The Difficulties of Staying Informed

It is very difficult sometimes to gain access to relevant primary documents. Take, for example, the case of Genarlow Wilson. He is a 21-year old serving a 10-year sentence for aggravated child molestation. On June 11, 2007 a judge released him from that sentence. Here is what I know and what I would like to know:

Several media organizations reported the following quotations by Judge Thomas Wilson, who issued the ruling:

• "The fact that Genarlow Wilson has spent two years in prison for what is now classified as a misdemeanor, and without assistance from this Court, will spend eight more years in prison, is a grave miscarriage of justice."
• "If this court or any court cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish ... justice being served in a fair and equal manner."

These are strong claims by the judge (who is not related to the defendant). I would like to read the rest of the ruling, however, but it can't be found online. This is the first challenge in being fully informed about the case.

There is one other challenge: a video was relevant in this case. It features graphic detail about the crime committed at a new year's eve party in 2003. Apparently it shows Wilson having sex with one woman and oral sex with another. The conviction was for the oral sex -- a total of ten years solely for fellatio.

This seems excessive, right? I'm sure many people are thinking that no one deserves to serve 10 years in prison without possibility of parole merely for having oral sex with a minor. But that can't be the whole story. I need to (1) read the judge's ruling, and (2) see the video in order to have an opinion about the justice of this sentence.

Unfortunately, these materials are not available online. So what to do? Media organizations are not willing to post these materials, so it is impossible to use news organizations as a way to be fully informed in this case. One might think that is the responsibility of news organizations, but they don't see it that way. They think their job is to filter the raw news for those of us not smart enough to go to the original sources.

Where does this leave me? Without an opinion, actually. I can't decide whether Genarlow Wilson should be serving 10 years, or whether Judge Wilson's order was appropriate. The vast majority of news readers will jump on the bandwagon and agree with dismissal of the sentence, but their positions will likely be ill-informed: hardly anyone will have read Judge Wilson's ruling and seen the relevant video.

This single case is not an anomaly. It is common for news organizations to fail their readers/viewers in these sorts of cases. Rarely do we see primary sources linked to stories, making it very difficult to stay informed.

Of course, most people will not want to see the video or read the ruling, but they will still express an opinion about the case. I dismiss them, however. You can't have an opinion on something without seeing all of the relevant evidence. Unfortunately, this makes up the vast majority of news readers/viewers. They are too quick to form opinions based on a 300-word news story alone.

A basic principle needs to be applied here: Shut up unless you know what you're talking about. To the press, I would say: you're either being lazy by failing to post additional resources, or you're assuming your readers/viewers are lazy. Both positions are unsupportable.

Should Incest Be Legal?

A Time Magazine story from April of 2007. It summarizes some of the state laws in areas of personal sexuality (incest, the sale of sex toys, sodomy, prostitution, same-sex marriage, and others).

The link: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1607322,00.html.

Stunting a Child's Growth on Purpose

The issue question in this case could be stated as follows: "Were Ashley's best interests served by the stunting surgery?"

Here's the story:

• AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070105/ap_on_he_me/stunted_daughter
• BBC (contains comments as well as a brief story): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6230045.stm

Insurance Payments to the Unborn

A recent story from Alberta, Canada. The essential (and confusing) facts are as follows:

• Woman gets into a car accident while pregnant.
• Her fetus/future daughter suffers severe injuries in the crash, which was the woman's fault.
• Alberta law allows children to sue their parents for damage caused during pregnancy. So, the woman sues herself in order to recover benefits for her daughter. The woman wins, meaning she loses and her insurance company must pay benefits to the winner (the mother, acting on behalf of her daughter).
• The insurance company pays out benefits to the child.

Banning Smoking Around Minors

Several laws have been passed recently that restrict smoking around children in enclosed spaces (cars, sometimes even homes). This law took effect in early 2007. Here's a story on other smoking bans around the nation.

Partial-Birth Abortions

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to decide the partial-birth abortion issue yet again. See here for the story.

Quotation

A few people recently inquired into the usefulness of neatly parsing
through the use of the English language. Ryle's argument in the
textbook is an argument about the use of concepts, and his point is
that some of the concepts we use in the philosophy of mind only exist
because of errors we make in the use of language.

To the extent that he is right, however, a few of you have questioned
whether there's any point to the discussion. At several junctures
during today's discussion, the challenge of elucidating the point of it
all was laid at my feet. It seemed that some of you were simply
saying: "OK, so we misuse language. So Ryle is right. So what, though?
Why is this important?"

It occurs to me that the following quotation is applicable:

"A sharpened awareness of words sharpens our perception of the
phenomena." -- J.L. Austin

Austin's statement can be rephrased as follows: a keen understanding of
the way we use words is helpful to an understanding of reality itself.

This is not to say that all we need to do to understand reality is to
understand our use of language. However, a clear understanding of the
use of words helps us see how our concepts can be flawed, confused, or
contradictory.

Philosophy of Mind--Resources

A few links in this field of philosophy:

• First, a bibliography: http://consc.net/biblio.html
• Wikipedia's Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mind
• A list of links from the Open Directory Project (DMOZ): http://dmoz.org/Society/Philosophy/Philosophy_of_Mind/
• The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Page: http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V038
• A page on the Turing Test: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/
• Another links page (some broken links, but a good resource): http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~dey/phil/mind.htm

Descartes' Meditations: The Translation

I neglected to insert the link we'll be using to read the Meditations:

http://faculty.etsu.edu/ottw/Bennett_Descartes.htm

Descartes Resources

There are some good sites seeking to explain Descartes' arguments in the Meditations as well as other works. Begin here for a summary of the Meditation arguments:

• http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/dcarg.htm
• For a deeper analysis of the ontological argument, check here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-ontological/.

