Monday, April 9, 2012

Stoic Determinism 3

The collection of primary sources regarding 'moral responsibility' once again triggered anguish over determinism. Chrysippus favored complete determinism, encompassing even attitudes and impressions - this view became the party line after a few generations. The question that this early Stoic debate piques is about partial determinism. Is such a system possible? In a completely determined world, I would agree that there cannot be moral responsibility. To borrow from a recent Dinosaur Comic, a completely undetermined (random) world would also lack moral responsibility. Hence, only a partially determined world can have morality.

But is such a thing possible? The only way I can see this possibility arising is if consciousness is not deterministic. Does human consciousness violate the laws of the science, of the universe? Can there be results without antecedent causes? I have a hard time grasping the possibility of this, but I concede it could be. Only if this is true can morality have any meaning.

Chrysippus argued, "The result is that neither commendations nor reproofs, nor honors nor punishments are just." I do disagree with this, however, even if moral responsibility is nonexistent. I say this because incentives are a method by which fate can work. The existence of incentives change the calculus of decisions ex ante. Even in a fully determined world, then, punishment must exist. For even if the world proceeds according to preset laws, like a ticking watch, the structure of incentives is then like the cogs of the watch - affecting how it operates.

The necessity of incentives in any system does beg the question - is such an incentive just? Is it just to punish a criminal if he was 'fated' to have committed the crime? Overlooking the fact that punishment was necessary to dissuade untold numbers of other would-be criminals, is it right to punish the actual criminal? Does the appearance of freedom of action make positive or negative incentives right? These are not easy questions.

Diogenes Laertius writes, "The story goes that Zeno was flogging a slave for stealing. 'I was fated to steal', said the slave. 'And to be flogged', was Zeno's reply."

Thursday, April 5, 2012

On Studying Military History

I've never really been interested in military history. It's not that the subject matter itself isn't interesting, it's more that I haven't ever seen the utility of such studies. I do enjoy history, so of course military history has always been interesting as far as that goes. But as it pertains to my career - would a business executive derive much from reading business history?

I've lately been reading The Ghosts of Cannae, by Robert L. O'Connell. Besides presenting an interesting and well-written look at the Second Punic War, specifically the battle at Cannae, and also driving home to me how to pronounce the Latin -ae, the book has also made me a bit more interested in reading more military history. The attention paid to the personal virtues and vices of the major players in the war, as well as their individual decisions on the battlefield, presents many similarities to those I might see today.

I realize enormous land battles share few common aspects with modern submarine warfare. Hannibal's troop positioning at Cannae will undoubtedly contribute nothing to my own tactical competence. But a careful study of why and how he arrived at those decisions might. Examining his thought process, his education, and his personality would certainly be a useful endeavor. 

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Cultural Consumption

I have noticed that no philosophy, to my knowledge, places much importance in embracing humanity. I don't mean acknowledging rights, but rather immersing oneself in the tapestry of mankind. I think this could easily be extended to, or derived from, a devotion to study of natural philosophy. Human achievements are as much a part of the world at present as volcanoes are - why do they warrant any less enthusiastic study?

Since my senior year in college, I have been returning to classical, and sometimes just important, fiction. I read the Odyssey, and the Shahnameh, and The Gallic Wars. Perhaps a few others. Graduation put a small stop to it, but I've returned recently. Yet, I wonder why I read these works of fiction. I believe there is some truth in everything, something to be gained in everything. But admittedly, fiction isn't the most efficient road to self-achievement. I could be racing through philosophy books, and perhaps even writing my own. I could develop expertise in a subject or two. But I don't.

I feel as though classical fiction, the stories that have been in print for hundreds or thousands of years, shape our consciousness. They are a handbook to being a person, to existing as people do. It's similar to reading anthropological studies or histories; a difference of degree, not of kind. Philosophy seems to have overlooked this important duty - to not only act correctly, and study correctly, but know what oneself is. To be conscious of the framework around us, which produces and sustains us.

The last few weeks have seen me complete, in order, Bouvard and Pecuchet by Flaubert, Brave New World by Huxley, A Room With A View by Forster, and currently Dune by Herbert. Each of these books is different and offers a new insight into how people should, or at least do, act. A new perspective. The consumption of culture is my name for it, and I mean it positively.

I read these books with the cognizance that care must be kept not to stray, or justify wastes of time. I can't claim I don't watch worthless TV shows or read snuff sometimes, but there must be a distinction between why The Odyssey is a cultural achievement, and why The Simpsons is not. I admit that must development is called for along this line of thinking.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Stoic Determinism 2

Origen, On Principles - "Ensouled things are moved 'by' themselves when an impression occurs within them which calls forth an impulse . . . A rational animal, however, in addition to its impressionistic nature, has reason which passes judgment on impressions, rejecting some of these and accepting others, in order that the animal may be guided accordingly."

Alexander, On Aristotle's Prior Analytics - "They hold that after the conflagration all the same things recur in the world numerically, so that even the same peculiarly qualified individual as before exists and comes to be again in that world, as Chrysippus says."

