objective is understood as the opposite of subjective. Subjective basically means one person’s point of view.

So when we ask is it wrong to eat meat we can’t just go ask a dude or a gal because then our answer would only be subjective. Consider that said dude and gal may have different answers.

Things are getting tricky.

So how on earth can we know if something is objectively wrong or right if we can’t ask anybody? How can we know anything if we can’t ask anybody?

Don’t panic.

There are some, oh let us call them, for the moment, factoids that we consider to be true without asking anybody.

Like 2+2=4.

We don’t need Dude or Gal’s input here or anyone’s input. We don’t even need anyone to exist. If the dinosaurs hadn’t gone extinct and they’d opened up coffee shops and we kooky humans never existed, 2+2=4 would still be true. Right?

For now, yes.

But let us consider this “never existed” bit, because this is actually a good way to think about objectivity. Whenever asking if anything is objectively true or right or moral we can ask, even if people didn’t exist _____ .

Let’s try it:

Even if people didn’t exist, eating meat would be wrong.

*Cogitates*

So lions are morally in the wrong when they eat meat?

The Venus Flytrap?

Hmmm.

Maybe we need to instead ask is it objectively wrong for people to eat meat.

People may or may not be the worst but some do eat wurst, so we do need to know whether or not it is objectively wrong for them to do so.

How can we get “people eating meat is wrong” to seem like 2+2=4?

All the while minding our even if humans didn’t exist rule, ok fine, guideline.

Wait,

How can we talk about people eating meat while thinking about them not existing?

People are meat so we always, necessarily, have both at the same time. One can't be construed without the other.

This is getting weird.

It's getting meta...

wait for it...

OMG meta is an anagram of meat!

 Do you know what this means?!?!?

Order Up! Modus Ponens. Over Easy.

I’m reading a book entitled The Self-Driven Child.

I got interested through this article and by being a parent.

The beginning of the book is about the brain and having taught Psych 101 much of this was review.

But then, suddenly, one little idea…

When someone is depressed, logic is impaired.

Logic? Impaired?

The logician in me will order the modus ponens this way:

If one is depressed, then one’s logic is impaired.

Not too surprising, right?

The brain is an organ and requires the right mixture of chemicals and elements to think logically or to do logic. Even logic like which way is right and which way is left, let alone something like advanced quantification calculus. Depression affects the balance of chemicals.

But…

Could we order the modus ponens the other way?

If logic is impaired, then one is depressed.

No.

There could be other factors (antecedents), conditions that necessitate depression and logic impairment isn’t one of them.

Now consider this question and logic:

How logical is it to believe in an afterlife?

That you will continue to be when the organ that organizes/synthesizes your thoughts and your personality (consider that I recently came to learn about a man who was struck by lightning, but lived to tell about it, and how his doctor’s warned him that he will see personality changes) will decompose like other material entities.

Can we say that any person x that believes in an afterlife has impaired logic?

Which goes first?

If one believes in an afterlife, then logic is impaired.

If logic is impaired, then one believes in an afterlife.

No Need For Verbosity Or Unnecessary Vocabulary Like Verbosity

I recently wrapped up Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up and have to say it was a wonderful look into important years of his life.

One fun connection for me was that Mr. Martin studied philosophy in college and he even mentioned Continental Rationalism and Symbolic Logic courses in the book. Those of you paying any attention to this blog know that I am somewhat versed in both and have been known to point out Leibnitz motifs in our modern world, especially the best of all possible worlds in relation to suffering.

Now what brought me to Born Standing Up was research into memoirs as I write my own. I began with Bill Byrson’s The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid. I’m taking memoir recommendations so feel free.

Both writers share a very concise approach with no need for verbosity or unnecessary vocabulary like verbosity. And both are very funny. Now truth be told, though the Martin book is about his foray into and departure from stand-up comedy, it is mostly about his process and also the business of comedy, much of which is very pedestrian…like a job. Who woulduh thunk it? Bryson’s book, while about growing up in the 50’s, was laugh out-loud funny.

