Scribblings VI: Old lags, metaphysics, arts funding, pubs and public health

Trying to keep up with assorted Scribblers is challenging and this is a selection that tries to avoid stuff about the US Presidential Elections, Brexit and the leadership of the Labour Party. Not that these things are unimportant but that they've a tendency to crowd out other stuff that's just as interesting (and maybe important).

On the latter point, this post from Anna Raccoon is definitely important - what do we do with elderly and ill (even terminally ill) prisoners?

The number of older prisoners in the UK has more than doubled in the last decade, with the greatest increases amongst those over 70. Around 40% of older prisoners are sex offenders, many of whom are in prison for the first time due to historic abuse. Longer sentences and more stringent release criteria mean that increasing numbers of ‘anticipated deaths’ in prison are predicted.

Fascinating - especially the issues with painkilling drugs (most of which are, from a different angle, narcotics).

Meanwhile the Flaxen Saxon is getting all metaphysical:

Philosophers as far back as Plato (see the allegory of the cave) have reasoned that what we perceive is not reality. With the advent of computers and especially the stupendous increase in computing power, we have to ask ourselves- are we part of a huge computer simulation? Sounds ludicrous, doesn't it? Perhaps, but there are serious professional physicists and philosophers out there who consider the concept not only plausible, but likely. And no, these folk are not inmates of a secure mental health facility, they are, in the main, tenured academics.

As I commented on the blog - all reminds me of Brian Aldiss's 'Report on Probability A'. Which rather takes us to that age old question as to whether we can, in the manner of Azimov's 'psychohistory' break everything down into equations, algorithms and metrics. As Demetrius asks in talking about arts funding:

So many of us ask for the arts to have some funding and support to ensure their survival and continuance in a difficult world. Now it seems that this can only be if extensive management is applied to the distribution and assessment of those which are being assisted.

Having just re-read Yevgeny Zamyatin's 'We' (written in 1921 as a critique of Taylorism but banned by the Soviets as it applies as well to Scientific Marxism) it's clear that this breaking down of everything into numbers and measurements remains a challenge to civilisation.

Indeed there's a part of this problem displayed in the endeavours of public health to use science to promote their rather joyless ideology of wellbeing. And both Frank Davis and Paul Barnes pick up on this. First Paul on Stop Smoking Services (SSS) and e-cigs:

This is where I begin to have a niggly problem with SSS. I don’t knock the work they do, but nine times out of ten when a positive article appears in the press there is always this cessation approach – the “they can help you quit smoking” – type line. Broadly speaking that statement is true, but e-cigarettes are substantially more than just a bloody quit aid.

And Frank on 'junk food':

My conclusion is that “junk food” is perfectly good food, but “disapproved food”. It’s food that’s been labelled as “junk”, and most likely libelled as “junk”. And there is no rhyme or reason for this disapproval, much like there is no rhyme or reason for the disapproval of everything else the disapprovers disapprove.

Only approved pleasures are allowed, citizen!

But we like pubs, of course. Pubs are about community - wholesome, clean, caring community. And we should save them. Old Mudgie takes issue with this simple mantra as promoted by Greg Mulholland MP:

Now, I recognise that pubs can have a value as community resources that transcends narrow financial considerations, and that ACV listings, if properly applied, can give them a valuable stay of execution if they are threatened. I’d also support pubs being given protection from being turned into shops or offices without needing planning permission, subject to a reasonable minimum time limit of trading as pub.

But it has to be accepted that society changes and moves on over time, and that most of the current issues around planning and redevelopment are symptoms of the general decline in the demand for pubs, not its cause.

The idea - as Mulholland has promoted in Otley - that every single pub (there are over 20 in Otley) merits protection is hard to defend. Helping locals save the only village pub is a great idea but using planning and regulation as a stick to beat PubCos really won't work if the pub isn't viable in the first place.

Perhaps, if we're concerned about community, we need to ask about how councils, police and fire services are stopping local events unless they pay up or provide their own security (at great cost). Here's Julia:

So....what's happened here is the council get to shrug their shoulders and say 'Toree cutz, mate, innit?' Because that's easier than changing the event into something more manageable.

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Why Atheists are wrong...

The Symbol of a new Faith

No, I'm not about to launch into some sort of proof of god's (or gods for that matter) existence but just to cry a little at the problem with atheism. I've always liked to play with metaphysics:

Let me start, dear reader, with the one clear fact in all this – there is a “creation”. OK it could be an entirely accidental creation, it could be a glorious combination of accident and subtle external intervention or the Great Goddess Woo might have made it from tears at the death of her pet dog. What you believe here isn’t important – what is important is enquiry – asking the question.

You see atheism is as much an act of faith as believing in gods and less so that believing in fairies. Atheists can no more prove their position than can bearded monks sitting on the flanks of Mount Sinai. And the bearded monks are often far more metaphysically interesting and open to doubt that the "skeptical" atheist.

