Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To get to the other side.
There is a flaw in this joke. Let’s unpack it a bit to see why someone might mistakenly think it is funny.
Below I divide the joke into three events ordered chronologically.
(1) The joke teller (JT) asks a sincere question.
(2) The joke receiver (JR) hears the question, and thus develops a prima facie expectation that he will hear the answer to the question. Furthermore, JR develops an expectation – an expectation which is not semantically suggested by the question --- that the answer will provide him with some degree of knowledge that JR theretofore does not have. The prima facie expectation is expected because of the semantic structure of the question i.e. the “Why” implies that there is some answer that exists. The question, however, never explicitly calls for a knowledge-bestowing answer, but a knowledge-bestowing answer is expected due to general rules of conversation (that is, we expect that when we hear the answer to a question we gain information from the answer).
(3) The prima facie expectation is satisfied since the question was answered, but the conversational expectation of knowledge-bestowing is not satisfied since the joke itself, which premises the whole exchange on the fact that the chicken, in fact, did cross the road, already bestowed anything to be found in the answer in the question -- JR already knows that the chicken got to the other side by the time the answer is told; he knows from definitional deduction (i.e. “getting to the other side” is a concept that is contained in the set of the concepts in “chicken crosses the road”). This creates a “Well yea but that doesn’t tell me anything” cognitive milieu and it is this milieu that people consider humorous (even if you don’t laugh, there is still something that sort of clicks with an essence of humor when this milieu is induced).
Now that we see why the joke is [mistakenly] considered humorous, we can pinpoint the flaw; it is contained in step (3). One crucial part of step (3) is that we admit “getting to the other side” is a concept contained under “Chicken crosses the road.” The flaw is that the concept “getting to the other side” is not what the answer to the question is, the answer to the question is “ to get to the other side.” This first “to” that precedes “get” is crucial. To see the difference compare the two sentences
“The chicken that crossed the road got to the other side”
“The chicken crossed the road to get to other side”
The first sentence is more like what the joke should be, while the second sentence is what the joke is. The difference between these two sentences is that the first is purely scientific or descriptive, while the second sentence contains an alleged purposive action. The concept “chicken crosses the road” does contain “chicken gets to the other side” since a chicken that crossed the road must get to the other side because if it didn’t get to the other side then it would not have crossed the road. However, the chicken needn’t have had crossed the road “ [in order] to get to the other side.” In other words he needn’t have had crossed the road with the purpose of getting to the other side. For example, would you say that the pilgrims crossed the Atlantic to get to the other side? If you said “yes” you are wrong. They crossed to escape religious persecution; getting to the other side was incidental. To make the point clearer take the case of a surgeon: would you say that a surgeon performs surgery to stab someone’s body? Certainly not (I hope). The purpose is to cure someone of a sickness, and the stabbing is not only incidental but undesired (if docs could perform surgery without an incision they would).
The fact is, just because you did something doesn’t mean you did it purposively. So there is the flaw: since it is not necessarily the case that the chicken crossed the road to get to the other side the answer actually does bestow knowledge on JR, and thus makes step (3) ineffectual. The piece of knowledge you gain is that the chicken crossed the road for the purpose of getting to the other side. So you might have the following exchange
JT: Why did the chicken cross the road?
JR: Dunno
JT: To get to the other side
JR: Interesting. You know, I would have thought that the reason the chicken crossed the road was to escape avian persecution, but ya’ live ya’ learn.
But there is a shining ray of hope in all this. The fact is the intended funniness of the joke could still be constructed simply by altering a few words. The following is the edited, perfected, minted version of the classic quip:
JT: What happened when the chicken crossed the road?
JR: Dunno
JT: It got to the other side
JR: Oh, you jokster!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Unedited Rant from 4/25/2008
The blank page. The bespactled realization of thinknot, of thinklessness, of self-referential immobility, stuck in a self-aggrandizing spiral of writing about not writing, which is the most boring writing of all, the sad back-up default postermodern (and postmortem, for all I care) fallback for the stupid, frustrated and enraged colleagues, dilettantes, amateurs, professionals and dogs; a fallback for morons and geniuses but a sad excuse for the purity of creativity, the real explosion of unfiltered open doorways and real progressive states of intelligence not surpassed by pathetic desperation. How do I askew my platitudinous fallback into the self-reference, the poor meta and onco-metastizing future to which I’m doomed.
I want to write about something funny, something sarcastic. But the trick is it has to be evident right there in the words – I can’t whip the end of my sentence with the over-credulous alto, no sign or punctuation for the fledgling chirp of sarcasm. How do I accomplish this? I can just tell the reader. The following is sarcastic: old people are the sweetest people of all. Or would that sentence stand on its own because of its saccharine little qualifier and mawkish content. It is far from true of course: there is no aging gracefully. Old people are not sweet but some of the ugliest and mentally disturbed (and disturbing) creatures on gods fucked-up blue sphere. I went to shadow a doctor a week ago and got to see a nice span of white demented people. In comes the old lady and the doctor bangs her (knee) and she has a reflex and everything. She puts out her had. She has arthritis, rheumatoid and the other kind – whatever that is. Her pointer finger kinks at the end like a sling-shot twig where one of the bifurcated legs is removed so it is one misaligned stick. I just want to jump up and grab that gnarled phalange and crack it back into place. The woman is demented too. What year is it? Um… 2000 she says. Some people can’t take gore. I can. But what I find most disgusting of all is witnessing the out-of-touch blathering of a demented.
