1. Regarding yesterday's reading of Book IV of Plato's Republic: It was discussed in class today. Apparently, there are two classes, the guardians and the moneymakers, with the former being subdivided into the rulers (philosopher-kings) and the auxiliaries (soldiers), working together to protect the people and the laws.
2. "oo7 Racing" for the Playstation doesn't contain any racing, nor does it deserve to be called a game.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
What I Learned Today #1
The first of what will hopefully be a daily installment of various anecdotes about the stuff going on around me.
1. One of the classes I'm taking this semester is an anthropology class entitled "Human Evolution". So far it's mostly been a mixture of the basics of anthropology and the basics of evolutionary biology. Today, we had our first test (it was easy). Now, before the test began, most of the students were getting in some last-minute studying, alone or by talking to each other (I believe I was singing the theme song of Yu Yu Hakusho in my head, or something like that). I happen (read: purposely eavesdropped) to overhear the guy behind me talking to the girl next to him. Apparently, he doesn't "believe" in natural selection.
WTF?
First of all, how the hell do you take a class called "Human Evolution" without accepting the existence of one of the four main forces of the process the class is concerned with, much less the one that is most closely associated with the process of evolution? Why did he even sign up for the class? Did he seriously think this course wasn't going to be about how humans evolved? Did he think that it was going to be a course that just attacked the idea of human evolution? because that sure as hell wasn't in the course description.
Second of all, natural selection isn't something that people just believe in, akin to "I believe in Santa Claus" or "I believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior". It's a theory, and like all theories it has a shit-ton of evidence to back it up. Hell, this was covered in the fucking readings for the course! Honestly, this sort of thing astounds me.
2. The word "blog" sounds awful, especially when said aloud multiple times in close succession during a tutorial about how to make one.
3. Watching your friends play a BESM campaign can be very boring when all they're doing is screwing around while trying to wake eachother's characters up and you're waiting for a call from your ride home. Also, BESM shouldn't be played in rooms with bad acoustics.
1. One of the classes I'm taking this semester is an anthropology class entitled "Human Evolution". So far it's mostly been a mixture of the basics of anthropology and the basics of evolutionary biology. Today, we had our first test (it was easy). Now, before the test began, most of the students were getting in some last-minute studying, alone or by talking to each other (I believe I was singing the theme song of Yu Yu Hakusho in my head, or something like that). I happen (read: purposely eavesdropped) to overhear the guy behind me talking to the girl next to him. Apparently, he doesn't "believe" in natural selection.
WTF?
First of all, how the hell do you take a class called "Human Evolution" without accepting the existence of one of the four main forces of the process the class is concerned with, much less the one that is most closely associated with the process of evolution? Why did he even sign up for the class? Did he seriously think this course wasn't going to be about how humans evolved? Did he think that it was going to be a course that just attacked the idea of human evolution? because that sure as hell wasn't in the course description.
Second of all, natural selection isn't something that people just believe in, akin to "I believe in Santa Claus" or "I believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior". It's a theory, and like all theories it has a shit-ton of evidence to back it up. Hell, this was covered in the fucking readings for the course! Honestly, this sort of thing astounds me.
2. The word "blog" sounds awful, especially when said aloud multiple times in close succession during a tutorial about how to make one.
3. Watching your friends play a BESM campaign can be very boring when all they're doing is screwing around while trying to wake eachother's characters up and you're waiting for a call from your ride home. Also, BESM shouldn't be played in rooms with bad acoustics.
lol 1st
Ah, my debut to the blogoblogosphereoblog, and with a title that rather fails to capture the essence of what this blog will (probably...possibly...hopefully...) turn out to be: just a collection of my thoughts on the stuff I encounter during the day, mostly at school.
For those (read: nobody) who are wondering what the title is about, nonrandom mating is one of the processes by which the allele frequencies within the gene pool of a population of organisms can be made to change over time aka evolve. Those of you with enough biological sense about you may recall the conditions for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Those without are probably sitting there with their eyes beginning to glaze over, their hands and fingers ready to whisk their eyes away from this place of mine.
Anyway. Substance. One of the things I plan on using this blog for is a place to post my reactions to the stuff I have to read as part of my schoolwork, and all you lucky folks reading this will have the pleasure of reading the first such exercise. The first reading is for my Ancient Philosophy class: Book IV of Plato's Republic, found between pages 206 and 217 in The Longman Standard History of Ancient Philosophy, 2006 edition.
First observation: Having not read the previous books in the Republic makes understanding it a bit tougher. But Plato (or rather, Plato writing as Socrates) seems to be arguing that the guardians of a community need to do their job even if it doesn't make them 'happy', because by doing so it makes the community better as a whole. By 'happy', I mean the sort of happiness that is brought about by a life of luxury and leisure, which is exactly the sort of life you wouldn't think a guardian would have. Definitely seems more of a 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few' type of thing.
Second observation: These 'guardians' are apparently supposed to be the rulers of this fictional society, which fits with what I remember being discussed in the last class session. Basically, to prevent corruption and greed and such, the rulers don't get access to luxuries like gold and silver, which ties in with my first observation.
Third observation: Since, according to Plato/Socrates the 'guardians' are the only section of the society that can be said to possess true wisdom, I'm going to predict that they will also be the only ones to possess the other three values that he is looking for (courage, self-discipline, and morality/justice).
