philomadrid

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: The saturation of feelings. + News

2012-02-10T01:01:00.001+01:00

Don't forget the visit to the British cemetery on Sunday.

Dear Friends,

I look forward to meeting you again on Sunday. In the meantime I was tasked to interpret the title
for this Sunday's meeting. The title that was voted for was: The saturation of feelings.

However, your chair person and proposer suggested that the idea behind the title was something like:
"Maybe "Feelings after too much of a good thing" ...." We can interpret this in terms of an overload
of positive emotions. A more vulgar interpretation might be familiarity breeds contempt, even if
this expression is mostly used for people we know. But then again, the Chair and Proposer do suggest
that this Saturation applies equally well to relationships.

An equally valid alternative is to use something from economics, and suggest the Law of diminishing
returns. This might work very well for strawberry ice cream or chocolate cakes, but do we really
believe that there is an inbuilt mechanism that diminishes our lover towards our beloved? Not if one
is romantic would one accept this idea, and close to St Valentines' Day, I would suggest that this
idea might easily be the equivalent of heresy in the philosophy of love and relationships.

Nor would the diminishing returns interpretation apply comfortably to knowledge. Are we to say that
there is an inbuilt mechanism toward the positive feelings we have for acquiring new knowledge? We
might be tired and need a rest, but this does not mean that we enjoy knowledge less as we accumulate
it in our lifetime.

We can move on to physics and interpret the idea of saturation as being to fill a given space (real
or metaphorically) with more of a thing than the capacity of the volume of a given space. Thus, we
cannot put more than a pint of beer in a pint glass and if we tried not only do we fill the glass to
the brim, but create an overflow to the theoretical point that we might get soaked or even drown in
beer. But given that emotions and feelings are physical and even things that belong to the brain,
maybe there is a physical limit to emotions; maybe the brain does have a physical limit, after which
an emotion or feeling might physically reach its physical limits and capacity. Maybe, but this will
imply that there is a built in mechanism that implies our love towards someone is doomed to
destruction: a way out it to ration our love so that we never reach saturation levels, but then
again can we accept that our love should be measured and rationed? Certainly not so close to the
14th Of February! Unless, of course you happen to be a romantic mathematician and apply the
Banach–Tarski paradox to the topic.

Does this mean, therefore, that there are physical limits to what we can emotionally and positively
experience in our lives. It is one thing to fill our belly with chocolate cakes and another to enjoy
say the beauty of a work of art or of a work of literature.

Maybe, it is not that feelings get saturated, but rather, and here we have two options, some
feelings become overwhelmed or drowned out by other emotional feelings. For example, our positive
feelings for a person are overwhelmed by the stress cause at work. The other alternative is that we
have very little control on what emotions to experience and feelings to feel. Thus, when we're hit
with positive feelings about something we enjoy that feeling until we are hit by some other feeling
that would neutralise or destroy our previous feeling. And since we are more temporally conscious of
the loss of one positive feeling rather than the destruction of the positive feeling by some yet
unknown causal feeling or some other cause that has not yet reached our conscious self.

In conclusion, maybe the title of our topic: The saturation of feelings is just as valid and just as
controversial as any other title I might come up with. So maybe we should start from the beginning
and see where we arrive.

See you Sunday

Best

Lawrence

regular messages from friends below

Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao

-----------Ignacio------------
In the meantime Ignacio has reminded me to let you know about the new arrangements for the Thursday
meeting.

Thursday's Open Tertulia in English
Important Notice: From December 1st, the Tertulia will take place at O'Donnells (ex-Moore's) Irish
Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal)
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/

----------From Luisa: - Please not you will have to let her know in advance if you wish to attend,
thanks:
Data of language exchange,
Location: Café Comercial
Address: Glorieta de Bilbao, 7
Website location:
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=es&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=glorieta+de+Bilbao+en+Madrid&fb=1&hq=glorieta+de+Bilbao&hnear=Madrid,+España&cid=168580715753984644
Dates: on Saturday
Time: from 12:30 to 14:45
Price: 2.50 € (exchange organizing, hiring the top of the cafeteria and coffee, tea, soda, wine or
beer are included).
Luisa - email to confirm please alvarez_luisa@hotmail.com

-------------- Visits to the British Cemetry in Madrid from David Butler---
HAPPY NEW YEAR -- FELIZ AÑO NUEVO
Por el presente mensaje hago saber las fechas de las visitas comentadas, programadas para los
próximos meses : si hay alguien que quiera hacer una visita con su correspondiente grupo en
cualquier otra fecha, sírvasa avisarme para llegar a un acuerdo mutuo de fecha.

I am starting up the guided tours of the Cemetery again : if anyone wishes to make up a group
independent of the groups I set up, I will be most happy to take them round - all they need do is
state their preferred dates and we will work out a schedule.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Redacto el presente mensaje tanto en español como en inglés con el objeto de comunicaros que sigo
con el programa de visitas comentadas, sábados por la mañana, al Cementerio Británico.

Las visitas empiezan a las 11 horas en la entrada del Cementerio Británico, calle del Comandante
Fontanes 7, distrito de Carabanchel
*sábado, 11 de febrero, cuando daré las explicaciones en español
*sábado, 25 de febrero, cuando daré las explicaciones en inglés
*sábado, 10 de marzo, cuando daré las explicaciones en español.
Lo dejo a su elección cuál día acuda y no hay necesidad de avisar.
Tomen nota de nuestra página web < www.britishcemeterymadrid.com > que contiene información
de la historia del Cementerio y el mapa de su ubicación.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am writing this in both Spanish and in English to tell you that I am continuing Saturday morning
guided visits to the British Cemetery.
We meet at 11 o'clock at the Cemetery entrance in Calle del Comandante Fontanes 7 in Carabanchel
* the visit on Saturday 11 February will be in Spanish
* the visit on Saturday 25 February will be in English
* the visit on Saturday 10 March will be in Spanish.
The choice of date is left to you and there is no need to inform me in advance of the visit whether
you are coming.
Do take note of our website < www.britishcemeterymadrid.com > where you will find details of the
Cemetery's history and a map with its location.
David Butler
Short url: http://tinyurl.com/visit-british-cemetery

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: The saturation of feelings. + News

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: The wonders of the ordinary

2012-02-03T01:26:00.001+01:00

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: The wonders of the ordinary.

Once again Miguel wrote us an essay on the subject. You can get the essay from his blog, this is the
link: http://cielosdemarzo.blogspot.com/2012/02/wonders-of-ordinary.html

If you have problems accessing the essay please let me know.

Best

Lawrence

regular messages from friends below

Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao

-----------Ignacio------------
In the meantime Ignacio has reminded me to let you know about the new arrangements for the Thursday
meeting.

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: The wonders of the ordinary

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Looking for a meaning in what we do.+ news

2012-01-26T22:52:00.002+01:00

Essays and News
Dear friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: Looking for a meaning in what we do.
In the meantime Miguel has posted for us a short essay related to the topic on his blog which you
can find here:
The search for the meaning of life
http://cielosdemarzo.blogspot.com/2012/01/search-for-meaning-of-life.html
Please let me know if you cannot access the blog so I can send you a copy of the essay.
In the meantime, my approach to the topic would be to consider whether we do actually look for a
meaning in what we do. Or whether we try to find meaning, or even justify, what we do after we have
acted for whatever reason we decided to act.
In other words, do we act first, and then try to justify our actions to place them in a context. For
example, a context of justified survival – I had to steal the loaf of bread because my children were
starving. Or maybe a context of accomplishment for self gratification – we did not invest in market
X because we did not want to expose ourselves to market fluctuations, (but in reality all the good
bargains were taken by the competition!!).
Or do we act after considering the issue and justification for acting in one way and not another?
But in this context we imply that "looking for meaning" we are looking for a moral justification for
our actions. By having to explain an action before we do it we imply, at least in our society, that
we have also considered the ethical consequences of what we do. "I have to support my family, so I
must think of the company's profits before the welfare of our clients." "There is nothing wrong in
wanting to earn more money." "I have worked for my money, so I spend it how I feel like it."
And we have to consider the ethical issues before hand (and by ethical I also mean socially accepted
attitudes) or at least pretend to consider the ethical issues, because not to do so means that we
are nothing more than automata in motion and not rational free agents. Automata do not enjoy a sense
of self achievement or self fulfilment. Nor approval from peers and other members of society. There
is no psychological or mental satisfaction if we said that, my three million euro bonus was just a
result of automatic unconscious acts which cannot be explained nor accredited to any intention or
ability on my part.
It makes more sense if we ascribed the three million euro bonus to rigorous analysis of the market
and sacrificing the family for working late into the night at the office. The element of sacrifice
and intellectual prowess gives us the bragging rights to feel good about the three million and our
enemies no ground for criticism.
We try to find meaning in what we do, because we also try to feel good about what we do. And feeling
good is the one thing we thrive to achieve in our lives, because nothing feels more good than
feeling good about ourselves (even if we don't admit it).
Have fun
Lawrence

regular messages from friends below
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-----------Ignacio------------
In the meantime Ignacio has reminded me to let you know about the new arrangements for the Thursday
meeting.
Thursday's Open Tertulia in English
Important Notice: From December 1st, the Tertulia will take place at O'Donnells (ex-Moore's) Irish
Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal)
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
----------From Luisa:
Data of language exchange,
Location: Café Comercial
Address: Glorieta de Bilbao, 7
Website location:
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=es&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=glorieta+de+Bilbao+en+Madrid&fb=1&hq=glorieta+de+Bilbao&hnear=Madrid,+España&cid=168580715753984644
Dates: on Saturday
Time: from 12:30 to 14:45
Price: 2.50 € (exchange organizing, hiring the top of the cafeteria and coffee, tea, soda, wine or
beer are included).
Luisa - email to confirm please alvarez_luisa@hotmail.com
-------------- Visits to the British Cemetry in Madrid from David Butler---
HAPPY NEW YEAR -- FELIZ AÑO NUEVO
Por el presente mensaje hago saber las fechas de las visitas comentadas, programadas para los
próximos meses : si hay alguien que quiera hacer una visita con su correspondiente grupo en
cualquier otra fecha, sírvasa avisarme para llegar a un acuerdo mutuo de fecha.
I am starting up the guided tours of the Cemetery again : if anyone wishes to make up a group
independent of the groups I set up, I will be most happy to take them round - all they need do is
state their preferred dates and we will work out a schedule.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Redacto el presente mensaje tanto en español como en inglés con el objeto de comunicaros que sigo
con el programa de visitas comentadas, sábados por la mañana, al Cementerio Británico.
Las visitas empiezan a las 11 horas en la entrada del Cementerio Británico, calle del Comandante
Fontanes 7, distrito de Carabanchel
*sábado, 11 de febrero, cuando daré las explicaciones en español
*sábado, 25 de febrero, cuando daré las explicaciones en inglés
*sábado, 10 de marzo, cuando daré las explicaciones en español.
Lo dejo a su elección cuál día acuda y no hay necesidad de avisar.
Tomen nota de nuestra página web < www.britishcemeterymadrid.com > que contiene información
de la historia del Cementerio y el mapa de su ubicación.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am writing this in both Spanish and in English to tell you that I am continuing Saturday morning
guided visits to the British Cemetery.
We meet at 11 o'clock at the Cemetery entrance in Calle del Comandante Fontanes 7 in Carabanchel
* the visit on Saturday 11 February will be in Spanish
* the visit on Saturday 25 February will be in English
* the visit on Saturday 10 March will be in Spanish.
The choice of date is left to you and there is no need to inform me in advance of the visit whether
you are coming.
Do take note of our website < www.britishcemeterymadrid.com > where you will find details of the
Cemetery's history and a map with its location.
David Butler
Short url: http://tinyurl.com/visit-british-cemetery

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Looking for a meaning in what we do.+ news

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Being Natural + NEWS

2012-01-19T23:53:00.002+01:00

Dear Friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: Being Natural.
Despite the unfortunate misunderstanding about the wording of a topic, we now have a trilogy of
topics that involves us as individuals. We started with the Perfect Me and then moved on to Me and
Us and now being natural –or being ourselves.
This topic will certainly lead us to issues of personality and maybe our relationships with others.
Should we, for example, suppress any part of our personality for the sake of getting on well with
those around. Or would this be just a case of acquiescing to the aggression or dominance of others?
-----
Hola, amig@s:
---Este viernes estrenamos "Ocho mujeres", una obra de suspense del francés Robert Thomas. Más
información en estos enlaces:
http://trece-gatos.blogspot.com/2012/01/estreno-de-ocho-mujeres-de-robert.html
http://www.facebook.com/events/230561920356615/
---Representamos la obra hasta el 5 de febrero, todos los viernes y sábados a las 20 h y los
domingos a las 19 h. Entrada 7 euros.
RESERVAS: reservas13gatos@gmail.com
LUGAR: LA SALA DEL MARIANO -Centro Sociocultural Mariano Muñoz - C/ Cristo de Lepanto s/n -
(Semiesquina C/ Cristo de la Vega, detrás de la Escuela Infantil)
---Metro: Almendrales --- Bus: 78, 6 --- Renfe: Doce de Octubre
También suele haber sitio para aparcar.
¡Espero veros una noche allí!
Besos. Susanne
----------------------------
----------From Luisa:
Data of language exchange,
Location: Café Comercial
Address: Glorieta de Bilbao, 7
Website location:
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=es&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=glorieta+de+Bilbao+en+Madrid&fb=1&hq=glorieta+de+Bilbao&hnear=Madrid,+España&cid=168580715753984644
Dates: on Saturday
Time: from 12:30 to 14:45
Price: 2.50 € (exchange organizing, hiring the top of the cafeteria and coffee, tea, soda, wine or
beer are included).
Luisa - email to confirm please alvarez_luisa@hotmail.com
-------------- Visits to the British Cemetry in Madrid from David Butler---
HAPPY NEW YEAR -- FELIZ AÑO NUEVO
Por el presente mensaje hago saber las fechas de las visitas comentadas, programadas para los
próximos meses : si hay alguien que quiera hacer una visita con su correspondiente grupo en
cualquier otra fecha, sírvasa avisarme para llegar a un acuerdo mutuo de fecha.
I am starting up the guided tours of the Cemetery again : if anyone wishes to make up a group
independent of the groups I set up, I will be most happy to take them round - all they need do is
state their preferred dates and we will work out a schedule.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Redacto el presente mensaje tanto en español como en inglés con el objeto de comunicaros que sigo
con el programa de visitas comentadas, sábados por la mañana, al Cementerio Británico.
Las visitas empiezan a las 11 horas en la entrada del Cementerio Británico, calle del Comandante
Fontanes 7, distrito de Carabanchel
*sábado, 11 de febrero, cuando daré las explicaciones en español
*sábado, 25 de febrero, cuando daré las explicaciones en inglés
*sábado, 10 de marzo, cuando daré las explicaciones en español.
Lo dejo a su elección cuál día acuda y no hay necesidad de avisar.
Tomen nota de nuestra página web < www.britishcemeterymadrid.com > que contiene información
de la historia del Cementerio y el mapa de su ubicación.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am writing this in both Spanish and in English to tell you that I am continuing Saturday morning
guided visits to the British Cemetery.
We meet at 11 o'clock at the Cemetery entrance in Calle del Comandante Fontanes 7 in Carabanchel
* the visit on Saturday 11 February will be in Spanish
* the visit on Saturday 25 February will be in English
* the visit on Saturday 10 March will be in Spanish.
The choice of date is left to you and there is no need to inform me in advance of the visit whether
you are coming.
Do take note of our website < www.britishcemeterymadrid.com > where you will find details of the
Cemetery's history and a map with its location.
David Butler
Short url: http://tinyurl.com/visit-british-cemetery

And finally, Ignacio and Friends, details below
Best
Lawrence

Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-----------Ignacio------------
In the meantime Ignacio has reminded me to let you know about the new arrangements for the Thursday
meeting.
Thursday's Open Tertulia in English
Important Notice: From December 1st, the Tertulia will take place at O'Donnells (ex-Moore's) Irish
Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal)
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Being Natural + NEWS

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Me vs Us + NEWS

2012-01-12T17:03:00.002+01:00

Dear friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: Me vs Us.
In a way this is an extension of last week's topic: the perfect me. It was clear from our discussion
on Sunday that the "Me" theme is very interesting and makes captivating discussion. But can we
extrapolate from what we know about ourseleves to make claims about others and, espcially others in
a group? And how do we affect groups we belong to, not to mention groups we don't belong to?
What is sure is that this new topic should encompass even more issues than we can possibly
contemplate: for example us can be us as a couple, family, group, people with common interest, until
we arrive to the human race itself.
In the meantime I have the following news:
-----------From Luisa:
Data of language exchange,
Location: Café Comercial
Address: Glorieta de Bilbao, 7
Website location:
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=es&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=glorieta+de+Bilbao+en+Madrid&fb=1&hq=glorieta+de+Bilbao&hnear=Madrid,+España&cid=168580715753984644
Dates: on Saturday
Time: from 12:30 to 14:45
Price: 2.50 € (exchange organizing, hiring the top of the cafeteria and coffee, tea, soda, wine or
beer are included).
Luisa
-------------------From Carlos
Thanks Lawrence, happy 2012!
Please, tell your audience that we, at the Asociación Club del Hombre Libre, are holding two
meeting, Next Thursday 12 at 20:00 Hours, and next Saturday at same hour, at Cafe Comercial (On
Thursday on the bottom of the Cafe, ground floor, and on Saturday on the first floor), in which will
inform interested people of the 15 + cultural and social programs we have developed for
collaborators and volunteers.
Regards
Carlos
-----------------------

And finally, Ignacio and Friends, details below
Best
Lawrence

Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-----------Ignacio------------
In the meantime Ignacio has reminded me to let you know about the new arrangements for the Thursday
meeting.
Thursday's Open Tertulia in English
Important Notice: From December 1st, the Tertulia will take place at O'Donnells (ex-Moore's) Irish
Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal)
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Me vs Us + NEWS

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: The Perfect Me

2012-01-05T16:01:00.001+01:00

Dear Friends,
Hope you had a good holiday, only one more and were back to normal.
Just a note to remind you that we are meeting this Sunday as usual and we are discussing: The
Perfect Me. I think I'll wait to hear what you have to say on this.
Best
Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-----------Ignacio------------
In the meantime Ignacio has reminded me to let you know about the new arrangements for the Thursday
meeting.
Thursday's Open Tertulia in English
Important Notice: From December 1st, the Tertulia will take place at O'Donnells (ex-Moore's) Irish
Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal)
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: The Perfect Me

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Happy Holidays and see you 8th January 2012

2011-12-22T01:01:00.001+01:00

Dear Friends,

Because of the holiday season, the Centro Segoviano will be closed until the 8th January 2012. For
this reason our next meeting will be the 8th.

In the meantime, for our first meeting of the new year we are discussing: The Perfect Me.

Don't forget that on Thursday's there is still the meeting by Ignacio and friends details here:

May I finally take this opportunity to wish you all the best for Christmas and the New Year. See you
on the 8th January 2012.

Lawrence

Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao

-----------Ignacio------------
In the meantime Ignacio has reminded me to let you know about the new arrangements for the Thursday
meeting.

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Happy Holidays and see you 8th January 2012

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Making everybody like ourselves

2011-12-13T20:43:00.002+01:00

Dear Friends,
Just in case I won't find a wifi connection from Holland, I am sending email for Sunday today.
This Sunday we are discussing: Making everybody like ourselves (in our own image).
We certainly, want others to do what we want, or to do things that benefit us. And the idea of
beings created in the image of another being is, of course, not new. But the case we are most
familiar with we associate the resulting beings as an inferior copy of the original being.
The question is whether we can really create or make others in our images. Now, whether by design,
chance or the way nature work, we find mythology, in the form of religion, claiming that we are made
in the image of god, but a rather imperfect image of god. And from cloning technology, and more
directly, from Dolly the sheep, we know that a clone of another animal would not be logically
equivalent to the original animal. Dolly, if you remember, inherited the aged conditions of its clone.
From an anthropological point of view, it would be interesting to know how the mythology is
confirmed by science: in the same way that science confirms those race/religious beliefs that
dependency travels via the female branch: biologically this would be the mitochondria.
The philosophical issues might include: Can we physically make someone who is logically equivalent
to us? And if we can, can we then distinguish the original us and the made up us? Would the Turing
test be enough?
Or could it be that what we really mean by making someone in our image, or like ourselves, is making
someone who can fulfil our wishes and desires. In other words we want someone to do those things for
us which we cannot do ourselves. In a round about way, this brings us to the same question about
mythology, but maybe in an inverted order (maybe think of a Möbius strip or a mirror image here
although they are not the same thing!). We want to create clones like us because they represent what
we cannot achieve, i.e. live longer than our biological capacity? And by the same token, we create
perfect gods because we recognise that we are the ultimate creatures of imperfection and devoid of
ethical consistently?
But then again, we know apriori that a biological clone wouldn't live that much longer in the scheme
of things, even if a clone manages to live longer than us. And the theological/anthropological
challenge would be whether our image of our gods is itself inherently flawed by virtue that it is
our conceptual creation and therefore it inherits our conceptual flaws; in the same that the genes
of a close would inherit the flaws in our genes.
Best, see you Sunday,
Lawrence

Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-----------Ignacio------------
In the meantime Ignacio has reminded me to let you know about the new arrangements for the Thursday
meeting.
Thursday's Open Tertulia in English
Important Notice: From December 1st, the Tertulia will take place at O'Donnells (ex-Moore's) Irish
Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal)
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Making everybody like ourselves

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Subliminal Messages + News

2011-12-08T22:34:00.002+01:00

News: Carlos and Ignacio

Dear Friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: Subliminal Messages.
We usually associate this subject with hidden messages in films to advertise some product or other.
Maybe! But it does always have to be so?
As a subject, the effects and power of subliminal messages ought to be discussed in the sciences
that look at human personality, behaviour and, of course, neurology. The philosophical scope might
be limited to what we mean by subliminal messages in our daily life and how do they affect our idea
of free will.
Also interesting for us would be the question of whether we can, ourselves, send out subliminal
messages with the language we use with each other in order for them to do what we want from them. Or
the biggest question of all, can subliminal messages be employed to determine the fate of a nation
in the same way that political leaders seems to be very masterful at doing?
-----------Ignacio------------
In the meantime Ignacio has reminded me to let you know about the new arrangements for the Thursday
meeting.
Thursday's Open Tertulia in English
Important Notice: From December 1st, the Tertulia will take place at O'Donnells (ex-Moore's) Irish
Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal)
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
-----------Carlos-------------
Carlos has invited us to a meeting and workshop, on the 15 December, by Jesús Leirós and Eduardo
Junquera Cubiles – details below:
EL CLUB DEL HOMBRE LIBRE LE INVITA
AL RECITAL
Poesía y Libertad Intervendrá el Poeta: Jesús Leirós ; y
al Taller de Creatividad: La Libertad Creativa: Educando en Libertad, por el autor de ensayo,
novela, divulgación científica y teatro: Eduardo Junquera Cubiles
Jueves 15 de diciembre de 2011 a las 20:00 horas
Café Comercial
Glorieta de Bilbao nº7 (Madrid)
-----------------
Take care and see you Sunday,
Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Subliminal Messages + News

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Give Chance a Chance + News

2011-12-01T20:28:00.002+01:00

News + Essay
Dear friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: Give chance a Chance.
In the meantime this Saturday, 3 December, there is going to be a talk at 8pm by the Segovian
Journalist, Enrique de Diego, at the Segovian Centre where we meet. All are welcome.
Encarna at the Centro Segoviano has also asked me if we wanted to organise a Christmas Lunch. I told
her that'll ask you first. As many of you would know in the past we used to organise the lunch in
February or March to make sure that we had, by then, digested the Christmas fare from home. Let me
know what you think.
Take care and see you Sunday,
Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
PS don't forget that Ignacio and friends are now meeting at Triskel Tavern (San Vicente Ferrer 3) on
Thursday at 7:30pm.

Give Chance a Chance Essay

Let's see what happens!
Take care
Lawrence

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Give Chance a Chance + News

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Partyless democracies

2011-11-24T23:08:00.002+01:00

Dear Friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: Partyless democracies.
Needless to say that this is a topic that is very much on the agenda today. In my short essay I try
to argue that partyless democracies are not really possible, but this does not mean that we cannot
find a system that would keep everyone happy.
What is for sure is that this Sunday we'll have a really head start in discussing democracy,
certainly before the professionals.

Take care and see you Sunday,
Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
PS don't forget that Ignacio and friends are now meeting at Triskel Tavern (San Vicente Ferrer 3) on
Thursday at 7:30pm.
Partyless democracies
For the past few decades there has been an erosion in popularity for political parties. As long as I
can remember the outcry every after election has been one of failure of parties to protect the
interests of the people and an even much louder voice against the inequity of electoral systems.
That these voices have a legitimate complaint is in not in doubt, but not necessarily for the
reasons they espouse.
For all intents and purposes, political parties today are as potent in the arena of politics that
matters as eunuch in a harem. They have the custody of power when in government but every day we see
their influence being eroded on the international arena of politics. And today what matters is only
the international arena of politics.
And as for democracy, since when have political parties done anything useful for the people? Most of
the major reforms in our society have always been the result of public revolt or public outrage, be
it the right to vote, health care, labour safety, bank charges on debit cards etc.
Of course, like eunuch political parties do wield some power. But this power is only useful for
petty politics or ingratiating favours.
By nature political parties represent special interest groups. In modern politics the main interest
groups are those who advocate social engineering for the benefit of low income earners or groups
that want to protect money generating institutions. Such a duality is not new in history nor nature,
what is new for modern politics is that once in power a party is expected to be the champion for the
whole nation. No doubt, this ought to be the mission statement for all governments but very
difficult to accomplish with blinkered eyes of partisanship.
Today, we are in the paradoxical situation where socialist parties preside/ed over social inequities
or unemployment records of over 20 percent. Even those conservative parties who advocate promiscuous
-never mind liberal- economies are, and some have presided, over the complete bankruptcy of their
financial systems.
The lesson from this is not that party A is better than party B, but that all parties today have no
clout in things that matter. That is the running of their country.
Maybe the problem is not necessarily one of incompetence or evil intentions, but maybe a sign of the
times. The nation state is today a concept of very little consequence when most people have to
function at the continental or even global level to survive. A large part of today's wealth is
generated by multi nationals whose seat of power is most probably in another country or an other
continent. Never mind, that some countries they only survive from handouts give away the powers that
be in other capital cities of Europe.
Basically, the status of a political party these days is probably somewhere between the status of a
bridge club -a sense of collective purpose- and the idealised status of a language exchange meeting
-admirable intentions but way too difficult to implement.
In my estimation, democracies do not fair better than parties. The paradox of democracy is that we
use our freedom and liberty to tie ourselves with a minority interest group. As I have just said,
parties are but a minority group with similar interests or vested interests.
Take for example gender discrimination (25 November being International Day for the Elimination of
Violence Against Women: please not that in English this is not the same as Domestic Violence, which
also includes children and men. And the real victims of DV are children by far.) Just under a
century ago women got their right to vote. Today we also have legislation and ministries, with all
the trappings of authority and pomp, to promote equality for women. But you ask any woman who goes
to a job interview what question she dreads most. No, it is not, How is your English? but rather, do
you plan having children? In many countries this question is illegal, but in most countries most
employers find a way to ask it.
Today, all parties profess that they fight for gender equality. But as I have said in the past, men
do not fair much better than women. When it comes to discrimination, men are not asked whether they
plan to have children. The idea that men would bother themselves with such issues of their life does
not even occur to most employers. But isn't this attitude as unacceptable, as a woman being asked
whether she is planning to have children?
And yet gender discrimination ought to be quite a straight forward affair to control. The starting
point is to ban institutions that are based on gender discrimination, whatever lofty ideas they
might have of themselves in society. If there are any exclusions they ought to be based on proven
medical or scientific grounds. So gender issues are issues that, at the very least, affect 50% of
the population if not more, and yet we still venerate institutions that actively promote gender
discrimination.
If parties are the eunuch in the harem, democracies are the concubines of some dark emperor. Today,
many democracies seem to be more concerned at protecting the interests of institutions that want to
ransack the wealth of a nation, than in the interests of wealth creation and those that help create
such wealth. It is no wonder, therefore, if I am anywhere near the truth, that we question the
validity of party politics and electoral systems. However, we still value democracy above all else.
I guess that the pampered life of a concubine is always much better than the harsh life of a slave.
The real question for us is how to select a group of people to lead us, and basically do the dirty
work for us, and yet have the real interest of the whole society. Maybe democracies are like knowing
a second language, we can be very good at it but we'll never be perfect. And being good at something
might be good enough for some.
But like a second language we can always cheat our way to the right outcome. Hence, I cannot think
of a way to elect the perfect objective government without the need for parties, so I'll have no
choice but to employ one of philosophy's dirty tricks. I want to show that the problem with
democracies is not that we don't have a way of electing an objective government - or Partyless
government - but that the problem is a philosophical issue with the electoral systems per se.
The objectives of an electoral system are to find a transparent way to account for our choices, an
efficient way to select between different candidates, and that the whole process is a fair and true
reflection of our wishes.
The biggest flaw of any electoral system is that it uses mathematics to determine the value of our
wishes. However, by its very nature a mathematical value based on addition must always add up to a
unique and determined value. If we take the simple sum 1+1+1=3 the value 3 is always greater than
the individual numbers i.e. 1. So given that electoral systems always try to establish those
candidates with the highest number of votes it will always be the case that the winning candidates
will individually have a lower value than the collective sum of votes. The alternative system tried
so far have been even worse than this: a dictatorship or a feudal system.
This discrepancy arises from the fact that our choice, in a sum of different choices, will always be
a minority. The only way our choice can be said to have equal value as others is when everyone
totally disagrees or when everyone totally agrees, anything in between the individual choice will
always be in a minority.
In other words elected parties or elected candidates will never, by definition, represent the whole
of society. And this cannot happen because we employ mathematical criteria based on number values
and not on some other criteria, for example freedom or liberty values which are the basis of a
democracy. And secondly because the meaning of "to be free" is precisely to have the possibility to
disagree.
But we can approach the issue from another philosophical point of view. So far we have a system of a
collective body of voters (forget those who cannot or do not vote for now), who choose individuals,
who in reality do not represent themselves but a minority interest group, and these elected
individuals/group lead the nation. Put in another way, we have a unit (all voters) and from this
unit some members (party) are selected to lead the whole unit (all voters). Another approach might
be instead of selecting the party, we select what the party intends to do: so instead of electing Mr
A or Ms B, we electing Policy A or Policy B.
Maybe governments in democracies shouldn't be elected on what we wish but on what freedoms and
liberties political parties are prepared to offer society as a whole. No matter how insane this idea
might seem I am sure that no party will ever propose policies based on discrimination against women,
or some such policy. However, under this approach we can actually measure whether the policy has
been implemented by applying the falsifiable test. If an institution discriminates against women,
then we know that the policy has not been implemented correctly. Today we only need to pass
legislation to pass the verification test of equal opportunities, we don't need to confirm that the
opportunities are actually applied or really exist. Legislation of equal opportunities is evidence
that confirms that a policy of equal opportunity has been implemented.
The second philosophical issue we have with parties, democracies, and electoral systems is this. The
original models of electoral systems were to select individuals to parliament. And these individuals
where for all intents and purposes members of the landed gentry (i.e. the same interest group).
Maybe the original partyless democracy. It is not until the mid 19th century, and really the 20th
century that individuals got together to form parties to represent specific interest groups. But the
first past the post system (FPTP = simple majority; similar to what we use to choose a topic, but
our system is more sophisticated) was still kept as a reference model. And, when the candidates in
an election morphed into representatives of parties then it became necessary to find an electoral
system that represented party interests and not person preference. Proportional voting (PR) was
supposed to achieve this all just electoral system.
It should be clear by now that if we choose to elect individuals we are discriminating against
parties, and if we choose parties we discriminate against born leaders. In other words if we are
counting sheep we cannot complain that we have no wolves in our flock of sheep. Indeed, PR can
easily lead to prime ministers who are bland party creatures, such as some recent PM's in certain
European countries I dare not mention. And the FPTP system can easily result in exotic political
animals at the head of government, for example Bush junior and Mrs Thatcher.
The philosophical defect we voters suffer from is that we engage in a system that is has
discrimination as part of it's DNA and expect the progeny to be all fair and just. At least harem
concubines who produced a male progeny for the emperor had real authority, respect and wealth. The
question that we still have not answered is what are the chances of the present political system
creating a fair and just progeny when justice and fairness are not found in the DNA of the system?
So the first problem we have with parties is that parties exist because not everyone has the same
values and the same choices. Thus, parties are members (call them members y1, y2 ..) of a set (call
it set X), but it is the set (X) itself that makes up the population (voters and all). So as long as
a set (X) is made up of unique members (y1, y2..) no individual member (y1 or y2....) can itself
also be the set (X). This is because a democracy (X) has more than one member (y) and each member is
unique (Miguel might give us the technical language for all this).
So a party can never represent the population perfectly, because there is a very high probability
that someone will disagree with that party and therefore create an other member to the set. Thus as
long as we all have different values for whatever reason we'll always be unable to have a fair
partyless society. A partyless democracy means that we all agree; if we disagree it will be chaos.
And for the same reasons I used against electoral systems we can use for democracies. Along as these
are individual unique democracies on this Planet, an individual democracy will always be in a
minority. Thus the values of one democracy might not necessarily equate to the same values of
another democracy: somewhat like a translation, something is always lost in a translation. An since
democracies are more or less an open system there will always be positive and negative influences.
Meaning that some democracies might be strong and other might be weak, some might be rich and others
might be poor, the same as voters.
Maybe, as I have argued, a more equitable system would be one that offered us more opportunities of
personal freedoms, and the protection thereof, and then we chose amongst these options rather than a
choice based on minority interests.
So, instead of voting for individuals or parties, we vote for policies and then find a method to
employ the people capable of implementing these policies. Indeed, the policies might even come from
some sort of Political Turing Machine! If we cannot distinguish whether a proposed human right was
created by a machine or a human, then that right must be objective and universal.
This system might not be partyless, nor perfectly democratic, but at least we know in advance what
the parties are going to be working on: today we have to wait days, weeks and even months to have an
idea of what an elected party is all about.
In other words, we tell the parties what policies we want implement, and they, the parties, make us
an offer, to implement those policies, we cannot refuse.
Take care
Lawrence
from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Partyless democracies

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: News and Sunday’s topic

2011-11-20T22:29:00.001+01:00

Dear friends,

Last week I forgot to include details of Miguel's maths tertulia this coming Tuesday. As it so
happens Carlos also sent me details of his meeting on Thursday.

