Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Thought experiment
What little I know of modern philisophy - gleaned from those essays passing as reviews in the TLS - does not impress. A bunch of clever people peering into each others' (unwashed) ears looking for the error in the latest proof of the theorem concerning the beginning of all things. However, I quite like thought experiments which might just about qualify, prompted by the book I am reading on the Armenian massacres, mentioned a few days ago.
Suppose I have a prize dandelion in my garden. Suppose also that the king of a country some thousand miles away has announced that he will kill a hundred thousand of his subjects if I cut the dandelion down. Who is guilty when I cut down the dandelion? This is prompted in turn by an argument which appears to be saying that the Western powers behaved rather irresponsibly with regard to Turkey, as a result of which the Armenians got massacred. Therefore, the guilt really rests with the Western powers. The book leaves this charge implicit but it is clearly there.
The experiment would get more complicated if the king set up a satellite from which the dandelion could be observed 24 hours a day and wired in a trip mechanism that nuked the Armenians when the satellite detected absence of dandelion.
BH made an interesting observation this morning. The charectars who make policy in the Blair bunker are not all control freaks; some of them are just spin doctors. So when a bit of diversion from bad news is needed or when the government wants to look busy (which it seems to think is what the electorate want (maybe they are right)) , they find a new minority sport to make illegal. So according to today's DT they are going to get stuck into the 20% or so of adults who abuse alcohol. What happened to the liberal society that we are supposed to belong to?
Which reminds of of a trap that control freaks - in all fields of endeavour - can fall into. If you want to stop something happening you make it illegal and think that your job is done - without really attending to whatever it is that is making the something happen. Net result is we are all breaking lots of rules lots of the time and the rule book is brought into disrepute. Serious weakening of civil society. Quack, quack. Move over the Guardian, the bloggers are coming.
Down at the allotment was struck the other evening by a very happy view of the small sycamore tree at the bottom of allotment number one. It is about 10 feet high and its hanging clusters of fruits - the winged parchute things - are just starting to ripen with the wings starting to turn a really handsome red colour, constrasting well with the light green of the early summer leaves. Very conspicuous in a small tree without all that much foliage. All in all quite special in the evening light.
Suppose I have a prize dandelion in my garden. Suppose also that the king of a country some thousand miles away has announced that he will kill a hundred thousand of his subjects if I cut the dandelion down. Who is guilty when I cut down the dandelion? This is prompted in turn by an argument which appears to be saying that the Western powers behaved rather irresponsibly with regard to Turkey, as a result of which the Armenians got massacred. Therefore, the guilt really rests with the Western powers. The book leaves this charge implicit but it is clearly there.
The experiment would get more complicated if the king set up a satellite from which the dandelion could be observed 24 hours a day and wired in a trip mechanism that nuked the Armenians when the satellite detected absence of dandelion.
BH made an interesting observation this morning. The charectars who make policy in the Blair bunker are not all control freaks; some of them are just spin doctors. So when a bit of diversion from bad news is needed or when the government wants to look busy (which it seems to think is what the electorate want (maybe they are right)) , they find a new minority sport to make illegal. So according to today's DT they are going to get stuck into the 20% or so of adults who abuse alcohol. What happened to the liberal society that we are supposed to belong to?
Which reminds of of a trap that control freaks - in all fields of endeavour - can fall into. If you want to stop something happening you make it illegal and think that your job is done - without really attending to whatever it is that is making the something happen. Net result is we are all breaking lots of rules lots of the time and the rule book is brought into disrepute. Serious weakening of civil society. Quack, quack. Move over the Guardian, the bloggers are coming.
Down at the allotment was struck the other evening by a very happy view of the small sycamore tree at the bottom of allotment number one. It is about 10 feet high and its hanging clusters of fruits - the winged parchute things - are just starting to ripen with the wings starting to turn a really handsome red colour, constrasting well with the light green of the early summer leaves. Very conspicuous in a small tree without all that much foliage. All in all quite special in the evening light.
# posted by Jim @ 4:57 AM 
