What I’ve Learned About Myself Playing Poker

I started playing poker about two years ago. If it has any appeal for you, don't be shy; get to a table near you -- or a good poker sim with good AI (I'm using WSOP 2008) -- and enjoy! You'll learn a fun game – a combination of things you can control and things you can't (just like real life) – that will also teach you a lot about how you react to things you can't control and about your style of handling the things you can.

That shouldn't come as a surprise, really; you're sense of life is bound to show in everything you do.

I imagine everyone knows the bit about knowing when to fold and when to hold. But I've learned even more from learning when to raise. You see, raising is not about the cards you've been dealt. It's about the current position that you're in when you receive that hand and then it's about testing to see what stands in the way of optimally using the cards you've been dealt.

I've learned that I fold too easily, that I back away from confrontation, and that I'm too afraid of losing to win. Boy has that changed!

So, if we should ever meet on line, in a card room, or at OCON (My handle is Knowhen43) I'll be glad to play a game or two where you can find out from personal experience what I've learned from playing poker.

AF

Not by Splitting Hairs on ARCHNy’s Thin Chin

Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature (ARCHN) appears regularly on my Google alert for Ayn Rand.   The author of the site and of a book by the same name is Greg Nyquist. Most of the time I ignore his stuff but I thought it might be an interesting exercise in philosophical detection to get some basic errors Greg Nyquist makes out of the way so if someone stumbles onto this blog they could read a general approach to dealing with material like this.

If you go here or here you can read for yourself the uninformed, un-integrated ravings of a mind so steeped in B. S. that it is hard to know where to begin. In this case the writer is actually David Barnes, writing a summary of Nyquist’s book.  IF you start with the premise that everything this author says of substance about Rand’s philosophy is contradicted by reading it, you won’t be far off the mark.  And if you keep in mind some basic errors, you’ll have a good start.  Stolen concepts, arbitrary assumptions, non sequitur are three of the most common.

Here’s an example.  Turning to the post on “theory of human nature” (the second of the links above) we read what Barnes, speaking for Nyquist, says:

1)    There are two basic conceptions of human nature: utopian and naturalistic. The utopian considers how man “should be”. The naturalist considers how he is. I argue that Rand’s view of human nature is utopian to the core, and her philosophy is a mere rationalization of her romantic notions about how man “should be”.

In an interview with Alvin Toffler, he asked “Do you regard philosophy as the primary purpose of your writing?” Rand replied, “No. My primary purpose is the projection of an ideal man, of man ‘as he might be and ought to be.’ Philosophy is a necessary means to that end.”

To admit that philosophy is a means to some end other than discovering the truth is to admit that one is merely rationalizing one’s existing beliefs. This, in essence, is what Objectivism is all about. And it is in the vast gap between the Randian ideal of Howard Roark or John Galt and real human beings that the rationalistic, utopian nature of her philosophy becomes most striking.

It doesn’t take much to identify what is wrong here.  The core issue is the charge that Objectivism is the rationalization of prior beliefs.  The unanswered question is: where did the beliefs come from?  Were they reasoned conclusions or emotional outpourings?  How do you know?? Is your view nothing more than the rationalization of your prior beliefs?  The evidence presented here – that Rand considers philosophy a means to an end independent of truth – is certainly weak. If one is searching for the model of man at his best so that one can live one’s own life in the same way, surely one is looking for the truth about the nature of such a man.  Indeed if one is looking for truth for no reason, if truth is not at the service of man’s life, what is it in the service of?  What is its value?  

Furthermore, there are no grounds for any belief that “should be” or “ought to be” are utopian or opposed to the way things are or what man is. Nor are there any grounds for the notion that making the search for truth a means to some end makes of the search a rationalization for ones already held beliefs.  This is particularly true in the case of philosophy.  Philosophy is always a means to the end of supporting mans life.  Indeed, it is the glory of philosophy that it is the source of the reminder of how important to man’s life the truth is.

Observe that if my doctor tells me I ought to be losing weight (i. e. I should be lighter) it is because of his already held belief that being overweight is bad for my health, but it is not a rationalization of that belief nor is it utopian; it is a straightforward statement of truth about what I need to do to come closer to the ideally healthy man.  If a reporter should ask my doctor “Do you regard losing weight as the primary purpose of your clinical practice?” and my doctor answered “No. My primary purpose is the ideal health of the people in my care – of healthy human beings as they might be and ought to be.  Losing weight is a necessary means to that end,” no sane commentator would claim that the doctor had abandoned the search for truth.

One might ask Barnes/Nyquist “If philosophy is not a means to any other end but discovering the truth, do you mean that I might find the book of truth hidden in the garage or behind my stored photographs, easily identified with a neatly printed label on the outside?  And do you mean that when I open the book of truth I will find nothing but blank pages inside or that if they are not blank that I will find them to be of absolutely no use to me whatsoever, since using the truth to achieve some end would make it unclean or demote its status to mere prudence?”

This is truth for truth’s sake when the only reason that truth is important at all is man’s life on earth. This is B. S. on stilts! 

If this isn’t bad enough, where does the notion that Rand’s philosophy entails that man has no nature, but creates himself ex nihilo.  I’ll have something to say about this in a future post and you’ll be able to judge for yourself

AF

Democratic Party Day, 2008

It's 7:45 AM PST, Monday, August 25^th, 2008. Do you know where your vote is?