In the meantime the topic for this coming Sunday is: Partyless Democracies.

I'll try, not promising, to write something on the topic.

Best

Lawrence

-----------------------Miguel event 22 November -------------
Estimado tertuliano,
Te adjunto el enlace con los detalles de la próxima Tertulia de Matemáticas, que se abrirá con la
conferencia Konseku: números, teselados y espacios sin fronteras
Esperando verte por allí, aprovecho la ocasión para enviarte un cordial saludo,
J.Miguel
P.S.: Si quieres impartir una conferencia de contenido matemático envíame un mensaje de correo para
tratar los detalles
Si quieres darte de baja en esta lista de correo envía otro con "Baja" en el campo
"Asunto" del mensaje
Konseku
Números, teselados y espacios sin fronteras
por D. José Miguel García Palomo
Ingeniero de Telecomunicación
Martes 22 de Noviembre de 2011 a las 19h
Círculo Salmantino
c/ Santa Cruz de Marcenado nº 13, 28015 Madrid

-----------------------Carlos event 24 November-------------
CLUB DEL HOMBRE LIBRE
INVITACIÓN A CONFERENCIA, TALLER DE CREATIVIDAD Y VOTACIÓN AL
PREMIO PROMOTOR DE LA LIBERTAD 2011
Estimado socio o simpatizante:
Esta vez va a ser una conferencia del doctor en medicina. Dr. José Tomás Ramos Amador, Jefe de
Servicio de Pediatría del Hospital Universitario de Getafe. Su título es:
Libertad de elección de futuro con VIH perinatal.
En la segunda parte de dicho evento, se ofrecerá un taller de creatividad titulado:
La Libertad Creativa
donde se reúnen escritores, artistas y poetas para decirnos cómo iniciarnos y tener éxito en estas
artes. También se solicitará votación respecto a quién debe recibir el
Premio al Promotor de la Libertad 2011.
Como siempre la conferencia es gratuita (aunque es obligatoria una consumición). Este año el
programa de actividades del club, está muy completo, con 12 actos culturales, en diferentes lugares.
Espero que sea de tu interés. Aprovecho para pedirte una opinión, ¿quién crees que merece ganar el
Premio al Promotor de La Libertad en España 2011? Cualquier persona u organización es apta, no hay
requisitos adicionales para merecer el premio.
Saludos afectuosos y hasta muy pronto.
Santiago Samaniego, Presidente
Madrid, 7 de Noviembre de 2011
CLUB DEL HOMBRE LIBRE/ CAFÉ COMERCIAL
INVITACION
Libertad de Elección de futuro con VIH Perinatal
Intervendrá el Doctor:
José Tomás Ramos Amador y Taller de Creatividad: La Libertad Creativa
Cómo crear y disfrutar de ello en Libertad, intervienen escritores como Eduardo Luis Junquera y José
Luis Segovia
Artista Plástico: Milton Castillo
Poeta: Gonzalo Escarpa
Jueves 24 de Noviembre de 2011 a las 20:00 horas
Glorieta de Bilbao nº7 (Madrid)
DR. D. JOSÉ TOMÁS RAMOS AMADOR
Título en Medicina: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1977 - 1983. - Tesis Doctoral Facultad de
Medicina Universidad Complutense de Madrid : Leída el 19-10-1993. - Especialidad de Pediatría.
Hospital 12 de Octubre Madrid (1984-1988) - Médico Adjunto de Pediatría-Sección de
Immunodeficiencias Hospital 12 Octubre, Madrid hasta Junio 2006 - Jefe de Servicio de Pediatría
Hospital Universitario de Getafe, Madrid desde Julio de 2006 - Director de 7 tesis doctorales
Universidad Complutense, Madrid- Investigador Principal de 18 proyectos de investigación - Autor y
coautor de 78 capítulos de libro y 214 publicaciones (112 internacionales) hasta Septiembre 2011-
Revisor de varias revistas y abstracts de congresos internacionales y españoles - Miembro y
Representante español del Steering Committee del Grupo de Ensayos Clínicos Pediátricos de PENTA
(Pediatric European Network for the Treatment of AIDS) desde 1998- Asesor del Plan Nacional del SIDA
y Consejería de Sanidad de la Comunidad de Madrid.
EDUARDO LUIS JUNQUERA: Autor de ensayo, novela, libros científicos y teatro.
JOSE LUIS SEGOVIA MARTIN: Poeta y escritor.
MILTON CASTILLO: Artista plástico y músico, Nacido en Tegucigalpa, Honduras 1977- Egresado de la
Escuela Nacional de bellas Artes 1996. Ha realizado diversas exposiciones pictóricas en países de
centro américa como, El salvador, Guatemala, Panamá y también en Italia y España. Actualmente vive
en Madrid donde sigue trabajando el arte activamente con proyectos tanto plásticos como musicales.
Gonzalo Escarpa: Licenciado en Filología Hispánica. Dirige el Laboratorio de Creación La
Piscifactoría de Madrid. Fue becado por la Fundación Antonio Gala en 2002 y trabajó como coordinador
de la Fundación Centro de Poesía José Hierro desde 2003 hasta 2008. Actualmente trabaja como
mediador cultural y colabora con instituciones coordinando y ofreciendo recitales y talleres en
plataformas como el Instituto Cervantes o La Noche en Blanco. Imparte clases de forma continuada el
Laboratorio de Creación Poética en varios espacios culturales. En los últimos tiempos su trabajo se
centra en el estudio de la poética escénica, las tecnologías de la oralidad, los componentes
visuales de lo literario y la experimentación intergenérica, elementos que confluyen en un género
que denomina 'perfopoesía'.
CLUB DEL HOMBRE LIBRE
¿Quienes somos?
Somos un grupo humanista y ecléctico que busca mejorar las capacidades del hombre actual para de
esta forma mejor contribuir a la sociedad, ello mediante el análisis, el ajuste y la adaptación a
los grandes cambios sufridos en la sociedad en los últimos años respecto al ser humano, sus
responsabilidades grupales y su imagen como individuo.
Objetivos:
1. Alcanzar el verdadero y profundo conocimiento personal y profesional del hombre y la mujer
2. Promover el liderazgo e integridad personal
3. La igualdad total de sexos y el respeto mutuo
4. La preparación para que tanto el hombre como la mujer asuman un papel activo y emprendedor en la
sociedad a todos los niveles.
Estamos a tu disposición, cualquier aclaración que necesites ontacta con nosotros en el teléfono
615268045 o en cfargases@yahoo.es
(*) Asociación declarada de Utilidad Pública Municipal

-----------------------

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: News and Sunday's topic

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Is psychology a pseudo science?

2011-11-17T22:35:00.002+01:00

Essay by Simon
Dear Friends,
This Sunday we are discussing a rather challenging topic: Is psychology a pseudo science?
Fortunately, Simon has written a short essay for us and he has also sent us an article from The
Guardian that links very well with our subject.
Whilst confessing that this is not a subject I have given much thought about, the question I would
explore is this: is it possible that the more we learn about the human body and especially the human
brain, the more psychology seems to deal with superficial issues or seem to be lose its relevance?
So, although, what we call psychology is a science, its mission is either being eclipsed by emerging
sciences such as genetics and neurology, or maybe the issues in psychology can be solved by non
traditional methods.
Indeed, maybe psychology is just one of those activities, like politics and religions, where it is
more susceptible to evolutionary change than say philosophy and mathematics.
See you Sunday,
Best
Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
PS don't forget that Ignacio and friends are now meeting at Triskel Tavern (San Vicente Ferrer 3) on
Thursday at 7:30pm.

I am including a article from the Guardian below.
I will shorten this "essay" with minimal definitions:
"SCIENCE", as we have discussed this recently, we can take a sort of vague consensus view that it
must include experimentation as a means to test theories, with peer review of the results......
"PYSCHOLOGY". Its definition and exact borders are not of specific interest for the purposes of this
discussion, I suggest, as our conclusions may be applied to related disciplines. I point instead, at
an example, SEE BELOW, at a piece of work generally described as "Psychology" (article published in
today's "Guardian" 15 November 2011). This is more interesting, anyway, as we can discuss these
findings.
"PSEUDO SCIENCE". I think there are 2 strands of meaning. Firstly as a generally derogatory term
implying unreliability or the trivial nature of the subject matter.
Secondly there is a more technical definition based on the lack of falsifiability of its
propositions. Famously, the philosopher Karl Popper labelled psychoanalysis as "pseudo science"
because he believed that no experimental or clinical outcomes would require the theory to be
amended. (Some philosophers and scientists have subsequently complained that things are not so
simple - that falsifiability can be almost as elusive as "verification", that contrary data must
sometimes be sidestepped when building a new theory...and others). Nevertheless the lack of
"falsifiability" remains one of the main criteria when accusations of "pseudo science" are made. I
use the word "accusation" as it is generally used to try to disqualify the field of supposed
knowledge, although some philosophers of science have recognised that "pseudo science" may develop
into "real science", for example alchemy to chemistry.
So, in a minute, we can decide whether "unreliability", "triviality" or "unfalsifiability"...or any
other supposed hallmarks of pseudo science can be discerned in the work described below.
But first I put forward some personal opinions (3)
-Triviality is not a "technical" objection to research; there are many "real science" Phd s on very
narrow areas sitting on dusty shelves of little or no interest to anyone. On the other hand
triviality or irrelevance is a fair criteria for general criticism. Above all
all findings should be aware of their limitations and specificity; for example it seems to me that
much of the original theorising around IQ and other aptitude tests was over ambitious, and probably
dangerous.
-One of my objections to much written in the social sciences is not just that it is not
"falsifiable" but that it hardly says anything at all. To say that people with few resources are
likely to suffer "feelings of relative depravation" does not take us very far down the road of
knowledge.
-Finally I return to an obsession of mine with language use, specifically for words related to
"inner states", intentionality etc. It seems to me that this category of words can cause massive
confusion if used in experimental language - as conditions, predictions, postulated causes or
whatever - because they follow a different dynamic. For example I do not believe that the statement
"A good family life makes people feel more fulfilled" can be tested in the same way as " X % of the
population say they sleep badly after watching a horror film". If falsifiability in the social
sciences is our main concern then our subject matter should be behaviour (including "verbal
behaviour" ie speech) and not "inner states" or other such psychological entities.
That's all from me. Here is the article......
To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/14/daniel-kahneman-psychologist
Daniel Kahneman: 'We're beautiful devices'
Called the world's most important psychologist, Daniel Kahneman inspired the trend for
pop-psychology books, won a Nobel in economics and has devoted his life to studying the logic
of irrationality
Oliver Burkeman
Tuesday November 15 2011
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/14/daniel-kahneman-psychologist

The Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman lives in an airy penthouse on the 14th floor of
an apartment block in downtown Manhattan, not far from the Eighth Street subway station. But never
mind that for a moment. Instead, without thinking too hard about it, try answering the
following question: roughly what percentage of the member states of the United Nations are in
Africa? (I'll wait.)
The correct figure isn't what's important here. What matters is that your answer is likely to be
lower than if you had first been informed that Kahneman is 77 years old, or if I had claimed his
apartment? where he lives with his wife, the British-born psychologist Ann Triesman ? was
60 floors up, and near the 86th Street station. This is the phenomenon known as the "anchoring
effect", and it is typical of Kahneman's contributions to psychology in that it suggests something
rather disturbing about the human mind: not just that we're susceptible to making skewed judgments,
but that we're influenced by factors more subtle and preposterous than we could ever imagine.
Kahneman's new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, is a meaty memoir of his life's work that describes
countless such cognitive quirks ? but don't imagine that reading it will cure your irrationality.
"It's not a case of: 'Read this book and then you'll think differently,'" he says. "I've written
this book, and I don't think differently." Kahneman, whom Steven Pinker calls "the most important
psychologist alive", is twinkly and energetic. But beneath the surface, he is a pessimist. And he is
allergic to the notion that his book might be mistaken for self-help. It's his first work aimed at a
mass audience, and he hated writing it: "I really did not want to disgrace myself in front of my
colleagues, and I worried the public wouldn't like it if it read like a textbook. Also, I really
don't like old men's books, and I felt I was writing an old man's book." Eventually, in despair, he
arranged to pay four younger psychologists $2,000 each to review his manuscript anonymously, and to
tell him the brutal truth: should he bother finishing?
They liked it. So did I. It's hard not to: Kahneman's approach to psychology spurns heart-sinking
tables and formulae in favour of short, intriguing questions that elegantly illustrate the ways our
intuitions mislead us.
Take the famous "Linda question": Linda is a single 31-year-old, who is very bright and deeply
concerned with issues of social justice. Which of the following statements is more probable: a) that
Linda works in a bank, or b) that Linda works in a bank and is active in the feminist movement? The
overwhelming majority of respondents go for b), even though that's logically impossible. (It can't
be more likely that both things are true than that just one of them is.) This is the "conjunctive
fallacy", whereby our judgment is warped by the persuasive combination of plausible details. We are
much better storytellers than we are logicians.
If any of this sounds familiar, it's because Kahneman and his collaborator Amos Tversky, who died in
1999, are the primary inspiration for many of the past decade's pop-psychology books ? the
publishing phenomenon that brought you tipping points and freakonomics, the wisdom of crowds, black
swans, and "predictable irrationality". It is a trend that one unimpressed reviewer of Kahneman's
book labelled "the effect effect". In the early days, academics took a similarly sniffy view of
Kahneman and Tversky's research: Kahneman recalls one well-known American philosopher turning his
back on him at a party with the disdainful words: "I am not really interested in the psychology of
stupidity." That soon changed, though, as the pair's influence spread rapidly throughout the social
sciences, culminating in 2002, when Kahneman became one of a handful of non-economists to win the
Nobel prize in economics.
"The psychology of stupidity" is not, in any case, a very apt summary. Kahneman's point isn't that
we're all wildly bizarre or idiotic, but that our mental apparatus, which works so well most of the
time, sometimes leads us astray in predictable ways. "We're beautiful devices," he says. "The
devices work well; we're all experts in what we do. But when the mechanism fails, those failures can
tell you a lot about how the mind works."
In Thinking, Fast and Slow, he presents this as a drama with two "characters": System One, which is
the domain of intuitive responses, and System Two, the domain of conscious, effortful thought.
System One ? the kind of mental ability celebrated in Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink ? kicks in
without our needing to think about it. The problem is that it always tries to help, even when it
shouldn't, and that it works with whatever it's got, which isn't always the most sensible information.
The biggest challenge this posed was to economists, most of whom assumed that people were basically
rational and selfish and acted in their own best interests. The work that won Kahneman the Nobel
showed otherwise. For example, we hate losing things more than we like gaining them, which is
why people refuse to sell their home for less than they paid, even if it makes financial sense to do
so. Similar biases make us behave strangely where risk is involved, too: if forced to choose between
being given ?500 for certain, or a 50% chance of winning ?1,000, most of us will opt for the sure
thing. But if the choice is between losing ?500 for sure, or a 50% chance of losing ?1,000, most of
us will take the gamble.
Then there's the much-cited thought experiment involving tickets to the theatre. Suppose a woman
plans to buy a ticket for a play costing ?40, but en route to the theatre she realises she has lost
two ?20 notes in the street: would she still buy the ticket? Most people, when asked this question,
assume that she would. But what if she bought the ticket in advance, then arrived at the theatre to
find she'd lost it? In that case, people assume she'd go home without buying another ticket ? even
though the scenarios are financially identical. As Richard Thaler, another leading light in the
revolution that became known as behavioural economics, told an interviewer, Kahneman and Tversky's
research meant that "rationality was fucked". Kahneman, on the other hand, likes to say that you'd
need to study economics for years before you'd find his research surprising: it didn't surprise his
mother at all.
Kahneman was born in 1934, the son of Lithuanian Jews, and grew up in France. Life was generally
good until 1940, when German forces swept in. He recalls drawing, around that time, "what was
probably the first graph I ever drew", showing his family's fortunes over time ? "and around 1940
the curve crossed into the negative domain." His father was captured during a large-scale sweep of
Jews in France, but somehow escaped being sent to a concentration camp and was let go instead. ("The
story of my father's release, which I never fully understood, also involved a beautiful woman and a
German general who loved her," he wrote.) The family kept moving across France. "The feeling was of
being hunted," Kahneman recalls. At one point their home was a chicken coop at the back of a pub. In
1944 his father died of insufficiently treated diabetes, six weeks short of D-day. As soon as the
war ended, his mother took the family to live in Palestine, in what would soon become Israel.
Kahneman was drafted into the Israeli army in 1955, where he served as an infantryman for a year ?
"it was a very tense time, but I never fired a shot in anger" ? then worked as a military
psychologist. One of his roles was to evaluate new recruits by watching them perform the "leaderless
group challenge", in which teams of eight men had to transfer themselves, and a large log, over a
6ft-high wall, without anybody, or the log, touching the wall. The task was designed to reveal the
participants' true character, and thus demonstrate who had the making of a future leader. As a
method of psychological evaluation, it wasn't much good: Kahneman made predictions, but follow-up
research revealed them to be little better than guesses. What the experience taught him, in the end,
wasn't how to spot a future hero, but rather how hard it was to expunge his own confidence in his
predictions. "We knew as a general fact that our predictions were little better than random
guesses," he writes. "But we continued to feel and act as if each particular prediction was valid."
Confidence is a feeling, not a logical conclusion reached after analysing statistics. Kahneman would
later encounter the same phenomenon among investment advisers, who clung to their belief in their
abilities even after it was demonstrated that their stock-picking skills left their clients
no better off than rolling dice.
The intellectual relationship that defined his career began in the late 1960s at Hebrew University
in Jerusalem, when he met Tversky, a young colleague. Kahneman describes their bond as "magical",
and it sounds much more like a loving friendship than a scholarly collaboration. For several years,
the two spent hours every afternoon in freewheeling conversations, examining their own hunches and
intuitions, gradually developing the list of biases and fallacies for which they became famous. "He
got up late, and I was a morning person, so we started with lunch, and took it from there," Kahneman
remembers. "This kind of collaboration is very unusual in science. We were just extraordinarily
lucky, and we knew it." The editor of the journal to which they submitted their first major paper
rejected it; their work seemed too frivolous for the academic establishment. "Psychologists really
aim to be scientists, white-coat stuff, with elaborate statistics, running experiments," Kahneman
says. "The idea that you can ask one question and it makes the point ... well, that wasn't how
psychology was done at the time."
With hindsight, however, those single questions seem anything but frivolous. The irrational traits
they uncovered are, to pick one notable example, hugely important in understanding the causes of the
current economic crisis, which has its roots in (among others) the overconfidence bias and the
illusion of skill. If we can't hope to correct such biases in any lasting way, we can perhaps seek
to cultivate some humility about the limits of our mental powers. Being the puppet of subtle
psychological influences we cannot even recognise is annoying. But at least we can try to remember
that that's what's likely to be happening. Well, it's a start.
(End)
from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Is psychology a pseudo science?

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: What can we do without money?

2011-11-10T23:28:00.002+01:00

Dear friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: What can we do without money?

Of course, we cannot do much.
If we lived in some jungle we probably wouldn't need any money at all, but then our scope in life
would be quite limited. And even in jungles they do have some form of money, anyway.
The thing about money is that it is an adaptation of strength and stamina in the jungle and a means
to store wealth today for future use. I think that this is clear and obvious. The problems start
accumulating when we forget this basic feature of money.
But it is also obvious that if we live in a city or a modern society, there is practically nothing
we can do without money. But I also need to qualify this statement: it is one thing for us to have
money to do something and another that money is needed to build the infrastructure for what we want
to do.
Thus a visit to the park around the corner, might not cost us, personally, any money, but it
certainly costs money to the community to build and maintain the park.
And from our personal experience, we also learn that money tends to cluster, maybe in the way that
solar systems tend to cluster towards the centre of the galaxy. This is another way of saying that
left to our own devices, money tends to move towards those who already have money, or at the very
least, towards a select few who are in the centre of the action.
But the power of money depends on the value we put on it. And maybe it is here that we can engage
into some philosophical discussion. What gives money its value?
At face value this looks more like a question in economics rather than philosophy, but I will argue
that it is a philosophical question none the less. Values change, and they change because we change
them, or they are changed as a consequence of our actions.
The biggest drawback money has is that when we use money or transfer money for goods and services we
are transferring a material commodity (gold, bites on the bank's computer, currency notes, etc) for
a metaphysical entity (value), the good or service itself is practically of no consequence. What I
value is a very subjective and personal decision, but my money is something objective and can be
verified by others.
And here is the paradox, if you like, about money. If our values are not in line with the objective
value of money we will be depleting our stock of money unnecessarily. But this irrational (not in
the economic sense of irrational, but philosophical sense) depletion of our stock of money, also
implies an irrational increase of someone else's stock of money. And the paradox is that once we
start with this slippery slope of thinking, we must reach a point where even if we had money we
still won't be able to do anything with it because we have destroyed any value anything might have
had. This is beyond the ravages of inflation, I must add.
A house that we paid half a million Euros for a year ago, and now is not worth more than a hundred
an twenty thousands Euros, is not only a house not worth anything, but a house of cards.
Best
Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
PS don't forget that Ignacio and friends are now meeting at Triskel Tavern (San Vicente Ferrer 3) on
Thursday at 7:30pm.
from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: What can we do without money?

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Do we suffer too much?

2011-11-04T00:15:00.002+01:00

Essays – Eva and me

Dear Friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: Do we suffer too much?
On the one hand pain and suffering are a private and subjective experience, but on the other hand we
have a great capacity to recognise suffering in others. But does this affect the way and the amount
we suffer?
In the meantime Eva has sent us a few ideas in Spanish on the topic and I have considered a few
issues on my own.
Take care and see you Sunday
Best
Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
PS don't forget that Ignacio and friends are now meeting at Triskel Tavern (San Vicente Ferrer 3) on
Thursday at 7:30pm.
-----EVA----

¿Sufrimos demasiado?
Definición del Diccionario de la Real Academia Española de la Lengua:
Sufrimiento definicion: Paciencia, conformidad, tolerancia con que se sufre una cosa.
Sufrir: Del latín.sufferre. Sentir físicamente un daño, dolor, enfermedad o castigo. Sentir un daño
moral. Recibir con resignación un daño moral o físico. Sostener, resistir, aguantar. Satisfacer por
medio de la pena.
___________________________________________
¿Quién no ha experimentado alguna vez en su vida, que ésta se vuelve demasiado"pesada",
"angustiosa", "dura" y por qué no decirlo a veces "insoportable"?
A menudo me acuerdo de Jorge Manrique que decía en "Las coplas a la muerte de su padre" .-"Nuestras
vidas son los ríos que van a dar en la mar, que es el morir.-". Porque pienso que el sufrimiento del
hombre, es grande e innecesario e inútil en la mayoría de los casos. La metáfora queda establecida.
¿Dónde va a parar todo nuestro sufrimiento?
Hace años leí un libro que fue tildado como "Existencialista" y es el que ha motivado el título de
la "discusión" que nos ocupa. El título, aún hoy me sigue pareciendo interesante. "La insoportable
levedad del ser" de Milán Kundela. Trata de un hombre y sus dudas existenciales. El libro relata
escenas de la vida cotidiana pero trazadas con un hondo sentido trascendental. Me pareció sórdido y
no me gustó, pero la esencia del libro es muy interesante. La existencia humana, su devenir. ¿Cómo
aborda el ser humando su existencia única e irrepetible en cada uno de sus actos y momentos? La
existencia humana se va tornando demasiado pesada.
Nuestras vidas soportan muchísimas cargas que hacen que "emocionalmente" a veces nos sobrepasen.¿Qué
hacer cuando esto ocurre?, nadie nos prepara ni nos dice cómo canalizar el sufrimiento. Es por ello
que algunas personas deciden "irse voluntariamente".
En el sufrimiento pienso y valoro a Víctor E. Frankl en su obra .-"El hombre en busca de sentido".-
(defensor del Fundamentalismo). El ser humano aprende más del sufrimiento que de la felicidad, es
indudable, y ante la adversidad y para salir de ella, ha de haber construido un mundo en base a
muchos valores, no a uno sólo como indicaban los Fundamentalistas. De esta formar será fácil
soportar las adversidades por las que el ser humano ha de pasar. Sufrimiento que tenemos por partida
doble, por un lado el de ser humano como individuo y por otro cómo miembro social.
¿Es necesario el sufrimiento para saber que existe la felicidad?.
¿Sufre el hombre mucho?. Si diría yo, y a modo de conclusión añadiré que estoy de acuerdo con Carmen
Martín Gaite en su libro "Lo raro es vivir". Donde expresa de un modo conciso cómo lo verdaderamente
singular e insólito no es sufrir si no vivir.
La pregunta queda en el aire para todos vosotros.
Suerte que para algunos de nosotros el sufrimiento es más llevadero gracias a Naomi Campbell

-----Lawrence-----
Do we suffer too much?
Suffering is of course connected with pain, however, what we are interested in is the emotional or
psychological suffering. Pure physical pain is a biological function, but pain associated with
emotional or psychological distress is a different matter.
By suffering I will primarily associate it with emotional/psychological suffering. For example the
trudge of commuting in the morning, or the stress we experience at the end of the month when we are
waiting for the pay cheque to reach our bank account. But there are more serious cases of suffering:
humiliation, exploitation, oppression and the feeling of unable to change the world around us.
Suffering, can be a matter of intensity, or the number of issues that cause us distress. And maybe,
like biological pain, emotional or psychological pain must have the function of a warning system to
draw our attention to the negative situation we find ourselves in.
Maybe, the –too much- factor kicks in when we reach a hypothetical threshold of pain we cannot
tolerate. Thus, first and foremost, suffering can act as a gauge of pain tolerance. But we also have
to account for the fact that we can also judge the amount of suffering we see other people
experience. We can easily identify, people who are distressed, people who cannot tolerate a
situation there in and people who feel defeated by what surrounds them.
Maybe today we suffer too much because our life today is more complex with more possible positive
experiences and thus more possible disappointments. Another issue is that today the chances are that
we come across more people in our lives than what our early ancestors did. And we know that coming
across people we don't means that we are always on a survival alert.
And to prove my point all you have to do is to wonder in Sol on a Saturday evening and try not to
think whether someone is after you wallet or handbag.
The question from all this, is that given we are today more exposed to situations with the potential
to suffer some negative effect, are we increasing our threshold of emotion pain, or reducing our
threshold? In other words, are we becoming more tolerant or less tolerant to suffering?
If we think that we are becoming less tolerant it might be that we are inundated by situations that
not only manifest themselves into suffering, but also in the intensity of the suffering. Thus it
takes us less time to reach our threshold of suffering and by default, suffer too much.
On the other hand, there is enough evidence around us that suggests that we are becoming more
tolerant. Indeed, a visit to Sol is itself is evidence that we are becoming more tolerant of more
people around us. And the crowning jewel of this evidence is the popularity of low cost airlines.
Indeed, are low cost airlines evidence that maybe we are dulling down our capacity to suffer to the
extent that we are just unaware that we are suffering?
Best
Lawrence
from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Do we suffer too much?