Fourth observation: The definition of 'courage' seems a tad odd to me. Maybe it's just the wording? It seems to be defined as something along the lines of "knowing what to fear at all times, regardless of what happens", although I may be off. having typed that out, I think I understand it better.
Fifth observation: Looks like I was wrong, self-discipline is a characteristic of the entire fictional community. Actually, it looks like I was wrong about courage, too: I confused the guardians and the militia. And morality/justice is another community-spanner, it appears...
Sixth observation: It seems that it is disastrous for a community if those in the military class try to enter the ruling class, or the working class tries to enter the military class, and such...on one hand, I agree that the military shouldn't be running the government, but I don't really get the other stuff...well, unless you look at it using something like big business as a proxy for the working class, then it makes more sense...so, is he advocating free market or socialism?
Seventh observation: I can sort of see the connection between wisdom/courage/self-discipline and rationality/passion/desire, but at the same time I feel that desire gets the short end of the stick in the analogy, as self-discipline, rather than being an extension of it, is basically the combined effort of rationality and passion to tame it. At the same time, however, I can't really think of a better way to explain individual morality using Plato's method used in this book.
With that bit out of the way, I want to go back to the free market vs socialism question. On one hand, I want to say that having the ruling class not interfere with the working class would naturally lead to a free market, but the more I think, the more I think that isn't the case. After all, is it not the job of the ruling class, the guardians, to protect the community and its laws? Would that not also include protections against those in the working class who wish to exploit the community for its own gains? Perhaps the proper way to look at the government-business relationship is that neither should explicitly try to run/influence the other. This obviously makes lobbyists and other who try to use their wealth to influence governmental policy that bad guys. It also means, I believe, that the rulers shouldn't be the ones making money in the business world. But that's just what I think.
For those (read: nobody) who are wondering what the title is about, nonrandom mating is one of the processes by which the allele frequencies within the gene pool of a population of organisms can be made to change over time aka evolve. Those of you with enough biological sense about you may recall the conditions for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Those without are probably sitting there with their eyes beginning to glaze over, their hands and fingers ready to whisk their eyes away from this place of mine.
Anyway. Substance. One of the things I plan on using this blog for is a place to post my reactions to the stuff I have to read as part of my schoolwork, and all you lucky folks reading this will have the pleasure of reading the first such exercise. The first reading is for my Ancient Philosophy class: Book IV of Plato's Republic, found between pages 206 and 217 in The Longman Standard History of Ancient Philosophy, 2006 edition.
First observation: Having not read the previous books in the Republic makes understanding it a bit tougher. But Plato (or rather, Plato writing as Socrates) seems to be arguing that the guardians of a community need to do their job even if it doesn't make them 'happy', because by doing so it makes the community better as a whole. By 'happy', I mean the sort of happiness that is brought about by a life of luxury and leisure, which is exactly the sort of life you wouldn't think a guardian would have. Definitely seems more of a 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few' type of thing.
Second observation: These 'guardians' are apparently supposed to be the rulers of this fictional society, which fits with what I remember being discussed in the last class session. Basically, to prevent corruption and greed and such, the rulers don't get access to luxuries like gold and silver, which ties in with my first observation.
Third observation: Since, according to Plato/Socrates the 'guardians' are the only section of the society that can be said to possess true wisdom, I'm going to predict that they will also be the only ones to possess the other three values that he is looking for (courage, self-discipline, and morality/justice).
Fourth observation: The definition of 'courage' seems a tad odd to me. Maybe it's just the wording? It seems to be defined as something along the lines of "knowing what to fear at all times, regardless of what happens", although I may be off. having typed that out, I think I understand it better.
Fifth observation: Looks like I was wrong, self-discipline is a characteristic of the entire fictional community. Actually, it looks like I was wrong about courage, too: I confused the guardians and the militia. And morality/justice is another community-spanner, it appears...
Sixth observation: It seems that it is disastrous for a community if those in the military class try to enter the ruling class, or the working class tries to enter the military class, and such...on one hand, I agree that the military shouldn't be running the government, but I don't really get the other stuff...well, unless you look at it using something like big business as a proxy for the working class, then it makes more sense...so, is he advocating free market or socialism?
Seventh observation: I can sort of see the connection between wisdom/courage/self-discipline and rationality/passion/desire, but at the same time I feel that desire gets the short end of the stick in the analogy, as self-discipline, rather than being an extension of it, is basically the combined effort of rationality and passion to tame it. At the same time, however, I can't really think of a better way to explain individual morality using Plato's method used in this book.
With that bit out of the way, I want to go back to the free market vs socialism question. On one hand, I want to say that having the ruling class not interfere with the working class would naturally lead to a free market, but the more I think, the more I think that isn't the case. After all, is it not the job of the ruling class, the guardians, to protect the community and its laws? Would that not also include protections against those in the working class who wish to exploit the community for its own gains? Perhaps the proper way to look at the government-business relationship is that neither should explicitly try to run/influence the other. This obviously makes lobbyists and other who try to use their wealth to influence governmental policy that bad guys. It also means, I believe, that the rulers shouldn't be the ones making money in the business world. But that's just what I think.
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