Relativity Theory

Check out Einstein's explanation of relativity in the following web-book:

"Relativity: The Special and General Theory" -- http://www.bartleby.com/173/

Overviews of Existentialism

The last section of chapter seven introduces the philosophy of existentialism, if indeed it can even be called a philosophy. While there are many ways to describe it, existentialists have often advanced the following theses:

1. Existence precedes essence: the world's existence comes before the world's meaning.
2. Meaning is introduced by human existence: it is human beings that lend meaning to the world, which in itself lacks all meaningfulness.
3. Absurdity: in keeping with the world's meaninglessness and the human being's need for meaningfulness, the quest for knowledge and meaning is absurd. This absurdity is an essential aspect of human life.
4. Responsibility: given that we ourselves give the world its meaning, we ourselves are wholly responsible for said meaning as well as our own lives. There is no way to escape our essential responsibility.
5. The Death of God: God is dead, and we have killed him/her/it. Hence, we are forced to create ourselves anew in accordance with our own wishes.
6. Nausea: life sucks.

Those are just a few of the major themes. Here are some sites and literary references (much of existentialism is communicated through fiction rather than non-fiction philosophy).

1. A primer on existentialism: http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/exist.html
2. Jean-Paul Sartre (perhaps the most famous existentialist)--A biography: http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/sart.htm.
3. Friedrich Nietzsche (one of the major precursors to existentialism)--A biography: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/.
4. "Notes from the Underground"--Perhaps the clearest fiction introduction to existentialism ever written (by Dostoevsky): http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/DosNote.html.
5. A resource page for Albert Camus, another great existentialist fiction writer (author of "The Stranger," "The Plague," "The Fall," and other major texts: http://www.levity.com/corduroy/camus.htm.

Angels v Yankees

Here's my argument. I couldn't work the boxes into the diagram, so it might look like it's hanging loose.

 

Conclusion: The Yankees will lose to the Angels tonight.

 

Premise 1: The Angels have a better bullpen.

Premise 2: The Angels have a better defense.

Premise 3: In the playoffs, teams with better bullpens and defense always win.

 

1.      The Angels have a better bullpen.

a.       The quality of a bullpen is measured by the number of quality innings it can deliver.

b.      The Yankees can deliver up to three quality innings in any one game if Gordon and Rivera are available.

c.       The Angels can deliver up to four quality innings if Shields and Escobar are available.

d.      Shields and Escobar are available tonight for the Angels.

2.      The Angels have a better defense.

a.       The quality of a defense is measured by the number of errors it commits. The smaller the number of errors, the better the defense.

b.      The Angels committed 87 errors this season.

c.       The Yankees committed 95 errors this season.

3.      In the playoffs, teams with better bullpens and defense always win.

a.       Good pitching and good defense beat good hitting; therefore, even teams with good hitting will be beaten by those with good pitching and defense.

b.      The playoffs feature teams with the best pitching and defense.

 

The Angels will defeat the Yankees tonight.

The Angels have a better bullpen.

The Angels have a better defense.

Teams with better defenses and bullpens win in the playoffs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Free Will and Determinism Arguments

Here are a few (brief) argument outlines on free will and determinism. I think you'll notice that the essential point of difference between the two positions lies in the definition of freedom.

Determinism Argument:  

1. P1: All events have causes.
2. P2: Decisions are events.
3. P3: Decisions have causes.
4. P4: That which is caused cannot be freely chosen.
5. P5: Free will depends on the ability of individuals to choose freely.
6. C: There is no free will.

Free Will Argument:  

1. P1: Free will depends on the ability of individuals to choose between alternatives.
2. P2: The ability to choose between alternatives requires the existence of at least two alternatives at all times.
3. P3: Individuals are always able to choose between at least two alternatives.
4. C: There is free will.

For additional resources on FW and Determinism, check out the following:

• "Does Free Will Exist?" -- http://members.aol.com/plweiss1/freewill.htm
• Wikipedia's page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will
• The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy "Free Will" entry: http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014
• Ted Honderich's "Determinism and Freedom Philosophy Page" -- http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwIntroIndex.htm
• Causal Determinism (elaborates on the premise that every event has a cause): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/

There are tons of additional offline resources as well. Let me know if you're interested in reading some papers on these issues.

John Conway's Game of Life

I mentioned this in class today: http://www.tech.org/~stuart/life/life.html.

The Onion at Dartmouth

An Onion Story:

• http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40984

Stupid Sheep

Thanks to Allison M. for this story:

450 Turkish Sheep Leap to Their Deaths
Friday, July 08, 2005

ISTANBUL, Turkey — First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to
graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish
media reported.

In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who
jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned, Aksam reported.

"There's nothing we can do. They're all wasted," Nevzat Bayhan, a member of one of 26 families whose sheep were
grazing together in the herd, was quoted as saying by Aksam. The estimated loss to families in the town of Gevas (search), located in Van province (search) in eastern Turkey, tops $100,000, a significant amount of money in a country where average GDP (search) per head is around $2,700.

"Every family had an average of 20 sheep," Aksam quoted another villager, Abdullah Hazar as saying. "But now only a
few families have sheep left. It's going to be hard for us."  

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,161949,00.html

Intelligent Design

Here's the latest legal battle over evolution and intelligent design: http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/09/23/life.evolution.reut/index.html.

Trippy Head Portraits

I mentioned this painting in one or two classes the other day. It's
haunting, to say the least:

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/munch/munch.scream.jpg.

Here's another crazy head portrait with a similar feel, this time by
Francis Bacon:
http://members.tripod.com/~pinkfreudian/at/headvi49.html.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

This is IMDB.com's page on the film:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0248845/.