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Differences + news

2011-10-27T22:59:00.001+02:00

News from Asun and Miguel
Dear Friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: Differences.
A curios subject, since the topic encompasses a huge number of possibilities: from disagreements, to
defences in opinion, differences between two objects, differences between two ideas, or more for all
that matter.
In the meantime Miguel and Asun would like to share to following with you:
----Estimado tertuliano,
Por si fuera de interés te envío información sobre la reunión anual Martin Gardner:
http://matematicas.montes.upm.es/fernando/g4g/ (la página contiene varios ambigramas
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambigram>. Por ejemplo el logotipo queda invariante si se gira 180º
alrededor del centro)
http://www.g4g-com.org/
http://www.g4g-com.org/event-resources/
Saludos cordiales,
J.Miguel
-----Asun's friend would like to rent the following: ALQUILER LOCAL/LOFT PARA TERAPEUTAS
Details here (PhiloMadrid Picasa site): http://tinyurl.com/loft-pinto

Best
Lawrence
Lawrence

Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
PS don't forget that Ignacio and friends are now meeting at Triskel Tavern (San Vicente Ferrer 3) on
Thursday at 7:30pm.
from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Differences + news

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Can protest politics change anything?

2011-10-20T22:35:00.002+02:00

Dear Friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: Can protest politics change anything?
The facts and the evidence suggest that yes, of course, protest politics can change a lot of things.
However, what is of particular interest to us here is what is the tipping force that transforms a
protest into a change? And following this we have investigate whether the change is for the better
or for the worse?
There is a prima facie difference between running away from something and running towards something.
Thus, by definition, protest politics is usually running away from something. Which is well and
good, but unfortunately this is not that terribly interesting on the grounds that those who are in a
bad situation already know about it and do not need the protesters to tell them about it. And in
anycase we might run but to do what?
But as always, the key factor, in my opinion, is not the protest, but the information conveyed by
the protesters. And even more important the information conveyed by those who oppose the protesters.
Then there is the interpretation we put on this information.
Indeed, without information there won't be anything, politics, change or development. Which probably
explains why those in power busy themselves trying to give information that is full of "wow" but
many times very little "Ah!"
Indeed, those in power or politics are in the business of information. Of course, this does not mean
that we are given the right information, useful information, told the truth or worse, told anything.
Whilst protest politics does bring change the kind of change probably depends on who can interpret
the available information correctly. In the meantime, those who ignore protesters do so at their own
risk and peril.
See you Sunday
Best
Lawrence

Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
PS don't forget that Ignacio and friends are now meeting at Triskel Tavern (San Vicente Ferrer 3) on
Thursday at 7:30pm.
from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Can protest politics change anything?

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Random Events + news

2011-10-14T01:23:00.002+02:00

Dear Friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: Random events.
And despite my intentions to spend a lot of time on my essay, non random events militated against
that happening; so in all honesty I cannot really say I am happy with the result. We'll see what you
think.
In the meantime Margie would like to share the following message with you:
Hi Lawrence,
I see you keep going with many interesting topics. How wonderful. Could you please let everyone know
about the next Mad Open Mic, there is still time to register? Thank you. Margie
The 8th Mad Open Mic: Captured Words
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Free and open to the public.
Cafe Concierto La Fidula
Calle Huertas 57
Madrid
Start up 9pm
To register and for more information: www.elasunto.com/mkd.htm and click on the open mic icon
Best Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
PS don't forget that Ignacio and friends are now meeting at Triskel Tavern (San Vicente Ferrer 3) on
Thursday at 7:30pm.

Random Events
In our quest to make sense of the world around us we have had to perform some very spectacular
mental gymnastics. Of course, I have no idea what it is like to be a bat let alone a cat nor even an
other human being. But whilst the world is probably just as chaotic and confounding for a cat as it
is for us, I am quite confident that a bat or a cat are not as perturbed by the whole situation as
we are.
And to confound the situation what we perceive as a chaotic environment, we are assured by
astronomers that our world does not get better than this: indeed they tell us that we live in that
part of the solar system that can be described as having the goldilocks effect. Not too hot and not
too cold, just right.
Does this mean that the first thing we did with our rational brain is to complain about our
situation and the chaotic state of the world we live in? That human beings can be ungrateful so and
so's is not in doubt, but we are also inquisitive beyond the necessities to cope with nature.
So making sense of the world around us is not only justifiable but in my estimation necessary for
our progress and tranquility. On the other hand seeing things in perspective might be more fruitful,
than marching head into irrationality.
Throughout, the ages two prominent theories have been put forward to help us understand all this
chaos: fatalism, usually described as a function of the will of a god, or determinism, usually
described as a function of the laws or regularities of nature. And despite the problems these
theories present to those who advocate free will we sort of manage to live with the paradoxes.
The real problem for philosophers and scientists and every one else is the issue of random events.
We can live with god and we can live with laws, but randomness? Maybe even out of duty we have to
ask ourselves: are there such things as random events? And what do we mean by random events anyway?
Now, if we had to search the meaning randomness we get as many meanings as there are contexts and
ideas, so this is not going to help us much. Suffice it to say, that despite the fact we cannot
really pin a meaning, we know how to use the word in our day to day conversations. So, one possible
meaning is the strict meaning of random that it is: something that happens which is not predictable.
In our daily life we might equate random with a chance meeting in the street with someone we haven't
met for decades. Or maybe the result of a fair lottery draw. In science we might consider a random
event to include a mutation of a gene, a collapse of an atomic particle, result for a non linear
calculation etc.
We might say that these events are not only unpredictable but also cannot be predicted by doing an
investigation into what could possibly have been the causal chain of events for them. We might know
what and why something happened but we cannot tell why a specific event took place when it did and
how it did, and where it did. For example, we know why a number comes up in a lottery draw but not
why a specific number came up.
So, although we might be privy to an explanation, these events take place without any specific
causal chain. Things just happen.
Or we might opt for a weak definition of a random event, something like: although the principles of
causality and a causal chain of events are not violated in random events it would be difficult or
near impossible to find out what really happened. And so since we cannot predict the event before or
after it occurrence it is as good as being random.
In the first case we cannot explain why something happened because these is nothing to explain,
whereas in the second case there is an explanation but we do not have access to it.
What bothers most of us is of course the idea that things just happen. Not only do we want things to
have a cause, but most important of all for us is that whatever happens to us, good or bad, we can
ascribe some sort of responsibility to something or someone. We want to blame something or someone
for any misfortune or get credit for any good fortune.
The philosophical question that is worth investigating and which only science can answer, is what
evidence do we have for the strong interpretation of random events, and how common are they? Is it
really possible for something just to happen? It is one thing to say that a gene randomly mutated
because we have no idea of what is going on, but an other because it just happened.
An alternative idea would be not that things just happen, but that things happen independent of our
epistemic state of mind. In other words, things don't happen not the convenience of our
understanding. So the situation is that we either can understand how an event happened or we cannot.
But just because we cannot explain an event it does not mean that it has no pedigree. Nor does it
mean that it must have some specific type of pedigree. This could very well be analogous to trying a
real experiment on another planet in another galaxy to see if tossing a fair coin, heads or tails
would tend towards 50% in the long run. Except that no such experiment is going to take place any
time soon on another planet in another galaxy. So, for all intents and purposes we are just excluded
from this knowledge. Sure we can build a model to see how things would probably turn out, but we can
also build a model to see what it feels like to eat as much as we want remain healthy.
Although some events just might happen, it would not be practical for the universe to be made up of
random events. One of the drawbacks of there being more random events than causal events is that
there would be no stability or consistency. And the logical conclusion of this must surely be that
even randomness would be subject to randomness. But that does not make sense because randomness is
already random. Nor does this mean that randomness is a linguistic property. We may chose to give
the word many different meanings but we cannot choose how events happen: either an event is caused
or it is random or both, but it cannot be a meaning of a word.
Therefore, irrespective of how long we haven't met our friend, and how random the meeting might be,
there are at least three consistent events: 1) we were both still in existence (i.e. not dead) when
the chance meeting took place, 2) we were in existence at the same time and 3) in the same place.
Yet, other things being equal, my being alive, had no causal effect on my friend being alive or dead
at a certain time nor being at a certain place at a certain place, and vice versa.
Hence to conclude, I am inclined to think that random events are possible, sometimes things just
happen, but also it is not possible for the universe to be made of only random events. As for our
concern about the chaotic state of the world we live in, if it feels too random it is probably
because we complain too much. In the meantime cats don't seem to have this concern with random
events. At least not the cats in my model of the universe.

Best Lawrence

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Random Events + news

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Collective Guilt (2 essays)

2011-10-07T00:19:00.002+02:00

Dear Friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: Collective Guilt.
We are also lucky because Simon has sent us a short essay about his topic. I also wrote a few
paragraphs and although I did not read Simon's essay before I finished mine, we seem to coincide on
some ideas.
In the meantime don't forget that Ignacio and friends are now meeting at Triskel Tavern (San Vicente
Ferrer 3) on Thursday at 7:30pm.
Take care
Best

Lawrence
------------Simon---------------
Hello Lawrence,
This Sunday we will discuss "Collective Guilt". I was influenced by the previous topic suggestion,
"How our actions affect others", to choose an "ethical" topic, perhaps getting wider
participation......all opinions being equal.
I have become curious recently about what we mean with statements like:
"The banks are guilty of causing the crisis".
"The ........(fill the gap with a country) are guilty of starting the war and should be made to pay".
"We are all guilty for overspending". etc
To discuss "Collective Guilt" it might be thought that we must analyse the concept of "Guilt", but I
am reluctant to widen the topic in this way.
A reductionist analysis - e.g. guilt as manifestation of socialisation, guilt as a sum of
neurological stimulae in the brain, etc - adds little or nothing to our everyday use of the word.
Guilt, guilty are basic concepts in social life, law etc.
Let's keep to an "everyday" understanding. We all experience and assign guilt on a daily basis. One
could say people "import" and "export" guilt regularly.
(Like countries, some are net importers and some net exporters !)
Example: we are waiting 30 minutes in the plane on the runway at Barajas.
When the 2 latecomers arrive we stare at them....at least, I do. We feel they are guilty ! We want
them to feel they are guilty !
As they are 2, this seems to be a case of "collective guilt".
(One side track here: I take an "atomistic" view. In "Collective, or Group, guilt" I take it to mean
that all the individual members are guilty, not that some conceptual entity "The Group" is guilty,
but its members are innocent.)
Is it ever reasonable to assign "guilt" to a group ? Or accept "guilt" if we belong to some groups ?
Starting at the general end:
- Are the British/Spanish guilty of the crimes committed as "imperialists" ?
Which ones ? It does not seem likely that guilt is inherited but what happens if you are
unintentionally benefit from past (or present) injustices ?
- If we look at atrocities in World War II should we blame a nation, or active participants, or
particular parts of the armed forces, or only individuals ?
What are the criteria ? Active participation ? Benefits ? Closeness in time and place ? Collusion ?
Intentionality ? in this case, of the group or the individual ?
What does the law say ? Isn't simple membership of ETA a crime? The "Conspiracy" laws in the UK seem
to go in the same direction.
Can we make sense of this ? If we give up and go to the bar early will we be collectively guilty of
negligence ?
See you on Sunday,
Simon

-------------Lawrence-------------
Collective guilt
Does the guilt culture need a big rethink or does it still have a purpose in our society?
The issue is not whether to stop chasing those who do wrong but rather how to stop or minimise wrong
doing. However it has long been accepted that in any equitable system there will always be a
minority who will cheat. Thus, one might question the very idea that wrong doing can be eliminated
or reduced.
Nevertheless there is a fundamental issue about guilt that we must first address. Is guilt a means
to pursue wrong doers or a means to stop wrong doing? The obvious answer is both. But is that really
the case?
I would argue that in real life most of us are more interested in not being harmed than in how
others feel. Indeed society is prepared to lock up wrong doers irrespective if they feel guilty or
not. Indeed I would go so far as to say that those who are more concerned that people feel guilty
rather than in being secure either live a charmed life or making a living out the guilt culture, or
both.
And this is why I asked the question whether the guilt culture needs rethinking. It seems that the
feeling of guilt has not made much difference to our safety. Crime and wrong doing are still every
hour occurrence.
So how does this fit with our theme of collective guilt?
It seems to me that there are two kinds of collective guilt: a guilt that a group feels for itself
and a guilt that is imposed on a group by others.
But like personal guilt the cause of collective guilt is always the infringement of some moral law.
Of course, the first issue here is what constitutes a moral law? And secondly, how can we ascribe
guilt to a collective group if moral transgression requires an intentional act based on free will?
But going back to the two kinds of collective guilt it is worth observing that there are very few
instances of collective guilt being felt by a group of itself. I am sure that there are quite a few
instances but the one we most remember is of course the collective guilt felt by West Germany after
the war or maybe by a sizable group of white people in South Africans.
But if we take the German guilt, we do not find say the Japanese going out of their way to feel
collective guilt for the part they played during the Second World War.
On the other hand the issue of collective guilt in some societies is just non existent: for example,
the Russians for the pogroms or the genocide by Stalin.
As for imposed collective guilt we can find many examples or attempts to impose a collective guilt
on a society. Some would apply collective guilt on the British for the destruction of Dresden. Many
apply collective guilt on Israel for their policies towards the Palestinians. Maybe one of the worst
infringements of a moral law was the rape and pillage of Africa by Europeans, not to mention all the
other continents.
My point about the relevance of guilt, whether the purpose of guilt is to make someone or some group
feel guilty or to change or prevent bad behaviour? Since the Second World War there have been many
genocides. Some have passed unnoticed and some have resulted in individuals being held to account
for their actions.
But the bottom line is still the fact that genocides have happened since the Second World War, are
going on now and will certainly continue in the future. So what's the point of collective guilt if
it seems to have no effect on how we behave towards each other? It seems that some societies are
prepared to infringe moral laws irrespective of whether they feel collective and others are prepared
to learn from past mistakes, probably irrespective of whether they feel collective guilt or not.
Maybe guilt and collective guilt in particular, was never meant to change the way we behave, but
rather to establish some moral or maybe some quasi legal authority over the other community.
This will certainly confer an advantage to one group over another group. So maybe guilt is one of
those primitive and primordial instincts that we have been employing over the millennia to cause or
protect ourselves against others and at the same time give us some sort of advantage over those we
deem guilty of transgression.
But there is also another interpretation of guilt including collective guilt. Rather than having the
function of conferring an advantage over others, it is signal or warning for us that a particular
person or group are dangerous -maybe unsocial- and we should therefore deal with this group with
caution, if at all. So maybe the primary purpose of guilt is not to demand remorse or punishment,
but rather to signal our own weakness in the situation. Because we do not have the means or the
courage to stop people from transgressing a moral law, we label such transgressions with guilt.
Maybe the linguistic purpose of guilt is basically to insult those we deem hostile, instead of
calling ourselves moral cowards. After all when we (society) do catch someone and overpower them, we
have no compunction is causing them harm by putting them in prison or take away their life,
irrespective of whether they are guilty or not.
So to defend my point, will China experience or have collective guilt imposed on her for its
questionable dealings in Africa for pure economic gains? Admittedly the way China exploits Africa is
not the same as the Europeans did centuries ago, but nevertheless it is exploitation of a modern kind.
The chances are that collective guilt on China won't be imposed any time soon, in the same way that
Europe today only pays lip service to collective guilt about Africa. In both cases the people of
Africa are practically powerless when these economic powers or their local representatives pillage
the continent with impunity.
But if guilt is no better than a warning sign, and has the function of an insult at best as a result
of moral weakness, where does this leave the whole edifice of our morality that depends so much on
guilt, remorse and punishment?
Indeed, is morality a product of human weakness or a product of rational agency?
Take care
Lawrence

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Collective Guilt (2 essays)

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Science vs Magic + ESSAYS

2011-09-30T12:21:00.002+02:00

Update: Essays by Miguel and Mark
Good morning,
For some reason or other, my email did not download Miguel's essay last night so I sent my weekly
email without it. And I got Mark's essay very late last night: so you might say we're at an
equilibrium between bad luck and good luck!
In the meantime I hope you will forgive me for a third email this week, however it has all been for
a good cause.
So without further ado the essays from Miguel and Mark:

----------------Miguel Essay------------------
For reasons that come next, rather than Magic vs. Science Iʼd like to write about Magic and Science.
Iʼll need for it this definition of the noun Magic, found in the Merriam-Webster dictionnary: "an
extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source", slightly rephrased to: "an
extraordinary power or influence seemingly from an unknown source". This is necessary as
"supernatural" is truly conflictive, especially when compared to "unknown". If you admit this change
it is more likely that youʼll share some of the ideas exposed here.

I see Science as coming from Magic: it is her daughter rather than her nemesis or oponent (the use
of the feminine is intentional). We saw the reason for this in our past meeting: Science is unable
to explain itself, or put in another words: the fact that Mighty Science works is mysterious,
miraculous and ultimately magical, as it is an extraordinary power seemingly from an unknown source.
If one is familiar with Science, a conclusion will eventually become apparent: Science is the art of
coincidence. You manipulate signs, do experiments, formulate hypothesis, make abundant mistakes and
finally arrive to a theory, a linguistic construction made up of words and other signs. It has the
power, if it is a sound one, to accomplish this remarkable feat: when fed with some statements and
logic, it will produce another statement thatʼll match the same one youʼd have used first to
describe a phenomena. Newtons' theory says that gravity pull at ground level is 9.8mts/sec2, then
you measure and find it to be 9.79. Fantastic, really: we have a procedure, a conceptual machine of
sorts that produces coincidences or quasi-coincidences: Science.
Science is very useful as it provides economical ways to get many things we want: better crops, cell
phones, drugs, efficient transportation, etc. Nevertheless, the fact seems to be that no one knows
why it works, or equivalently: Science and its methods work by pure Magic.
You will find many attempts, performed by scientists and philosophers, to deny this. All are
defective for a similar reason: once an explanation is there, how do you account for explanationʼs
explanation? Magic again. One famous argument about the source of Science was given by Immanuel
Kant. This is an extract of a comment on Kant's Philosophy of Science, as found in the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (brace yourself...):
"The feature of Kant's conception of natural science proper that is most immediately striking is how
restrictive it is. It requires that cognition (i) be systematically ordered (ii) according to
rational principles and (iii) be known a priori with apodictic certainty, i.e., with "consciousness
of their necessity" (4:468). Because properly scientific cognition must satisfy these strict
conditions, it requires "a pure part on which the apodictic certainty that reason seeks can be
based" (4:469). But since Kant identifies pure rational cognition that is generated from concepts
with metaphysics, it follows that science proper requires a metaphysics of nature. He then specifies
that such a metaphysics of nature could consist in either a "transcendental part," which discusses
the laws that make possible the concept of a nature in general — "even without relation to any
determinate object of experience" (4:469) — or a "special metaphysical" part, which concerns a
"particular nature of this or that kind of things" for which an empirical concept is given."
Pretty intimidating isnʼt it? Notice the word apodictic. Sometimes, I wonʼt say itʼs the case here,
fancy wording points to an inability to provide conclusive arguments: it is one of the many tricks
with which Language dazzles and thrills us. "Apodictic" stands for something that has the nature of
absolute certainty. Kant says that, to do Science, mind should have the power to know things in such
a way, then he embarks on a search for the source of this power and eventually he thinks he finds it.
Without elaborating on the soundness of his argument, the list of magical items at work here is not
short:
1. Kantʼs brain ability and his commentatorʼs to devise such involved statements
2. The formation of ideas in the mind, in general
3. The nature of the relationship between ideas and words
4. The existence of Language itself
Etcetera...
Interestingly, hardened advocates of Science attack Magic with furor: a case of the daughter
despising her mother by not wanting to recognise her. This gives away a clue of what might be at
work here: could it be the drive for power and psychological security? Some people feel sick when
near to a precipice. In the same way, being bathed by Magic and be her product is unbearable, an
ordeal for most of us.
It is so unthinkable that we go to great lengths to hide and deny it, so that we can have some sense
of control and familiarity. We have devised amazing (i.e.: magical) tools for the task, all sharing
a common trait: they are useful for some limited job, but thru self-deception they are believed to
work also outside their nominal range.
The most conspicuous of them all is Language. With its undeniable usefulness here and there,
Language beguiles us into thinking that it is equally useful everywhere. The modest and obedient
gobetween, the one that helped us everyday to represent objects with other, more affordable ones
(words) has mutated into a juggernaut that stealthly rules over us. It has taking away from us the
freshness of pure experience, making us believe that once we know the name we control the named
object. The usurper has sent to oblivion the speechless contemplation of Magic.
Built up on this core tool, other, more elaborate ones, eventually appeared: Reason, Logic,
Philosophy, Science, Religion and Political theory. All are children of Language, with their own
stock of fancy words. They share with it all its useful powers, but also his fundamental flaw: the
tendency to rule outside its scope and the crippling of the hostʼs ability to recognize that he
lives in a sea of Magic.
A series of words in the form of a scientific explanation may produce a useful coincidence, but not
much more. To extrapolate this and try to rule out Magic with the same trick is not only logically
unjustified, it closes the door to a world of wonder and amazement.
To shake off the grip of Language and wake up from the dream of Reason is not easy. This can be
verified with a little experiment. Some time ago I shared this sonet with friends; please read it
now carefully and take note of your reactions:
Bardindos
No he calpeado jamás un tedillo
Ni he garbellado nunca un pelote
Sin embargo bardindos en yusote
Enseforé tranquilo en los punillos
Bardindos de coljores acrepidos
Bardindos de corte bortegado
Bardindos que crupían seferidos
Sin que nadie zigueriera sus comados
Con la diepra que da la mersinga
En corteles de porma antigados
Cafo un bardindo demidorido
Lo perco, lo damo, lo entretago
Aferio sus placias de Coringa
Y sormo ¡bardindo!, ¡bardindo tado!
What did it inspired you? Did some distinct images came to your mind? Some of my friends thought of
flowers, some of landscapes, I thought it had an ancient scent... But none of us, none, said:
"nothing". The fact is, that to make more apparent the grip of Language, the sonet was designed to
have no meaning, or the minimum one. And there it was the grip: even in the presence of meaningless
words each of us had been inspired and prodded to produce even more words! Imagine then the effect
of words with so called meaning, the ones we use in our everyday life, a life in which everything is
draped by a thick coat of words, a life that is second hand, linguistic rather than magical...
To pit Science against Magic is like pitting the foam with the entire ocean
Miguel G Palomo, Madrid 29th September 2011

-----------------------------------Mark-----------------------------------------

Hi Lawrence - a few last-minute musing below. Wish I could be there.
Nicaragua is at once confronting and wonderful. Will send an update.
Mark
===================================
The title of this discussion is interesting in itself: Science vs Magic.
Let's look at the term 'Magic' first. The oxford dictionary defines
it as "The power of apparently influencing the course of events by
using mysterious or supernatural forces". The word is often used to
explain that which cannot be explained rationally; but it is often
used to describe things that can never be explained by science. That
is, supernatural. Beyond nature.
So why do people continue to believe in magic? Yes, there are things
that science cannot explain, but that does not mean that science won't
one day be able to explain it. Science explains very well why the sun
rises each day in the east and sets in the west. We no longer need to
sacrifice innocents to appease the gods to ensure that tomorrow the
sun will rise. Likewise for earthquakes, lightning, rain, disease,
etc.
The belief in magic fills a void in many people. It gives hope that
there is more to the world that just what we can see and experience, a
divine realm. Science, on the other hand, is a souless ogre,
responsible for pollution, war, and the inumerable modern malaises
that plague our society. But this is dangerous. Science is not an
"organization", nor is it an "ideology", or "cult". There is no CEO
of "Science inc".
Science is the search for truth and and to explain why things are the
way they are. It is a truly global pursuit, that uses peer review and
evidence. Those people who criticise science point out that science
is alway changing it's theories, e.g Newtonian physics beiong updated
by Einsteinian theories. Yes! That is science in action! It does
not dogmatically hold on to any theory if a better, proven one comes
along. How many religious fundementalists can match that?
In fact, a belief in magic is dangerous. Think of the dark ages, and
the witch burnings of Salem. And it is still happening: The Catholic
church stil beatifies people into saints. And what is the requirement
for beatification?: it has to be proven that they have performed a
miracle! We need to be alert to those who promise things, or think
they know what's best for the world, whose ideology is
non-evidence-based (e.g. prayer, homeopathy, mysterious voices, tea
leaves, entrails, a "holy" book, evil spirits etc etc)
I say forget magic. Yes, there is still so much we don't know, but
let's pursue the truth and get to the nature of reality with science.
At least we won't be fooling ourselves. As Carl Sagan was fond of
saying "it's more wondrous and subtle than we could have ever
imagined".
Mark

---------------------------------end Mark----------------
News from Miguel for today Friday and Carlos, Thursday next week.
Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing; Science vs Magic.
As far as philosophy is concerned I fail to see any direct connection between these two activities.
Of course, we can interpret magic to mean something we stand in awe and wonder of but have no idea
of what is going on. That is quite an acceptable meaning for day to day use of the word magic in the
context of science.

However, if by magic we mean that some process or event is influenced by some sort of powers that go
against the functions of the physical world, and there is only the physical world, than is should be
regarded as a serious failure in the epistemic make up of those who believe in such supernatural
powers.
Indeed the issue between science and magic is one of epistemology. Science tries to explain how
thing work and why they work through observation, methodology, statistical analysis, and experiment.
Sometimes, we do not succeed and sometime what we try to measure is beyond our capacity.
On the other hand, magic, and by magic I don't mean music hall entertainment shows of stealth of
hand, but the sort people believe to be supernatural powers, is an attempt to explain gaps in our
epistemic state of mind, or rather state of the brain.
Of course, this does not mean that why the brain would want to fill such gaps in one's knowledge or
how the brain arrives to such gap filling, is not interesting. Anything about the brain is always
interesting and of extreme importance to humanity.
However, the bottom line is that science is about the brain interacting with its environment, whilst
magic is about the brain interacting with gaps in its own function.

Best
Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao

IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

--------------------Miguel----------------
Estimado tertuliano,
Espero que hayas tenido un buen verano. Por si fuera de tu interés te envío información de la
conferencia siguiente:

Mathematics with a human face, impartida por el prof. Edward Frenkel, catedrático de Matemáticas en
la universidad de Berkely
Viernes 30 de Septiembre de 2011, 19:30, en la Residencia de Estudiantes, c/Pinar 21-23 Madrid

Más información en http://www.residencia.csic.es/act/calendario/calendario.htm#
Aprovecho la ocasión para enviarte un cordial saludo,
J.Miguel
P.S.: Si quieres impartir una conferencia de contenido matemático envíame un mensaje de correo para
tratar los detalles.
Si quieres darte de baja en esta lista de correo envía otro con "Baja" en el campo "Asunto" del mensaje.

--------------------Carlos------------------
Hi Lawrence:
Here is our invitation to our next event, poetry. We hope to see you /and or your members.
Regards
Carlos
CHL
INVITACIÓN A RECITAL
Estimado Socio ó Simpatizante:
Te invitamos a la conferencia que vamos a ofrecer el próximo día 6 de Octubre, jueves, a las 20:00
horas en el Café Comercial, en la Glorieta de Bilbao, en el primer piso.
Esta vez va a ser un recital de poesía de dos muy buenos y acreditados poetas, Gonzalo Escarpa y
Jesús Urceloy. El Título del recital es: El Humor en la Poesía. El Humor en La Libertad.
Como siempre el recital es gratuito, aunque es obligatoria una consumición.
En breve vas a recibir el Programa Anual de las actividades del Club, que este año está muy completo
con 12 eventos mensuales en diferentes lugares. Este año tenemos 10 programas socio-culturales, y
quisiéramos invitarte a participar en ellos.
Espero que sea de tu interés. Aprovecho para pedirte una opinión, quién crees que merece ganar el
Premio a Promotor de La Libertad en España 2011? Cualquier persona u organización sirve. Para
confirmar asistencia, contestar a la encuesta ó cualquier pregunta dirígete al: (PLEASE ASK ME FOR
DETAILS – thanks Lawrence)
Adjunto encontrarás el Curriculum de los dos poetas.
Saludos cordiales, hasta pronto.
J. Santiago R. Samaniego, Presidente
Club del Hombre Libre
------------------------------------------------------------------

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Science vs Magic + ESSAYS

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Science vs Magic + NEWS

2011-09-29T23:53:00.002+02:00

News from Miguel for today Friday and Carlos, Thursday next week.
Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing; Science vs Magic.
As far as philosophy is concerned I fail to see any direct connection between these two activities.
Of course, we can interpret magic to mean something we stand in awe and wonder of but have no idea
of what is going on. That is quite an acceptable meaning for day to day use of the word magic in the
context of science.

However, if by magic we mean that some process or event is influenced by some sort of powers that go
against the functions of the physical world, and there is only the physical world, than is should be
regarded as a serious failure in the epistemic make up of those who believe in such supernatural
powers.
Indeed the issue between science and magic is one of epistemology. Science tries to explain how
thing work and why they work through observation, methodology, statistical analysis, and experiment.
Sometimes, we do not succeed and sometime what we try to measure is beyond our capacity.
On the other hand, magic, and by magic I don't mean music hall entertainment shows of stealth of
hand, but the sort people believe to be supernatural powers, is an attempt to explain gaps in our
epistemic state of mind, or rather state of the brain.
Of course, this does not mean that why the brain would want to fill such gaps in one's knowledge or
how the brain arrives to such gap filling, is not interesting. Anything about the brain is always
interesting and of extreme importance to humanity.
However, the bottom line is that science is about the brain interacting with its environment, whilst
magic is about the brain interacting with gaps in its own function.