The old judge comes in wearing a tweed jacket stinking of a classical conservatism and telling jokes about it: “Well my friend says, when he talks about Ann Arbor, he calls it ‘The People’s Republic of Ann Arbor’ because it is so left wing.” The doctor and I get out the wood boards and hammers and nails and various other appliances and begrudgingly build a little smile so his joke doesn’t go straight down and plunk through the linoleum floor into the neurology clinic directly below us and kill any of the half-dead geriatrics that don’t know who they are. The man is a judge and they demoted him out of the courtroom to just review cases. Why? Because they noticed his memory wasn’t what it used to be. Tap-tap on the patella, walk, push forward and back, follow your eyes with my fingers, what is the date? Remember these three objects: red, soccer, California, count back from 7 starting from 100, draw the pentagon, write a sentence, read this and do what it says – mini-mental complete. He is not demented (>23 on the mini-mental) but he ain’t fit for seeing cases.
Yesterday went to the doctor for sleep disorders. Old red-necked man, burned hard by the sun. Big arms. Midwestern—football build. He was having a dream that some intruder was standing over him and he’d sit-up mumbling or saying “I’m gonna get you” and thrash around like a maniac often smacking his wife. Diagnosis: parasomnia, an REM sleep disorder. He cites the fact that his neighbor, with whom he’d had a dispute, opened up machine gun fire on his house. But that’s not why he was having the bad dreams.
I want to write about something funny, something sarcastic. But the trick is it has to be evident right there in the words – I can’t whip the end of my sentence with the over-credulous alto, no sign or punctuation for the fledgling chirp of sarcasm. How do I accomplish this? I can just tell the reader. The following is sarcastic: old people are the sweetest people of all. Or would that sentence stand on its own because of its saccharine little qualifier and mawkish content. It is far from true of course: there is no aging gracefully. Old people are not sweet but some of the ugliest and mentally disturbed (and disturbing) creatures on gods fucked-up blue sphere. I went to shadow a doctor a week ago and got to see a nice span of white demented people. In comes the old lady and the doctor bangs her (knee) and she has a reflex and everything. She puts out her had. She has arthritis, rheumatoid and the other kind – whatever that is. Her pointer finger kinks at the end like a sling-shot twig where one of the bifurcated legs is removed so it is one misaligned stick. I just want to jump up and grab that gnarled phalange and crack it back into place. The woman is demented too. What year is it? Um… 2000 she says. Some people can’t take gore. I can. But what I find most disgusting of all is witnessing the out-of-touch blathering of a demented.
The old judge comes in wearing a tweed jacket stinking of a classical conservatism and telling jokes about it: “Well my friend says, when he talks about Ann Arbor, he calls it ‘The People’s Republic of Ann Arbor’ because it is so left wing.” The doctor and I get out the wood boards and hammers and nails and various other appliances and begrudgingly build a little smile so his joke doesn’t go straight down and plunk through the linoleum floor into the neurology clinic directly below us and kill any of the half-dead geriatrics that don’t know who they are. The man is a judge and they demoted him out of the courtroom to just review cases. Why? Because they noticed his memory wasn’t what it used to be. Tap-tap on the patella, walk, push forward and back, follow your eyes with my fingers, what is the date? Remember these three objects: red, soccer, California, count back from 7 starting from 100, draw the pentagon, write a sentence, read this and do what it says – mini-mental complete. He is not demented (>23 on the mini-mental) but he ain’t fit for seeing cases.
Yesterday went to the doctor for sleep disorders. Old red-necked man, burned hard by the sun. Big arms. Midwestern—football build. He was having a dream that some intruder was standing over him and he’d sit-up mumbling or saying “I’m gonna get you” and thrash around like a maniac often smacking his wife. Diagnosis: parasomnia, an REM sleep disorder. He cites the fact that his neighbor, with whom he’d had a dispute, opened up machine gun fire on his house. But that’s not why he was having the bad dreams.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Pertaining to a Dream, by Danny Boy
Has it ever happened that when you looked into a mirror you simply were not you? Not as if you were cloaked in costume - disguised - or otherwise unable to recognize yourself for seeming older, younger, disfigured or abstractly recombined, but as if somewhere in the space between yourself and your reflected image you became disassociated and aware of a dissonance. The person staring back at you does not reproduce your movements like a twin copycat. His movements do not knowingly match your own. Instead, they are sickeningly changeling-esque. The expressions you feel the muscles in your face make are not reflected in the portal; your excitement does not register properly, your smile is perverted. You are either masked or unmasked, but which is impossible to tell.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Our Time, by Danny Boy
You may call the title of this post cheesy and I agree with you, it is. Or you may choose to label it corny, and by golly, I concur. But don't you dare call it cheesecorny, because, well, frankly that just sounds downright nasty. Like something you get at a carnival tent from an impish vendor whose presenting hand is disconcertingly small and discolored.
But you'll have to excuse the sloppy sentimentalism because the truth is that I'm finally genuinely excited about something. As President-Elect Obama (actually that sounds like total shit - let's just agree to call him President Obama from now on) trumpeted last night, his election represents the triumph of hope over fear, of democracy over tyranny, the coming of change instead of the faltering of grinding gears.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. As the old adage goes, Easier Said Than Done, and President Obama is and always will be a marvelous speaker whose sonorous and oh-so-pleasing-to-the-ear oration can transport many, but can also at times carry little in the way of substance. He has talked the presidential talk, and now he must walk the presidential walk. And while I have no doubt that the Obama administration will be an instant and remarkable improvement on The-Administration-That-Must-Not-Be-Named, the political pragmatist (read as: pessimist) within demands that I consider the challenge of surmounting such extraordinary hype. Indeed, only so much is possible. In his own words, we are confronted with "two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century," and that's merely naming the obvious. As I said before, I have no doubts about his sense, strength, or skill, but (and I apologize if this bursts anyone's bubble; the last thing I want to be is a bubbleburster) in all probability, Barack Obama is no seraph divinely sent from beside the lord's celestial throne to restore American values and standing, although that is the Herculean task with which we've charged him.
