The Allegory of the Beer Cave

Philosophers are duly concerned with the difference between appearance and reality, and as I've been furiously and deliriously slaving away with end-of-semester grading (yeah, I've been sick as a dog too), the difference between real intellectual writing and mere shadows of puppets of genius has somewhat become blurred in my own mind, which it's why it's always wise to go back to the classics, in this case Plato's allegory of the beer cave :)



[Glaucon] And now, he said, to prove my understanding of your meaning, let me show you a similar figure—Behold! Humans living in a beer cave which has an automatic glass door; here they have been since childhood when they first snuck in, and they are duct taped so they cannot move; and they have nose piercings which are snagged, being thus held from moving their heads and they must look only at a blank wall under a Super Bowl poster. Behind and above them the fluorescent lights are always on, and between the punks and the lights is a display area where beers are kept at a constant 34 degrees.

[Socrates] I see.

[Glaucon] And do you also see, he said, clerks passing along the display area carrying vessels of all sorts, and cardboard stand-ups of models and original party animals?

[Socrates] You have also shown me strange images and strange prisoners, I replied.

[Glaucon] So much like ourselves, they only see their own shadows and the shadows of one another on the wall. And of the objects which are being carried, they would only see the shadows as well?

[Socrates] It is certain.

[Glaucon] And, he said, if the prisoners were able to speak to each other and see each other's shadows, would they not call each other "dude" or "bro" and also give names to the other shadows, like "babe" and "spuds"?

[Socrates] You may rely on it.

[Glaucon] And assume that the walls of the beer cave had an echo, and when one of the shoppers or clerks said something, would the prisoners conclude that the voices came from the shadows?

[Socrates] Without a doubt, I said.

[Glaucon] To them the truth would be nothing but the shadows.

[Socrates] The outlook is good for what you have said.

[Glaucon] And now look and see what would happen if one of the punks was freed and could see the misconceptions they had believed. At first, one would be in pain from the removal of the tape and the continued discomfort of the remaining glue. Then he will turn around and see the objects as they really are; the direct light from the neon signs will hurt his eyes, and he will not be able to see his former reality anymore. Further imagine when he is able to see the objects in the beer cave—what will be his reaction? Will he not be dumbfounded when asked to name the stand-ups and the beer-case-coliseum? Will he not think that the shadows of his former world were more real than these?

[Socrates] Most likely, I replied.

[Glaucon] Assume again that he is able to walk to the seeing eye, and the automatic door slides open, and he goes out into the convenience store, as is within the alcohol laws in this State; would he not wait in checkouts and see the tabloids and Slim-Jims, and would he not see them as being not real?

[Socrates] Signs point to yes.

[Glaucon] And, he said, if he went out in the sun looking for a party, would he not begin by going to baby showers and bar mitzvahs, as he would be too dazzled by more hardcore parties?

[Socrates] You may rely on it.

[Glaucon] Would he not then work his way up through ice cream socials and Tupperware parties to get to tailgate and toga parties?

[Socrates] Yes, but aren't they all?

[Glaucon] Finally, he said, our punk will be at a bachelor party on New Year's Eve on his twenty-first birthday at Mardi Gras in New Orleans under a full moon at midnight.

[Socrates] Don't count on it.

[Glaucon] With strippers and ten kegs?

[Socrates] Easy now, I warned.

[Glaucon] And when they run out of beer and have to send a freshman back to the beer cave, do you not think that he might look upon the changes he has made to himself and pity those still dwelling there?

[Socrates] It is decidedly so.

[Glaucon] What if he returned to the beer cave and saw the prisoners as they played games amongst themselves, predicting what the shadows would do? What if he sat with them and tried to play alongside them; would he not still be buzzed and unable to compete against them? Would he not be ridiculed by them?

[Socrates] Yes.

[Glaucon] Would he not have to practice going into and out of the beer cave to teach them to party? Whereas there are those that say that partying must be put into the soul, does not our dialogue prove that the ability to party exists in the soul already and the knowledge to use it must be learned by bits and sips?

[Socrates] It is certain, I said.

[Glaucon] Then those that have partied in the world must be made to sober up and return to the beer cave to take a turn living amongst the punks to make them the next generation of party hosts. For it can be said that the party at which the hosts are most eager to share their beer is always best, and in which they are most reluctant, the lamest.