Best
Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao

IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

--------------------Miguel----------------
Estimado tertuliano,
Espero que hayas tenido un buen verano. Por si fuera de tu interés te envío información de la
conferencia siguiente:

Mathematics with a human face, impartida por el prof. Edward Frenkel, catedrático de Matemáticas en
la universidad de Berkely
Viernes 30 de Septiembre de 2011, 19:30, en la Residencia de Estudiantes, c/Pinar 21-23 Madrid

Más información en http://www.residencia.csic.es/act/calendario/calendario.htm#
Aprovecho la ocasión para enviarte un cordial saludo,
J.Miguel
P.S.: Si quieres impartir una conferencia de contenido matemático envíame un mensaje de correo para
tratar los detalles.
Si quieres darte de baja en esta lista de correo envía otro con "Baja" en el campo "Asunto" del mensaje.

--------------------Carlos------------------
Hi Lawrence:
Here is our invitation to our next event, poetry. We hope to see you /and or your members.
Regards
Carlos
CHL
INVITACIÓN A RECITAL
Estimado Socio ó Simpatizante:
Te invitamos a la conferencia que vamos a ofrecer el próximo día 6 de Octubre, jueves, a las 20:00
horas en el Café Comercial, en la Glorieta de Bilbao, en el primer piso.
Esta vez va a ser un recital de poesía de dos muy buenos y acreditados poetas, Gonzalo Escarpa y
Jesús Urceloy. El Título del recital es: El Humor en la Poesía. El Humor en La Libertad.
Como siempre el recital es gratuito, aunque es obligatoria una consumición.
En breve vas a recibir el Programa Anual de las actividades del Club, que este año está muy completo
con 12 eventos mensuales en diferentes lugares. Este año tenemos 10 programas socio-culturales, y
quisiéramos invitarte a participar en ellos.
Espero que sea de tu interés. Aprovecho para pedirte una opinión, quién crees que merece ganar el
Premio a Promotor de La Libertad en España 2011? Cualquier persona u organización sirve. Para
confirmar asistencia, contestar a la encuesta ó cualquier pregunta dirígete al: (PLEASE ASK ME FOR
DETAILS – thanks Lawrence)
Adjunto encontrarás el Curriculum de los dos poetas.
Saludos cordiales, hasta pronto.
J. Santiago R. Samaniego, Presidente
Club del Hombre Libre
------------------------------------------------------------------

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Science vs Magic + NEWS

From Lawrence, maths meeting this Friday: Mathematics with a human face

2011-09-27T13:52:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,

Miguel has sent me details of a Mathematics meeting he is organising this Friday, 30th. I thought
you might appreciate advance notice since it seems to be very interesting.

I will send my usual email on Thursday and for those who cannot wait the topic is: Science vs Magic.

Best

Lawrence

Estimado tertuliano,

Espero que hayas tenido un buen verano. Por si fuera de tu interés te envío información de la
conferencia siguiente:

Mathematics with a human face, impartida por el prof. Edward Frenkel, catedrático de Matemáticas en
la universidad de Berkely
Viernes 30 de Septiembre de 2011, 19:30, en la Residencia de Estudiantes, c/Pinar 21-23 Madrid

Más información en http://www.residencia.csic.es/act/calendario/calendario.htm#

Aprovecho la ocasión para enviarte un cordial saludo,

J.Miguel

P.S.: Si quieres impartir una conferencia de contenido matemático envíame un mensaje de correo para
tratar los detalles.
Si quieres darte de baja en esta lista de correo envía otro con "Baja" en el campo
"Asunto" del mensaje.

From Lawrence, maths meeting this Friday: Mathematics with a human face

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: The nature of desire

2011-09-22T22:05:00.002+02:00

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: The Nature of Desire.

As we know, desire belongs to a group of words which include: want, wish, need, and maybe, demand,
request, and require.

Desire reflects something we would like to have, but maybe is difficult to obtain. Difficult does
not mean impossible, but maybe in the scheme of things will take time to acquire.

The other important aspect of desire is that it is of something that makes us feel good, or at the
very least, we strongly believe it makes us feel good. But feeling good does not mean it is good for us.

In the meantime I look forward to our discussion on Sunday.
Best
Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao

IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: The nature of desire

from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Why are religions obsessed with s€x?

2011-09-15T22:26:00.003+02:00

Notes by Matilde and a short essay
Dear friends,

The subject for this Sunday is: Why are religions obsessed with s€x? And because of today's paranoia
with anything that is human, I have replaced the "s" word with s€x.

We are lucky that this time we have some notes from Matilde, but unfortunately she won't be able to
come to the meeting.

No doubt this is a very interesting subject to discuss after such an eventful summer. On the other
hand it is also a subject that might touch a few raw nerves.

In the meantime, this Sunday we will be back to the Centro Segoviano. The meeting details are therefore:

Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
Take care
Lawrence

IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Why are religions obsessed with s€x?
----------------notes by Matilde----------
Dear friends,
I won't be able to attend the next tertulia. Nevertheless, I've been thinking about the topic and
got a few notes.
The origin of the s€x mania in religions could come from a policy to avoid pregnancies out of
marriage, let's say, kind of birth control, in favour of the family institution.
But in those days, the only way to obey was to involve sin, punishment, God, and all that jazz in it.
Something similar to the prohibition of eating pork or drinking alcohol in Islam, which were hygiene
measures at the beginning, but nobody followed till they were turned into sins.
The problem is that religions don't change with the times. They go on and on, and on for centuries Amen.
Sorry for not being with you to discuss the topic.
Matilde

---------short essay--------------
There are good reasons for religions to be obsesses with s€x and those reasons are more encompassing
than why, for example, health services are obsessed with s€x. Unfortunately for religions, their
teachings and their dogma about s€x, have failed their followers and more importantly they have
failed society.

However, the topic itself seems to be more relevant in sociology or anthropology or even theology to
wit, but of course philosophical investigation can me applied to most things. And I would argue that
the first step we need to do to understand the question is to prepare the ground, or the mind set,
for our discussion. And that mind set involves an epistemological problem.

Consider the situation where a state amends its constitution limiting the activities of the
government because of inequitable behaviour of a minority group in society with probably
disproportionate influence in that society. In effect the amendment takes away a right from the
general population, to confer a privilege and to guarantee the function to the said minority group.

Now, as most of us know, constitutions, or at least equitable constitutions, are there to confer
rights and to protect the rights of the whole nation and not to favour a minority group. Of course,
many jurisdictions pass laws to protect people against racism and prejudice. However, constitutions
that confer all the privileges and minority group at the expense of the rest of society, would be
regarded as apartheid.

Going back to our subject, are people in a hundred years time more likely to remember the real
causes for the introduction of the inequitable amendment, or are they more likely to view the
constitution as being inequitable?

This, I would argue is precisely what happened with religions and s€x. Today, we remember (or are
conscious) the obsession of religion with s€x, but forget the real reason for the obsession in the
first place. No doubt, and this is not to argue against the obsession (or amendment), the beliefs
and measures at the time of need might have been seen as a good short term solution to a long term
problem. But short terms solutions, I would argue, should best be kept to the short term; a stop
gap, need not be a suspension bridge.

A philosophically relevant and fundamental difference between religion and s€x, and by religion I am
limiting myself to those originating from the Middle East - Judaism, Islam and Christianity - is
that a religion is a rational solution to a major problem for humanity, whilst s€x is a functional
solution for biological life.

In other words, the raison d'être for religion is diametrically opposite to the raison d'être for
s€x. Now, s€x is a biological solutions for reproduction which has been adopted and successfully
selected by a number of biological species for reproduction. And in effect the s€xual act is just a
small part of the whole process of the reproduction cycle.

I would argue that religions are a rational solutions created by human beings to solve a major
problem in a society that is made up of more people than a natural family unit. Precisely, I would
say that religions were set up, first and foremost, to rationalise actions that would bring about
stability in society based on law and order. Indeed, at the heart of a religion is the desire to
reduce aggression and inequity in a society. For example, all religions advocate charity and helping
the weak, in many religions helping the weak is even a duty, in others they even have or given rise
to a whole ethical code of conduct on how to treat an enemy.

Of course, unlike the amendment to the constitution, we are today not privy why our ancestors
decided to be so obsessed with s€x. And even though religions are obsessed with s€x, not all of them
adopt the same level of obsession, not the same dogma on the issue, and none out law s€x completely.
(Wikipedia on Religion and S€x and what happened to those religions who outlawed s€x see Daniel C
Dennett, Freedom Evolves – basically they disappear!) This suggest that matters of s€x are not that
easy and clear cut.

But maybe we do not need to be privy to the thinking of the founding fathers and mothers of
religions to understand why they adopted obsessive policies. After all, today we have enough
knowledge on the biology and scope of s€x to be able to deduce relevant arguments.

Despite the often heard claim that our ancestors did not easily make the connection between s€x and
procreation, I find it difficult to believe that at least the leaders of society did not have an
inkling to what was going on. Indeed, we can safely assume that many women would have figured out
the real connection between s€x and procreation, hence the mothers above.

So, the first problem with s€x is that s€x can easily lead to conception with the real danger of
maternal death (mothers dying giving birth) to any mother to be. The Wikipedia article, Maternal
death, gives a global figure of 342,900 maternal deaths in 2008. We can only assume that the further
back we go in time, the more serious the problem becomes.

A challenge that society, and especially a small society, has to grapple with is to make sure that
the female population does not die out because of the reproduction cycle, as a consequence of
promiscuity. This fact alone is enough to give any rational being long sleepless nights.

I also find it difficult to believe that no one in the long distant past had not connected the
possibility of being sick and dying with s€x. S€xually transmitted diseases, whether acknowledged or
suspected, would be another reason for religion to be obsessed with s€x. I would argue that being
rational does not mean that one acts from a position of perfect knowledge, but rather from an honest
belief that something might be the case ( a chance that something is the case.)

Thus, if someone suspects that there is a connection between s€x and ill health it would be rational
to stop/limit having s€x in order to prevent ill health, even if this is not necessarily the only
cause of ill heath or too late to prevent ill health. It would therefore be correct and rational for
a religion to be obsessed with s€x.

But the first and foremost pre occupation of any religion might have about s€x is that s€x is a very
aggressive behaviour. First of all s€x is a biological trait based on competing people. Hence, s€x
can be the cause of aggression between competing people for a partner (male rivalry), between
partners (domestic violence), and between different groups (tribal conflicts, social classes etc).
Thus by prescribing when s€x can be performed, with whom and how, I would argue, that religions are
trying to limit the opportunities of aggression.

But s€x itself is a challenge to rationality that attempts to employ models of social coherence
based on equity and fairness. S€x, given it biological function, is a subjective act, based on
instinct and prejudice. It is an accepted fact of biology that creatures try to mate with a partner
they perceive to be the best within their group. Subjectivity and selfishness are of course not
compatible with equity and fairness; or at least we do not perceive them to be so.

So why is it that most of us, today, interpret obsession to have a negative connotation, and not a
positive implications as the rationale I outlined above seems to suggest. Of course, the first
reason is that today we have lost that rationale and just have the incongruence between the dogma
and real life. More or less the same position decedents of those living under today's constitution
would be in a hundred years time.

But of course, the main problem with religion and s€x is that religion does not necessarily live up
to the promise of keeping a stable society based on equity and fairness. Those with money or power
still have a higher chance of partnering with the most desirable people in society. And this is
important since religion only prescribe s€x within marriage for life. Moreover, in matters of s€x we
still apply the subjective criteria of selection rather than fairness. Indeed, can there be such a
thing as a selection of a s€x partner based on fairness? This does not make sense because s€x is
amoral irrelevant to the idea of fairness.

The most serious problem of all for religion is that although religion and its premises are
rational, its prescriptions are dogmatic and not educative. Dogma states what has to be done,
education helps us find a way of what is best to do. Religions today, in my estimation, know, for
example, that syphilis (or AIDS to be up to date) is a s€xually transmitted disease, but instead of
being dogmatic about seeking medical advice and following any treatment prescribed by a health
carer, we get the impression that religion tries to solve the presence of a disease by being
dogmatic about abstaining from s€x. For those with syphilis, any dogma about abstaining from s€x is
as useful as an ice cube in the middle of Antarctica.

But dogma itself is of course a form of biological aggression, except that instead of using brute
force we use brute emotional language. Moreover, dogma is not necessarily the best way to deal with
a changing and dynamic world. A solutions to threatening events (e.g. maternity mortality) cannot be
a code of conduct based on coercion, but rather in this case on medical investigation and education
on how biology actually work in life.

We can change our education and body of knowledge on how things function, but dogma is fixed and
impinges on our emotions. It is very difficult for most of us to accept changes to the principle of
universally available free health service at the point of use, than to change the pills our family
doctors prescribes us because of more effective therapy.

And to end, I purposely did not mention the ethical properties religions ascribe to s€x. And my
reason is simple, s€x does not have any ethical properties, only physical and biological ones. Thus,
by ascribing ethical properties to s€x, such as bad and evil, we are really falling foul of the
ought/is fallacy. Just because something has undesirable physical consequences, it does not
automatically follow that it ought to be evil and immoral. No reasonable person would suggest that
chemotherapy is evil and immoral, despite being one of the most toxic and deadly things a person can
experience.

The main problems presented by s€x are probably best solved by education, supervision, medical
advancement and creating an environment where abuse and exploitation are prevented. And the main
problem about religions, like constitutions, is that they bother themselves too much with the ought
and the prose and not enough with solutions to real problems people have.
Best
Lawrence
from Lawrence, Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Why are religions obsessed with s€x?

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: good news! The Boomerang Effect

2011-09-08T22:19:00.001+02:00

Dear Friends,

Good news. Diana was told that the football matches on Sunday are not important; we can have our
meeting this Sunday at Finningans. So for Sunday it is the Boomerang Effect.
Just in case you lost the link to the article at ABC News:
The Boomerang Effect, http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3075690&page=1. It might be worth a
look.
In the meantime we are still meeting in Finningans at 6:30pm
Finnegans Irish pub
Plaza Salesas, 9
http://maps.google.es/maps?hl=es&tab=wl&q=Plaza%20Salesas%2C%209%20Madrid%2C%2028004

Take care and see you Sunday,

Lawrence
from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: good news! The Boomerang Effect

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: I’m afraid it’s football meet at 7pm Alonso M.

2011-09-01T23:01:00.002+02:00

Dear Friends,

Given that last Sunday we were unable to have the meeting because of the football I think that we
should just meet for drinks for the next two weeks until we return to the Segoviano.
I know this is upsetting for all of us, but at least this way we won't put any undue stress on our
blood pressure from the hassle of being interrupted by the football.
May I suggest we meet at 7pm outside Alonso Martines Station (Square exit) and then we take it from
there.
Best and see you Sunday
Lawrence

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: I'm afraid it's football meet at 7pm Alonso M.

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: The Boomerang Effect

2011-08-26T01:05:00.002+02:00

Dear Friends,
This Sunday we are discussing The Boomerang Effect.
In the old days we used to call this "backfire", usually to mean when we try to do something
unpleasant to others, but in the end we are the ones that are affected. There is an article in ABC
News, written in 2007, The Boomerang Effect,
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3075690&page=1. It might be worth a look.
In the meantime we are still meeting in Finningans at 6:30pm
Finnegans Irish pub
Plaza Salesas, 9
http://maps.google.es/maps?hl=es&tab=wl&q=Plaza%20Salesas%2C%209%20Madrid%2C%2028004
Take care and see you Sunday,

Lawrence
from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: The Boomerang Effect

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Looksism

2011-08-19T00:17:00.002+02:00

Dear Friends,

As a consequence of the ultra liberal attitude of the English language we can create such words as
Looksism. Basically, this is another way of saying that the prettier one is the more successful one
becomes.

Indeed, the Economist has a book review by Deborah Rhode, a law professor at Stanford, called "The
Beauty Bias", on this very subject. The author considers the legal aspects of Looksism in society
such as at the work place. (The Economist, Looksism and the Law, May 24, 2010,
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/05/appearance_discrimination)

Dan Ariely, in the meantime, in his book The upside of irrationality (Harper 2011) describes a
process which he calls Assortative Mating. Basically what this means is that pretty people end up
partnering with pretty people and not so pretty people end up partnering with not so pretty people.
We are all familiar witht he issue.

The Economist calls this "appearance discrimination". Despite the liberal intentions of the English
language we all know that what is going on here, it is discrimination plain and simple. But this
still leaves us with a small problem. Whilst we can sue our employer if they fire us because we are
not pretty enough, what can we do about a prospective partner who thinks we are not pretty enough?
In the meantime this Sunday we are meeting again at Finnegans Irish pub. Diana kindly confirmed with
the pub that there won't be any football this Sunday. So those who want to start early can come at
6:30pm and those who want to start late they can come at 7:00pm.

Finnegans Irish pub Plaza Salesas, 9
http://maps.google.es/maps?hl=es&tab=wl&q=Plaza%20Salesas%2C%209%20Madrid%2C%2028004

take care
Lawrence
PS don't forget that Carlos is still looking for speaker for his philo club.

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Looksism

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Demonstrations

2011-08-11T23:28:00.001+02:00

This Sunday: meet at Finnegans, suggest start at 6:30pm and short essay. + Carlos reminder
Dear Friends,

Thanks to the efforts of Diana, this Sunday we are meeting at Finnegans pub (details below). Thank
you Diana.

In the past, the silly season used to bring us UFO's, crop circles, and the occasional photos of
some scantily dress actress on the shores of the Mediterranean.

Today, for the summer season, we have mindless rioting in London, political theatrics in Spain
because some people decided to make the movida a semi permanent affair in the city centre, and to
cap it all, we have the stock markets experiencing more convulsions than the dying horses of the
Light Brigade in the Crimea. Ah! The good old and long days of summer when journalists invented the
news and politicians gave their mouths a rest.

So it is quite opportune that this Sunday we are discussing Demonstrations. As I write in my short
essay, in and of themselves demonstrations are not such a big deal, but for the political
philosopher demonstrations are the proverbial canary down the mine shaft. The question is: is the
canary suffocating or is it being slowly killed?

In the meantime since certain things never change, Diana tells me that at 22:00pm on Sunday there is
a football match so I suggest we meet at 6:30pm to make sure we vacate the pub by 9pm.

Finnegans Irish pub
Plaza Salesas, 9
http://maps.google.es/maps?hl=es&tab=wl&q=Plaza%20Salesas%2C%209%20Madrid%2C%2028004

Finally, don't forget that Carlos is still looking for speakers for his Philosophy group.
Take care and see you Sunday,

Lawrence
Demonstrations
There are at least two certain truths in political philosophy. The first is that power, today's
political power, is held in the hands of a few people. Indeed what makes power so sought after and
so useful is its scarcity. Not everyone can be powerful.
The second certainty is that those who hold political power do not necessarily do so for the benefit
of other members of society, but rather for the protection and distribution of scarce resources. In
today's jargon this would be economic wealth.
If power was there for the benefit of everyone then economic wealth would be more fairly
distributed. In fact the evidence is overwhelming that economic wealth is not fairly distributed.
So those like Hobbes who say that life was a brutal affair were, of course, right. However, his
solution of a social contract was a good try but unworkable. The idea that we could somehow agree to
a contract to exchange our primeval powers for collective protection is just a non starter. Firstly,
why should someone with power give it up? And secondly, given that a contract must be entered into
freely and have the competence to do so wouldn't it mean that we all have to intentionally agree to
the contract. On the one hand this is not practical and on the other the analogy is very weak if not
unless. I mean, how can our ancestors tie us to a contract, unless we agreed to be bound by it?
Compare this with historical treaties which are made between states and nations.
It is only through cooperation and respect of the individual that we can only give rise to fairness
or equitable exercise of political power. Locke's idea of natural rights makes more sense since we
don't have to do anything or agree to anything to qualify and enjoy these rights. Moreover, we can
justify these rights based on reason and not the distribution of brute force. Indeed, rights give us
something which we did not have in the primeval state, but a contract at the very best keeps us in a
similar state as we were before.
Rights, especially personal rights, imply personal freedom and free expression of opinion. Rights
also mean we respect others.
But even though political cooperation, maybe in the form of modern democracies, are the best
possible option we might have, cooperation still concentrates power in the hands of a few people.
The equally ultra modern idea of giving more power to regional governments does not necessarily
solve any problems. Unless regions derive their wealth locally and not from a central collective
source, the competition to access resources has not changed. Only the number of participants has
changed, now there are more groups with some power who can claim a right to the collective wealth,
and not necessarily better management of power. Maybe Hobbes had a point when he advocated a single
powerful sovereign.
Whatever else we can say, it is here that demonstrations are relevant and important political
activism. Demonstrations are important for two general reasons. Firstly they represent the extreme
of political freedom of expression and secondly they serve as a barometer of the political health of
a society.
In a way demonstrations are a throw back to the primeval instinct of group force. In nature group
force is quite common: primates use it, lions use it, and so do wolves to mention just a few examples.
Moreover, demonstrations are at the extreme end of the right of free expression. The right of free
expression also implies the freedom to share our ideas with others. However, demonstrations are also
one step away from civil disobedience, and eventually, rioting.
Demonstrations in effect create a situation where a balance has to be found between freedom of
expression and protecting society from possible violent individuals. This is evidently true and does
not need to be proved. However, this situation itself creates a challenge to those entrusted with
political power and a mandate to use physical force.
The fist principle that affects the authorities is that physical force is only to be used in a
defensive capacity. Just because someone might be breaking the law, it does not automatically follow
that the authorities can use unbridled force against them. Indeed the principle of proportionality
is an accepted rule in democratic countries.
An important aspect of demonstrations which makes them important in philosophy is rather their
weakness. Any game or strategy based on cooperation is subject to cheating, or to put it in other
words, taken advantage of or exploited. This is partly because cooperation depends on trust, and
trust is always about future actions. And the future is of course unpredictable.
Thus a demonstration can easily be hijacked by pure criminal groups or militant groups who have no
regard for the cooperative setup.
However, the opus operandi of demonstrations, and any political activism based on cooperation, is
proportionality. This very versatile principle does not only affect those in charge of law and order
but also the judiciary, elected officials, every other citizen, and in our context, the
demonstrators. Whilst the authorities have to employ proportionate force when it is a measure of the
last resort, demonstrators have to use proportionate actions in pursuing their cause.
Of course, proportionate force, does not mean no force at all by the authorities. But rather the
authorities have a duty to isolate those who have abused their right to participate in a
demonstration, and to protect those who are exercising their political right to protest. Indeed, it
is a thin line that exists between protecting law abiding individuals and punishing wrong doers. But
this is the real challenge that those who hold power have to face; and the thin line itself can
easily be breached through incompetence or malfeasance.
For example, even when there is a prima facie case of breaking the law, for example occupying a
street, the principle of proportionality still applies. And as I have already said, breaking the law
does not automatically mean the use of force or unbridled force. Thus there is a material difference
between inconveniencing traffic and impending the ambulance services from reaching people in need of
help.
But I do not believe that demonstrations in a democratic process are any better in changing the
political environment or addressing injustices than say a free press, NGOs, lobbying and other
political activism. Indeed one would not expect any difference in effectiveness amongst the
different options in a democracy, since all options ought to carry equal weight in the democratic.
Whilst for the political activist demonstrations are an important means of freedom of expression, I
would argue that for the political philosopher, or political scientist if you wish, it is there
character as a political barometer that really makes demonstrations politically and philosophically
valuable and indispensable.
First and foremost demonstrations are about the political freedom of expression. And the ability to
demonstrate is a direct measure of political freedom of expression. In other words, the default
policy ought to be in favour of facilitating a demonstration, and the onus is on those who want to
prohibit the demonstration to provide that this creates a danger to society.
For example, some might argue that some groups are all about inciting violence, discrimination and
racism, but of course any civilised country or society should have safeguards against this form of
activism. But incitement is different from political opinion no matter how unpalatable it is.
Another typical approach is to label demonstrators as criminal elements when it is obvious that the
event had been infiltrated by disruptive people. But in any case, calling people criminals does not
tell us anything about what is happening in society. Never mind that it is not for prime ministers
or presidents to decide who is a criminal or not, but for the judiciary to perform due process of
the law. But if it is true that the streets are -were- occupied by criminals, thugs, or malcontents
then surely that is prima facie evidence that those mandated to exercise power have failed
spectacularly and the mechanism to keep the peace and protect people has collapsed and is dysfunctional.
Indeed, Jacopo Ponticelli and Hans-Joachim Voth in their paid-for paper, Austerity and Anarchy:
Budget Cuts and Social Unrest in Europe, 1919-2009, say that " From the end of the Weimar Republic
in Germany in the 1930s to anti-government demonstrations in Greece in 2010-11, austerity has tended
to go hand in hand with politically motivated violence and social instability."* Although the
background might be complex, here we seem to have a study that at least validates the idea of going
beyond sticking labels to rioters, never mind demonstrators.
On the other hand, those who argue that 200 people shouldn't be allowed to protest because they
disrupt the city, but 200,000 people are ok, are playing a very dangerous game. First of all, this
sort of thinking indicates a degree of intolerance which in a democracy is unacceptable, but more
importantly argument by numbers in politics is an argument for discrimination and racism. Thus,
intolerance, either in not allowing demonstrations or censoring the activities of demonstrators, not
to mention manipulation of the press, is evidence of, at the very least, misuse of power and as a
norm an abuse of power. On a more technical aspect this is a slippery slop argument, or Reductio Ad
Absurdum, that if 200 people are irrelevant then we can get rid of these people; if one race is only
made up of 2m people compared to our race of 130m people then we can get rid of the 2m after all
they are an insignificant number of people and we cannot change our plans simply to accommodate such
a small number of people! Unfortunately, some politicians just insist in airing their stupidity in
public.
An absence of legitimate demonstrations is probably indicative of an intolerant society or
dictatorship. Anyway, very few countries are that perfect that no one needs to demonstrate about
something from time to time.
It is quite possible that some might not appreciate the value of demonstrations as a political
barometer and mistake the demonstration for the storm. Killing the messenger never solved any
problems and failure to deal with the causes of political storms never prevented any storms from
taking place.
However, the bottom line about demonstrations is that those who dismiss demonstrations and
demonstrators as being nut cases at the fringes of society ought to be careful and be warned. In the
twentieth century those people who were dismissed as nut cases in fancy brown shirts ended up being
responsible for the second world war.
Take care
Lawrence
*Ponticelli, Jacopo and Voth, Hans-Joachim, Austerity and Anarchy: Budget Cuts and Social Unrest in
Europe, 1919-2009 (July 31, 2011). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1899287 in Social
Science Electronic Publishing, (paid for article)
from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Demonstrations

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Who creates culture? + Meet at Triskel

2011-08-04T23:18:00.004+02:00

Dear Friends,

As you know until the 18 September the Segoviano will be closed for holidays. However, I spoke with
the manger at Triskel Tavern and he told me we could meet there this Sunday.
Unfortunately, there is going to be some football match or other which should be over by six pm. I
would therefore suggest we meet at 7pm to make sure that the pub is clear of fans.
The pub's address is: Triskel Tavern (Irish Pub), c/ San Vicente Ferrer 3 (on the corner with
Corredera Alta de san Pablo), near metro Tribunal. Thanks Ignacio.
In the meantime we will be discussing the topic: Who creates culture?

See you Sunday,
Best
Lawrence
from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Who creates culture? + Meet at Triskel

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Who creates culture? + Meet at Triskel

2011-08-04T23:18:00.003+02:00

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Self-delusion + News

2011-07-28T21:40:00.002+02:00

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing Self-delusion.
This Sunday will also be the last meeting we'll have at the Centro Segoviano for the season since
they are closed in August. They'll be open again in September.
However, this does not mean that we won't meet. We discussed this in the past and we just have to
agree a place where to meet, maybe not necessarily for a formal meeting but to for drinks.
We'll discuss this Sunday,
Best and see you Sunday

Lawrence
See you at 6:30pm Sunday

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Self-delusion + News

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Experience + important News

2011-07-21T21:57:00.002+02:00

Experience + Links on Experience by Diana and Important news from Ignacio and Carlos.
Dear friends,
The topic of this Sunday's meeting is. Experience, originally Can We Transfer Our Experiences.
Of course, the whole of western civilization, especially modern civilization, is based on sharing
and learning from each other's experience. Science itself is an edifice of experience and teaching
what we've learnt to the next generation.
But there is one minor problem with this whole programme. In order to learn from and make use of any
experience that is passed to us or that we pass on to others requires a common frame of mind. But
experience is basically a subjective event, we can describe what we feel but we cannot make each
other actually feel what we feel. In other words, the scope of transferring any experience is
probably very limited.
In the meantime, Diana has sent some links related to experience,
Hi Lawrence,
I hope you're enjoying your holiday. (yes thanks; today it was raining, windy and a bit cold – a
good excuse for double helping of cakes. !!)
I'm sending you some links related to Experience.
In The Oxford Companion to Philosophy there is a definition:
http://books.google.com/books?id=F9oAomj2IIwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Oxford+companion+to+philosophy&hl=es&ei=4cknToK0HcSCOte3nMcK&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=experience&f=false.
You'll have to double click on Experience; it is on page 281. Once there you can enlarge the view
using the icon.
In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy we have Rationalism vs. Empiricism
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/ and Phenomenology
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/ among many other topics related to experience.
I included
http://books.google.com/books?id=TA3R3oLdDJQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=experience+psychology&hl=en&ei=jlwkToOGHoPBswbilKn9AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
(see first paragraph in chapter Learning from experience) just to remind us that experience is the
"stock in trade of psychology".
And finally this link of a book with a neurological perspective
http://books.google.com/books?id=sX4wQtLAJjYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=experience+cognition&hl=es&ei=O5kmTsywOtCv8QPCqfSdCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
which introduces us into the dichotomy mind versus body and inner-self versus external world (first
paragraph in page 2) and gives us a hint of how aspects our ecological and social environment enter
into the shape of our thoughts (first and second paragraphs in page 3). It's amazing!
Best regards,
Diana

Ignacio has told me that the Thursday tertulia will now be held in a different location.
Hi Lawrence,
Thank you for your e-mail, the chosen topic seems quite interesting, for sure we will have a
interesting Sunday meeting as usual.
Thank you also for giving notice in your email of the Thursday's Tertulia in English. Related to it,
just yesterday we were informed that Moores's Irish Pub, where we use to meet, is closing down next
Sunday (Economic crisis was the argued cause).
The good news is that we will continue with the Thursday's Tertulia in English from next Thursday at
Triskel Tavern (Irish Pub), c/ San Vicente Ferrer 3 (on the corner with Corredera Alta de san
Pablo), also metro Tribunal and very near to (ex)Moore's location, as always from 19:30 to 21h...
Best,
Ignacio

Finally, Carlos is still looking for speakers for next season's programme of the CLUB DEL HOMBRE
LIBRE. Details below.