This all being said, I told you that I was excited, and so far, admittedly, my tone has been rather grounded. Allow me to continue and it is my hope that you will follow the direction I'm headed.
I've voted in the only two elections for which I've been eligible. By most people's definition, and indeed according to my own (please indulge me, or else I'll be inclined to punch off your nose), I am a young man. As such, I am a member of the generation that is poised to take over, to assume the hefty and Atlas-like responsibility of holding up the world. For better or worse, each generation inherits the mantle, and each relies not only on its own unique creativity and talents, but on the experiences and history from which said creativity and talents are derived, to carry the weight.
In the nascent and crucial stages of our own worldly awareness and reckoning, we've forcibly grown accustomed to an abominable aberration. They may be the current status quo, but I contend that The Bush Years are not the norm, much as they may seem to us. Simply by the accident or providence of timing, our views and thoughts have been sculpted by the frustrating and stifling environment in which our consciences developed. There are many of us, I believe (myself included), browsing for an excuse for our indolence and apathy, and I think we need look no further. Our generation, the I-generation, as I would call it (for what may perhaps be obvious reasons, but I will save that lecture for another time), has often, it seemed to me, been characterized by the unique jadedness and insouciance that are the product of an age of instantaneous information and shameful, alienating politics.
But with the election of President Obama and the dissemination of his message (even if it be somewhat trite or a bit contrived) I, for one, believe I've experienced a moment of awakening. It was one of those internally exciting moments - like the first sprout of hair on your chin or being confused for your father on the phone - when you realize that you are on the inexorable path to manhood. Just as those constitute signs, I believe this was the summoning. And while the "Yes We Can" cliche would be off the charts in Disney Points were such a thing to exist, President Obama has authentically galvanized us, and his moment is ours.
It would take a cynic (and one with a predilection for breaking hearts, at that) to suggest the possibility that last night might have been the high point of the President Obama era. That after so much time spent campaigning and so much money and hope raised, the Obama movement has reached its apex and will abide by the Newtownian, tried-and-true rule - what goes up, must come down. That President Obama will merely be ordinary. That despite all his talent and promise, he will ultimately disappoint. And if we chose him, and he represents us, what does that suggest about us? Was our hope misplaced? Will we disappoint as well?
Personally, I don't believe such cynicism. But even if it were true, if it were the case that last night's coronation will be our most glorious moment for the next 4 or 8 years, if all that Barack Obama has accomplished has been to spark a glimmering flare of possibility and shepherd in a new generation - our generation - isn't that more than enough? The fulfillment of his promise - the prospect of change - is up to us, just like it always has been.
But you'll have to excuse the sloppy sentimentalism because the truth is that I'm finally genuinely excited about something. As President-Elect Obama (actually that sounds like total shit - let's just agree to call him President Obama from now on) trumpeted last night, his election represents the triumph of hope over fear, of democracy over tyranny, the coming of change instead of the faltering of grinding gears.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. As the old adage goes, Easier Said Than Done, and President Obama is and always will be a marvelous speaker whose sonorous and oh-so-pleasing-to-the-ear oration can transport many, but can also at times carry little in the way of substance. He has talked the presidential talk, and now he must walk the presidential walk. And while I have no doubt that the Obama administration will be an instant and remarkable improvement on The-Administration-That-Must-Not-Be-Named, the political pragmatist (read as: pessimist) within demands that I consider the challenge of surmounting such extraordinary hype. Indeed, only so much is possible. In his own words, we are confronted with "two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century," and that's merely naming the obvious. As I said before, I have no doubts about his sense, strength, or skill, but (and I apologize if this bursts anyone's bubble; the last thing I want to be is a bubbleburster) in all probability, Barack Obama is no seraph divinely sent from beside the lord's celestial throne to restore American values and standing, although that is the Herculean task with which we've charged him.
This all being said, I told you that I was excited, and so far, admittedly, my tone has been rather grounded. Allow me to continue and it is my hope that you will follow the direction I'm headed.
I've voted in the only two elections for which I've been eligible. By most people's definition, and indeed according to my own (please indulge me, or else I'll be inclined to punch off your nose), I am a young man. As such, I am a member of the generation that is poised to take over, to assume the hefty and Atlas-like responsibility of holding up the world. For better or worse, each generation inherits the mantle, and each relies not only on its own unique creativity and talents, but on the experiences and history from which said creativity and talents are derived, to carry the weight.
In the nascent and crucial stages of our own worldly awareness and reckoning, we've forcibly grown accustomed to an abominable aberration. They may be the current status quo, but I contend that The Bush Years are not the norm, much as they may seem to us. Simply by the accident or providence of timing, our views and thoughts have been sculpted by the frustrating and stifling environment in which our consciences developed. There are many of us, I believe (myself included), browsing for an excuse for our indolence and apathy, and I think we need look no further. Our generation, the I-generation, as I would call it (for what may perhaps be obvious reasons, but I will save that lecture for another time), has often, it seemed to me, been characterized by the unique jadedness and insouciance that are the product of an age of instantaneous information and shameful, alienating politics.
But with the election of President Obama and the dissemination of his message (even if it be somewhat trite or a bit contrived) I, for one, believe I've experienced a moment of awakening. It was one of those internally exciting moments - like the first sprout of hair on your chin or being confused for your father on the phone - when you realize that you are on the inexorable path to manhood. Just as those constitute signs, I believe this was the summoning. And while the "Yes We Can" cliche would be off the charts in Disney Points were such a thing to exist, President Obama has authentically galvanized us, and his moment is ours.
