Technology Rig Some days you wish had never started, then along comes one you hope will never end. Anything can happen in a day.

On Nietzsche

His "noble" man—who is himself in day-dreams—is a being wholly devoid of sympathy, ruthless, cunning, cruel, concerned only with his own power. King Lear, on the verge of madness, says: "I will do such things—What they are yet I know not—but they shall be The terror of the earth." This is Nietzsche's philosophy in a nutshell ~ Russell, ibid. p. 767

 On Wittgenstein

"I love him & feel he will solve the problems I am too old to solve ... He is the young man one hopes for."

He used to come to see me every evening at midnight, and pace up and down the room like a wild beast for three hours in agitated silence. Once I said to him: 'Are you thinking about logic, or about your sins?' 'Both', he replied, and continued his pacing. I did not like to suggest it was time for bed, for it seemed probable both to him and to me that on leaving me he would commit suicide. 

On Heidegger

Highly eccentric in its terminology, his philosophy is extremely obscure. One cannot help suspecting that language is here running riot. As with much else in Existentialism, this is a psychological observation made to pass for logic

On George Berkeley

He maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived. To the objection that, in that case, a tree, for instance, would cease to exist if no one was looking at it, he replied that God always perceives everything; if there were no God, what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them; but as it is, owing to God’s perceptions, trees and rocks and stones have an existence as continuous as common sense supposes. This is, in his opinion, a weighty argument for the existence of God. 

مديح الظل العالي

The Main idea of the Book is amazing, Subjective idealism or immaterialism in which only minds and mental contents exist and we are all ideas in the mind of a perceiving God. But most of the arguments presented by Berkeley to support his case are terrible and wrong. I'll give a few examples:

His Master Argument to demonstrate that it is inconceivable for an object to exist outside of a mind:

In order to conceive if it is possible for a tree to exist outside of all minds, we need to be able to think of an unconceived tree. But as soon as we try to conceive of this unconceived tree, we have conceived it in our mind. So we have failed to conceive a tree to exist outside of all minds.

Berkeley mixes between conceiving which is an act of the mind and the content of the conception which can either be real or not.

To Prove that matter can't cause ideas or perceptions in the mind:

1. Matter is unthinking and inactive.
2. An inactive substance cannot be the cause of an actual perception in the mind, which is active. 
3. Only another Mind can be the cause of our thinking. 

The Relativity Argument:

Size is not a quality of an object because the size of the object depends on the distance between the observer. Since an object is a different size to different observers, then size is not a quality of the object. Berkeley rejects shape with a similar argument.

Yes, experience is subjective, but is your experience of the size of an object is the same as the size of the object in-itself? Berkeley's assumption that they are the same is the source of confusion.

To Prove only ideas are the objects of our perceptions, not "things themselves."

1. If something is indistinguishable from a pain, then it is a pain.
2. A great degree of heat is indistinguishable from a pain. 
3. So, a great degree of heat is pain. 
4. If a pain cannot exist unperceived, no great degree of heat can exist unperceived. 
5. If external objects are not the subject of sensations or perceptions, pains and heats cannot exist in external objects. 
6. So, pains and heats cannot exist in external objects. 
7. Since pain exists in the mind only, heat also must exist in the mind only. 

To prove that matter isn't an instrument used by god:

1. If X is an instrument, then X is a tool used by a creature to do something that creature couldn't do without it. 
2. God uses instruments (matter) to cause perceptions. 
3. Thus, God uses tools to do things that otherwise he wouldn't be able to do. 
4. But God is omnipotent and so can do anything without tools.
5. (3) & (4) are together a contradiction, so one of them must be false. 
6. (4) is definite, so (3) is false. 
7. So God does not use matter as an instrument.

Texts are not finished objects.

Foucault's discourse is systems of thoughts composed of ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak. Foucault traces the role of discourses in wider social processes of legitimating and power, emphasizing the construction of current truths, how they are maintained and what power relations they carry with them. He later theorized that discourse is a medium through which power relations produce speaking subjects.

Edward Said’s work depends on this notion by asking how we read texts. For any text is constructed out of many available discourses, discourses within which writers themselves may be seen as subjects.

For Said, The critic’s function is both enhanced and focused by his or her capacity to be in the world. Perhaps the best conception of the critic’s worldliness can be found in a passage from a twelfth-century Saxon monk called Hugo of St Victor which Said uses more than once:

The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land. The tender soul has fixed his love on one spot in the world; the strong man has extended his love to all places; the perfect man has extinguished his.

And as Said said:

Criticism must think of itself as life-enhancing and constitutively opposed to every form of tyranny, domination, and abuse; its social goals are non-coercive knowledge produced in the interests of human freedom”.

In summary “Speak Truth To Power”.

Said main doctrine is that through culture, the assumption of the divine right of imperial powers to rule is supported, that the institutional, political and economic operations of imperialism are nothing without the power of the culture that maintains them. The imperial nations have not only the right but the obligation to rule those nations lost in barbarism to civilize them. As Conrad puts it:

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an Unselfish belief in the idea -- something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to.