CLUB DEL HOMBRE LIBRE
PROGRAMA 2011-2012
En este programa queremos proseguir con al camino de mejora y crecimiento. Seguimos con las
actividades tradicionales de Cultura, Comisiones de Trabajo y Conferencias. Le añadimos conciertos,
recitales, el programa de Filosofía y El Premio 2011-12 de Propulsor de la Libertad.
Ciclo Los Crepúsculos Culturales de Olavide:
Nueve conferencias mensuales, de Septiembre a Mayo, en las que también se ofrecen conciertos y
recitales de poesía. Cada una tiene su Inspirador, persona notable que en el pasado ha sido aclamado
y Reconocido por sus resultados en pos de la Libertad. Ejemplos propuestos:
Gandhi, Teresa de Calcuta, Froid, Einstein, Séneca, los Estoicos, el Movimiento Hippie, César,
Parménides, Platón, Pitágoras, Protágoras, Rousseau, Kant, Nietzsche, Cicerón, los Oráculos, etc.
El Ciclo abarca las 4 áreas ó niveles en que se desenvuelve el Hombre:
1. Espiritual (Providencia, Karma, Paz..)
2. Mental (Sabiduría, Entendimiento, Conocimiento…)
3. Sentimental (Amor, equilibrio…)
4. Material (Política, Económica, de Acción)
O sea, dos conferencias por cada ámbito.
Además, tenemos el Ciclo de Filosofía Pura:
Se realiza en la Facultad de Filosofía de la Universidad Complutense.
El Observatorio de La Libertad es un programa que estudia
los movimientos sociales que afectan a La Libertad, y sIrve
para pronunciarnos al respecto. Crepúsculos Culturales, Una Historia de Chamberí
-Dicha obra teatral musical, que refleja el acontecer del distrito en los últimos 700 años se
presentará.
Premio Propulsor de La Libertad 2011-2012. Se elegirá a la persona
Ó entidad que se haya destacado por la defensa de La libertad, Local, nacional ó internacionamente,
y se le entregará el Premio en el mes de Junio.

Best
Lawrence
IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30 to 21h, at
Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Experience + important News

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Inherited behaviours

2011-07-14T22:05:00.002+02:00

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing Inherited behaviours.

The scope of this subject is of course, personal identity, on the one hand, and free will on the
other hand. If the big ticket behaviours are somehow inherited, that would leave us with a free will
whose only purpose is to deal with local and temporal actions. But are we justified in even assuming
that we have some much free will?

However, we also know that we do not necessarily inherit 100% of our parent's genes, sometimes
mutations do happen which probably gives us a degree of uniqueness. But maybe we can interpret
inherited in a slightly wider meaning. We also know that we are influenced by our environment (the
nurture part) and therefore we might inherit certain traits from the environment we've grown up in
as much as the genes we have inherited.

Take care
Lawrence

IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30 to 21h, at
Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Inherited behaviours

from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Suspicion

2011-07-08T00:11:00.002+02:00

Dear friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: suspicion.
As a subject this is quite interesting because we associate doubt, speculation, belief and with a
value judgement and sense of being negative (evil-bad) or a weaker meaning of unusual, out of the
ordinary or not expected.
In the meantime, since we are not meeting in the Segoviano during August maybe it is appropriate
that we start thinking about where we are going to meet during August.

See you Sunday
Best
Lawrence

IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30 to 21h, at
Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
from Lawrence, this Sunday PhiloMadrid meeting: Suspicion

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting: Are prisons a waste of time and money?

2011-07-01T00:13:00.002+02:00

Dear friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: Are prisons a waste of time and money?
A rather unusual and new category of philosophical subjects. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to write
anything this time. Nevertheless, just by looking at the subject I can think of number of relevant
issues for us to discuss. And that without going into jurisprudence.
Of course, we have such issues as justice, rights and human rights, the rights of victims, the
concept of punishment and so on. But maybe whilst we will never stop crime from happening, we
probably can reduce the prison population considerably. And we can do this by giving people a reason
to behave socially.
The real question, or at the very least the starting question for me, is not whether spending money
on prisons is a waste of money, but rather is there some hidden agenda, intentional or not, with its
core principle being: it is cheaper to send people to prison for breaking the rules of society than
to invest in people so they can follow the rules of society and thus contribute to society?
See you Sunday
Best
Lawrence

IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30 to 21h, at
Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting: Are prisons a waste of time and money?

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting: The membrane between private and public life

2011-06-23T22:35:00.002+02:00

Dear Friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: The membrane between private and public life.
An issue that seems to be very topical these days of social media,
networking and the internet. But as I try to show in my short essay the
issues concerning private and public life are at the heart of moral
philosophy and political philosophy.
In the meantime I am including an email from Carlos who is looking for
speakers for the 2011-2012 programme of the Club of Free Men:
Hi Lawrence:
I hope you are doing well.
Could a person of your group make a short presentation an all the
dedications of our conferences? (Total of 9 from September to June next
year)?
(Ie: Kant, Hippies?), on how they relate to freedom?
Enclosed is the program.
Thanks
Regards
Carlos
Club of Free Men
See you Sunday
Lawrence
See you Sunday,
Lawrence

IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30 to 21h, at
Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The membrane between private and public life.

We are tempted to interpret membrane to mean a barrier that will keep
one's privacy and one's public life separately. And in a way we would be
justified in believing this since at least today we place a high premium
on our privacy.
To wit, we are constantly reminded how online services have mountains of
information about us and what we do. And anyone who participates in any
social media portals would be aware of the privacy implications of what
they put on their accounts.
Employers, we read in the media, will now look up a prospective
candidate in these social media portals to really find useful
information about that person. And of course, one of the biggest fears
we have is to suspect that our governments are basically spying on us,
on everything we do and everything we think of.
So the idea of a barrier to keep intruders out of our life makes sense.
Indeed, the Wikipedia article on Privacy does point out that in the
European Union member countries have to legislate law to guarantee the
right to privacy of their citizens. However, in the introduction the
authors of the article point out that the idea of Privacy is mostly an
English-American cultural concept. And then go on to say that there is
even a difference between English-American privacy and Western European
concept of privacy, if it exists at all in Europe.
In a very brief and interesting document by the Association of Corporate
Counsel* they include a brief analysis of the differences between the
Common Law Legal System (English-US) and the Civil Law Legal System
(European Law). What is important for us here is what is described in
the document as Primary Source of Law: under Common Law this is cases,
or results of court judgements, and in Civil Law it is legislation.
However, it is recognised that today there is a great deal of cross
references to the methodologies of both systems. And no one for a
seconds believes that one system is absolutely better than the other,
both have their good and bad points.
But why is this important for us as philosophy. Firstly, because
philosophy has no boundaries, there is nothing out of bounds for
philosophical investigation, and secondly because I believe that here
lies the problem with today's privacy issue.
Apart from privacy, and therefore private life, we believe that there is
an even more important concept than privacy itself, that is liberty and
freedom. We believe that we are free agents to go about our business as
we feel fit. This does not mean that we are free to impose our will on
others, and unfortunately, this does not mean that every human being is
indeed free or regard themselves as being free. But the real tragedy is
not to know that one is not free, but rather not knowing that one is not
free.
If we accept the principle that we cannot expect privacy unless we are
free, then the challenge we have to deal with is who or what is
responsible to guarantee our freedom, and by expressed or implied
measures, is responsible to guarantee our privacy. The philosophical
issue, or paradox, here is how can we impose a duty on others so that we
can enjoy a personal right. By having our privacy protected we are the
only ones that benefit from this, but, however, there must be a system
or mechanism in place that will protect this right. In fact, I would
argue that there ought to be a system guaranteeing this right even if we
are not philosophically savvy to know that we have such rights:
unfortunately the UN Human rights charter is as effective as a damp squib.
Which of course, makes sense for the European Union to legislate laws
establishing our right to privacy, since under the European system you
can only have a right if it is backed by legislation, contrary to the
Common Law system (at least in theory) that you have a right unless a
judge has decided against it . Unfortunately, the very same legislators
and unelected commissioners, fail to see the paradox and irony of this
policy of legislating privacy rights and by implication freedom and
liberty rights. The paradox is of course the idea that some omnipotent
power and authority such as the European commission or a parliament
enacting a law giving us privacy, and by implication, liberty. It is
like saying we've got ways and means to make you happy even if we have
to impose happiness on you.
In the real life, at least in Western society, we do not believe that we
should be free or made free, and hence have privacy, but rather the
opposite, we believe we are free and we do have a right to privacy from
the very first second we are born. And these states of being, and not
rights, are inalienable ; they cannot be taken away or given in the same
way that a lung can be harvested or transplanted.
I would therefore say that, at least in theory, Case law does not need
legislation nor a case to establish freedom and privacy. In today's real
life the theory is as far away as the North pole is from the South pole.
Precisely this is background problem between Britain and Europe; the
European Union has opened a back door for UK governments to introduce
legislation which in many cases might not have seen the light of day
under the common law principles.
This brings me to the second paradox about privacy, and as I keep
saying, by implication liberty. If we accept the principle of
Parliamentary sovereignty
(http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/sovereignty/) then the idea that
such rights are to be legislated is as solid as a sand castle on a
Fukushima beach. Basically, the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty
means two things, the first is that Parliament is the highest supreme
court (never mind that the EU has tampered with this principle) and the
second is that one Parliament cannot bind a future parliament. It is
this second principle that most interests us, since what parliament
today can legislate to give citizen the right to privacy, tomorrow's
parliament can easily take away.
So the question we now have to ask ourselves is, what purpose or
function does a membrane have in keeping privacy and public life apart?
Presumably, the membrane, albeit legislation or philosophical theory, is
there to prevent the public life from interfering with the private life.
Even though we might have a good idea of what we mean by private life
and public life, we might still need to define these for our purposes.
Earlier I said that the right to privacy seems to imply a duty on others
so that we can enjoy a private right and benefit. Is there also some
kind of social or legal duty that we have in our private life?
We can safely assume that no one is really interested in what you and I
do at home. What we're planning for our holidays, what to wear this
Sunday, and what books we buy and read in our spare time. So far so
good. Of course, what bothers the authorities is what we plan in our
private life that will have a detrimental effect on society: crime,
terrorism, crime against minors, a coup d'état and so on.
We instinctively agree that such activities, no matter how much they are
carried out in private, ought not to be accorded the status of private
life and thus protected by the mantel of privacy. So, maybe the membrane
is not, does not, and ought not protect unsocial acts of the most
heinous kind. Maybe, the membrane is there to protect normal people
doing normal things. But there is a slight problem with this argument,
even though it is as sound as they come. The problem is that we are
supporting this scenario with logical and rational arguments, but real
life is anything but logical and anything but rational.
So how certain can we be about an act that ought to be disapprove off
and the act that we are actually investigating is an act that falls with
the right category? In other words, it is one thing to say stop all
criminal acts, and actually discovering criminal acts. By definition,
any human investigation comes with the health warning of possible error.
It is not that we are always mistaken, but rather that sometimes we
might be mistake. And the sting is that we won't know until the mistake
is evident or actually performed.
Thus even if the legislative membrane is there to protect the innocent,
by virtue of investigating anyone we run the risk of mistakenly
investigating the innocent. There need not be any malice in this
mistake, since as I said, it is human nature to err.
It seems to many people that in today's social environment the
authorities are prepared to take the risk that they might be wrong when
invading the privacy of others. Today's politics is based on pure
utilitarianism underwritten by pragmatism: catch those who pose a threat
to society at all costs even at the cost of innocent people. This state
of affairs might indeed be seen as incongruous, in the sense that the
body that is bestowing and guaranteeing the right to privacy, is also
the same authority that seems to be prepared to take risks with this
right; I called this the second paradox above.
In theory, we can accept situations where the membrane between the
private life and the public life can be breached in the case of a threat
to society. On the other hand, as they say in the movies, if you've done
nothing wrong, you've got nothing to worry about.
But as I have just argued, in today's climate, maybe there are reasons
to worry. Maybe, today's rule of thumb might be, if you're not on the
radar screen of some authority, you need not worry. Which today does not
mean, are you innocent, but rather are your credible. (Check the stories
through Google)
Indeed, case law (and Civil law if you must), at least, recognises the
principle of public interest as a justification to breaching the right
to privcy, for example the media are allowed to reveal private
information about people if it is in the public interest. And it might
be argued that what is part of our public life is accessible to everyone
else. Another principle that the media operate under is that if
something or someone is in public than they can be reported as part of
the news or editorial content. And not to get confused here, although
the media can report what is public, that same information (for example
a photo of a person eating an ice cream) cannot be used for commercial
purposes ( the same photo used to sell ice cream).
The big issue is what is the status of those who put themselves in the
public eye, for example, politicians, pop stars, famous actors and so
on? On the one hand these people enjoy certain privileges in society by
being in the public eye; actors make big money, politicians have power
and access to people who command resources and so on.
I guess that the same rules that apply to you and me apply here , even
these people have a right to privacy, but that right, I would argue,
only covers what is considered normal for a private person. But one of
the problems with people in the public eye is that many tend to use
privacy rights to hide what in not normal or misdeeds carried out in the
public domaine.
Now, whether we create laws that make it difficult for the media to
publish photos of people in public (theoretically in France and up to an
extent in Germany) or create super injunctions that prevent the media
even from mentioning the fact that they are not allowed to publish
something (England), the end result is that they serve those who are
corrupt or who abused their position, rather than the average person
going about their lives doing average things.
So the crux of the issue is not so much keeping the private separate
from the public, nor legislating rights which in theory we already enjoy
from birth, but rather when is it alright to breach the membrane?
As I said earlier, the first paradox is that our right to privacy
implies a duty on others. Maybe we can solve this paradox by accepting
that those in power and with authority have no rights but rather duties.
The individual as a private person, of course, have rights, but the
individual acting as a holder of authority has only duties. How
practical this is, is an other matter, but nevertheless the principle is
sound. Those in authority have to justify breaching the membrane rather
than having the right to breach the membrane.
Whatever else we think about the subject, it is evidently clear that the
right to privacy is not something that is legislated since what is
legislated into law can tomorrow be legislated to be taken away by law.
Thus, the right to liberty, and by default the right to privacy, are
inalienable rights, that simply cannot be taken away. And by default
therefore, those in authority have only the duty to protect such rights,
since they have no jurisdiction to bestow such rights; we cannot be
given something we already have.

Take care
Lawrence

*501 Common Differences between Civil & Common Law Jurisdictions
www.acc.com/resource/v7219

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting: The membrane between private and
public life

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting: The influence of technology in our emotional life, + NEWS for today and Maths tertulia

2011-06-16T22:37:00.002+02:00

Short essay + gospel choir TODAY and Maths tertulia
Dear friends,
It was a natural progression to move on from Artificial Intelligence to
"The influence of technology in our emotional life" which we will be
discussing this Sunday.
The subject is vast, and the philosophical issues and relevant and deep,
but what matters for us is that this is a subject that could only be
idiscussed today in the technological paradise we live in. But
technology comes with its own duality which is as unpleasant as
technology is useful.
In the meantime the news:

----- Marga-----
Próximo concierto: 17 de junio, Madrid
http://livingwatergospelchoir.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/proximo-concierto-17-de-junio-madrid/
Gira 2011 LIVING WATER GOSPEL CHOIR
------Miguel-----
Estimado tertuliano,
Te envío adjunta la información de la conferencia que ilustrará la
próxima Tertulia de Matemáticas:
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliadematematicas/28-6-2011
Como verás se trata de un tema de mucha actualidad. Esperando verte por
allí, aprovecho la ocasión para enviarte un cordial saludo,
J.Miguel

See you Sunday,
Lawrence

IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30 to 21h, at
Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/

The influence of technology in our emotional life

Hopefully we can progress this discussion beyond Error 404 and Fatal
Error. Indeed some of the most emotional influence technology has on our
life is the frustration and feeling or horror and helplessness when it
does not work.
I mean, early this week I was able to write six paragraphs of an essay
on my new smart phone, but unfortunately it was not smart enough to
remind me that I had to save the document. It is not that I did not
remember to save the document, but rather that in the three weeks I have
had the mobile phone I have become used to it doing everything
automatically for me.
If Error 404 is bad enough, then the maximum emotional influence must be
Fatal Error, since there is nothing more emotional in our life than life
and death, especially death. Frustration aside, when technology breaks
down we are caused a lot of inconveniences.
But when some technology fails, lives could be at stake and in many
cases this does happen. Ships breaking up and sink with all hands on
board, planes crashing and killing everyone, and today we have nuclear
power stations contaminating large parts of Japan that would be
uninhabitable for many years to come. So when technology goes wrong it
influences more that just our emotional life.
But technology need not break down to have an emotional influence on our
lives. In fact, nuclear technology has been one of the most emotional
subjects in modern life. We are now all familiar with the negative side
of nuclear technology. But to give up nuclear technology would imply
that we need to find some other technology to fill the gap. After all we
will need even more electricity due to an increasing population and
increasing standards of living.
On the one had we can accept that technology that by its very nature of
being physical has an inherent weakness: the weakness of a probable
break down. This idea basically reflect the principle of the second law
of thermodynamics. What is relevant for us here is that any instrument
based on technology will sooner or later breakdown. Needless to say that
this scenario presents a number of questions that can be examined
philosophically. For example, is it possible to have a technology that
does not break down, and would this go against any known laws of nature?
However, there is an even more pressing problem about nuclear energy,
and by extension technology in general: what are the necessary and
sufficient conditions at which we do not assume a risk no matter how
useful the technology? In other words what is an acceptable risk when it
comes to technology? Unfortunately, most times we can only answer this
question with hindsight. After the event we are all clever, and the
Japanese should have build a 20 meter wall. But should they?
In an article on the Al Jazeera English website, the author quotes Dr
Shoji Sawada, a Japanese theoretical particle physicist, on three
important issues. The first is that in the 1950 Japanese scientists
advised their government from using nuclear technology because it was
not yet well developed. Secondly, by adopting, at the time, power
stations that used enriched uranium as fuel this automatically made
Japanese stations subject to US nuclear policies. And the third issue is
that most of Japan's power stations are of US design. But the key factor
in this article and according to Sawada, is that these US designs just
did not consider the implications of earthquakes. (Fukushima: It's much
worse than you think -
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/201161664828302638.html)
Reading some of the comments about this article it would be an
understatement to say that this article is very controversial. But what
is of relevance for is this: when assessing risks related to technology,
should we limit ourselves take into account reasonable risks (all known
risks) or absolute risks (all possible risks)? The fact that in the 50's
there were no giant tsunamis in Japan and the idea of outliers was
itself a far off outlier did not help. And although we now know that
Fukushima was an accident waiting to happen, how about technology which
we do use intentionally to cause harm and to discriminate in the most
vile way.
I am of course not referring to cluster bombs but rather to medical
ultrasonography (see Wikipedia) which is used to identify female
foetuses so they can be aborted; a practice very common in some Asian
countries and also in countries not too far from our borders.
My issue here is not that of abortion, but rather the use of very
important and vital technology in gynaecology to discriminate against a
particular gender. If the politicians had the excuse that tsunamis were
not common in the fifties, what excuse do they have in 21st century,
maybe they never needed a ultra sound test because they are mostly males?
But there is even a third class of technology that can affect us even
more emotionally than the other two classes I mentioned above. And this
third class is technology that is used to sustain a person alive but
without hope of ever recovering, and even more, should this technology
be withdrawn the person would die.
The dilemma here is of course, all parties involved with these patients
strive to achieve the best for them. And the single most important right
we will ever have, that of the right to life, is being jealously guarded
by the carers, and yet whatever anyone will do, including sometimes the
patient, would result in an unacceptable outcome: pain, vegetation or death.
It is not surprising that in today's technological paradise, we find
equally devilish terminology as System Failure and Reboot. What is not
clear is whether we need to reboot the technology or the human users and
abusers of technology.
Best
Lawrence

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting: The influence of technology in our
emotional life
+ NEWS for today and Maths tertulia

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting: Artificial Intelligence

2011-06-09T23:12:00.002+02:00

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: Artificial Intelligence.
This is a subject more about intelligent machines rather than will
machines rule the world and us included. The problem with this science
fiction type of contemplation is that machines are created in the image
of human beings. And hence, I would argue, would also inherit some of
the weaknesses of human beings.
Indeed we have to distinguish between intelligence and computational
power to reach to a probabilistic conclusion based in inductive input in
a very short time. Even more important, data is king when it comes to
artificial intelligence which in a way reinforces the inductive method.
However, machines can do wonderful things with the right data set and
the computational program.
In effect I would say that any attempt to argue that machines will over
take the world has to contemplate two issues: first, are we intelligent
enough to see when we are in real danger of being obliterated? The
chances are that some virus will obliterate the human race than a
machine, even considering nuclear bombs and power stations. The second
issue is that if we accept the premise that even artificial intelligence
is a reflection of human intelligence, and we have to accept this since
this is the only intelligence we know, then it suffers from a really
serious weakness. Artificial intelligence is not infallible intelligence.
Take care and see you Sunday

Lawrence
IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30 to 21h, at
Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting: Artificial Intelligence

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting: Is the past chasing us? + news

2011-06-02T22:18:00.002+02:00

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: Is the past chasing us?
I'm afraid that this week the future caught up with me and was not able
to finish the short essay I started writing.
In the meantime Maria has sent me details on a Workshop/Taller: EL
LENGUAJE DEL AMOR.
I am including below the text of Maria's pdf, but if you want the pdf
file please let me know.

See you Sunday,
Best
Lawrence

IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30 to 21h, at
Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/

-------------------------------------------------------end-

Próximo TALLER de crecimiento emocional
EL LENGUAJE DEL AMOR
¿Tienes control sobre tus emociones? ¿O tus emociones te controlan a ti?
¿Te has sentido NO escuchada/o, NO comprendida/o?
¿Conseguís expresar lo que verdaderamente sientes y deseas?
¿Te has decepcionada/o de ti misma/o tras no conseguir lo que buscabas?
¿Sientes que estás descuidando alguna de tus relaciones más importantes?
¿Cómo te comunicas con aquellas personas que más quieres?
¿Cuál es tu lenguaje de amor?
Si te has sentido así, si desconoces algunas de estas respuestas y,
QUIERES mejorar tu SABER Escuchar y SABER Expresar.
Te esperamos!!!
¿Qué vamos a hacer?
Vamos a explorar nuestros estilos de comunicación y nuestro lenguaje de
amor. Te ofrecemos herramientas y
recursos para que puedas mejorar tu entorno y tus relaciones a través de
una comunicación empática y
asertiva.
Nos daremos permiso para conocernos un poquito más a nosotros/as
mismos/as, en un entorno especialmente
creado para ello: lúdico, divertido, creativo, de confianza, de escucha
incondicional (sin juicios) y
confidencialidad.
¿Cómo lo vamos a hacer?
A través de una metodología vivencial centrada en la persona, en tus
emociones, pensamientos y acciones;
desde el psicodrama, el coaching, la inteligencia emocional, el enfoque
sistémico y el constructivista.
Datos del taller
Fecha: Domingo 12 de Junio
Hora: de 12 a 14,30 y 16,30 a 19hs.
Precio: 40€. Precio especial lanzamiento!!
Dónde: Raíces del Mundo. Espacio
Multicultural. C/ Galileo 78 bajo. MADRID
Imparte
Carina Sampó Franco
Psicopedagoga. Terapeuta y directora psicodramática.
Especialista en intervención psicológica.
Especialista en coaching e inteligencia emocional.
Facilitadora de cambios y gestión emocional.

Plazas limitadas. Confirma tu reserva.
Información y contacto:
C/ Galileo, 56 • 28015 Madrid
Tel. 91 5916278
info@raicesdelmundo.com
http://www.raicesdelmundo.com

Tel. 644487513
info@naskendi.com
http://www.naskendi.com/
http://naskendi.blogspot.com
--------------------end--------------------------------

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting: Is the past chasing us? + news

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting: what is an idea?

2011-05-26T23:59:00.002+02:00

Please read important request:

Dear friends,
This Sunday we are certainly discussing an important issue in philosophy
and maybe a few other disciplines for good measure. What is an idea?
The subject is an old issue in philosophy dating back to early times of
Greek philosophy and maybe even that is not early enough. No matter how
old this problem is, I don't seriously believe we are about to solve it
some day soon. But in the meantime let's try on Sunday at 6:30pm at the
Centro Segoviano.
The important request is that we should be most grateful if late comers
would buy and pay for their drinks before they join us at the table. Now
that was a great idea!

See you Sunday,
Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
What is an idea?
I am tempted to think that the concept of an idea in philosophy has been
somewhat a Jack of all trade and a master of none. I mean that the
history of what is an idea is long and varied. Changing and flipping as
the fashion of the time dictated.
So at the beginning, we have to start somewhere, we have Plato's notion
of ideas being perfect and unchangeable. The Forms existed in the
universe of metaphysics but have epistemological implications for us.
And our epistemological notion is nothing near the perfection ideas of
what the forms are.
Hume considered that ideas where vague reconstructions of perceptions
that are based on experience. Locke and Hume more or less agreed on the
point of experience.
In more modern times, Dawkins compares, at least some ideas, as having
the same kind of properties as genes; that is they can evolve and
survive in the same way that genes evolve and survive in the biological
world. Religious beliefs can be sort of memes.
Ideas, as I have already said, seem to be imprecise concepts and we try
to understand what they are by the language and mental tools we have at
a given time. However, one thing is clear, despite Plato's slight
objection, ideas reside in the realm of the mental. Of course today we
know at least that ideas reside in the brain.
But what is exactly residing in the brain? On the one hand, it cannot be
just the neurons or collection of neurons that give rise to the idea
since the neurons that gave rise to the idea must have been in the brain
before the conception of the idea. So there is a bit of a paradox here,
the same neurons (figuratively speaking) but yesterday they were not the
idea we have today. Something must have happened. This is analogous to
walls, before a wall can be constructed the bricks must first exist.
However, the bricks themselves on the back or a lorry do not make a
wall. And the wall won't exist no matter how much we mix and match the
bricks. Something else must take place.
Even in common use the notion of an idea is just as vague. Ideas can be
opinions, convictions, principles, but in all cases ideas are mental
activates. At least we all agree that ideas are mental events, to use
the vernacular, or brain events to be precise.
This makes ideas clearly fall in the domain of epistemology, and for
those who are punctilious about these things, by virtue of being brain
events this also makes ideas fall in the realm of the physical – that
is, metaphysical instead of epistemological.
Today we do not find this duality so contradictory since today we accept
that information, as far as we are concerned, must be represented in a
physical form. Clearly there is a dual relationship between ideas as
epistemological events and ideas as metaphysical events.
Once again we should not find this strange, since we have had a
manifestation of this phenomenon since writing has been invented. The
meaning of a written concept, such as –the white cat- does not exist in
the physical words (that you about to see) – the white cat. The physical
words do not include in them the meaning of what they say; this is not
to be mixed up with autologous and heterologous words, this is about
properties and not meaning (English is an autologous word because it is
written in English). Ironically the meaning of words resides in our
brain as language speakers of English. The metaphorical similarity with
genes is not lost here. The genes (plus the extras) that make up the
liver in us do not have liverness in them.
So what are ideas? Ideas belong to a set of mental/brain events some of
which we would identify as intuition, knowledge, hunches, thinking,
imagination, reasoning, and beliefs, to mention the most obvious. So
from what is an idea? Cannot really be investigated without at the same
time investigating what are ideas for?
So instead of asking what are ideas? we also have to ask what are ideas
for? I am of course, not trying to shirk away fro the original question
itself, since even if we can associate an idea with a specific number of
neurons, and we can see them with some FMRI machine, we still have the
issue of joint duality between meaning (what the idea represents) and
physical manifestation of the idea (neurons and whatever other physical
elements are at play).
Furthermore, by enquiring what are ideas for, helps us investigate
another issue, which I think helps us clarify the subject. The issue is
how do we achieve the meaning of ideas (does it make sense?) since these
surely sprout in our private brain? If language, according to
Wittgenstein, cannot be private, can ideas be private? After all ideas
must make sense over time in the same way that language must make sense
over time if, that is our language has to have any meaning at all. How
do we know that yesterday's idea that the cat needs to go to the vet, is
today the same idea?
Hence, the function question about asking what ideas are for. But first
let's have a look at what ideas are not. On the one hand we have
believes that are mental events of what is true or false ( the cow
cannot jump over the moon). On the other hand we have imagination that
seems to be some sort of quasi random generator of representations of
the world based on quasi real world concepts (the cow jumps over the
moon). I would places ideas as mental events that represent in us what
we think and believe is possible in the real world ( the cow can be put
in a spaceship and send it around the moon and back).
If ideas are mental events of what is ontologically possible, then surly
the function of ideas is to represent in our brain the world as it
should be (maybe even ought to be). A kind of plan a bricklayer would
use to build a wall. The plan is not the wall, loose bricks are not the
wall, but a wall are the bricks (plus the extras) that follows the shape
of a plan. Now, we cannot put bricks in the plan, it is made of paper,
nor do architects have brain bricks also made of clay, maybe like play
bricks. What the architect, the bricklayer, the plan and the client have
in common is the versatility of shapes. And the wall must conform to
this shape which also conforms to the shape in the brain of the others
and the shape on paper. Somehow the brain is able to squeeze the mental
juice out of the metaphorical physical orange in the brain.
Of course, shapes of walls and ideas of a cow on a spaceship are some
kind of a gold standard that the real wall and the cow is a space ship
are just practical reorientations. Maybe Plato had a point about ideas
being imprecise representations of the perfect Forms (Forms should not
be confused with shapes). Its like saying all roads lead to Rome, but
somehow Plato found himself in New York.
The big caveat here is the assumption that all things being equal. The
meaning-over-time test of ideas, I mention above, is heavily dependent
on the need that our memory had not materially deteriorated since
yesterday. And an even bigger assumption is the need that the our brain
today is functioning in the same correct way as it did yesterday. And
maybe the biggest assumption of all is that our brain is a normal
healthy brain. If our brain is not functioning properly how can we tell
if our ideas are representations of the world out there or maybe simply
false beliefs or random events of the imagination?
But what trumps ideas over other mental events such as false beliefs or
imagination is that it should be possible to represent ideas in real
life. We can actually can put a cow in a space ship and send it round
the moon. But no amount of jumping will get a cow over the moon.
On the other hand some ideas seems as good as done, but at the very last
minute when we compare idea with reality it all falls down. For example,
what is the status of an idea that a politician will be elected in the
polls if they materially reduced the salary of a few million people?
Some ideas are simply not reproducible in the ontological world, even
they seem good at the time. Or as Dawkins might say, some genes are hell
bent in unnaturally deselecting themselves.
Best
Lawrence

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting: what is an idea?