It would take a cynic (and one with a predilection for breaking hearts, at that) to suggest the possibility that last night might have been the high point of the President Obama era. That after so much time spent campaigning and so much money and hope raised, the Obama movement has reached its apex and will abide by the Newtownian, tried-and-true rule - what goes up, must come down. That President Obama will merely be ordinary. That despite all his talent and promise, he will ultimately disappoint. And if we chose him, and he represents us, what does that suggest about us? Was our hope misplaced? Will we disappoint as well?
Personally, I don't believe such cynicism. But even if it were true, if it were the case that last night's coronation will be our most glorious moment for the next 4 or 8 years, if all that Barack Obama has accomplished has been to spark a glimmering flare of possibility and shepherd in a new generation - our generation - isn't that more than enough? The fulfillment of his promise - the prospect of change - is up to us, just like it always has been.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Koan: McCain Might be More Honest than People Think By Yonza the Barbarian
Last nights debate. Tom asked (reading from an e-mail by some chick from someplace I don’t know that must have been pretty damn excited (the chick, that is) that her question was actually getting on the air (I would be) but if she had any sense should also have known that the question was just asking (sorry, that’s a confusing use of that metaphor/personification) to be beat around (as in the bush) and obviously did get beat around (still as in the bush) by both Ob and Mc but ignoring the baseline phoniness I think Obama beat around (not as in the bush…. more as in a punching bag) poor old Mc) what the candidates don’t know and how they will learn it. Within McCain’s response was a single sentence that has not received enough attention in the media: “What I don’t know is the unexpected.” Hmmm…a zen-like answer for – as described by Tom Himself – a zen-like question.
How clever. Not only did McCain manage to directly answer the question (at least the first part), but his answer was unequivocally honest. Not knowing the unexpected! Brilliant! In fact, he was being so honest with that sentence that there is a name for sentences that true: tautologies. That means it is true necessarily or true by definition. Some other great tautologies are: “I am here,” and “I choose between options.” Interestingly enough, a tautological sentence is completely uninteresting (the word “uninteresting” here can be interpreted in both the typical sense (e.g. the show on C-SPAN was so uninteresting ) or defined more rigorously as non-ampliative, which basically means not transmitting any new information to the world/anyone) which is great because so is most poli-speak.
Here is why McCain’s statement is a tautology: you cannot know the unexpected; if you say “I know the unexpected” then the unexpected, definitionally speaking, is the expected (since you know it). Saying “I know the unexpected” is what we in The Business call a contradiction. A contradiction is the opposite of a tautology. It is when something is necessarily or definitionally false. Good thing McCain never used a contradiction…
So despite our partisan bickering and polarized contempt; despite our differences, disagreements, and irreconcilable beliefs; despite varying needs and wants and goals and lifestyles; despite fundamental chasms in our philosophies and motivations, there might be a shining ray of hope, something that can bridge partisanship, can overcome our differences, can unify or ideals, it is that we can all agree, republican or democrat black or white young or old, that McCain does not know the unexpected.
How clever. Not only did McCain manage to directly answer the question (at least the first part), but his answer was unequivocally honest. Not knowing the unexpected! Brilliant! In fact, he was being so honest with that sentence that there is a name for sentences that true: tautologies. That means it is true necessarily or true by definition. Some other great tautologies are: “I am here,” and “I choose between options.” Interestingly enough, a tautological sentence is completely uninteresting (the word “uninteresting” here can be interpreted in both the typical sense (e.g. the show on C-SPAN was so uninteresting ) or defined more rigorously as non-ampliative, which basically means not transmitting any new information to the world/anyone) which is great because so is most poli-speak.
Here is why McCain’s statement is a tautology: you cannot know the unexpected; if you say “I know the unexpected” then the unexpected, definitionally speaking, is the expected (since you know it). Saying “I know the unexpected” is what we in The Business call a contradiction. A contradiction is the opposite of a tautology. It is when something is necessarily or definitionally false. Good thing McCain never used a contradiction…
So despite our partisan bickering and polarized contempt; despite our differences, disagreements, and irreconcilable beliefs; despite varying needs and wants and goals and lifestyles; despite fundamental chasms in our philosophies and motivations, there might be a shining ray of hope, something that can bridge partisanship, can overcome our differences, can unify or ideals, it is that we can all agree, republican or democrat black or white young or old, that McCain does not know the unexpected.
Meditations on Pain (I Think up This Crap (no surprise) at Work) by Yonza the Barbarian
People who complain more – are they more sensitive to pain than people who complain less? Are they just loud mouths? How can we make sense of being “sensitive to pain?” When we say we are “sensitive to X,” we usually fill in the variable X with an object. For example, we can say our eyes are sensitive to the sun. The sun is an object. Pain is not an object; pain is a sensation itself. So how could we be sensitive, or hypersensitive to the sense of something? Perhaps in these sorts of cases what people mean by pain is actually “pain stimulus.” This makes sense because a pain stimulus would be an object. For example, a thorn could be a pain stimulus and a thorn is an object. Then by saying “hypersensitive to pain” one might mean something like: “If some pain stimulus – a thorn for example – were to come into contact with your body there would be a higher frequency and/or magnitude of APs generated in your nociceptors.”
But is it also possible that two people can have the same frequency and/or magnitude of APs generated in their nociceptors and still one complains more than the other? The answer is a resounding “Yes.” So then we’re back to square one.