He gives an example from Kipling’s Kim, where Kipling has the widow of Kula says, when a District Superintendent of Police walks by, that

These be the sort to oversee justice. They know the land and the customs of the land.

which is Kipling’s way of demonstrating that natives accept colonial rule so long as it is the right kind.

They weren't like us and for that reason deserved to be ruled.

Said’s resistance to this is by what he calls "the voyage in" , to

enter into the discourse of Europe and the West, to mix with it, transform it, to make it acknowledge marginalized or suppressed or forgotten histories.

For example by rewriting these classics from the point of view of the colonized. This subtle movement beyond simple binary

refuses the short-term blandishments of separatist and triumphalist slogans in favour of the larger, more generous human realities of community among cultures, peoples, and societies.

He refuses works that just promotes the nationalism of the oppressed,

to the theory of the absolute evil of the native the theory of the absolute evil of the settler replies.

because it

reinforces the distinction even while reevaluating the weaker or subservient partner.

so he avoids this binary opposition of east and west and this summaries his Worldliness. A dialogue between equals.

For Saed, the term Orientalism describes the "The false Western images of the East where the Orient is inferior to The Occident, resulting from cultural prejudices and justifying The Western colonial ambitions either militarily or economically". Muslims and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists.

Following the ideas of Michel Foucault, Said emphasized the relationship between power and knowledge in scholarly and popular thinking, in particular regarding European views of the Islamic Arab world. Said argued that the “Orient” was constructed as a negative inversion of Western culture. Orientalism hinged on arguments that circulated around the issue of national distinctiveness, and racial and linguistic origins. Thus the elaborate and detailed examinations of Oriental languages, histories and cultures were carried out in a context in which the supremacy and importance of European civilization was unquestioned. Such was the discourse that myth, opinion, hearsay and prejudice generated by influential scholars quickly assumed the status of received truth.

Another feature of Orientalism was that the culture of the orientals was explained to the European audience by linking them to the western culture, for example, Islam was made into Mohammadism because Mohammad was the founder of this religion and since religion of Christ was called Christianity; thus Islam should be called Mohammadism. The point to be noted here is that no Muslim was aware of this terminology and this was a completely western created term, and to which the Muslims had no say at all.

This problem also appears between Zionists and Arabs, where the Arabs are uncivilized, Desert living, ignorant herds and the Zionists are the carriers of democracy, Liberalism and European and American Legacies so they reconstruct history to confirm the validity of Zionist claims to Philistine. The Arabs were deemed incapable of representing themselves and the Zionists took that place to explain the Oriental Arabs to the west. As Marx Said:

They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented.

So Israel is the new Occident and the Arabs is the new Orient.

The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will ~ Gustave Le Bon - The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind

 Living Organisms formed meaningful associations between stimuli (visual, taste) and their effects (dangerous, poisonous) because such associations are vital to survive and reproduce. For Example, in the Paleolithic environment of our ancestors, incest led to the very real problem of genetic mutations from close inbreeding. But also that's why superstitions appear, superstitions are just an accidental form of learning. Haidt proposes that the foundations of our sense of right and wrong rest within five innate and universally available psychological systems.

1. Harm/care, related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. We have evolved a deep sense of empathy and sympathy for others as we imagine ourselves in their position and what a situation would feel like if it were to happen to us. This foundation underlies such moral virtues as kindness and gentleness.
2. Fairness/reciprocity, related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism, in which “I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine.” This eventually evolved into genuine feelings of right and wrong over fair and unfair exchanges—a foundation that leads to such political ideals of justice, rights, and autonomy for individuals.
3. In-group/loyalty, related to our long history as a tribal species able to form shifting coalitions. We evolved the propensity to form within-group amity for our fellow tribesmen and between-group enmity for anyone in another group. This foundation creates within a tribe a “band-of-brothers” effect and underlies such virtues as patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group.
4. Authority/respect, shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. We evolved a natural tendency to defer to authority, show deference to leaders and experts, and follow the rules and dictates given by those above us in social rank. This foundation underlies such virtues as leadership and fellowship, including esteem for legitimate authority and respect for traditions.
5. Purity/sanctity, shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. We evolved emotions to direct us toward the clean and away from the dirty. This foundation underlies religious notions of striving to live in a less carnal and more elevated and noble way, and it emphasizes the belief that the body is a temple that can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants.

Over the years Haidt and his University of Virginia colleague Jesse Graham have surveyed the moral opinions of more than 118,000 people from over a dozen different countries and regions around the world, and they have found this consistent difference between liberals and conservatives: Liberals are higher than conservatives on 1 and 2 (harm/care and fairness/reciprocity), but lower than conservatives on 3, 4, and 5 (in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity). Conservatives are roughly equal on all five dimensions: lower than liberals on 1 and 2 but higher on 3, 4, and 5. In other words, liberals question authority, celebrate diversity, and often flaunt faith and tradition in order to care for the weak and oppressed. They want change and justice even at the risk of political and economic chaos. By contrast, conservatives emphasize institutions and traditions, faith and family, and nation and creed. They want order even at the cost of those at the bottom falling through the cracks.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. ~ William James