Today is the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. It's a convention only in the sense that supporters of the Democratic Party will convene to celebrate their vision of what this country should become. All the details of the platform may or may not have been hammered out already, but the candidates have been chosen and the general thrust of what that historic document will contain is already known. They call it "change," but as the details are revealed they look like more of the same in principle while the differences are like the different pizzas made at two different restaurants: a matter of taste. The principle involved is the use of force as an instrument of public welfare policy, and the only change is in the specific mix of policies to which force will be applied.

To contemplate the elimination of force as an instrument of public welfare policy is foolish at this point. Consider what would need to be done. You would need a principled citizenry that does not expect the government to provide for "emergencies" much less its every need, and you would need politicians that don't pander and an education establishment that isn't dependent on government money and a Supreme Court that bases its decisions on an objective understanding of the intent of the founders and. . .(fill in here with all the conditions that would have to be satisfied). That having been accomplished, we might get a change that would matter. (If you have access to a good academic library, I recommend Tara Smith's clarifying article on Originalism, published in the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law and Public Policy, 2007, Vol. 2.) To achieve even part of such a principled change will require time and rational argument in an atmosphere that at least nominally accepts reason as the coin of the realm.

If making that change and making it stick for the long term seems difficult in such a relatively pre-disposed culture, consider the difficulty in an atmosphere which accepts faith as the coin of the realm.

Years ago Rand gave a speech, anthologized in Philosophy: Who Needs It, called "Faith and Force, the Destroyers of the Modern World." Faith and Force are the ac tion components of the psycho-epistemological archetypes that she discusses in the title essay of For the New Intellectual: The Witchdoctor and Attila. To put the current situation in the briefest form possible I would say this: Attila has been in control of domestic policy for years. As long as faith was regarded a background personal choice that did not explicitly support the Republican opposition to the use of government force, an ad hoc relationship could be maintained for the purpose of electing the loyal opposition. But that is the Republican Party of my youth.

That relationship can no longer be justified, in my view. Not only has the Republican Party embraced the use of force as an instrument of public welfare policy, there are important domestic issues that are explicitly religious in their support and in the rhetoric that surrounds them: "intelligent design" in the public schools and abortion. Both of these issues are argued now in terms of spiritual values that are clearly religious and that are explicitly viewed as God-ordained, faith-based values in a valueless world created by atheistic communists, socialists and relativists. Thus an explicit call for faith as a guiding principle for life has moved away from a background personal choice. This trend toward faith is now culturally supported to such an extent that it can be source of well-being in a commercial for financial services.

It is vitally important to eliminate faith as a justification for public welfare policy. The positive argument is that faith has wide epistemological reach. It has the power to obliterate the current relatively rational arena for discussion. The negative argument is that force is so entrenched in the public's view of politics that it is the more difficult of the two to abolish from political discourse.

Both the Republicans and the Democrats need to know that religious appeals are grounds for dismissal at the next election. The Republicans, so far, are the most vocal in their evocation of faith.

As it is, I will have to vote, if I vote at all, for a continuation of the status quo. That means, as far as I can see, voting Democratic.

I hope you will join me.

AF

Not Just Higher Education

Gus Van Horn: A Circumscribed Debate discusses the lack of real diversity of opinion in colleges and universities-- supposedly the bastions of open discussion. Mrs. Fan attests to the same situation in the public grade schools as well. The situation surely deserves its own B. S. of the day Award. Consider it done. And don't miss his site and this post. No B.S. there.

The professional revolutionary of books turns 50

The Times of London reported yesterday that the City Lights bookshop and publisher had turned 50 in 2003 and they wanted to make sure it got its proper, on time, recognition for being at the "leading edge" of contemporary literature.

In case you don't know City Lights, it was known as the home of the Beat Generation in North Beach California back in 1958 when 'Howl' by Allen Ginsburg was a poem I liked a lot. The thing I liked about it was that it sure wasn't about the folks next door. But neither were the heroes of Atlas Shrugged, which I read the next year. They were all sober and had ambition, which was like me but not like the folks next door. Well, that was easy.

What wigged me out was that the Times article managed to get a disparaging word in about Ayn Rand.

That satisfies the requirements for B. S. in my book.

And it gives me the opportunity to say that 'Howl' and Ginsburg and all the rest are good when you're young but when I grew up I put away childish things and became an admirer of Ayn Rand.

Blow Hard

It's a new day! It's a new blog! Feelin' good!

They say that s@%t happens. Sometimes it seems that when it rains it pours. And there is not, repeat not, necessarily a pony in every pile. It is not always all good.

But today I just started and look how much B. S. I've already blown away!

Life is good.

Here's my promise to you. I will blow as hard as I can to rid the world of as much of the horse manure that it contains as humanly possible. And I will bring for your consideration as much as I can of things that I love -- the things that have provided a space to breathe amongst all the B. S.

Here's a start.   The Overture to Candide by Leonard Bernstein is a wonderful evocation of both a world gone mad and a breath of fresh air.  Enjoy.

'Til the next time.

AF

P. S. All of you capitalist pigs out there. Be prepared. It ain't going to be pretty.