Some people are born w/o the ability to feel pain. This disorder is called congenital analgia.. The life of a congenital analgiac is characterized by frequent bone fractures, a biting off of one’s tongue, and young death. Is it fair to say people “suffer” from this disorder? Isn’t pain a key component of suffering? But maybe suffering only implies psychic pain? But isn’t psychic pain still pain? And isn’t all pain really psychic? After all, pain isn’t in the pain stimulus for the APs of the nociceptors; pain is in the mind. Then really psychic and non-psychic pain are the same thing just with different primary causes.
Something a little more interesting: some people acquire the disorder pain asymbolia (usually from a brain lesion) where the sufferer can still feel pain, but the pain doesn’t hurt. The pain has no hedonic negativity. Note: these people still describe the sensation as pain (remember this disorder is acquired not congenital, so the people that have it do know what pain is). This has heavy implications on the nature of language: our definitions tell us that part of being “pain” is hurting, but then if we can discover a posteriori that in fact pain is not essentially bound to hurting, then perhaps words are not so much defined as they are discovered. If the meaning of a word is to be discovered then words are separate from our creation of them, and so they are separate from us and exist in the universe independently of us. Such implications are reminiscent of Plato’s forms.
But questions about hurting can become thornier. Masochists enjoy pain. Does this imply that, like pain asymbolics, masochists do not feel the hedonic negativity of pain and in fact feel hedonic positivity of pain? But it seems that masochists partly get pleasure out of the hurting of the pain. In this case a masochist does not not feel pain, and does not not feel hurting (i.e. the negativity of pain), but in fact does not feel the negativity of hurt, for which there is no word. We can see then the relationship between pain, hurt, and negativity of hurt as they can be analogized to higher deritives of distance.
Pain:Hurt:Hedonic Negativity of Hurt (for which there is no name)
Congenital analgia:pain asymbolia:masochism
Distance:speed:acceleration
First derivitve : second derivative : third derivative
But is it also possible that two people can have the same frequency and/or magnitude of APs generated in their nociceptors and still one complains more than the other? The answer is a resounding “Yes.” So then we’re back to square one.
Some people are born w/o the ability to feel pain. This disorder is called congenital analgia.. The life of a congenital analgiac is characterized by frequent bone fractures, a biting off of one’s tongue, and young death. Is it fair to say people “suffer” from this disorder? Isn’t pain a key component of suffering? But maybe suffering only implies psychic pain? But isn’t psychic pain still pain? And isn’t all pain really psychic? After all, pain isn’t in the pain stimulus for the APs of the nociceptors; pain is in the mind. Then really psychic and non-psychic pain are the same thing just with different primary causes.
Something a little more interesting: some people acquire the disorder pain asymbolia (usually from a brain lesion) where the sufferer can still feel pain, but the pain doesn’t hurt. The pain has no hedonic negativity. Note: these people still describe the sensation as pain (remember this disorder is acquired not congenital, so the people that have it do know what pain is). This has heavy implications on the nature of language: our definitions tell us that part of being “pain” is hurting, but then if we can discover a posteriori that in fact pain is not essentially bound to hurting, then perhaps words are not so much defined as they are discovered. If the meaning of a word is to be discovered then words are separate from our creation of them, and so they are separate from us and exist in the universe independently of us. Such implications are reminiscent of Plato’s forms.
But questions about hurting can become thornier. Masochists enjoy pain. Does this imply that, like pain asymbolics, masochists do not feel the hedonic negativity of pain and in fact feel hedonic positivity of pain? But it seems that masochists partly get pleasure out of the hurting of the pain. In this case a masochist does not not feel pain, and does not not feel hurting (i.e. the negativity of pain), but in fact does not feel the negativity of hurt, for which there is no word. We can see then the relationship between pain, hurt, and negativity of hurt as they can be analogized to higher deritives of distance.
Pain:Hurt:Hedonic Negativity of Hurt (for which there is no name)
Congenital analgia:pain asymbolia:masochism
Distance:speed:acceleration
First derivitve : second derivative : third derivative
Sunday, October 5, 2008
I Should Moderate the Upcoming Prez Debate and Get Paid Lots of Money B/c I'd Have Better Questions Than Anyone By Yonza the B.
Did everyone see the Palin/Biden debate!? Who do you think won? Palin held her own did she not? And that Biden, he’s made of the same stuff presidents are made of, don’t ya think? As for what I think, well, I don’t give a shit. I think it sucked. It was trite, boring, rehearsed, platitudinous, oblique, uninformative, pointless, and basically a waste of time that I could have otherwise spent making funny faces in my mirror.
So what I’m getting at in my I’m-to-cool-for-politics (but not too-cool-for-making-funny-faces-in-my-mirror) sort of way is that there is a big a problem somewhere because the presidential debates are overwhelmingly unhelpful[1]. Now I don’t know if everyone agrees with me, so I’ll make an argument and you can take it or leave it I guess (but I’m right, so you’d be better off taking it), and my argument consists of two major conjectures: (1) The debates are unhelpful, and (2) the problem is the questions the candidates are asked.
Now let’s not kid ourselves into thinking any candidate is or has ever been more than a politician; it is both the fact-of-the-matter and the necessary condition, and no matter how swept away by a candidate you are, how new or groundbreaking their strategies might be, there are just some facts of the world, you might even call them “laws,” that cannot be transgressed, and one of them is that in a democracy you are elected into office, and to be elected you must please more people than any real person could please. And so as a politician (and this increases in importance the higher the office) you must also be an actor. You must act away your flaws and uncertainties[2] and you must rehearse A LOT. You have speechwriters (i.e. scriptwriters) who try to write you lines for all possible contingencies. And they don’t try to write informative lines necessarily, but lines that offend the fewest, lines that are quotable and lines that are deleteriously accessible (meaning that by making something more accessible you trade accuracy and full-pictureness). Where else but in politics do you hear people try and characterize themselves so much? Imagine having a friend who wouldn’t shut up about what a maverick he was; you’d think he was an idiot and you definitely wouldn’t think he was a maverick. That’s why politics is more like a movie than some sort of massive social relationship: politicians create a character for themselves and impose it on the public, whereas in true social relationships it is the public who characterizes the person in question (or at least there is more of an interplay).