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, Democracy without political parties + News

2011-05-19T21:46:00.002+02:00

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: Democracy without political parties.
Politics is always fair game in philosophy during election time or
economic crisis. In the few paragraphs I wrote on the subject I try to
highlight some issues associated with the relationship between political
parties and democracy.
In the meantime Miguel has sent me this message:
Estimado tertuliano,
Por si fuera de interés, te informo de la siguiente conferencia en la
Academia de Ciencias:
TOMANDO RIESGOS INTELIGENTEMENTE
26/05/2011 19:00 h - David Ríos Insua (Académico de Número de la R.A.C.)
http://www.rac.es/7/7_1_2.php?id=133&idOrg=1
Saludos cordiales,
J.Miguel

Finally, enjoy your democratic rights if you live in Spain,
Best
Lawrence
Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao

Democracy without political parties

At the heart of this issue is the question: can all the people be
pleased all the time?
At least in today's society, political parties function as group
interests for the control of political power and wealth of the nation.
And as we know these are imposed on us by the fact that wealth is scarce
and therefore resources have to be shared and divided.
And political power is so absolute that in a civilised society this has
to be employed with checks and balances.
Thus democracy is a function of justice and fairness and political
parties are a function of wealth distribution.
Of course, democracies can in one sense function without political
parties. Maybe because the wealth of a nation is so huge and the
population so small that we can please all the people all of the time.
In fact given enough wealth each citizen can have a villa and a sports
car and the rest life can offer without the need of political parties or
political ideologies.
Indeed, in theory, we can replace political parties and still find an
equitable way of distributing wealth. Of course, there are always
practical questions to deal with such as what criteria do we use, which
mathematical model reflects the best equitable situation and so on.
Conceptually I don't see any major issues although the practical issues
might be endless.
But if we can create and distribute wealth equitably and everyone is
happy with their equitable share, would we still need democracy?
As I just said, democracy is more a means to control power than to
distribute wealth. One of the functions of power is precisely to protect
the very members of society from those who wish it harm. Thus the
democratic process might be required to choose the methods of how to
protect the nation rather than how much resources should be made
available to protect the nation.
Democracy might also be required as a methodology to choose those people
we need to oversee the equitable principle of wealth creation and
distribution. It goes without saying that by wealth creation I mean the
traditional meaning of business and commerce, and not plundering other
countries. And distribution I have more in mind of fair and reasonable
remuneration for work rather than a physical division of money from a
piggy bank.
But where, in a democracy, do we derive the idea of an equitable and
fair process (of wealth creation and distribution and power exercise)?
Today's idea of democracy is partially based on the concept of wealth
creation and distribution. Some argue that justice is to share wealth in
such a way that everyone has access to a dignified life. Others argue
that the state should not interfere with the private activities of
individuals in their quest to create wealth.
For example, there are some who argue that we should reduce spending on
defence in order to spend the money on more urgent social needs. But
this thinking supposes that wealth (or money) is scare to the extent
that we do not have enough money for both. But if we had enough wealth
for both then there wouldn't be a need to choose between social issues
and protection.
On the other hand there are those who argue, for example, that more
should be spent on defence (it could be anything) in order to protect
ourselves against invaders. These people might fall into the trap that
we might spend so much on defence that we might have nothing left to
defend or worth defending.
Whatever democracy might be, it is certainly a means of keeping away
from extremes. But democracy strong enough to keep politicians on the
straight and narrow?

Best
Lawrence
from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, Democracy without political parties
+ News

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, at the CENTRO SEGOVIANO + Assumptions

2011-05-12T22:59:00.000+02:00

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are again meeting at the Centro Segoviano, last Sunday we
had a good meeting.

Meet 6:30pm
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao

This brings me to the topic of our meeting: Assumptions. These are
certainly curious epistemological events in our brain. Some might say
that they are induction in disguise, but in my short essay I go beyond
this idea.

Best

Lawrence

Assumptions

The success of human beings stems from our ability to process and
achieve both quantitative and qualitative information and knowledge. Of
course, brains of all biological creatures can achieve this in their own
specific context.

However, humans can both collectively and individually learn and access
information and knowledge from other people. This ability to share new
experiences, information and knowledge means that we are in a constant
state of change and improvement.

0f course, change and improvement does not mean that what we are doing
is good. Nor that these are, overall, better. What this means is that
things become different over time and sometimes they become better, most
times it is just a grind.

However, the problem is that no matter how powerful the brain is, the
chances are that we physically cannot process all the relevant
information in real time that will help us to take one course of action
and not another. Those who have tried to book a hotel on the internet
for their holiday will know what I mean. It is just impossible to
consult all the possible sites and consider all the possible offers,
hence the aggregators even if the information is the same. And that
without calculating the probability of the weather being nice when we
arrive at our destination, the chances that our plane will arrive and a
few thousand other things.

One way of dealing with this is to pay more attention to new information
and accept as given information that has proven its worth over time (see
information theory). It makes no sense to calculate the probability of a
plane arriving at our destination, but it makes a lot of sense to check
if our hotel is near public transport or the beach as the case may be.

Assumption are these events or information that we accept as given and
therefore do not need to question them or investigate them. It is
reasonable to assume that the plane will arrive at our destination, but
not reasonable to assume that the luggage will arrive with us. Hence, it
is good advice to always carry a pair of undies in our pocket when
travelling.

Assumptions are an epistemological issue and not a metaphysical one.
Assumptions are not things or events in the world out there, but events
and state of affairs in our brains.

The problem with assumptions is that they are so powerful and so useful
that at face value they seem reasonable and important for our life and
progress. But when assumptions fail they fail really badly. That
assumptions have risks is therefore in no doubt, but for us what is
relevant is what underpins our assumptions.

A question then arises, do we assess the risks associated with
assumptions consciously or unconsciously? Indeed, do we assess the risks
associated with assumptions?

Since assumptions are really based on past occurrences of the events or
the information we are assuming we can conclude that failed assumptions
are really a failure of a pattern or induction from repeating itself.
Again, we might be mistaken in thinking that a pattern is similar to a
previous one, when it is not, or simply a pattern was indeed similar to
past events but something interfered with it.

In both cases it is an epistemological failure, but the nature of the
information is very different. In the first case, we mistakenly think
that a pattern was similar to past patterns; maybe it is even a
cognitive problem. We miss read the situation and by implication gave
the situation the wrong meaning or understanding.

For example, if I buy a cheap ticket to a far away destination from one
of the low cost airlines, then it should not come as a surprise if the
plane on the day does not arrive at my destination. Low cost carries
have been known to change their schedule on what seems to passengers a
whim or a frivolity. This, I would argue is a foreseeable risk and
therefore a case of acting erroneously. A plane ride with a low cost
airline is not really a plane ride at all, but maybe a bet on some
future event.

However, if I bought a standard economy ticket with a reputable airline
but on the day there was a volcanic explosion and planes had to be
diverted, then flying on this day would have been one of those
assumptions that maybe we had some of information about the volcano but
really impractical to assess the risk of it exploding on the day of our
trip. Hence, something interfered with established patterns.

Since assumptions have an associated risk factor attached to them, how
we assess the risks affects what assumptions we make. But, is it
reasonable to argue that we have to assess the risks associated with
assumptions? And wouldn't this be counterproductive since the point
about assumptions is not to spend time considering them?

And since many of our assumptions backfire, does this imply an element
of unnecessary risk taking about our epistemological state of mind,
maybe even recklessness on our part. Or are assumptions so necessary for
our life to function that they are just as good as being made
unconsciously and maybe even a determined feature of biology.

Maybe what matters is not that assumptions are necessary, but that not
all assumptions are worth making. The crux of the issue is which are
these assumptions are not worth making? And isn't that a risk laden
strategy anyway, since all assumptions have a risk to begin with?

Of course, we do not make assumptions in a vacuum. Many of the
assumptions we make involve other people and the cooperation of other
people. If our plane is to arrive safely this implies that the pilot, or
in today's high tech planes, the IT engineer, are not drunk or careless.
This introduces a curious moral issue. Assumptions are no doubt things
we do purely for our own convenience and most probably our benefit. But
if our assumptions imply other people doing things correctly then surely
this means that our personal convenience imposes moral and even, in some
cases, legal duties and obligations on others.

It might be argued that rules, regulations, conventions and agreements
are precisely tools and strategies we employ so that people are obliged
to do their duty without us having to assess the risks associated with
all the assumptions we make. But even this argument has its drawback: an
obligation or a duty is not a fact in reality, it is promised but not
necessarily promising.

But do we have moral obligations when we make any assumptions?

Take the case of the low cost airlines as an example. We know that some,
if not all of them, tend not to always prioritise the comfort or good
experience of their passenger. They certainly get you to your
destination safely, they have no choice, but this assumes that they have
a plane available, it will take off heading for your destination, your
flight wasn't overbooked or you won't be bumped off, or your holiday
money wasn't gobbled up on some spurious irregularity in your luggage.
Etc, etc. Of course, these things also happen with regular airline, but
in that case you would be justified if you hit the roof and beyond. I
have no experience flying with these airline and I am only using these
as an example based on reliable information, such a s court reports. I
could in fact have used the fast food industry for my example. End of
disclaimer.

So, knowing that low cost airline are more likely to make life more
difficult for passengers than say reputable airline, do we have some
moral duty not to create business for these airlines, or any company
that regularly mistreats its customers? Our assumption that a low cost
airlines will still get us safely to our destination, seems to reinforce
the belief that passenger do not care about being mistreated. So our
assumptions played a role in making others to be mistreated or
exploited. Some might argue that being mistreated by these low cost
airlines is part of the fun and people travel with them at their own peril.

But the same goes for goods made by slave labour, child labour or
companies that discriminate against minority groups. If people still buy
goods made by slave labour then the slave master might feel justified in
thinking that employing slave labour is ok. Except in this case our
assumption that buying cheap goods is good for us, implies a serious
imposition on others. Maybe these type of assumptions have a double
jeopardy moral implication: bad things done to workers and an
opportunity for the mater to employ slave labour.

Returning to the theme that assumptions are based on patterns, we must
concede that regularity is a very powerful attraction and the
convenience of assumptions are also a powerful attraction. The
advantages of regularity are well known by us and can easily be
identified, maybe in the same way that ancient Greek sailors saw
advantages in following the call of the sirens on the high seas. Indeed
are assumptions the equivalent of the call of the sirens and therefore
the cause of our downfall?

Best

Lawrence

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, at the CENTRO SEGOVIANO + Assumptions

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, at the CENTRO SEGOVIANO + Human Identity

2011-05-05T23:52:00.003+02:00

Dear friends

Our meeting at the Centro Segoviano went very well last Sunday. In fact
we felt so comfortable that we finished right at 9pm a few minutes
before closing time of the centre. We were also told that this coming
Sunday we might be able to use the Tertulia room.
Hence, this Sunday we are meeting at 6:30pm at the Centro Segoviano look
out for the Clamores neon sign;
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
In the meantime our topic for Sunday is: Human Identity. In other words
what makes us human beings as opposed to another biological mass?
Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to finish off an essay, but I
did manage to write a few ideas before life caught up with me.
- At the biological level human identity is a causal effect of our
genome and dna.
-
- A special characteristic of human identity is that we depend for our
existence on learning from our experience.
-
- And even learning does not seem to be a sufficient condition for human
identity. But rather what matters for us is that we learn to be better.
It not enough that we find a solution to a problem but we strive to find
a better solution to a problem.
-
- Thus we learn to be better and continue to learn to be better, because
we know that to survive we have to adapt and change.
-
- Not all other biological systems might adapt the way we do. For
example, migrating birds might know how to cross continents but they don't
seem to know how to avoid hunters.
-
- Other biological systems might be more clever at adapting for example
bacteria and microbes. However it is questionable whether bacteria
survive and adapt because they intentionally seek a solution to survive
or because they can reproduce in such large numbers that natural
selection plus change still create enough survivors in a short period of
time; by human standards of time.
-
- Thus human identity implies a system that either individually or
collectively or both try to intentionally find a solution to stay
biologically alive. In other words humans are the only biological
systems (as far as I know) that also employ knowledge and intentional to
cope with the conditions of their immediate environment. As opposed to
waiting for natural selection and chance to do their work over eons of
time. It is much quicker to train dentists than to wait to develop
denture like sharks or elephants. In other words, we take shortcuts in
evolution.
-
- Another characteristic of human identity is that humans do things that
are not of immediate survival application. We might have hunted for food
like most other carnivores, but we have learnt to cook our catch. Today
we don't hunt our food but grow it and process and elaborate it before
we actually eat it. Today we eat food in restaurants, use sophisticated
kitchens at home and prepare sauces to change the taste of foods.
-
- Our identity is versatile enough that is can be conveyed, transmitted
and established through various forms and media: Language, art,
structures, technology and Facebook.

Best
Lawrence
from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, at the CENTRO SEGOVIANO + Human Identity

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, at the CENTRO SEGOVIANO + Is the future predictable?

2011-04-28T22:03:00.002+02:00

New Location + essay

Dear friends,
First of all, I am extremely grateful to all of you who have suggested
and gone out your way to find a new location for the meeting. And for
those leads that I could check out please accept my sincerest apologies.
Last Sunday, we finally agreed that we should go to the Centro Segoviano
for our meetings. At least to see how things go and then decide what to
do next after the summer holidays. So this Sunday we are meeting at the
Centro Segoviano at 6:30pm. The address of the Centro is:
Centro Segoviano
Alburquerque, 14
28010 Madrid
914457935
Metro: Bilbao
The door is on the left, then go upstairs. On the right there is a
restaurant and in the basement there is, as many would know, Clamores.
Best,
Lawrence

Is the future predictable?

On the 7 May 1711 one of the most important philosophers, ever, was
born. His main issues in philosophy are as fundamental and relevant
today as they were during the time he was alive. And one of those issues
concerns the future. Of course, I am referring to David Hume, who,
amongst other things, gave us the induction problem. But I do not
propose to write an essay about Hume, but only to show that the topic of
the future is immensely important.
But our question is asking a metaphysical enquiry into the subject and
not an epistemological issue. However, I hope to show that questions
about the future are a single question that implies both metaphysical
and epistemic consideration at the same time. Maybe another sort of duality.
So if the metaphysical question is precisely the one we are discussing,
what is the epistemic question? This question would be: can we predict
the future? Which is a very different question from the metaphysical
question.
And to compound the issue, the future problem, a term I will use to
refer to issues relating to the future, is very much a language problem.
And indeed one of these language problems about the future is precisely
the meaning of future. What do we mean by future? And by meaning I don't
mean a dictionary definition of meaning but rather a conceptual meaning.
One of the possible meanings of future is the state of the world as it
will be found in a time that still has to come. So when I say that the
25 of December 2011 is Christmas, I am saying that the world we live in
will have a serious of events that collectively are called Christmas.
Another meaning of future is whether a certain type of event will happen
in a time yet to come. For example, will we ever meet an alien from
another planet? Or closer to us, will each of us ever have a life style
of a carefree millionaire? Will there ever be a twelve meter tsunami in
Japan?
We can also interpret the future to mean whether something that happened
regularly in past will continue to happen in the future. Precisely the
induction problem, or at least an aspect of the problem, that Hume
referred to. For example, will it always be the case that a larger
massed body will attract a small mass body through the force of gravity?
We might argue that Christmas means the 25th December and therefore this
is not really a good example of the future. I will concede that there is
an element of analytical meaning in what happens on the 25th December.
But it is these type of events that really concern us in everyday life.
Will I have a good Christmas this year? Will it rain when I'm on
holiday? Will I win the lottery? Will I catch the bus?
No doubt it will be useful if this type of future can be predictable and
even more useful if we can predict it for ourselves. But here we come
across anther language problem with future. There is a difference
between what is 'going to' happen in a specific time and on a specific
date and what 'can' happen in a specific time and date.
Even if we accept that 'what is going to happen on a specific date and
time' and 'what is going to happen in a time that still yet to come' are
both synonymous, the chances of being accurate to within a specific date
seems to be quite a different exercise than just predicting an event by
excluding the time factor. But if we exclude the time factor from the
future what are we left with?
For example, predicting that on the 1st January 2011, that on the 11
March 2011 there was going to be a 9.0 earthquake in Japan followed by a
cataclysmic tsunami is a different type of prediction from predicting on
1/1/2011 that there will be a 9.0 earthquake in Japan followed by a
cataclysmic tsunami. In the latter case we have no problem recognising
the eventuality but not in the former case.
Given that we can predict say eclipses, tides and sunrises to the minute
what is stopping us from predicting earthquakes? Indeed, if we can
predict tides than we can claim that the future is predictable, or at
least part of it. Could it be that tides are much easier to predict than
earthquakes, or is there a different dynamic going on when we study
earthquakes?
Our instinct tells us that earthquakes are just more complex than say
tides and therefore maybe they are even beyond predicting, but not
necessarily unpredictable.
Hence, with tides et al we have a case of the future (or part there of)
being predictable and that we know how to predict them. But is this
enough to suggest that in principle at least, all physical events are
predictable and in principle we can predict all physical events.
It seems to be quite reasonable to suggest that if something is
predictable, then in principle we can predict it. Of course, this does
not mean that we are going to predict everything or that we have the
means to predict everything. But this is the issue, if physical events
are predictable, then can we predict all physical events? Even if for
the time being we do not complicate the issue with quantum mechanics
even if QM seems to be at the heart of everything.
Tides and eclipses seem to be types of events that are predictable not
only in the first meaning of predictable i.e. give a date and time but
also in the third meaning of future. That is regularity of certain events.
So what do I mean by: if something is predictable then can we predict
it? On the one hand this means that given certain repeatable causal
events then the effects associated with those causal event will happen.
The problem here is that we tend to speak of these events in isolation.
We speak of earthquakes and not movements of tectonic plates, as
scientists do. And this again is a language problem.
Philosophically and I am sure scientifically, it does not make sense to
reduce an issue to just a few events. It just does not make sense to
speak of say tides without the sun, the volume of water in the sea, the
size of the earth, and the whole caboose.
In a way our knowledge on how things (admittedly certain things) work,
say tides, takes into account the rest of the system leaving us to
isolate the relevant facts for our purposes. For example, if we ask when
is it high tide in La Coruña or Dover? We do not need to start by
considering how the universe was formed. We understand the word 'tide'
because there are scientists who understand how heavenly bodies
influence water.
So instead of speaking of reductionism we can speak of neighbourhood
causal events to make things practical. What I mean here is that instead
of assessing the whole cosmological system to explain tides we only need
to assess the immediate causes of tides: water, latitude, moon, season
and so on.
But this is a problem for us, first how big or small does our
neighbourhood have to be to be enable us to say that something is
predictable and that we can predict it? And secondly the bigger the
neighbourhood the more factors there are to include or exclude in our
calculations. The first problem seems to require experiment, whilst the
second problem would require a lot of time to work out.
For example, it is quite manageable to predict which restaurant a group
of five friends might choose to go to for lunch, but it is quite another
if that group was fifty or sixty persons. The problem with these two
groups is that we can safely speak of which restaurant the small group
might decide to go to, but asking the large group where they want to go,
is, I suggest, beyond predictable.
So the question where shall we go for lunch we might predict what the
small group will say, but the dynamics of the large group are such that
you cannot employ the method from the small group to the large group.
Hence, the two questions, 'where will the small group go for lunch?' and
'where will the large group go for lunch? 'although they look
grammatically similar, the implied analysis required in answering them
are as far apart as one end of a galaxy from the other.
Thus a game theory matrix might work for the five person group and then
propose a restaurant or maybe two to be on the safe side. But with the
group of fifty you just have to suggest one or two locations and hope
for the best, or simply one parson suggests a specific place.
Let us now look at another language issue. It is very common for people
to qualify predictions about the future with statements such as "if
nature does not change" or "a change in nature made it impossible to
predict something." For example, some might say that in the past it was
possible to predict the weather but today nature has changed so much
that we cannot predict anything any more.
The flaw with this argument is of course the assumption that nature has
changed and not us. In reality it is us who have changed, specifically
our epistemic state. So when nature changes we change. But change
doesn't mean that things stopped happening as they did in the past,
gravity will still pull down, it's not going to start pushing up. What
change means is that certain new causal events have been introduced in
such a way that maybe the effects of other causal events we are familiar
with have been neutralised. The problem with reductionism is us and not
nature.
Let me move on to another language issue. Part of the meaning of future
is that something (some things) And 'has not yet happened 'implies it
does not exist, or has not yet existed. The next tsunami off the shores
of Japan has not taken place, hence it does not exits, or has not yet
existed. But given how the tectonic plates of the shores of Japan
interact, the next tsunami off the shore of Japan is more than certain,
it just has to happen. And language wise, if something has to happen it
is as good as if it happened; of course other things being equal.
But the real problem about the future is, of course, the future does not
exist. The next tsunami that will hit Japan has not yet happened, but of
course we know that there will be another tsunami off the shores of Japan.
Could it be that issues about predicting the future are not really
metaphysical issues about nature, but simply epistemic issues about us,
especially how we use language. Thus, when we ask 'is the future
predictable', we are also asking 'can we predict the future.' So the
answer to the question 'is the future predictable?' the answer is yes,
but the question 'can we predict the future?' is not about the future
but really about us. And the instances when we can predict the future is
probably luck or the product of hard work trying to understand how
nature works.
Thus a question such as "is the future predictable?" is really two
question in one; something like a liquor filled chocolate. The outside
or surface is chocolate, but the core is liquor. Thus, 'is the future
predictable?' is a question about nature, but the core of the question
is an epistemological question about us.
The reason why the future is predictable is because nature does not
change its ways. Of course, this statement goes against the spirit of
quantum mechanics and maybe even mathematical chaos. In the first case
nothing is certain until we check and in the latter case not only
nothing is certain going forward, but we cannot even go backwards. So
how can something be predictable under these conditions?
Once again, the problem in my opinion is one of language. QM, chaos and
all random events are no less part of nature than the moon and the grass
hopper in the field. We speak of things such as chaos and grasshoppers
to satisfy our neighbourhood mind set, but the word 'nature' implies
everything from one end of the universe to the other.
Nature is the set of all sets and QM and grass hoppers are subsets of
this big set. However, I would argue that the idea of the future is a
subset of our brain. And this is where the duality or the simultaneous
metaphysical and empirical issue I mentioned in the introduction is
relevant. The brain is a physical entity well established as part of the
set of nature, but "the future" is a language entity with the epistemic
meaning of something yet to happen. Hence, the epistemic aspect of the
question: the core if you like.
To put the whole issue in colloquial language, the future is a figment
of our imagination. But what are not figments of our imagination are
tsunamis, tides, tax bills and the wife's birthday.
Take care,
Lawrence
from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, at the CENTRO SEGOVIANO + Is the
future predictable?

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, Fantasy; help or harm + News

2011-04-20T12:13:00.002+02:00

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: Fantasy; help or harm.
Meeting for now at O'Connors at 6pm for 6:30pm must start!!
In the meantime thanks to the selfless efforts of some of you we are
getting closer to a permanent venue to hold our meetings.
Last Sunday we checked out the Centro Segoviano and another bar not far
from Bilbao. The general impression seemed to be that the Centro
Segoviano, which is above Clamores, is a good place for us. We have the
option of staying in the main bar if we are a few people (ten or less)
or the Tertulia room which can hold an infinite amount of philosophers.
So basically the good news about the Segoviano is that we have all the
space we want, the privacy we want, no football, drinks are reasonable,
and the bonus is that the land lady can prepare meals for special occasions.
On the other hand, the centre is closed for Christmas and Easter, and
the whole of August. And for those you know the place it is not on the
main street but still a short distance from the metro.
Anyway, we can discus this venue and others which I still have not got
round to consider.

------Request from Lawrence on behalf of a student
In the meantime I have a student who will be visiting London maybe
between 12 June and 13 July and would like to find a British family to
stay with during her visit there. She is a university lecturer and is
visiting for work related purposes and not to learn English. However,
she likes British culture hence her wish to stay with a British family.
Most grateful if you can help. Thanks

------Jim asked me to share details with of holiday flat his
sister in law has for rent:

Flat for rent in Playa del Albir
(Municipality of Alfaz del Pi, Alicante)

- Altea is about five minutes by car, however you can also walk there in
about twenty minutes along the promenade. It is a very picturesque town
and the views are spectacular.
- Calpe and the Peñón are also nearby, about 20 minutes by car. You can
walk to the top of the Peñón, however it is a steep incline so be
prepared to perspire a little. When you come down you may feel a bit
peckish so if that is the case there are some fantastic Seafood
Restaurants in the port of Calpe.
About the Flat
The building is on the frontline of the Playa del Albir. The apartment
itself comprises a kitchen, sitting-room, dining-room, a bathroom, two
bedrooms and a balcony. It has two swimming pools, a small one for young
children and a larger one for adults. The pools are bounder on one side
by a flower garden and fruit trees. Furthermore it is fully furnished.

An Immersion heater in the kitchen provides hot water for showers and
for use in the kitchen. The kitchen is fully fitted with
Washing-machine, Fridge and Dishwasher.
As it is located in a residential area is not difficult to park in the
street. Furthermore there is free public car park just beside the house.
Contact this number for further details: 667739106
Best
Lawrence

Meeting O'Connors, AlMagro, Alonso Martinez at 6pm.

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, Fantasy; help or harm + News

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, Empathy + News

2011-04-15T00:27:00.002+02:00

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing Empathy. A feeling that today needs to be
available in large quantities. We can show empathy with the victims of
tsunamis, up risings against dictators, victims of the economic crisis
and also the miss management of labour practices who's victims will be
stuck in traffic jams during the forthcoming Easter holidays.
For this Sunday we will be meeting at O'Connors at six pm maybe for
6:30pm start- we need to be enough present to reserve the back part of
the pub.
I still have to contact the owners of the various bars that were suggest
last Sunday. Next week should be quiet on the work front.
In the meantime, Jim asked me to share details with of holiday flat his
sister in law has for rent:

Flat for rent in Playa del Albir
(Municipality of Alfaz del Pi, Alicante)

- Altea is about five minutes by car, however you can also walk there in
about twenty minutes along the promenade. It is a very picturesque town
and the views are spectacular.
- Calpe and the Peñón are also nearby, about 20 minutes by car. You can
walk to the top of the Peñón, however it is a steep incline so be
prepared to perspire a little. When you come down you may feel a bit
peckish so if that is the case there are some fantastic Seafood
Restaurants in the port of Calpe.
About the Flat
The building is on the frontline of the Playa del Albir. The apartment
itself comprises a kitchen, sitting-room, dining-room, a bathroom, two
bedrooms and a balcony. It has two swimming pools, a small one for young
children and a larger one for adults. The pools are bounder on one side
by a flower garden and fruit trees. Furthermore it is fully furnished.

An Immersion heater in the kitchen provides hot water for showers and
for use in the kitchen. The kitchen is fully fitted with
Washing-machine, Fridge and Dishwasher.
As it is located in a residential area is not difficult to park in the
street. Furthermore there is free public car park just beside the house.
Contact this number for further details: 667739106
Best
Lawrence

Meeting O'Connors, AlMagro, Alonso Martinez at 6pm.
from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, Empathy + News

From Lawrence, Philosophy meeting, this Sunday drinks at 7pm

2011-04-07T23:12:00.001+02:00

Dear Friends,

This Sunday we agreed to meet only for drinks at O'Connor's at seven pm.
However, I will try and be there earlier just in case anyone would like
to meet earlier.

Last Sunday we were only eight at the pub and although we were able to
keep the corner for the meeting until half six we really could keep it
any longer. Given that it is imperative that we have a good crowd by six
at O'Connor's we agreed to just meet at seven to take stock of the
situation.

However, there is still a strong interest in the meetings it is just
that we are passing through uncertain times. In the meantime, Asun and
Encarna have suggest two other places which we have to check out as soon
as we can.

Best and see you Sunday at O'Connor's at 7pm (or 6:30pm) if you want to
come early.