Reasons for Differences in People's Believes:

Consequently people fight for and against quite irrelevant measures, while the few who have a rational opinion are not listened to because they do not minister to any one's passions ~ Bertrand Russell - On the Value of Scepticism

1. Clear and quantitative physical differences among people in size, strength, speed, agility, coordination, and other physical attributes translate into some being more successful than others; at least half of these differences are inherited.
2. Clear and quantitative intellectual differences among people in memory, problem-solving ability, cognitive speed, mathematical talent, spatial reasoning, verbal skills, emotional intelligence, and other mental attributes translate into some being more successful than others; at least half of these differences are inherited.
3. Evidence from behavioral genetics and twin studies indicate that 40 to 50 percent of the variance among people in temperament, personality, and many political, economic, and social preferences are accounted for by genetics. Without a genetic disposition, the teachings of parents appear to have few lasting effects.
4. Self Assurance, we hold such self-serving beliefs because they satisfy important psychological needs or motives, such as the motive to maintain self-esteem in order to increase chances of survival. When examining evidence relevant to a given belief, people are inclined to see what they expect to see, and conclude what they expect to conclude. Information that is consistent with our pre-existing beliefs is often accepted at face value, whereas evidence that contradicts them is critically scrutinized and discounted. If beliefs make people feel good, feel better about themselves, gives them hope, etc., then they are likely to adopt it regardless of whether there are very good rational reasons for doing so. As an example we explain the reasons of our success as from inside of us and reasons of our failures as they are outside of us. And it explains Purity/sanctity innate principle.
5. The need or desire to tell a good story can distort the accuracy of information we receive or which we store in our memory, People will always prefer black-and-white over shades of grey, a better story will always require a messiah and a devil.
6. Within-group amity and between-group enmity are almost universal. The rule of thumb is to trust in-group members until they prove to be distrustful, and to distrust out-group members until they prove to be trustful. So we trust beliefs from our parents, peer groups, or upbringing. Also a result of this is the respect of authority and people who represent it to increase social bonding in-group and avoid conflict. And it explains the four remaining universal innate principles Harm/care, Fairness/reciprocity, In-group/loyalty and Authority/respect.
7. The desire of people to trade with one another is almost universal—not for the selfless benefit of others or the society, but for the selfish benefit of one’s own kin and kind; it is an unintended consequence that trade establishes trust between strangers and lowers between group enmity, as well as produces greater wealth for both trading partners and groups.
8. Aggression, violence, and dominance are almost universal, particularly among young males seeking resources, women, and especially status. Status seeking in particular explains many heretofore unexplained phenomena, such as high risk taking, costly gifts, excessive generosity beyond one’s means, and especially attention seeking.

Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true. ~Francis Bacon

Why is it Hard for People to change their beliefs?

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Beliefs are a type of private property—in the form of our private thoughts with public expressions and therefore the endowment effect applies to belief systems. The longer we hold a belief, the more we have invested in it; the more publicly committed we are to it, the more we endow it with value and the less likely we are to give it up. status quo bias, or the tendency to opt for whatever it is we are used to, so we have the tendency to seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret dis-confirming evidence.

The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Other Famous Biases include:

• The anchoring effect: the tendency to rely too heavily on a past reference or on one piece of information when making decisions . The comparison anchor can even be entirely arbitrary. In one study subjects were asked to give the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, and then asked to estimate the number of physicians in New York City. Bizarrely, people with higher Social Security numbers tended to give higher estimates for the number of docs in Manhattan.
• Inattentional blindness: the tendency to miss something obvious and general while attending to something special and specific.
• Confabulation bias: the tendency to conflate memories with imagination and other people’s accounts as one’s own.
• Illusory correlation: the tendency to assume that a causal connection (correlation) exists between two variables; another form of patternicity.
• Negativity bias: the tendency to pay closer attention and give more weight to negative events, beliefs, and information than to positive.
• Normalcy bias: the tendency to discount the possibility of a disaster that has never happened before.
• Recency effect: the tendency to notice, remember, and assess as more valuable recent events more than earlier events.
• Stereotyping or generalization bias: the tendency to assume that a member of a group will have certain characteristics believed to represent the group without having actual information about that particular member.

How Can We Avoid Biases and Superstitions?

The principle of positive evidence states that you must have positive evidence in favor of your theory and not just negative evidence against rival theories. Show me the Intelligent Designer. Show me God. Show me and I will believe.

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. ~ Max Planck

“Sorrow is knowledge: They who know the most must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, the tree of knowledge is not that of life. ” — George Gordon Byron

 “The question is how to arrive at your opinions and not what your opinions are. ” —Bertrand Russell

Arguing with a fool proves there are two ~ Doris M. Smith

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something ~ Plato 

Most people would rather die than think; in fact they do so ~ Bertrand Russell 

قيمةُ المرءِ ما قَد كانَ يُحسنُهُ والجاهلونَ لأهلِ العلمِ أعداء
فقم بعلمٍ ولا تطلُبْ بهِ بدلاً فالناسُ موتى وأهلُ العلمِ أحياء”
― علي بن أبي طالب, ديوان الإمام علي