Now this essay is not intended to be a criticism of politics; it is a criticism of the media. So this previous paragraph, as much as it might have seemed like a jeremiad, was (or I intended it to be, at any rate) actually just a canvassing of the less inspiring side of the hard-facts of our political system. And it is important because these hard facts, rather than being a thing to complain about, should be a thing to surpass; so the responsibility lies on us or the media. The fact is that, assuming much of what politicians do campaigning is rehearsed, it should be a major goal to cut to the core or sift through the acting. After all, what these politicians do in office, that isn’t acting. That is where the shit stops. There the decisions are real. There a decision isn’t good if it is made with a smile; it is good if the resultant outcome is good. So really we should be striving to find out what the politicians would do when it matters.
But this is no easy task. These guys are good. When you talk about the executive branch, you’re talking about some of the best rehearsed people in the world. Passivity is not going to cut it here. So let’s talk debates because a prez/vp debate is, in theory, the forum most conducive to extemporaneity. Allow me to assert the following as a premise: the prez/vp debates, as we have seen so far, have consisted almost entirely of the aforementioned “acting.[3]” And who can blame the candidates? The line they have to walk is very fine, and if they have the opportunity to prepare and if that makes it easier for them to walk that line, well then why not? But listening to these rehearsed answers and talking points is not helpful to the American people, especially in this day in age.
Why is it not helpful? Well for one thing, all the rehearsed lines are not original and so probably appear in multiple media. These are lines about specific policies and philosophies of the candidates. “Change” “Drill baby drill” etc.. The point is, we’ve all seen it on television a hundred times or read it in the paper. Not only that, but the candidates take on various issues are now very accessible thanks to the WWW. It is not helpful to hear candidates say the same thing they’ve been saying over and over again. How does that help us learn more about the candidate and how does it really help us learn how qualified someone is to be prez/vp? After all, things like economics, social issues like abortion, health care, etc. etc… I might be mistaken but isn’t most of that stuff more like legislative branchy? Yes the president has veto power, and they do appoint SCJs, but in reality many of the decisions the president makes (and these decisions, unlike passing various laws, fall squarely on the shoulders of the president) are more leadership-type decisions (e.g. what to do immediately after a plane smashes into a big building). My beef is that these abilities – which seem very relevant to the presidency – never, or rarely, are brought up or drawn out from the candidate before he enters office.
But how do we draw it out? What we should do is ask better questions at the presidential debates. Ask questions not about the policies; ask what presidents would do in novel, high-pressure situations. By doing this we can cut through the acting; we can get to the core of the matter; we can find out if the candidates have what it takes, if they can think on their feet, if they can make important decisions quickly and wisely even if they are not prepared for them. As it stands now, the candidates prepare for everything they are going to say, but one of the skills most important to be president is to deal with stuff you’re not prepared for; to deal with stuff that has not cleanly been divided into left and right yet, or stuff that cuts across party lines. We know how these guys stand on this issue or that, but how will they be able to deal? I feel like that is such a crucial question, and more than that it is something that the debates can reveal. But they (teh debates) don’t! They don’t reveal shit. And why? Because of the dumb questions the candidates are asked. I feel like the candidates, before the debate, slip the moderators a twenty and say, “go easy on me,” because that is exactly what is being done. The moderators are going easy on them. You know what, if these people are going to be president they have to deal with some hard shit. Really hard. Stuff I would never want to deal with.[4] We shouldn’t go easy on them or give them a break because the world won’t.
So the questions that I suggest we ask are hypothetical-situation type questions. Stuff like: “if there is a nuclear bomb detonated in the US what are the first three things you would do?” Presumably the candidates do not have prepared answers to these types of questions. They can’t; there are too many of them. And so to answer these questions the candidates need to exercise their on the fly judgment – something that I think would be good for the public to see. Also, these type of questions can be unrelated to any relevant policy, and so the candidates would not be able to give one of those tangential non-answers. I mean imagine if someone had asked something like this to W. before he entered office: “If terrorists unleash a huge attack on the USA what is the first thing you do.” Now if in answering this question he sat there dumbfounded, scratching his head for 7 minutes because nobody had prepared him, then maybe people would have been a little wiser in choosing a leader because they would be more informed about his abilities.
So why aren’t the candidates asked these sorts of questions? Well, I suppose many people think that the issues and policies are just overwhelmingly important. But, again, passing laws is only loosely related to the executive branch, and so the candidates take on the issues does not reveal if someone has what it takes to be p/vp. Another reason these questions aren’t asked might be because, despite repetition, some people might not have a chance to hear the candidates defend their views except for the debates. Well…maybe. It seems a little strange that people would use the debates as their sole source of information on the candidate’s views. But because that might be the case I’ll say this: the debate should be a mix of hypothetical-type and issue-type questions and that way people can be informed about the whole package.
I will leave off with three questions that get my point across. I haven’t taken the time to think too long[5] and hard about these, so let me say there are certainly better/smarter/more revealing questions out there. It might be good if the people who wrote the questions were former presidential advisors, so they know what kind of impromptu decision making goes on in the White House on a day to day basis. So take these as sort of boiler-plate hypotheticals. These are the types of questions that should be asked (not the quality of):
(1) Suppose intelligence came in that a small terrorist group got a hold of a nuclear bomb, but the reports are unclear on how where or when. What actions would you take? Be specific.