Lawrence

From Lawrence, Philosophy meeting, this Sunday drinks at 7pm

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, Is capitalism dying?+ News

2011-03-31T22:19:00.002+02:00

Dear friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: Is capitalism dying?
An apt subject given the urgency to consume and consume. On the other
hand, we do live in times when capitalism is at its max. Indeed the news
this evening is that it will cost each person living in Ireland some 16
thousand euros to save the banking industry there.
So far we seem to be ok at the O'Connor's and starting at six pm gives
us a good period of time to be alone.
News and essay below,
Best
Lawrence
PS no news about Espacio Pozos.
---------Jim-------
Hi Lawrence,
with regards to the flat I mentioned on Sunday. The details are as follows:
It is located in Calle Miami on the corner with Calle Alcala.
The flat is 80 M2, has two bathrooms, three bedrooms, a kitchen, dining
area a Sitting room
and a terrace.
Heating is by gas (boiler located in the kitchen). The flat is well
communicated. Suanzes metro stop (line 5- green line) is 3 to 4 minutes
walk from the house. The Number 104 and 77 buses stop in front of the
house. Also the night bus N5 (Búho). There i a taxi rank in Ciudad
Lineal,which is about 5 to 10 minutes walk.
Alcala Norte is in walking distance also. This is a Shopping Mall which
has Cinemas and a supermarket.
The flat is bright and has some nice views of the park (Suanzes).
Anyone interested can call me at 639181866.
Regards,
Jim
------------------------Peter----------------------
Peter has asked me once again to remind you that he is looking for
someone to share his flat with in Mostoles close to public transport;
very good conditions. Central heating and central hot water. English
spoken at home if you wish. Single room still available. : tel 609257259

--------------Ian-----------
Here is a link to the job posting on Infojobs:
http://www.infojobs.net/madrid/inside-sales-software./of-i775b85eb174fa0b1663cf41bfa6afb

The company I work for is looking to employ an inside sales person
ASAP.. The person would need to be fluent in English at a minimum, with
other language abilities being a much wanted plus. Good languages to
have are German, French or Spanish. The job would involve working on the
telephone and email, corresponding with our resellers and helping to
process orders. They should have good computer skills (able to type, use
Outlook, Excel and Word) and ideally be smart (brains) and motivated.
The salary range is between 18-35K p.a on a permanent contract. The
salary offered to a candidate depends on their abilities and experience.
If they are intelligent, with various languages and are an eager go
getter then they will be at the 35K end of the scale. Alternatively, if
they are a school leaver, with limited experience and language ability
then the lower end would be where they would be at.
Who we hire will depend on the candidate, with the mix of abilities they
offer.
Remember, our company is based in a comfortable office, very close to
the north end of the Retiro park making for a nice central location to
work.
Anyone interested? Please pass this message on to all our friends.
Take care for now.

saludos,
Ian Cummings
m: +34 686966896 - e: ianrcummings@gmail.com
Yahoo IM: ianrcummings - Skype: ianrcummings

--------------------------------
Is capitalism dying?

At least commentators agree on two things about capitalism. The first is
that under capitalism the means of production are in private ownership.
And the second is that goods and services are supplied by the owners of
the means of production for a profit.
But defining capitalism is a much harder task as mentioned in the
Wikipedia article on the subject. The article lists seven main versions
of capitalism and even has a section for "others".
However to ask whether capitalism is dying, assumes two things: the
first is that capitalism exists and the second, there is something
seriously wrong with it. But even the question, "does capitalism
exists?" is philosophically flawed on the grounds that it assumes that
capitalism can exist. So the question we have to address ourselves first
is this: is it possible for capitalism to exist?
The favourite argument in support of capitalism is that it is more
efficient at creating wealth than any other political economic system.
But something might look good because the alternatives are really bad
and not necessarily because it is inherently good. A system that creates
some wealth is much better than a system that destroys wealth. The
problem here is that we really do not know what we are testing when we
say one system is good or bad since distribution systems are based of
subjective and relative value judgements. And, moreover, in reality we
exclude a lot a material facts from our evaluation. For example we don't
give a monetary value to pain and suffering to those who fail to succeed
under a given system.
Usually, today, this efficient creator of wealth argument rides piggy
back on the efficiency of competition. However, competition is not an
indigenous feature of capitalism but of nature. I won't therefore
discuss competition here. However, I would argue that competition in
capitalism exposes a serious philosophical flaw in the doctrine of
capitalism. It seems to me that competition is a very inefficient way of
employing capital since this adds additional costs to the owners of
production. Thus it costs more to generate profits. But as I said I am
not discussing competition.
So is it possible for capitalism to exist? Despite the sophisticated
rhetoric of such political economic systems as capitalism, communism and
socialism they all address the question of wealth distribution. It is
wealth in the form of wages or profits, that enables us to buy goods and
services. Good and services in themselves cost wealth and do not
generate profits; it is when we sell at a profit that they become the
means to wealth.
However, how we should distribute our wealth is a value judgement type
of question. The philosophical question is how can we distribute wealth
(or resources) that will make a positive difference to everyone? Or how
can we distribute scarce resources amongst everybody?
In other words, distribution issues are about exclusion of others ,
whereas, I would argue, the real philosophical test is the inclusion of
everyone. Hence, it is not a question of whether the means of production
are privately owned, but rather can anyone own the means of production.
The basic problem, as I see it, is that, given a state of social
standard of living there is no viable way of redistributing limited
wealth so that everyone enjoys a better life in real terms.
To use an analogy, the issue which nature presents us is not how to
divide the cake, but rather is the cake big enough so that everyone can
have a decent bite? Malthus got it right, it is just that those who
disagree with Malthus conveniently forget the millions who perish
unnoticed in Africa, Central Asia and maybe parts of Latin America, not
to mention the inequities in the rest of the world.
In a way the philosophical problem is not that capitalism is a failure,
and even if you like an unjust system, but rather that nature itself
seems to exclude justice from the system. Indeed justice is not done in
the real world, but we have to be very careful before we give up the
notion of justice. Careful because of those who might unwilling allow a
Trojan horse amongst our economic mist, such as another ism, and careful
for capitalism itself. Nature excludes justice because there is a
disequilibrium between what can be supplied now and those who want a
particular good or service.
Indeed, nature and capitalism present the consumer with a double hurdle.
The first is to accumulate enough money to participate in the market
(capitalism) and the second to acquire enough resources to supply what
the market wants at a profit (nature+capitalism). For example no matter
how much money you have, if your favourite cake maker does not supply to
part of the world because it is not profitable then you are out of the
market. Of course you can always argue that you have enough money to buy
your cake whatever the price. But then you are hardly in a market place.
Capitalism centres on the concept of private ownership. In capitalism
private ownership comes first and profits flow from that. But what
capitalist give little mention to, or maybe just assume it as given, is
that the notion of private ownership gives rise to private property
rights. So how can we speak of rights, especially property rights, if we
do not have a notion of justice.
Something is mine because we have a system that can determine what it is
for something to be mine. Contrary to the common belief, possession is
not two thirds of the law. So without a notion of justice we have two
options: if I take something that belongs to you then it now belongs to
me, or the other option is to prevent others from accessing my property.
But both options disadvantage capitalism enormously.
But the alternative to justice is equally unacceptable since the
alternative is maybe utilitarianism. But this does not solve much since
utilitarianism speaks of maximum number of happiness (happy people) and
not the maximum possible majority to be happy. Indeed today we do seem
to practice some form of utilitarianism because in most societies the
majority of wealth is held by not much more than 10 or 15 percent of the
population (I am being generous). Thus, if 15% of the population are
happy, utilitarianism has functioned according to specifications.
But these arguments are not evidence that capitalism does not exist,
what is real evidence is the way nature is, there will always be more
people who want to be capitalist than nature can support at any given
time. Thus the logical implication of this is that there comes a point
when it is just physically impossible to add another capitalist to the
illustrious roll of capitalists. So no matter how good capitalism is,
there are limits to how good it can be. Nature cannot accommodate
everyone at the same time; we can narrow the gap but never bridge it.
Even if, for the sake of argument, we turn a blind eye to these basic
issues about capitalism and assume that it is a practical doctrine at
least on paper, maybe even as practical as the Titanic looked practical
on paper, what are the chances of capitalism actually existing? Even if
we allow ourselves the luxury of calling a mixed economy a form of
capitalism.
Indeed, what do we understand by such terms as private ownership and
means of production? And from here, what do we mean by profit? It is
unfortunate that such political economic doctrines are couched in the
language of 19th century English. Of course, by private we are supposed
to mean exclude the state.
But what was a state in 19th Century Britain or France, is not what we
mean by state in twenty first century Spain or Germany. In the 19th
Century the state was more likely to mean, in real terms, the monarch
and the ruling classes. Today, the state is more likely to mean (at
least in western countries) an organisation that tries to maintain a
society in efficient harmony. In order words, a state is what stops us
from killing each other and from misappropriating each other's property
(vis: Libya and Iraq). Sure today we also have a ruling class but they
try to hassle the rest of society as little as possible or as delicately
as possible.
The problem with states, even if we accept that governments are the day
to day representatives of states, is that governments are not easily
given to motivation, efficiency and initiative. Maybe qualities which
are more fine tuned in a group of people who have to earn their living,
such as the private sector. Anyway, governments are more about managing
and maintaining order than creating things.
Even ownership is a vague term. Today, there are certain things or
activities which capitalists are incapable of managing at a profit or
will not be allowed to own. For example, exploding nuclear power
stations are not profit centres, and armies are too sensitive to leave
in the hands of a few whose only motive is money despite recent
experiments by the big super power.
The problem with the term "means of production" is that today that
production is more likely to depend on the intellectual prowess of the
labour force than their muscle power. As far as muscle power is
concerned, at least for this part of the century, China has become the
factory floor shop of the world. But even China will sooner or later
have to deal with the issue of the cake not being big enough.
So today the means of production depend even more on the expertise of
the work force, licensing of intellectual property and understanding the
market place. In other words, the means of production might be owned
privately, but not necessarily controlled by the owner or being capable
of being controlled by the owner. Never mind that in a successful
capitalist economy today your real assets, as the saying goes, walk out
of your front door every evening.
This means that if a capitalist is paying wages and not remunerating
skills and achievements the chances are that the means of production
might take a walk. Consider recent events in the baking sector, when
banks paid for greed as opposed for profits they single handily
bankrupted the whole banking sector of the world.
Don't forget that the disaster of the banking sector a few months back
was not that governments had to rescue a bankrupt sector or that banks
still paid huge bonuses, but rather that the banks were not lending to
each other or anyone else. In other words, the means of production were
not producing and owners were not paying wages (salaries) but rewarding
greed and the profits only looked good on paper in the same way that the
Titanic looked good on paper.
An associated notion of capitalism is capital. Indeed, capitalism
depends on property rights and market rights that require a fair
exchange of value for goods and services. The basic principles of
capitalism say nothing about capital. Capitalism assumes that the
private owners have the "cash" to buy the means of production. Of course
in the 19th century capitalism, although capitalism is much older than
that, many profits were the product of actually applying means of
production. However, today, spectacular profits can be achieved by
simply owning mineral and property rights; without even having to own a
single shovel.
The irony, it seems to me, is that capitalism is a doctrine on how to
distribute wealth, but property rights are a system on how to distribute
profits. Not only one does not need to own the means of production to
enjoy profits from property rights, but that property rights reflect the
amount of profits made (or expected) and not the production effort
needed. (Think of the Beatles, Microsoft and Petroleum producing countries.)
If capitalism does exits, then it seems to do so against all rational
logic. And if it is dying it is probably dying from natural causes as
much as self abuse. Unfortunately, like all value judgements, capitalism
is not immune from self abuse. And one of the ways capitalism can self
abuse itself is by neglecting capital in favour of short term profit.
But as I have just argued not all profits belong to those who owe the
means of production, but also to those who owe the property rights. And
to add insult to injury, the state not only taxes the profits and wages,
but also decides the level of the playing field.
So to conclude, if at face value the best case scenario for today's
capitalist is a world that is determined to undermine the wealth created
by the owners of the means of production, what kind of political
economic system do we really have in place?
Take care
from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, Is capitalism dying?+ News

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, Arrogance + News

2011-03-24T22:06:00.002+01:00

Meet O'Connor's at 6, essay, + NEWS
Dear Friends,
First of all, I would like to thank Diana, Marga and Paloma (in
alphabetical order) for sending me the Spanish version of the email to
the Director of EspacioPozas 14. I sent it last night and have not had a
reply. In the meantime thanks once again to Maria for suggesting the place.
I will also write to Nacha later on and we still have Patatus as a
possible option.
Last Sunday we were about seventeen of us at O'Connor's and had the end
corner all for ourselves. The fact that there were no sports events did
help a lot.
So this Sunday we will meet again at O'connors to discuss Arrogance. As
I try to argue in my short essay maybe there is more to arrogance than
just a person being unpleasant. Upon reflection, in this day and age we
are not short of a few arrogant people on the international arena.
In the meantime I have the following news items:
Jim has a flat for rent, Peter is still looking for a flatmate, Ian has
a vacancy at his company and Miguel has sent me details about the next
Maths tertulia.
---------Jim-------
Hi Lawrence,
with regards to the flat I mentioned on Sunday. The details are as follows:
It is located in Calle Miami on the corner with Calle Alcala.
The flat is 80 M2, has two bathrooms, three bedrooms, a kitchen, dining
area a Sitting room
and a terrace.
Heating is by gas (boiler located in the kitchen). The flat is well
communicated. Suanzes metro stop (line 5- green line) is 3 to 4 minutes
walk from the house. The Number 104 and 77 buses stop in front of the
house. Also the night bus N5 (Búho). There i a taxi rank in Ciudad
Lineal,which is about 5 to 10 minutes walk.
Alcala Norte is in walking distance also. This is a Shopping Mall which
has Cinemas and a supermarket.
The flat is bright and has some nice views of the park (Suanzes).
Anyone interested can call me at 639181866.
Regards,
Jim
------------------------Peter----------------------
Peter has asked me once again to remind you that he is looking for
someone to share his flat with in Mostoles close to public transport;
very good conditions. Central heating and central hot water. English
spoken at home if you wish. Single room still available. : tel 609257259

--------------Ian-----------
Here is a link to the job posting on Infojobs:
http://www.infojobs.net/madrid/inside-sales-software./of-i775b85eb174fa0b1663cf41bfa6afb
The company I work for is looking to employ an inside sales person
ASAP.. The person would need to be fluent in English at a minimum, with
other language abilities being a much wanted plus. Good languages to
have are German, French or Spanish. The job would involve working on the
telephone and email, corresponding with our resellers and helping to
process orders. They should have good computer skills (able to type, use
Outlook, Excel and Word) and ideally be smart (brains) and motivated.
The salary range is between 18-35K p.a on a permanent contract. The
salary offered to a candidate depends on their abilities and experience.
If they are intelligent, with various languages and are an eager go
getter then they will be at the 35K end of the scale. Alternatively, if
they are a school leaver, with limited experience and language ability
then the lower end would be where they would be at.
Who we hire will depend on the candidate, with the mix of abilities they
offer.
Remember, our company is based in a comfortable office, very close to
the north end of the Retiro park making for a nice central location to work.
Anyone interested? Please pass this message on to all our friends.
Take care for now.

saludos,
Ian Cummings
m: +34 686966896 - e: ianrcummings@gmail.com
Yahoo IM: ianrcummings - Skype: ianrcummings
----------------------Maths Tertulia---------------------
(Miguel has also included a reading list and links which I will post of
the blog: philomadrid.blogspot.com)
Estimado tertuliano,
La conferencia de Miguel Ángel Madruga del pasado Martes fue muy
interesante y amena, así como la tertulia que siguió. Como él mismo
comenta, después de un aperitivo histórico, entramos en el plato fuerte:
la máquina de cifrar Enigma, con su estructura y funcionamiento.
Le agradecemos el esfuerzo de preparación, que a juzgar por lo
presentado ha sido considerable, así como las referencias que nos envía
sobre la historia de la criptografía y que adjunto.
Damos también las gracias a Roberto Álvarez Chust por el proyector, al
Ateneo de Madrid por dejarnos la sala y a Juan Valentín por sus
gestiones para ello.

Saludos cordiales,
J. Miguel
P.S.: Si quieres impartir una conferencia de contenido matemático
envíame un mensaje de correo para tratar los detalles. En particular, si
la conferencia trata la relación entre determinismo y aleatoriedad será
especialmente bienvenida, ya que en la tertulia se ha mostrado interés
por ello.
Si quieres darte de baja en la lista de correo envía otro mensaje con
"Baja" en el campo "Asunto".
-----------------------end news--------------------

Best
Lawrence

Arrogance

To accuse someone of arrogance is not very nice. However, the irony is
that such an insult would have the same effect on the person as water
would have on a duck's back.
The meaning of arrogance captures a range of concepts including pride,
self importance, feeling of superiority, self worth, and a sense that
one is better than others. And of course we have no doubt in identifying
arrogant people.
However, what makes a person from being an unpleasant person to being an
arrogant? And why should arrogance attract such a extreme disapprobation
and censure?
But such ideas as importance, pride, worth, better than others are in
themselves neither negative nor objects of disapproval. For example, we
expect someone to feel proud if they are awarded a coveted prize. Indeed
we would accuse them of being ungrateful if they do not show a degree of
pride in receiving the prize. And of course, some people are just better
than others, in what they do, their personality, their abilities and so
on. It does not mean, however, that just because some people are better
than others in some things those others are somehow a lesser person or
an inferior person in the same way that a frozen pizza is an inferior
pizza from one prepared by a Neapolitan pizzaiolo in a wood oven.
On the other hand, pride, worth, importance and superiority are
qualities which by definition are relative to other people. John is
better because we think that he has qualities that are more desrable
than those exhibited by Betty. Not only does this language imply a value
judgement on the part of society, but more importantly these qualities
confer social hierarchical powers. In a world where hierarchy and power
are the norm the CEO of a bank is regarded as being more important that
the street cleaner.
Maybe it is because these qualities confer real powers and authority in
our society that society regulates them and on who to confer them. Thus
by creating the term arrogance, as a term to disapprove of someone who
confers these labels on themselves, shows how important these qualities
are. And not only that, but that these qualities are conferred on us by
society suggests that maybe there is also some democratic process going
on here. We agree that someone ought to feel proud or that someone is
indeed better than the rest of us.
Maybe there is even something else going on. When we feel that someone
should feel proud in receiving a coveted prize are we also implying that
they also have some sort of moral duty to feel proud? Maybe a moral duty
that arises from the fact that they were chosen from a group of equally
suitable candidates? Thus the morality arises from respect towards those
who were not chosen.
When someone expresses self pride or expresses a feeling of self
importance we are maybe trying to imply that these people have stolen or
misappropriated social qualities which can only be conferred by society.
Thus when someone says or behaves as if they are more important than
others without having first been invested by society of such qualities
they are exercising a power which they are not entitled to have. They
are appropriating privileges that only society can confer on its members.
But arrogance goes beyond the meaning of not being entitled to some
quality. Indeed I would argue that what really makes arrogance a
despicable title to be bestowed on someone is that it is usually also
associated with actions and behaviours that are unjust, unfair, bad and
maybe also evil.
It not only that an arrogant person feels superior that makes this
person repugnant but the fact that their relationship with others leaves
no doubt in the minds of others that those others have no human worth or
their only worth is one of servitude. It is the lack of respect toward
those who are doing, say a menial job, that makes the high flyer arrogant.
Thus, when someone thinks they are superior, because they have a certain
racial background, the issue of arrogance is not a question of race but
rather the race of the other person would exclude that person from being
treated as an equal, indeed, treated as a person at all. And therefore
not worthy of the respect and courteously of an equal and a peer.
My argument, is that arrogance is an unacceptable personality trait not
because it is usually associated with certain qualities such as, pride,
importance, superior, but rather arrogance implies a behaviour that
excludes others a priori (so to speak). Thus an arrogant teacher is
arrogant not because they have superior knowledge than the pupil but
because the teacher does not accept or believe that the pupil might have
anything of relevance to say about the discipline the teacher excels in.
In a way this implied meaning of exclusion in arrogance is the first
stage of why arrogance is an undesirable personality trait. Excluding
others, and what they have to say, implies that what we have to say is
the truth or the source of ultimate wisdom. If a mathematician believes
that the 18 year old undergraduate has nothing of worth to say about a
mathematical problem, that leaves the lecturer the only one with the
truth about mathematics.
The lecturer might be right about the mathematical problem and the
undergraduate wrong, but in a normal social interaction we expect the
teacher to listen to the student and then explain why they are wrong or
why they should not pursue that line of thinking. Maybe as an
undergraduate they are not being evaluated on whether they can solve
long standing problems in mathematics but whether they can understand
what the key problems are in mathematics. Indeed, it is of course
arrogant of universities not to spell out the scope of why students are
at university in the first place.
And finally, the ultimate stage of unpleasantness of arrogance is that
the arrogant person will easily lose sight of what is the right thing to
do, and the wrong thing to do, and I do not necessarily mean this in a
moral sense.
Thus someone might progress from having feelings of superiority to
acting on the belief that they only know what is the right thing to do,
on to the ultimate extreme situation of what they do is by definition
the right thing that has to be done.
And when the whole gamut of hideousness of arrogance is expressed by a
person that person changes from being a social pariah to being a danger
to society. In politics we usually call these people partisans, tyrants,
dictators or mad dogs.
Take care
Lawrence
from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, Arrogance + News

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, Apocalypse + NEWS please read

2011-03-17T15:10:00.002+01:00

Meeting details, Job offer by Ian, Maths Tertulia by Miguel and draft
letter for Espacio Pozas 14
Dear friends,
I think that we can try meeting again at O'Connor's in Alonso Martinez.
It is not the perfect place but better than nothing. Anyway, I am told
that this Sunday there are no important games so maybe we can have the
back section of the room.
If things don't work out this Sunday we'll find another temp place.
So, this Sunday we are discussing Apocalypse and we are meeting at 6:00pm.
I have written the draft letter to the director of Espacio Pozas, as
Maria was asked to do, and kindly ask you for your feedback and any
offer to convert these ideas into Spanish; not necessarily translation!
In the meantime Ian has a job offer in his company and I include his
email below. Miguel has also sent me details of a Maths tertulia Tuesday
next week. And Peter is still looking for a flat mate.
Best and see you Sunday
Lawrence
Meeting O' Connors Irish Pub in Almagro, Alonso Martinez at 6:00PM

---draft email to Espacio Pozas -----
The Director of Espacio Pozas 14,
We are a group, PhiloMadrid, who meet on Sundays to discuss in English
philosophical and social issues and we are now looking for a suitable
place to meet for about 15-25 people usually between 6pm till 8:30-9pm.
We understand that Espacio Pozas 14 has facilities where cultural and
social groups can meet for their activities.
We started meeting some eight years ago in a local pub but unfortunately
we were asked not to meet there anymore.
Our meetings are held in English and everyone is welcome to attend and
participate. And although we call ourselves a philosophy group we
discuss general social and human issues, for example: friendship, crime,
do we exits? We have recently discussed The sociology of work today and
our next meeting is about Apocalypse. Most times the chair, and
sometimes a member of the group, write an essay on the subject.
Subjects are chosen by a democratic vote and usually must have a
philosophical implication. However, we have agreed to exclude any topics
relating to Spanish political and religious issues. The two other norms
we apply are that we respect each other's opinion and buy a drink if we
meet in commercial establishment.
The background of our group is a cross section of the population of
Madrid from professional people to unemployed and of course a regular
attendance from English native speakers who are visiting or living in
Madrid. However, the most important aspect is that everyone is welcome
to meet the group and participate if they wish.
Our group is not only an opportunity for people to discuss issues in
philosophy but to do it in English and maybe practice their English
speaking skills. However, neither a background in academic philosophy
nor a high level of English is requires.
Finally, it is important to point out that we are not affiliated to any
institution nor group in Spain or abroad and will not agree to join or
affiliate ourselves with any institution or group. And our main
objective is to meet on Sundays evening to discuss issues we are
interested in and of course to meet friends.
Our blog is: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
We hope that you can help us allocate facilities at Espacio Pozas 14 for
our group,
Thank you for your time
Lawrence JC Baron for the PhiloMadrid group.

----------------- Job offer by Ian --------------
Here is a link to the job posting on Infojobs:
http://www.infojobs.net/madrid/inside-sales-software./of-i775b85eb174fa0b1663cf41bfa6afb
The company I work for is looking to employ an inside sales person ASAP.
The person would need to be fluent in English at a minimum, with other
language abilities being a much wanted plus. Good languages to have are
German, French or Spanish. The job would involve working on the
telephone and email, corresponding with our resellers and helping to
process orders. They should have good computer skills (able to type, use
Outlook, Excel and Word) and ideally be smart (brains) and motivated.
The salary range is between 18-35K p.a on a permanent contract. The
salary offered to a candidate depends on their abilities and experience.
If they are intelligent, with various languages and are an eager go
getter then they will be at the 35K end of the scale. Alternatively, if
they are a school leaver, with limited experience and language ability
then the lower end would be where they would be at.
Who we hire will depend on the candidate, with the mix of abilities they
offer.
Remember, our company is based in a comfortable office, very close to
the north end of the Retiro park making for a nice central location to work.
Anyone interested? Please pass this message on to all our friends.
Take care for now.

saludos,
Ian Cummings
m: +34 686966896 - e: ianrcummings@gmail.com
Yahoo IM: ianrcummings - Skype: ianrcummings
----------------------Maths Tertulia---------------------
Estimado tertuliano,
El próximo Martes tendremos Tertulia de Matemáticas en el Ateneo de
Madrid, con la conferencia Criptografía Clásica, de Escítala a Enigma
impartida por Miguel Ángel Madruga
(http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliadematematicas/22-3-2011)
Aprovecho la ocasión para enviarte un cordial saludo,
J.Miguel
P.S.: Si quieres impartir una conferencia de contenido matemático
envíame un mensaje de correo para tratar los detalles.
Si quieres darte de baja en la lista de correo envía otro con "Baja" en
el campo "Asunto" del mensaje.

----------------------Peter looking for a flat mate---------------
Peter has asked me once again to remind you that he is looking
for someone to share his flat with in Mostoles close to public
transport; very good conditions. Central heating and central hot water.
There two rooms to rent out: a single and a double: tel 609257259 (LJCB
Note: one of the rooms might be taken, not sure which one)..
from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, Apocalypse + NEWS please read

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, + NEWS please read

2011-03-09T23:56:00.001+01:00

Dear friends,

The latest news about the meetings is as follows.

Last Sunday Diana approached the manager of O' Connors Irish Pub in
Almagro, Alonso Martinez, about holding meetings there and he agreed in
principle but as I shall explain with some provisos. In fact last
Sunday, after Cafe Comercial, we went over to O'Connors to check it out.

Indeed we have agreed to meet this coming Sunday there at 6pm sharp.
There are the details. The space we are allowed to occupy holds about 15
people or so, if we squeeze we might pack a few more of us.

Unfortunately, he cannot reserve the room for us since we are not really
a big group nor can we guarantee a large number 30+. Hence, this is why
we need to be there not later than six in order to make sure we occupy
the corner for ourselves.

We can now take it as given that all those attending must consume
something and the feeling I got was that they expect a large proportion
of us to consume more than one drink.

And should we hold our meetings there the usual football exclusion
clause applies.

Well I (we) agreed to meet there this Sunday to see how it goes. So the
details are O'Connors at six pm.

We also agreed to discuss the following topics:

Change
Rejoicing in Change
Group Think
Ethical Codes
Shame and Shamelessness.

My personal impression is that this part of the room is quite cosy, but
of course the space available for us is rather limited. More importantly
I couldn't help noticing that by 8:30pm, last Sunday, a number of people
were already using the unoccupied the part of the place not used by us.
We can therefore assume that the pub is quite busy and we'll be, so to
speak, commenting with this regular business.

The second part of the news is that NACHA (thank you Asu), at
www.Nacha.es contacted me and that I agreed to meet her this Friday at
10pm to check out her pub. So if any one wants to join me and Isabel
we'll meet at 9:50pm outside her pub at Nacha Pub, c/ Monteleon 5. The
street is off M Malasaña check the web site for directions.

OK, here is the damage!

From the description Nacha gave me the pub is only open Friday and
Saturday, so she will be opening it specifically for us on Sunday if we
decide to go there for the meetings. The pub is organised for events so
there are enough seats, there is also a projector and an intenet
connection. She mentioned the use of a microwave but I'm not exactly
sure about this. Of course there is no football exclusion clause.

However, to make the whole venture viable for her we need to consume the
equivalent of 100 to 110 euros per meeting. By opening the pub she
incurs a fixed costs which she needs to cover. So that the bottom line!

But of course before considering this option I/we/some of us have to
visit the pub and confirm the conditions.

In any event as always if you have any comments please let me know. If I
get enough comments I might send out an other email late Friday or Saturday.

In the meantime there are other options we might still consider.

In the meantime don't forget the meeting with friends on Thursday at
Moor's and I think Peter is still looking for a flatmate.

Best

Lawrence

from Lawrence, this Sunday meeting, + NEWS please read

From Lawrence, re Philosophy meetings feedback + meet this Sunday

2011-03-04T00:03:00.002+01:00

Dear Friends,
First of all, thank you for your support and encouragement following our
eviction from Molly Malone's. I certainly did not expect so much support
and so many replies and comments.
Indeed I promised you that I will send out the replies but till now I've
got about seven pages full of your comments. It might therefore not be
practical to send out such a long text via email.
I was also thinking about this and on second thoughts it might be
prudent that I will keep these comments within the group. So basically
what I'll do is to put them on a private document on Google Doc and if
you wish to read them I'll send you the link or the text itself in an
email. I should have it done by tomorrow evening.
TO BUSINESS
Some of you have personally apologised to me for not having consumed
anything during the meetings. Although I am touched with these apologies
I was not expecting any apologies. However, I am accepting these
apologies on behalf of the group. I personally never stipulated that
people should consume anything although the subject was heavily
discussed in the past.
And moreover I made the assumption, the wrong one as it turns out, that
the bar next door was part of the MM establishment. They are connected,
but as they say in business, they are two independent profit centres.
So lesson number one seems to be, perceptions are deceptive. Or to put
it in a common language, if it swims like a duck, quacks like a duck and
looks like a duck, it might still not be a duck.
The general consensus seems to be that the owners of MM did have a valid
point and were more or less right to stop us from meeting there. Some
pointed out that this situation was foreseeable, others that if
customers were leaving because there were no stools upstairs then there
was only one possible outcome, the present one.
A couple of you also told me that they had similar problems with other
groups they belong to or organised. So now we belong to that exclusive
set of groups that have been evicted from their adopted bar or pub!
A number of you also said that someone from the pub staff should have
come downstairs to take orders. Some even argued that it is the business
of the pub to go and get orders. While others said that one of us should
have taken charge of organising an order and get the drinks from up stairs.
The second lesson seems to be that even with a ready made market,
capitalism still needs to "extractus digitus." Over the years we
averaged between thirty people and more, to about twenty people these
past couple of years. Or to put it in simple language, capitalists
should capitalise, and philosophers should philosophise.
Other comments included that people should have arrived early so they
could get the drinks on time; others pointed out that it took too long
to be served upstairs. But as the manager of the pub pointed out, and I
totally agree, it was the responsibility of those who came to the
meeting to get their drinks. Some of you also reminded me that we had
already discussed this question of consumption in the past, so we knew
what we had to do.
As I pointed out in my email, there was not question of us going back to
MM or to negotiate anything with them. So that option is no longer
available for us even if MM was an ideal place.
The moral of the story is that if you are going to be a puritan, make
sure you have a Mayflower ready.
MY OPINION ABOUT ALL THIS
I purposely have not expressed my opinion on the matter in order not to
prejudge the situation and partly to have time to think about it. After
all, I am not the only one who enjoys the meetings and with out you I
wouldn't have anything to enjoy. Hence your opinion matters.
My fatal mistake, and my ultimate responsibility, was to assume that the
bar next door was part of the MM set up. I was not given any hint or
indication by anyone that this was not the case and the
face-value-evidence all pointed in this direction. I mean staff from the
other bar regularly came down to MM, and vice versa, and the other
comings and goings from the two bars. But then again I never did confirm
my assumption.
I do not hold myself responsible for not telling people to consume. The
main reason is that I hate telling people what to do, we had discussed
this in the past, we're all adults and equally important, we were
averaging, as group, about twenty or so people EVERY Sunday. We are the
philosophers not the business people. QED
This of course does not meant that I am not responsible for what
happened, nor that I am not extremely grateful for the support MM gave
me and gave us over the years. That goes without saying and many of you
expressed these very same thoughts and quite rightly too.
THE FUTURE
The general consensus seems to be that we should do our best to try and
continue the meetings. The other consensus is that we really have no
choices but to impose a charge/consumption. Indeed, Ignacio proposed a
new name for us: Philomadrid/Philomadrink. I think it's great. So in the
sprit of the new-money-making-age, these names are the intellectual
property of the respective authors and if they are used without
permission, well you know the rest. I will use my proceedings to buy a pub!
Back to business, we really have no choice but to require that we all
consume something. So the issue is not whether we consume something but
how much.
However, I do have some comments to make. I am concerned that someone
might not come to the meetings because they might be having cash flow
issues. In this day and age people do have cash flow issues. More
realistically, the requirement to buy a drink might also put off some
people.
However, I really do not think this is going to be a real problem. And
in any case it can easily be solved.
I will therefore assume that there is still a realistic interest in
continuing to meeting.