A while ago I had a gentle little dig at the great prophet of militant atheism, Richard Dawkins:

I make no secret of my disagreement with Dawkins – his spiritless, dry, confrontational obsessions have created an atheism that is no longer fundamental but that requires a range of beliefs beyond the essence of atheism. That essence is, of course, very straightforward – that there is no god. What Dawkins has done has been to take upon himself a jihad directed at anyone who does not adhere to his obsessions – unreconstructed Darwinian evolution, a view that religion is a pathology and utter contempt for any promotion of a religious viewpoint.

Indeed the adherents of Dawkins have set about creating a religion - it even has a name now: Atheism Plus (or A+) complete with a funky logo. Soon all the little Dawkinsites will be wearing badges with this symbol - a bit like the little fish symbol that evangelical Christians wear or maybe a green turban or a gold bracelet.

These Atheist jihadi are keen to set out their stall - amidst all the denial of religiosity, our Atheists demand that Atheism must change society, just as does Christianity, as it is with Islam:

If there is no god, if religion is a sham, that has significant consequences for how we should structure our society. 

These atheists - followers of the prophet Dawkins - do not stop with believing that there is no god but go much further. Religion must be first condemned and its influences removed from any public influence. Atheism these people tell us must be practiced:

Atheism sensu stricto may be a specific assertion about a fact of the universe, but atheism as practiced is a defining idea in a mind and a powerful foundation for a human community. It has meanings and implications that we must heed and use for achieving our goals.

Let me adjust that so you can understand:

Religion sensu stricto may be a specific assertion about a fact of the universe, but religion as practiced is a defining idea in a mind and a powerful foundation for a human community. It has meanings and implications that we must heed and use for achieving our goals.

The statement makes just as much sense (which to me is absolutely none) in either version. Atheism is wrong. Not because there is a god but because to assert god's non-existence is no different to asserting god's existence. And to construct a faith-based organisation that singles out other faith-based organisations as targets is indistinguishable from the Islamic idea of jihad or the evangelical injunction placed on Christians.

The logic of Atheism dies when you treat it as a religion. And, because atheism requires a profound act of faith, it can only be a religion.

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Wednesday Whimsey: Metaphysics, gnostics, sceptics and a defence of creationism

Let me start, dear reader, with the one clear fact in all this – there is a “creation”. OK it could be an entirely accidental creation, it could be a glorious combination of accident and subtle external intervention or the Great Goddess Woo might have made it from tears at the death of her pet dog. What you believe here isn’t important – what is important is enquiry – asking the question.

And this is where we have to distinguish between the sceptic’s question and the Gnostic’s question. Not only to recognise the distinction but also to appreciate that the two questions are complementary rather than conflicting. The scientist asks how it all came about – what was it that start the ball rolling (or the big bang banging if you prefer). And this is an important question to which there is no true answer merely a search for truth through the raising of further questions.

Now the Gnostic question is different – it is a metaphysical question rather than a matter of sceptical or scientific enquiry. It is to ask why. And this is done in the same spirit of enquiry as the scientist’s question. But with one major difference in that this enquiry does not provide an answer because the question is phrased in a way that makes it impossible to answer. Thus asking, “is there a god”, allows us to explore both sceptical enquiry of this question and also to consider the idea of godhead and the meaning of existence.

I do not claim superiority for either of the two questions – if I want to understand the world so as to exploit the wonders of the creation then I require scientific enquiry. Metaphysics – despite the misplaced claims of some – does not cure disease, bring riches or provide food and shelter. What metaphysics does do is to provide a context for us to consider why we love our partner, why we value community and how we deal with birth or death. I do not believe that scientific enquiry can fully answer these questions. And, more importantly, to attempt to use scientific enquiry in these matters is to use it as a tool of metaphysical rather than sceptical enquiry.

Under these latter circumstances, sceptical enquiry is no better than Aristolean logic, rabbinical discourse or the various tools of theological enquiry – from gnosis to Augustinianism. Which is not to say that sceptical enquiry cannot be used to examine metaphysical questions but that such a method of enquiry does not provide a less faith-based answer to those questions than other tools of enquiry.

So when we attack “teaching creationism” from the basis of science, we are right only so long as we are concerned with the teaching of science. We cannot say that stories of creation – however told – have no value and should not be allowed. This is to cut off reasoned metaphysical enquiry using a range of methods by saying only one method – sceptical enquiry – is valid in the exploration of metaphysics (which rather contradicts the central tenets of scepticism, of course). The term “teaching creationism” requires qualification – the addition of other words: “as scientific fact” or “as part of a science course”, is needed for the criticism to be valid.

Trying to understand the magic of creation using only scientific or sceptical enquiry does not work. We can explain and describe bits of that creation but the full appreciation requires other methods and other tools. The scientist tells me that The Gentry are just an ancient myth but I know the truth of it, I know the scientists are wrong. There really are fairies at the bottom of my garden.

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