(2) An all-out war breaks out between India and Pakistan. What responsibilities does the United States have and what actions do we take?
(3) Scientists discover that global warming is occurring at a rate faster than expected. It is widely acknowledged that if nothing is done the US will be under water w/in twenty years. How do you deal with this?
[1] Let me make it clear why “unhelpful” is the crucial adjective here. The purpose of these debates, as I think would be universally acknowledged, is to help people decide on who is most fit to be president. If this is the major purpose of the debates, it follows that being “unhelpful” would be the worst thing a debate could be. Now granted, people may watch it to support a candidate, to hurl invectives at their TV, or even a twisted few to be entertained, but these must be ancillary purposes otherwise the debate breaks down into nothing more than a macrocosmic episode of Survivor.
[2] Some people might subsume “uncertainty” under “flaws” but I think that is bogus. It pains me that, in the bizarre world of politics, uncertainty has become such a pejorative. The reason why is clearly because it is conflated with abulia, when there is no necessary connection between the two. There is a correlation, perhaps, but w/o a necessary connection why can’t we separate and isolate the two conditions, and find an answer to the real important thing: can a politician make a wise decision about issue X when he needs to, even though he is openly uncertain of the consequences?
[3] I’m asserting this as a premise because developing an argument for it would be nearly impossible. When you’re talking about nuanced behavior that suggests “acting” vs. genuineness, we’re talking about a sense or intuition more than anything concrete. Sure we can cite the fact that they are “stiff” or “mechanical” but in truth these adjectives are not only debatable themselves (e.g. I say candidate X is stiff, you say he’s not – then we’ve reached an impasse) but are relatively ineffectual argument-wise since they can be explained by many other things (e.g. nervousness, personality, having been on the trail too long). In truth our sense of genuineness is gestalt. So until the glorious day when EEGs are strapped to candidates heads at the debates, we will have to just defend premises like the one in question citing our intuitions. And if you disagree with me, then, well…there’s nothing I can do.
[4] If for some bizarre reason I ever do decide to become president, make it known here that I don’t really mean what I just said. (That is a not very funny joke).
[5] Blogging leads to lazy writing.
So what I’m getting at in my I’m-to-cool-for-politics (but not too-cool-for-making-funny-faces-in-my-mirror) sort of way is that there is a big a problem somewhere because the presidential debates are overwhelmingly unhelpful[1]. Now I don’t know if everyone agrees with me, so I’ll make an argument and you can take it or leave it I guess (but I’m right, so you’d be better off taking it), and my argument consists of two major conjectures: (1) The debates are unhelpful, and (2) the problem is the questions the candidates are asked.
Now let’s not kid ourselves into thinking any candidate is or has ever been more than a politician; it is both the fact-of-the-matter and the necessary condition, and no matter how swept away by a candidate you are, how new or groundbreaking their strategies might be, there are just some facts of the world, you might even call them “laws,” that cannot be transgressed, and one of them is that in a democracy you are elected into office, and to be elected you must please more people than any real person could please. And so as a politician (and this increases in importance the higher the office) you must also be an actor. You must act away your flaws and uncertainties[2] and you must rehearse A LOT. You have speechwriters (i.e. scriptwriters) who try to write you lines for all possible contingencies. And they don’t try to write informative lines necessarily, but lines that offend the fewest, lines that are quotable and lines that are deleteriously accessible (meaning that by making something more accessible you trade accuracy and full-pictureness). Where else but in politics do you hear people try and characterize themselves so much? Imagine having a friend who wouldn’t shut up about what a maverick he was; you’d think he was an idiot and you definitely wouldn’t think he was a maverick. That’s why politics is more like a movie than some sort of massive social relationship: politicians create a character for themselves and impose it on the public, whereas in true social relationships it is the public who characterizes the person in question (or at least there is more of an interplay).
Now this essay is not intended to be a criticism of politics; it is a criticism of the media. So this previous paragraph, as much as it might have seemed like a jeremiad, was (or I intended it to be, at any rate) actually just a canvassing of the less inspiring side of the hard-facts of our political system. And it is important because these hard facts, rather than being a thing to complain about, should be a thing to surpass; so the responsibility lies on us or the media. The fact is that, assuming much of what politicians do campaigning is rehearsed, it should be a major goal to cut to the core or sift through the acting. After all, what these politicians do in office, that isn’t acting. That is where the shit stops. There the decisions are real. There a decision isn’t good if it is made with a smile; it is good if the resultant outcome is good. So really we should be striving to find out what the politicians would do when it matters.
But this is no easy task. These guys are good. When you talk about the executive branch, you’re talking about some of the best rehearsed people in the world. Passivity is not going to cut it here. So let’s talk debates because a prez/vp debate is, in theory, the forum most conducive to extemporaneity. Allow me to assert the following as a premise: the prez/vp debates, as we have seen so far, have consisted almost entirely of the aforementioned “acting.[3]” And who can blame the candidates? The line they have to walk is very fine, and if they have the opportunity to prepare and if that makes it easier for them to walk that line, well then why not? But listening to these rehearsed answers and talking points is not helpful to the American people, especially in this day in age.