One of these things is not like the other. Men are rational, and can decide whether or not to assent to impressions. At the very least, we can choose the impulse that is derived from an impression. Yet, somehow, the eternal recurrence of the universe will produce the exact same situation, infinitely. If a given set of starting points produces identical intermediate points, then obviously the decision has been taken out of man's hands. Our 'reason' is no more than a complex set of instincts and natural programming - far to complex for us to understand, but necessarily obedient to a higher order, a mathematical explanation. Perhaps the Stoics themselves were unaware of how deterministic some of their beliefs were.

On Indivisibility

The chapter on 'continuum' in Stoic thought brought up many interesting paradoxes. I should note that the Stoics rejected the atomism of Epicureans - that the physical world consisted of indivisible quanta, the building blocks of everything. To a certain extent the Epicureans were vindicated by modern science. But the Stoic continuum, if only applied conceptually, still raises important questions.

Which contains more parts, a body or a finger? The simple answer is the body, for it comprises ten fingers plus much more. But a finger contains infinitely many parts. Even considering the modern scientific understand, a finger can still be conceptually divided into infinitely many parts. The body can be likewise divided. So then, a body and a finger have the same number of parts. Or at least, they are both comprised of infinitely many parts. Obviously this conflicts with our empirical understanding of both things.

What is a limit? The Stoics held it was incorporeal, a mere construct of the mind. The Epicureans were free to envision it as the boundary between atoms, a plane dividing the atoms of one thing from the atoms of another. The importance of this argument is somewhat different today. Take the smallest, most indivisible thing we can postulate. To my knowledge, this would be the single string in string theory; it is the smallest thing that can exist, and nothing can occur at any length shorter than the string's length, for the string has no parts which may interact. Yet, how can a string border another string? Obviously, a whole cannot border a whole. Conceptually it is obvious that a part of the string must border a part of a second string. But how can this be if both are indivisible?

Take a cone and cut it horizontally. Examine the two new surfaces you have created, the upper and lower surfaces that define your cut. Are they equal in magnitude? For if they are, when does the cone change its breadth? If they are not equal in magnitude, the cone was never continuous, but was only planes of material stacked atop one another. The modern understanding of atoms has effectively nullified this argument, but I haven't thought of this before.

Finally, a corollary to Zeno's famous distance paradox. It is clear that when a runner completes a lap around the track, he cannot have run the distance at once. It is obvious to us that it was broken into divisions - one foot was completed, then another, and so on until the lap was completed. But why only divide to a foot? For any distance, however small, can be divided infinitely. First the first inch of the track must be traversed. But wait, now the first micrometer of the track must be traversed. But how can the runner travel even one micrometer, if he has not completed the first half-micrometer? And so on. All motion, conceptually, is hindered by an infinite regression of ever-smaller first distances. When I was studying aeronautics in college, I once had to write a basic computer program which used differential equations. For velocity to increase from zero, acceleration must be infinite - any change from zero to a nonzero number involves an infinite rate of change over a short enough time scale. We of course used constants and workarounds to make the program work - but how does nature really work? For infinite acceleration cannot occur. But if acceleration were to suddenly increase from zero to non-zero, then the derivative of acceleration would be infinite. This, too, is infinitely regressive.

It is a wonder physics works at all.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

The Limit of the Universe

Stoic dogma holds that location can be divided into two categories - 'place' and 'void'. It is a bit more nuanced than that, but that distinction suffices. Place is finite and is the three-dimensional space in which matter subsists. Void is also three-dimensional, but infinite, and by definition contains nothing. The world, which for Stoics was everything, exists in 'place'. Outside of the world is an infinite void, within which there is nothing.

Obviously, astronomy has revealed the existence of matter outside of the world. I consider the Stoic view to be somewhat strange even for their time, as they must have realized the sun and stars existed far away from the world. But, I didn't live back then, so who knows. In any case, we are still presented with the same dilemma today, only in the location of the boundary has been pushed back. The accepted theory of the cosmos is that the Big Bang occurred 13 billions years ago and change, and the universe has been expanding ever since. But, what exists outside that ever-expanding wave of the first bits of matter? More to the point - what is the universe  expanding into? The Stoics conceived of a philosophical quandary that is still unresolved more than two thousand years later. For that, they deserve some credit.

Stoic Principles of Matter

The Stoics split the universe into the 'whole', consisting of the physical world we live on, and 'void', an infinite expanse outside of our world. The two of them collectively comprised the 'all'. The known world was then divided into matter and logos, or God. The Stoic god was conceived as a characteristic of matter common to all matter - it is what makes matter peculiarly qualified. This is a roundabout manner of explaining how substance can be peculiarly qualified, and why all matter is peculiarly qualified. Note that Calcidius, who I haven't heard of it, confirms my belief that no bit of matter could possibly be without peculiar characteristics - such is the result of the twinning of matter and logos.

Sextus Empiricus makes an interesting side argument, however. Matter can be either self-moving, or moved by another power. The basis for scientific thought is that all actions have causes - all matter is moved by another power. Since imagining a universe that solely consists of passive matter would lead to an endless regression of higher order causes, there must be a power which is self-moving. If that self-moving power were of a finite length of time, some higher order power must cause it to start. Hence, "the power which moves matter and guides it in due order into generations and changes is everlasting. So this power would be [G]od."