But, both books made me think; Bryson about the incredible advance of the country post WWII but also about the unknown fallout from some of our own nuclear testing, especially the Bikini Atoll and Martin about the importance of early performance experience (he performed magic tricks from a very early age) and the importance of music as it relates to the imagination. As an aside, my father who picked up the banjo as his very first instrument and who could play the ubiquitous Foggy Mountain Breakdown, conveyed to me that Steve’s banjo playing on The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo was really groundbreaking and incredible.

But gogdammit! Both books made me wistful. What the fuck is it with me and wistfulness?

A passage from each for you:

“I was alone with him in the bedroom; his mind was alert but his body was failing. He said, almost buoyantly, “I’m ready now.” I sat on the edge of the bed, and another silence fell over us. Then he said, “I wish I could cry, I wish I could cry.”
                At first I took this as a comment on his condition but am forever thankful that I pushed on. “What do you want to cry about?” I said.
                “For all the love I received and couldn’t return.”
                I felt a chill of familiarity.
                There was another lengthy silence as we looked into each other’s eyes. At last he said, “You did everything I wanted to do.”
                “I did it for you,” I said. Then we wept for the lost years. I was glad I didn’t say the more complicated truth: “I did it because of you.”

I was waiting only for the moment when I was invited to step up to the toy box and make a selection.
                When that moment came, it took forever to decide. Every little package looked so perfect and white, so ready to be enjoyed. Eventually, I chose an item of middling size and weight, which I dared to shake lightly. Something inside rattled and sounded as if it might be die cast. I took it to my seat and carefully unwrapped it. It was a miniature doll – an Indian boy in a papoose, beautifully made but patently for a girl. I returned with it and its disturbed packaging to the slightly backward-looking fellow who was in charge of the toy box.
                “I seem to have got a doll,” I said, with something approaching an ironic chuckle.
                He looked at it carefully. “That’s surely a shame because you only git one try at the gift box.”
                “Yes, but it’s a doll, I said. “For a girl.”
                “Then you’ll just have to git you a little girlfriend to give it yo, won’tcha?” he answered and gave me a toothy grin and an unfortunate wink.
                Sadly, those were the last words the poor man ever spoke. A moment later he was just a small muffled shriek and a smoldering spot on the carpet.
                Too late he had learned an important lesson. You really should never fuck with the Thunderbolt Kid.

Hugest Word in the Dictionary

If…the biggest word in the dictionary. No doubt about it, an important word.

Ah but a misleading word…in the hands of, or shall I say in the minds of, untrained cogitators. 

If, then. 

Now fill in the blanks.

If I work out, I’ll lose weight.

If I study, I’ll pass.

One needs to be careful with if then statements. 

What they say…specifically.

If the first part is the case THEN the second part is the case.

Be careful. 

Many don’t heed this warning.

Case in point:

If I win the lottery, I’ll be rich.

Now you finish this:

I didn’t win the lottery, therefore I’m _____.

Well?

I'll Be Damned

Consider this from George Saunders' Essay The New Mecca in The Braindead Megaphone:

“And the kids keep coming. On their faces: looks of bliss, the kind of look a person gets when he realizes he is in the midst of doing something rare, that might never be repeated, and is therefore of great value.”

Heaven is commonly understood as eternal life and moreover, constant, immediate wish fulfillment.

Now contrast Heaven with the logic in Saunders. 

If your life never ends it isn’t rare – at all. If you can do anything, have anything, immediately, forever, none of these doings can have value. Time isn’t rare and fulfillment isn’t rare in heaven. 

What is rare in heaven? The damned. The only damned thing of value in heaven is the damned. 

Well I’ll be damned, just not in heaven.

(Something is of value if and only if it is rare. Value and rarity have the same truth value. Therefore if it isn’t of great value, it isn’t rare and if it isn’t rare it isn’t of value.)