Why is it not helpful? Well for one thing, all the rehearsed lines are not original and so probably appear in multiple media. These are lines about specific policies and philosophies of the candidates. “Change” “Drill baby drill” etc.. The point is, we’ve all seen it on television a hundred times or read it in the paper. Not only that, but the candidates take on various issues are now very accessible thanks to the WWW. It is not helpful to hear candidates say the same thing they’ve been saying over and over again. How does that help us learn more about the candidate and how does it really help us learn how qualified someone is to be prez/vp? After all, things like economics, social issues like abortion, health care, etc. etc… I might be mistaken but isn’t most of that stuff more like legislative branchy? Yes the president has veto power, and they do appoint SCJs, but in reality many of the decisions the president makes (and these decisions, unlike passing various laws, fall squarely on the shoulders of the president) are more leadership-type decisions (e.g. what to do immediately after a plane smashes into a big building). My beef is that these abilities – which seem very relevant to the presidency – never, or rarely, are brought up or drawn out from the candidate before he enters office.
But how do we draw it out? What we should do is ask better questions at the presidential debates. Ask questions not about the policies; ask what presidents would do in novel, high-pressure situations. By doing this we can cut through the acting; we can get to the core of the matter; we can find out if the candidates have what it takes, if they can think on their feet, if they can make important decisions quickly and wisely even if they are not prepared for them. As it stands now, the candidates prepare for everything they are going to say, but one of the skills most important to be president is to deal with stuff you’re not prepared for; to deal with stuff that has not cleanly been divided into left and right yet, or stuff that cuts across party lines. We know how these guys stand on this issue or that, but how will they be able to deal? I feel like that is such a crucial question, and more than that it is something that the debates can reveal. But they (teh debates) don’t! They don’t reveal shit. And why? Because of the dumb questions the candidates are asked. I feel like the candidates, before the debate, slip the moderators a twenty and say, “go easy on me,” because that is exactly what is being done. The moderators are going easy on them. You know what, if these people are going to be president they have to deal with some hard shit. Really hard. Stuff I would never want to deal with.[4] We shouldn’t go easy on them or give them a break because the world won’t.
So the questions that I suggest we ask are hypothetical-situation type questions. Stuff like: “if there is a nuclear bomb detonated in the US what are the first three things you would do?” Presumably the candidates do not have prepared answers to these types of questions. They can’t; there are too many of them. And so to answer these questions the candidates need to exercise their on the fly judgment – something that I think would be good for the public to see. Also, these type of questions can be unrelated to any relevant policy, and so the candidates would not be able to give one of those tangential non-answers. I mean imagine if someone had asked something like this to W. before he entered office: “If terrorists unleash a huge attack on the USA what is the first thing you do.” Now if in answering this question he sat there dumbfounded, scratching his head for 7 minutes because nobody had prepared him, then maybe people would have been a little wiser in choosing a leader because they would be more informed about his abilities.
So why aren’t the candidates asked these sorts of questions? Well, I suppose many people think that the issues and policies are just overwhelmingly important. But, again, passing laws is only loosely related to the executive branch, and so the candidates take on the issues does not reveal if someone has what it takes to be p/vp. Another reason these questions aren’t asked might be because, despite repetition, some people might not have a chance to hear the candidates defend their views except for the debates. Well…maybe. It seems a little strange that people would use the debates as their sole source of information on the candidate’s views. But because that might be the case I’ll say this: the debate should be a mix of hypothetical-type and issue-type questions and that way people can be informed about the whole package.
I will leave off with three questions that get my point across. I haven’t taken the time to think too long[5] and hard about these, so let me say there are certainly better/smarter/more revealing questions out there. It might be good if the people who wrote the questions were former presidential advisors, so they know what kind of impromptu decision making goes on in the White House on a day to day basis. So take these as sort of boiler-plate hypotheticals. These are the types of questions that should be asked (not the quality of):
(1) Suppose intelligence came in that a small terrorist group got a hold of a nuclear bomb, but the reports are unclear on how where or when. What actions would you take? Be specific.
(2) An all-out war breaks out between India and Pakistan. What responsibilities does the United States have and what actions do we take?
(3) Scientists discover that global warming is occurring at a rate faster than expected. It is widely acknowledged that if nothing is done the US will be under water w/in twenty years. How do you deal with this?
[1] Let me make it clear why “unhelpful” is the crucial adjective here. The purpose of these debates, as I think would be universally acknowledged, is to help people decide on who is most fit to be president. If this is the major purpose of the debates, it follows that being “unhelpful” would be the worst thing a debate could be. Now granted, people may watch it to support a candidate, to hurl invectives at their TV, or even a twisted few to be entertained, but these must be ancillary purposes otherwise the debate breaks down into nothing more than a macrocosmic episode of Survivor.
[2] Some people might subsume “uncertainty” under “flaws” but I think that is bogus. It pains me that, in the bizarre world of politics, uncertainty has become such a pejorative. The reason why is clearly because it is conflated with abulia, when there is no necessary connection between the two. There is a correlation, perhaps, but w/o a necessary connection why can’t we separate and isolate the two conditions, and find an answer to the real important thing: can a politician make a wise decision about issue X when he needs to, even though he is openly uncertain of the consequences?
[3] I’m asserting this as a premise because developing an argument for it would be nearly impossible. When you’re talking about nuanced behavior that suggests “acting” vs. genuineness, we’re talking about a sense or intuition more than anything concrete. Sure we can cite the fact that they are “stiff” or “mechanical” but in truth these adjectives are not only debatable themselves (e.g. I say candidate X is stiff, you say he’s not – then we’ve reached an impasse) but are relatively ineffectual argument-wise since they can be explained by many other things (e.g. nervousness, personality, having been on the trail too long). In truth our sense of genuineness is gestalt. So until the glorious day when EEGs are strapped to candidates heads at the debates, we will have to just defend premises like the one in question citing our intuitions. And if you disagree with me, then, well…there’s nothing I can do.
[4] If for some bizarre reason I ever do decide to become president, make it known here that I don’t really mean what I just said. (That is a not very funny joke).
[5] Blogging leads to lazy writing.
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