THE GOOD NEWS
The good news is that many of you have offered to help in which ever way
I need help and also suggested places. So far we have the following
possibilities:
Asun suggested Nacha and Circulomulier
Many suggested Cafe Commercial and Carlos offered to make an
introduction to the management there. Mike also offered to come with me
and talk to the mngt at CC.
Encarna suggested James Joyce
Julian suggested Abrasador
Miguel suggested El Círculo Salmantino and gave the name of the manager
there.
Jesus suggested Cafe Agenjo
One thing is for sure, this is going to be one hell of a pub crawl in
the history of philosophy to check all these places out. Maybe we can
start this Sunday with Cafe Commerical, unless Asun has some more info
on her suggestions. see below.
My criteria for a place to meet would be more or less the following:
- A place with enough seating for all,
- A place with minimum interruptions such as piped music, passers by, or
too many on lookers,
- Reasonably priced,
- Quite central.
- My main concern is that we can speak freely within the parameters of
respect for each other and caution with local politics.
THIS SUNDAY'S MEETING
Last Sunday many suggested that we should still meet this Sunday and go
for a drink. I suggest we meet at 6:30pm out side Cafe Commerical and
take it from there depending on the situation at the time. And because
it will probably be cold this Sunday we'll wait ten to fifteen minutes
and if you turn up late send me a message -606081813- and I'll let you
know where we are. A message is much better than a call for me.
In the meantime, keep your comments and suggestions coming and if you
want to read the comments let me know.
And finally don't forget that Peter is still looking for a flat mate and
Ignacio still offers the best tertulia in town on Thursday night.

Best and hear from you
Lawrence
From Lawrence, re Philosophy meetings feedback + meet this Sunday

From Lawrence, philosophy meetings (repeat) + Ignacio’s tertulia

2011-03-02T12:13:00.001+01:00

Dear Friends,

As I mentioned on Monday, I'm sending this email again just in case
someone did not get it Monday night.

I have already received many comments and also possible options and
suggestions of where to go. But I will report back in email tomorrow night.

In the meantime don't forget Ignacio's tertulia tomorrow:

Tertulia in English with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30
to 21h, at Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/

and that Peter is still looking for a flatmate.

Best

Lawrence

Dear friends,

Following the announcement yesterday evening that we cannot meet at
Molly Malone's any more, today I managed to speak to the manager of the
pub and he kindly explained the situation. I will give you the facts as
they were told to me:

- The management of the pub were not happy that many of us did not
buy drinks from the bar. However, this in its self was not the biggest
issue for not allowing to meet there any more.

- They were concerned that during busy periods on Sunday evenings
many of us were occupying stools when they did not buy anything and yet
customers upstairs left the pub because there were no stools for them to
sit.

- They said that many people only asked for a glass of water, and
that some also asked for crisps to go with the water.

- They resented the fact that after the meeting people did not stay
at the pub to buy drinks there. I pointed out that I was under the
impression that the bar next door was part of the pub management, but
apparently they are under different management and therefore not
financially connected.

- The most serious objection of all was, however, that after the
meeting many people went to other bars in the area.

I think that in the circumstances it is only fair that I should solicit
your opinion, feedback, suggestions and any other comments. I will
report back on Thursday which I will, of course, do in an anonymous
manner. So please you can be as honest as you care or wish to be.

Finally, I will send out this email again tomorrow just in case someone
does not receive it tonight.

Looking forward to your comments

Best

Lawrence

From Lawrence, philosophy meetings (repeat) + Ignacio's tertulia

From Lawrence, philosophy meetings

2011-02-28T23:30:00.001+01:00

Dear friends,

- The management of the pub were not happy that many of us did not buy
drinks from the bar. However, this in its self was not the biggest issue
for not allowing to meet there any more.

- They were concerned that during busy periods on Sunday evenings many
of us were occupying stools when they did not buy anything and yet
customers upstairs left the pub because there were no stools for them to
sit.

- They said that many people only asked for a glass of water, and that
some also asked for crisps to go with the water.

- They resented the fact that after the meeting people did not stay at
the pub to buy drinks there. I pointed out that I was under the
impression that the bar next door was part of the pub management, but
apparently they are under different management and therefore not
financially connected.

- The most serious objection of all was, however, that after the meeting
many people went to other bars in the area.

Finally, I will send out this email again tomorrow just in case someone
does not receive it tonight.

Looking forward to your comments

Best

Lawrence

From Lawrence, philosophy meetings

2011-02-28T23:29:00.001+01:00

Dear friends,

- The management of the pub were not happy that many of us did not buy
drinks from the bar. However, this in its self was not the biggest issue
for not allowing to meet there any more.

- They were concerned that during busy periods on Sunday evenings many
of us were occupying stools when they did not buy anything and yet
customers upstairs left the pub because there were no stools for them to
sit.

- They said that many people only asked for a glass of water, and that
some also asked for crisps to go with the water.

- They resented the fact that after the meeting people did not stay at
the pub to buy drinks there. I pointed out that I was under the
impression that the bar next door was part of the pub management, but
apparently they are under different management and therefore not
financially connected.

- The most serious objection of all was, however, that after the meeting
many people went to other bars in the area.

Finally, I will send out this email again tomorrow just in case someone
does not receive it tonight.

Looking forward to your comments

Best

Lawrence

From Lawrence, philosophy meetings

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: The sociology of work today

2011-02-24T23:28:00.001+01:00

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: The sociology of work today.
In the meantime, Peter is still looking for a flatmate:
Peter has asked me once again to remind you that he is looking for
someone to share his flat with in Mostoles close to public transport;
very good conditions. Central heating and central hot water. English
spoken at home if you wish. Single room still available. : tel 609257259
-------------------------
best
Lawrence
+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
SUNDAY 6.30pm – 8.30pm at Molly Malone's Pub, probably downstairs----
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
-metro: Bilbao : buses: 21, 149, 147
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia in English with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30
to 21h, at Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
*************************************

The sociology of work today

Before we can talk about work today we have to find the essence, so to
speak, of work structure itself. What we usually mean by work is course
earning a living.
We might be tempted to think that work is an activity we engage in to
earn money to support ourselves in our daily life to obtain and use
resources. Money to buy food, money to pay the rent or mortgage, money
for clothes and if there is any left, after taxes, to pay for our holidays.
We might also be tempted to think that work today is something we have a
right to and something that we engage in to further our selves and our
future.
The problem, however, is that the model of work we have today, the
essence so to speak, is that it does not allow for all these things.
Yes, of course, we get up in the morning and go to work, and even get
paid, sometimes we are even promoted.
We even have a whole body of ethics, theology, politics and maybe even
philosophy to justify the existence of this work model today. Indeed,
any revolutionary, and not so revolutionary, changes we have had of the
work model is to share in the wealth created by the enterprise. Indeed,
a share that reflects the wider economic structure of the country: in
other words, we need to get paid enough to be able to afford the basics
things for life. Many people do it and many people succeed. So where is
the problem?
The problem is that the model of work we have today is something that we
have inherited from the feudal system. My purpose was to get at the
essence of the work model today. And today, as in feudal times, that
essence is this: a balance between fear and peace of mind.
In the feudal times the fear was the violence of the feudal lord, maybe
in the form of heavy taxes, aggression towards individuals and so on.
Peace of mind was of course, being left alone as much as possible, from
the whims of the feudal lord. One thing was sure though, the scope of
the individual to better themselves and enjoy their wealth was limited
to the fancy of the feudal lord.
Of course, today we don't have feudal lords, and even the worst of
bosses do not use naked violence against employees, unless we happen to
live in a third world country and working in a sweat shop. Nor do we
need to be left alone in peace today, we have strong privacy laws to
protect us from prying people; at least when those who care about these
things pretend to be interested in the private citizen. Unless, of
course, you happen to work in a sweat shop or a factory city where one's
freedom on movement is limited to the four walls that surround us.
Today's modern worker is afraid from losing one's job, and the peace of
mind we need today is to consume worldly goods when we want and how much
we want in peace and tranquillity. I mean whenever there is a political
hiccup in a oil producing country the price of petroleum does not go up
to save some money for the wretched victims of violent dictators. But
rather because we are worried that we won't have enough petrol to drive
our gas guzzling four by fours to the shopping mall, and in these
situations cash is king!
Today someone who is in a job is kept in fear of losing that job maybe
by moving operations to a third world country; forget being replace by a
robot. Robots are today replacing slave labour in third world countries.
So this is real fear we are talking about!
And, therefore, anyone who is not earning an income today, is
theoretically, excluded from the social group that identifies itself as
being successful. Of course, the romantic nature that lives in all of us
would have us believe that everyone can turn from rags to riches in a
life time; maybe. However, if we want to keep our two feet on the ground
we mustn't mix up starting small to starting with nothing. And the test
is this: who pays the rent?
The feudal model basically was a one way channel of wealth creation to
wealth distribution. The serfs created the wealth, and got a small
portion of that wealth, and the rest being passed on to the feudal lord;
some of this wealth was of course passed on to the king or even more
powerful lords. Of course, we are more civilized today, we don't have
serfs anymore, at least not in our small corner of the world, we have
career seekers.
And all those revolutionaries and political observers who pointed out
that those who create the wealth do not get to enjoy it were absolutely
right. However, they were and still are fatally wrong in thinking that
all we have to do is redistribute this wealth that's been created a bit
more evenly. Indeed, most labour disputes, apart from safety at work,
that demand pay rises are victims of the flaws of the feudal model.
The issue ought not to be wealth distribution, but rather wealth
creation. Wealth distribution makes sense if we have wealth to begin
with, and we're not going to get that if our mind set is still six
hundred years in the past. And if there is anything in common between
the feudal work model and the modern work model is wealth distribution
since none of these models are about wealth creation.
Once again, we mustn't mix up wealth creation with profit making. But
today's work model has inherited even more anomalies from the feudal
system which today make very little sense.
One of these anomalies is the eight day week, from nine to five. This is
a schedule based on an agricultural work structure, but of course today
we have electric power that can light up the world 24/7 and it does. Of
course, with the eight hour day we have inherited the twelve month
financial year; another one of those things we inherited from the days
of agriculture. Consider how ridiculous this set up is today. It takes a
pharmaceutical company, at the very least, twelve to fifteen years to
developed an effective and safe drug. And yet each year a pharma company
has to do a marathon of gymnastics to square scientific investigation
with paying taxes and end of year bonuses every twelve months; never
mind the dividends to shareholders and taxes to the inland revenue.
But in a way the feudal system was as much a product of life at the time
as our system is a product of our enlightened times. First of all,
nature does turn on a twelve month cycle in northern Europe. So planning
for twelve month periods made sense. And probably more relevant, life
expectancy was not that long anyway, so planning for the short term had
a different meaning from what it means today. Taking quarterly stocks of
one's wealth made sense because wealth changed with the change of the
seasons.
The sociology of work today cannot even therefore begin to get off the
ground until we identify these anomalous parts in our work model that we
inherited from the feudal model. The work model today is like running a
V8 luxury sports car but using the wheels from a Ford T4 model.
But the bottom line –pardon the expression- real problem with the feudal
and, hence, the modern work model is that the feudal lord was only
concerned with how much money he and his people had. Life was short at
the time, literally, and the king was whimsical to make things worse.
Today, we ought to be concerned on how people make their money; or not
as the case may be. What our sociology of work should be is in how we
create work methods that create wealth for our life style and life span.
And how much money people have is nobody's business. That's as private
as the fluff between one's, well you know what I mean!!
Take care
Lawrence

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: The sociology of
work today

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: Punishment + event today Friday

2011-02-17T23:27:00.002+01:00

Dear Friends,
This Sunday we are discussing Punishment: is it natural or cultural?
I have tried to put a few ideas together, and apologise in advance for
the usual typos.
In the meantime Susanne has sent me details of the following evening
taking place today, Friday:
Hola, os mando una interesante propuesta para este viernes:
El viernes 18 a las 18:30
Cortometraje y diálogo filosófico
La cooperativa Centro Sofía nos ofrece esta interesantísma actividad en
el local:
"Esta vez os ofrecemos que os acerquéis a una ventana algo más pequeña
por donde mirar: el cine.
Tendremos la suerte de contar con el cortometraje del director David
Alejandro Gen; The Revolt of the Mouses
y a continuación dialogaremos filosóficamente sobre alguna de las
cuestiones que vosotros y vosotras elijáis
y que os haya sugerido este corto tan repleto de problemáticas filosóficas".
http://centrosofia.wordpress.com/
Lugar:
Asociación Danos Tiempo
C/ Mar del Japón nº 13 (Hortaleza)
http://www.danostiempo.blogspot.com/
Un saludo.
Susanne

------- Alfonso is organising an exhibition of his paintings: details
below and this link is for a pdf file of the exhibition catalogue
http://tinyurl.com/alfonso-exhit

Scala La Paloma
c/ Toledo 108
Madrid
Date: 15 – 25 February
Time: Monday – Friday 10:00 to 14:00 and 17:00 to 20:00

------ Finally, Peter is still looking for a flat mate:
Peter has asked me once again to remind you that he is looking for
someone to share his flat with in Mostoles close to public transport;
very good conditions. Central heating and central hot water. English
spoken at home if you wish. Single room still available. : tel 609257259
-------------------------

best
Lawrence
+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
SUNDAY 6.30pm – 8.30pm at Molly Malone's Pub, probably downstairs----
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
-metro: Bilbao : buses: 21, 149, 147
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia in English with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30
to 21h, at Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
*************************************

Punishment: it is natural or cultural
In biological animals (systems), who live in social groups, punishment
is a natural phenomenon. However, the type and form of punishment are
the product of culture.

That we, human beings, have also inherited this biological trait is in
no doubt. What is more curious about punishment in human beings is how
the type and form has changed and evolved over time.

Of course, when I say evolved we must keep in mind that evolution does
not happen to a timetable or schedule. Indeed, we do know that evolution
takes place over time, over very long periods of time. Thus, a human
punishment in one society, might not have evolved in another. Or, of
course, a punishment would have been selected out of a society.

A punishment, therefore, might be on its way out and in the process of
being replaced by a different one. My belief is that the more we
developed sophisticated rational and, maybe even, moral societies, the
more a punishment would reflect this new state of affairs. Thus, to use
vulgar language, the more barbaric a society the more barbaric would be
the set of punishments in that society; and vice versa. I would even,
for example say, that capital punishment is a reflection of an immoral
barbaric society. The question is whether abolishing capital punishment
would make society more dangerous. My inkling is that it does not.

An analysis of punishment must address the question of purpose: why do
we resort to punishment? Indeed, we can resort to punishment as a method
to influence and change the behaviour of others. Or, even more common,
to express disapproval.

Answering the question of purpose, we can say that punishment is
something we have inherited from a pure social-biological state, which
has long lost its Raison d'être in a society based on reason and
morality. Punishment, is something that works fine at the biological
dimension and since this is an important part of our existence, it is
something we cannot avoid doing, in the same way we cannot avoid
running, sleeping, breathing and so on. Also punishment might be seen as
another weapon, another tool, to dominate and oppress others.

I am in no doubt that punishment, as a means to change behaviour, is
very inefficient and ineffective. It is so inefficient that I doubt if
punishment was ever intended as a means to change behaviour. I mean
thieves still take other people's property even after this crime has
been punished by death, exile, long prison sentences, and in modern
times prison with probably behaviour counselling. Yet, there are still
thieves out there, at this very minute, taking the property of others.
And if you are not convinced children still misbehave today in the same
way their parents did when they were children.

On the other hand, as a means to change behaviour punishment is not
easily dismissed as I might have suggested. Even, Machiavelli mentions
the usefulness of punishment for the Prince. The difference is probably
a question of time; I mean it is a question of time before a punishment
becomes inefficient or counter productive.

It is therefore, also evident, that changing behaviour and expressing
disapproval are not the same thing. Changing behaviour, at least, has
the lofty objective of changing a person's behaviour maybe even for
their own good, if not the good of society.

But if punishment is to be employed as a means of disapproval, then this
raises some difficult issues. The very first of these issues is this
question: why should I care whether you disapprove or not? And if the
answer is because "I will punish you" then punishment can be reduced to
might is right.

The irony, about punishment is that it is very closely associated with
justice. Now, whatever our opinion about punishment might be, we can all
agree that punishment is something physical, something we manifest in a
physical form. And by this I include psychological type of punishments.

And the irony is this. Justice is something that is based on reason and
rationality; forget for the time being such fancy ideas as theology and
religious beliefs and keep to reality. Justice is something that we
expect in the future -we already know what the past is like- and any
rationale about the future must be based on reason and rationality, if
not morality.

Yet punishment is based, fair and square, on brute force and biological
instinct. And to cap it all, punishment by its very nature looks at the
past. However, what is the status of the idea that punishment is
backward looking, something that we do by looking at the past?

Well, we might easily argue that punishment is backward looking because
the act that gives rise to punishment must first take place. Maybe, but
is it the act that is being punishment or the fact that we know that the
act took place. Thus there can be no punishment until we know about the
act. Indeed this, we might also argue, it what happens: there is an act,
we find out abut it and then we administer the punishment.

Even laws , that are supposed to be the pinnacle of justice, follow this
model. First there must be a act (with or without intention), then the
judicial process and, if found guilty, the punishment is administered.

However, there are some laws to prevent us from doing some acts because
the act itself might be dangerous to others. To distinguish these two
laws, we might have laws based on the linguistic structure of "if you do
x, then y will happen to you" (theft or homicide). The second form of
laws follow the semantic form, "do not do x (because of g), but if you
do y will happen to you" (highway code type of laws, smoking laws).

We can easily see the justification for these type of rules and laws.
There might be a justifiable reason, but more importantly, the
punishment is given to the perpetrator only. Only those that are guilty
of theft go to prison, and only those who drive over 120 kph get fined.
In jurisprudence the principle is generally that a punishment is there
to take away a right of an individual; freedom, reputation, property and
so on.

But there is a type of punishment that is not only controversial in
philosophy but probably equally controversial in jurisprudence. This
punishment takes the form of taking away a right not because the act in
itself in illegal or even immoral, nor because it is an act we have
done, but simply because someone, we don't know who, might do the now
prohibited act, we don't know what or when.

You might have already guessed what I am referring to, for example,
taking a photo of a government building, buying digital recording media,
taking water on a plane or buying chewing gum. Taking photos in public
of a public place is one of those rights which is well established in
most democratic societies. But now, usually based in the excuse of
terrorism or personal privacy, this right is slowly being eroded on the
belief that some terrorist might take some photo of some building that
might be use in some act sometime in the future.

The frightening thing about all this is not that a terrorist might take
a photo that will be used to in a criminal act, but rather the belief
that taking away the right to take a photo in public from 45, 65, 300
million people it will stop a terrorist from taking said photo.
Thankfully the present British government is changing these policies and
laws hopefully by others that will enable 65 million people to exercise
their right and maybe at the same time help catch a terrorist or a criminal.

The same with digital storage media (tax for illegal copying), chewing
gum (clean roads), taking water on a plane (could be an inflammable
liquid used by terrorists). Consider taking water on a place, apart from
being an immoral act to waste water, it ought to be a crime as well,
testing for water can be very easily done; make the person drink some!

But the point about this third form of punishment , it seems to me, is
not so much the injustice of these laws, they are unjust, but that the
mindset of punishment (especially by authorities) prevents us, or at the
very least hinders us, from exploring rational and reasonable options to
an unsocial behaviour.

Earlier I said that the more rational we become the more sophisticated
punishment will also become. Of course, by sophisticated I do not mean
fairer or more just, but more complex or more far reaching, the digital
tax is a case in point. Indeed this complexity does away with the idea
of punishment and introduces the idea of justice and tax, two concepts
well within the sphere of justice.

This discrepancy between justice and punishment does not necessarily
arise, in my opinion, from the fact that some people are bad. But maybe
because unsocial behaviour is the product of injustice and punishment is
just a primitive instinct.

The question is not what shall we replace punishment with? Or how can we
stop punishment? The question we should be asking is this, if we want
justice shouldn't we checking is justice is actually being done? And we
don't achieve this by waiting for some unsocial behaviour to occur but
by introducing just systems in society.

The other question, we might care to ask, besides punishment being
natural or cultural, is whether punishment is futile or inevitable.
Futile maybe because punishment is counter productive, and inevitable
because we might still be primitive biological systems despite the
paraphernalia of rational agency.

Take care
Lawrence
from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: Punishment + event
today Friday

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: do we need myths? + News

2011-02-10T21:36:00.001+01:00

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: do we need myths?

We are all victims of myths, so most probably, we do not need them. Then
how do we come to have so many myths lurking in every corner of our
lives? In the short essay I try to consider this issue.

In the meantime Alfonso is organising an exhibition of his paintings:
details below and this link is for a pdf file of the exhibition
catalogue http://tinyurl.com/alfonso-exhit

Sala La Paloma
c/ Toledo 108
Madrid
Date: 15 – 25 February
Time: Monday – Friday 10:00 to 14:00 and 17:00 to 20:00

Finally, Peter is still looking for a flat mate:
Peter has asked me once again to remind you that he is looking for
someone to share his flat with in Mostoles close to public transport;
very good conditions. Central heating and central hot water. English
spoken at home if you wish. Single room still available. : tel 609257259
-------------------------

best
Lawrence
+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
SUNDAY 6.30pm – 8.30pm at Molly Malone's Pub, probably downstairs----
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My tel 606081813
-metro: Bilbao : buses: 21, 149, 147
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia in English with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30
to 21h, at Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
*************************************

Do we need myths?

What stands us apart from other animals is the way we use our thinking
capacity. We use our brain, as most animals do, to plan things,
understand those around us and the environment, create strategies and of
course understand ourselves. But what distinguishes us from other
animals is the way we extrapolate what is useful for us.

For example, horses have developed powerful legs that can transport them
over long distances at a fast speed, we developed the automobile for the
same purpose. You must agree, we do things in style, maybe a bit
gimmicky, but certainly in style.

The point I wish to make is that not only can we understand the outside
world around us, but we can come up with some quite sophisticated ways
of interacting with those around us and also with what is around us. But
what underlies this success of human brains and any other animal brain
are two things: understanding and information.

We might, therefore, be inclined to assume that before we can solve a
problem we first need to understand the problem, and to understand the
problem we need all the information we can get about the issue at hand.
True as this might be, it is also a deceptive principle to accept at
face value. First, if we don't have perfect information we start
slipping away from understanding the problem correctly. Dentists are
very good at proving this point: we have a slight persistent pain in a
tooth, but it takes root canal treatment to fix the problem. This
problem in philosophy is the induction problem.

Secondly, our principle seems to imply that we are acting consciously
for both the understanding process and the information gathering
process. Today, however, we know better, the unconscious brain is no
less active and involved in the process as the conscious self. Maybe
even more so. Thus what we, in our conscious self capacity, might think
is an issue, the unconscious brain understands the problem differently.
For example, today we also know that stress plays a key role in obesity
(13.5million hits in Google for the term, obesity and stress), and we
also know from experiments that mice experience high levels of stress
when lots of them are placed in a confined space. City dwellers don't
need mice to tell them that city life is stressful. However, the common
knowledge in the street is that obesity is caused by eating fatty or
sweet foods. Yes, unhealthy foods do cause obesity, but the issue is why
do we eat such harmful foods, and why do we it so much of it any way?

Thus consciously we think we are getting obese because we are eating
fatty foods, but the reality is also that stress is also playing an
important role in shaping our waist line. Unfortunately, for modern
society we can understand the issue much better, and think we have a
more efficient solution, if we describe the problem of obesity in terms
of not eating certain foods, instead of keep away from stressful
situations. In the first case, we can just not buy the pack of doughnuts
we have in our hands, in the latter case, we just have to give up our
middle management job with Super Company Inc.

But what does all this have to do with myths? Let us take a working
definition of myths to be beliefs or a set of beliefs to be true, but in
reality are anything but true or useful. The problem with defining myths
is that we can define myths as the stories or tales we find in classical
literature, i.e. Mythology, or the common use of the word, a belief
(beliefs) held to be true but in reality are not necessarily true. For
philosophical purposes we are interested in the second meaning of myths:
the myths we find in Mythology are something different.

Of course, my definition of myth does not exclude looking at classical
mythology, but our issue is not whether myths can tell us anything, but
rather if we need myths why do we need them? Or to look at this in a
different way, what sort of creatures are myths that we cannot do without?

Let's look at some modern myths to have a feeling of what we are talking
about: if you work hard you will succeed and become wealthy (or words to
that effect), all men are rapists and all women are only interested in
money, and my favourite, a home is an investment. I am particularly
interested in the home investment myth because I was there when it
really blossomed and so many years later it is creating havoc with the
lives of people.

What all these myths have in common, like most myths, is that they are
very easy to understand; I might have never owned a house nor had
investments, but in our modern society these words are recognised by
every one in the same way that hamburger and chips are recognised by
everyone.

And I would argue that this is true for two reasons, first we use common
day language to describe these myths and secondly there are cases that
prove the myth: many people do work hard and make it big, some men are
rapists, some women do like money, and some houses are a good investment.

The difference between myths and scientific type beliefs is this. Once
we have enough instances of an event we create the myth these individual
data bits and convert them into a general linguistic form with a meaning
that holds true under all circumstances. In fact it is this
universalisability character of myths that makes them so powerful.
However, scientific or even philosophical, observations are always
subject to confirmation (or falsified).

The language structure of a myth leads to universal confirmation - a
house is an investment, - whilst scientific observations would use a
probabilistic language and not universal language - some houses are an
investment. What the first statement is telling you is that if you have
a house, you have an investment, but the second statement is telling you
absolutely nothing since you don't know what you have until you try and
sell the property.

An other feature of these modern myths is that they fit quite nicely
with the modern concept of the sound bite. What this means in real terms
is that we remember the concept of investment, and then the good side of
investment, and basically forget the other things involved in owning a
property. In our city dwelling life we are constantly receiving huge
amounts of information which needs to be processed immediately by our
brain. And process I really mean evaluate or interpret information. Thus
information that can be processed quickly has a certain natural bias in
its favour.

Take the traffic sign "Stop." This bit of information is much quicker to
process than the description "start driving your car slowly, when you
approach the end of the road your car should not have any forward
momentum left. Now from your ........and so on and so forth." As social
animals with a family stricture the concept of "home" and even "house"
is hard wired and the modern word investment is equally well know in our
society. Compare this with, risk management theory, Return on
Investments, net and gross yield from a fixed asset, inflation growth
rate, depression and appreciation of assets and so on.

You will remember that earlier I said that to understand an issue
correctly we need perfect information to understand it correctly, and
that sort of information is not really coming our way any time soon for
any situation. Of course, the rational thing to do under these
circumstances is to keep investigation the problem and adjust the
solution according to new discoveries.

Unfortunately, only scientists with endless grants, and philosophers
with enough money to survive, can afford to live with a half baked
solution. Most of us need a fully baked solution for most problems in
our life: do I buy the house or not, do I take the job or not, do I date
this man, does she really love me, that sort of thing. And thanks to the
versatility of our brain we have found a reliable working solution, or
rather some brains have found a solution for their problem. And we call
this solution a "myth." We need a house to live in, but don't know what
to do, and the banker needs the sale and commission as soon as possible.
The myth, that a house is an investment, solves two problems at the same
time.

From myths we get the perfect information our brain tells us we need to
solve certain problems especially socially related issues: a house and
not some houses – this grammatical structure implies that even the house
we will buy is an investment. And the banker get to turn on our
emotional switch with the right warm feeling they need to close a sale:
investment - we cannot make money useless we invest and crime and the
lottery are not real options. And the word investment is sufficiently
technical to dazzle the modern brain.

So, do we need myths? What we know for sure is that we need perfect
information to make rational evaluations of a problem, we also know that
such information does not exists. We also know that the brain is
excellent at solving problems in the short term, even if the solution
does not stand the test of time. An over the counter analgesic might
solve a toothache, but rationing our sugar intake and visiting the
dentist every six months requires a herculean effort: we find sugar in
most of our processed foods and dentist fees are not exactly cheap.

What we need for sure is stable and reliable information, which leads me
to conclude that we need myths as much as the Trojans needed a horse.

Best

Lawrence

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: do we need myths? +
News