[Socrates] Without a doubt.

[Glaucon] You must create for your future hosts a better party; for only in the State which offers this will they party who are truly awesome and fun; and all truly awesome parties must be hosted by a philosopher-partier.

[Socrates] Yes—definitely.

[Glaucon] Now, he said, if I have proven my understanding, shall we discuss how such hosts are to be trained, and parties to be planned and funded, which will, in turn, lead to the allegory of the man-cave?

[Socrates] As I see it, yes.

Via McSweeney's.
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Frito-Lay Scientists Discover Cheesium

I'm just as excited as anyone else over the discoveries that the Large Hadron Collider will bear out, but I'm not sure CERN will be able to compete with Frito Labs in awesomeness :)

This discovery might help explain why Fritolaysia cut off chiplomatic relations with Snakistan :)
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The Known Universe

You may have seen the documentary Cosmic Voyage with Morgan Freeman before, and its famous and powerful visualization of the powers of ten. If you haven't, check it out now.

Today's magnificent video, based on data from the world's most complete four-dimensional map of the universe (the Digital Universe Atlas from the American Museum of Natural History), takes you on a quick but fabulous journey of the universe as we know it today, departing from the majestic heights of the Himalayas and extending back to the very edge of time and space. Just sit back and enjoy the ride...

I wonder if they used Google Earth :)
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Storm, by Tim Minchin

This is one of those really tough life dilemmas: totally hot chick you wouldn't mind doing at the drop of a hat, but whose sexy and curvaceous physical appeal is gradually overshadowed by the cringing sound of the repetitive, irrational and empty clichés she spews one after another... What to do, what to do?

Tim Minchin found himself in just such a situation and, bless his soul, decided to take the high road... or maybe that's because his wife was in the same room :)

Me? I can think of a few fun ways to preserve my sanity and keep her mouth occupied :)
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Summerians Look On In Confusion As Christian God Creates World

The Onion cracks me up! :)

Members of the earth's earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth.

According to recently excavated clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script, thousands of Sumerians—the first humans to establish systems of writing, agriculture, and government—were working on their sophisticated irrigation systems when the Father of All Creation reached down from the ether and blew the divine spirit of life into their thriving civilization.

"I do not understand," reads an ancient line of pictographs depicting the sun, the moon, water, and a Sumerian who appears to be scratching his head. "A booming voice is saying, 'Let there be light,' but there is already light. It is saying, 'Let the earth bring forth grass,' but I am already standing on grass."

"Everything is here already," the pictograph continues. "We do not need more stars."

Historians believe that, immediately following the biblical event, Sumerian witnesses returned to the city of Eridu, a bustling metropolis built 1,500 years before God called for the appearance of dry land, to discuss the new development. According to records, Sumerian farmers, priests, and civic administrators were not only befuddled, but also took issue with the face of God moving across the water, saying that He scared away those who were traveling to Mesopotamia to participate in their vast and intricate trade system.

Moreover, the Sumerians were taken aback by the creation of the same animals and herb-yielding seeds that they had been domesticating and cultivating for hundreds of generations.

"The Sumerian people must have found God's making of heaven and earth in the middle of their well-established society to be more of an annoyance than anything else," said Paul Helund, ancient history professor at Cornell University. "If what the pictographs indicate are true, His loud voice interrupted their ancient prayer rituals for an entire week."

According to the cuneiform tablets, Sumerians found God's most puzzling act to be the creation from dust of the first two human beings.

"These two people made in his image do not know how to communicate, lack skills in both mathematics and farming, and have the intellectual capacity of an infant," one Sumerian philosopher wrote. "They must be the creation of a complete idiot."

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Oh man... my stomach hurts :)

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Can Ants Count?

Ants typically rely on chemical trails to orient themselves and their sisters to and from their colony. In the desert, however, chemical trails are too costly and inefficient, so how do ants forage and make it back home, especially when it's virtually impossible to rely on landmarks that may or may not be there later?

Well, scientists have known for a long time that ants have a good sense of direction and can use celestial markers to orient themselves, but that still leaves open the question of distance, so how do they measure that? Robert Krulwich decided to talk to someone who may have figured it out:

Awesome, but I'm not fully convinced yet. They'd have to eliminate the possibility that the ants can measure the amount of time it takes them to get from one place to another (instead of the number of steps they take) in order to say that the pedometer hypothesis is the correct one. Still, those experiments are really interesting, if somewhat cruel :(

And here's that video they mentioned, if visuals work better for you:

Check out The Lord of the Ants (that would be E.O. Wilson), a hilarious conversation between Wilson and Krulwich about what you can learn about ants by messing with their tiny minds, or the jaw-dropping civilizations these impressive insects can build for themselves.
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Justice - What Is the Right Thing to Do?

Episode 10. Aristotle's teleological understanding of the universe made him think of social and political institutions in terms of goals and purposes. If you understand the telos of a particular institution or practice, then you would also understand the appropriate means to ensure the excellence of said practice. Politics, for Aristotle, was the art concerned with the promotion of virtue and citizenship, and so a just society is one in which those who contribute most to the goals of the community are to be rewarded best.

Now, you might be asking yourself a very sensible question: how do we know the telos of some particular practice? Professor Sandel tries to make sense of this approach to considerations of justice by entertaining the case of Casey Martin, a disabled golfer who sued the PGA after it declined his request to use a golf cart on their tour. His case raises the question of the essential nature of golf and its purpose. Here's my take on it, and Professor Sandel seems to agree. Sorry golfers :)

Now, we all tend to think that freedom, justice and equality are worthwhile goals. The problem, however, is that to a large extent these concepts are inversely proportional to each other: that is to say, the more you have of one, the less you'll probably get of the others. Aristotle's approach to justice is no exception. If a just and prosperous society requires that individuals be assigned goals appropriate to their natural abilities, what room is there for personal choice and freedom? Worse still, if some people are naturally predisposed to slavery, as Aristotle thought, is there some way of rescuing the Aristotelian framework without having to accept slavery as a just practice?

Episode list: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
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The Tiger Woods Accident

I know the Tiger Woods story has monopolized the media, and everyone's sick of it, but it provides an opportunity for me to explain why I admire golfers as much as I do: somehow, almost magically one might say, golfers have managed to convince the world that what they do is a sport :)

But don't they either drive around the course on small electric cars, you might ask, or simply walk while a caddy carries their equipment for them? And, hey, the ball they have to hit doesn't even move!

All of which makes my point all the stronger: since they have convinced the world that their game is a sport, they have also managed to secure the hot chicks, whom they consequently take for granted and cheat on... there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Anyway, here is Saturday Night Live's amusing take on it:

And the 'multiple' mistresses are just his attempt to build his own 18-hole course :)
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Local Harlot Exposes Face, Neck

This blasphemer dared to show some neck? I cannot be held responsible if I end up raping her... obviously, it would be her fault that I can't control my own animalistic instincts... :)

Watch the short and highly symbolic film Submission, written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which depicts the plight of Muslim women and the wounds inflicted on them by their religion.
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Stephen Colbert - Conservapedia

Reality sucks sometimes, especially when your world-view is based upon the incoherent, bigoted, unscientific and self-contradictory ramblings of an ancient barbaric and illiterate people with a reputation for their fantastic sense of superstition and questionable moral doctrines.

So, what do you do in the 21st century when all available evidence and reality contradicts your backward beliefs? If you're anything like Conservapedia founder, Andy Schlafly, you make up your own shit and ask like-minded reality denialists to contribute to your propaganda. If someone questions why you are relying on the testimony of prejudiced non-experts, you use phrases like 'democratic process' and 'the marketplace of ideas,' and argue that the best ideas will rise to the top (because you've actively edited contradictory views out of the meme pool). And finally, you also try to discredit reality by calling it 'liberal bias.' Yes, it's pretty pathetic...

Of course, when you have to defend your tactics in public, like Schlafly does in this funny interview with Stephen Colbert, you're either going to argue in circles or you're going to contradict yourself... or both :)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Andy Schlafly
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

To get a sense of their delusional ramblings and their venomous rhetoric, check out their entries on homosexuality, evolution, premarital sex and atheism.
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