Fugato

<sigh> … not another one on astrology?   : )

Not really. This time I’m dissing an opponent of astrology.

A recent comment on one of my (already too many) posts on this wretched subject pointed out this article as recommended reading for those still afflicted with astrological beliefs.

To put it mildly, that article does not impress me much. It seems — like Vefþjóðviljinn often, and generally the work of anyone carried away by their pride in their convictions — to be written to amuse people who already agree with the stated conclusion, rather than to convince those who don’t. That’s failed writing, if the intent was to accomplish anything beyond idle entertainment.

For example, the article states the intended conclusion in advance, with the words:

“I wanted to put that first, just so we’re clear, and to make sure you’re paying attention. I’ll repeat it later, too.”

Ha ha. This accomplishes nothing; it just expresses the author’s angry disrespect for the reader, alienates him, and eliminates any hopes he might have of the piece being written with an open mind — the attribute on which practitioners of science pride themselves most. Any astrology-enamored reader who values his own time will think “life’s too short” and go read something else — or, at best, read the rest of the text with a closed, locked and bolted mind.

The author then tries to discuss astrology in the language of physics, invoking forces and measurements and great big strides of ostensible logic. What a failure. Astrology is mysticism. It offers the same gratification as elves and ghosts and magnetized bracelets: excitement, romance, an escape from the (perceived) drab wretchedness of reality. Its adherents do not share the author’s need to fit it into any frame of physics. You might as well try to convince a mugger not to take your money by discussing Immanuel Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. Go ahead and blather about your categorical imperatives and your maxims, see if he cares. You are not speaking his language.

Why bother trying to influence a mind while making no attempt — none whatsoever! — to understand the workings of that mind?

The author goes on to define no less than “the worst thing in the world: uncritical thinking.” Wow. The “worst thing in the world” turns out to be so simple. Who knew! It is hardly in the spirit of science to spout such broad, hyperbolic definitions, but even worse is the irony of the author’s own work being so ill-thought-out. Where is his critical thinking about his own work? “The emperor has no clothes!” he proudly shouts, butt-naked himself. And the emperor is a nudist by lifestyle and doesn’t give a damn.

Remarkable that an article written to win hearts and minds for “good” science could be so utterly bereft of all the elements that make science “good”: an open, calm, humble mind, critical thinking about goals and methods, and at least some tiny inkling of accomplishment at the end.

[And don't think you'll catch me out on the same failures in this blog: I have no goal of convincing anyone, and the audience is whoever wanders in. So I get to be as lax and undisciplined as I feel like. : ) ]

My uncle Jakob has worked many jobs in his life besides his respectable career with the United Nations Centre for Human Rights and as a judge in the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has been a farmer, a schoolteacher, a freelancing columnist, published a book of parodic poetry; all sorts of things.

One of these jobs, long ago, involved writing the responses to “Bréf til Vikunnar,” a Dear-Abby-type personal advice column in an Icelandic weekly called “Vikan” (The Week).

Jakob told me of one letter written by a couple who were in anguish about their collapsing domestic situation: they could not sleep because they had an infant who never slept and cried constantly — for fear of the family cat. The cat was very dear to the couple and all that, and the lack of sleep was driving them bonkers; they were at the end of their tether. What could they do?

His response: “Have you considered getting rid of the baby?”

That marked the end of Jakob’s work on “Bréf til Vikunnar.”

Edison’s phonograph. He may have slowed the pace of linguistic change.

A door just opened on a street –
    I, lost, was passing by –
An instant’s width of warmth disclosed,
    And wealth, and company.

The door as sudden shut, and I,
    I, lost, was passing by, –
Lost doubly, but by contrast most,
    Enlightening misery.

— “Contrast,” by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Note that the rhyme indicates Emily’s pronunciation of “compan-ie” and “miser-ie”.

Occasionally poetr-ie reveals how languages must have been pronounced differently in the past (at least in the dialect of the poet).

But it seems likely to me that only a small portion of such pronunciation changes would happen to be revealed by rhymes. There may be other means of discovering them, but I can imagine that there might have been plenty of such changes, even in recent centuries, that we have no way of knowing about. Right until the invention of audio recording.

And it seems likely to me that that invention made all changes in pronunciation transparent — denying them the veil of time behind which they used to hide. Tending to prevent them.

Does this mean that the pace of language change (at least phonetic change) must have decreased strongly in the last century-and-a-half? Did we technologically freeze our languages? :)

For those who haven’t been to the US for a while, there is now a trend of displaying a ribbon on your car bumper or in other conspicuous places, saying “Support our troops.”

You might think this was supposed to mean “get them the heck home” or “make sure they are only ever deployed for damned good reasons,” but somehow I don’t think that’s the intended message.

There are various ways in which the military suggests you should support your troops, but I suspect there is another message here. I suspect what they really mean is “support our president” but that just has less emotional impact. Or even “support our war” and now that really isn’t going to win anyone over. (I’d give it points for forthrightness though.)

So instead the message is phrased as “support our troops.” The idea is, then, that opposing that war or bad-mouthing your president is the same as letting the troops themselves down — the very same ones who are sacrificing their all for your continued freedom and safety. You lousy ingrate. “Whoops,” goes your subconscious, “better not oppose that war then.”

Posting “support our troops” on your bumper must also be an expression of pride: it implicitly says “well, I sure do.”

So naturally, this ribbon trend sparked a sarcastic counter-trend. That is where this picture is from. I wonder if these are common. Maybe only in New England and California. Anyone ever spot these in the wild?

Careful with that button …

“I am a computer, dumber than any human and smarter than my administrator.”

— Tech Support Slogan

Speaking of eating humble pie … this webserver (running several blogs and several other websites) was out of service for the past 12 hours or so. Why? Because, when I was going to sleep, I casually told my home computer to “shutdown -h now” (where -h means “halt”, i.e. don’t reboot, just turn off) … except that just before doing so, I connected to the webserver to check something … and forgot to disconnect. So I was not talking to my home computer, I was talking to the webserver. Which is located in a closet in a closed-off room in a networking facility somewhere in town that I have no access to.

Whoo-oops!

The lessons: if you log on as root to your webserver, and you want it to stay up, and you have a fallible, human mind, you’ll want to rename that shutdown command to ReallyHonestlyPleaseShutdownAndYesIDoMeanThatEarnestly.

But something good (slightly) must come of this: for the anxious, here is a Windows batch file (first I start working in Marketing and now I’m programming Windows batch files? I see pointy hair in my future) that will keep pinging a given IP address until it gets a response, and then beep. It sets the window title as “down” while it isn’t getting responses, and then as “UP” when it does, so you can just run it in a cmd window and minimize it, and the status will be in your taskbar.

pingandbeepwhenup.bat

Usage: pingandbeepwhenup <IP addr> [timeout in millisecs, default 30000]
Example: pingandbeepwhenup 213.176.151.74

“The Ignorance Map,” by Marlys H. Witte, Ann Kerwin, and Charles L. Witte, The University of Arizona College of Medicine.

I learned from my cousin last night (she brought the topic up by coincidence, she does not read this blog) that my antipathy towards astrology simply stems from not knowing enough about it. She recommended that I read up on real astrology (as opposed to the fortune-cookie-style mumbo-jumbo they print in tiny columns in the newspapers), and claimed that after doing so with an open mind I would inevitably conclude that there was something real to it.

It’s a fair enough point. I like to point out to my ideologically-convinced friends in both the far-left and far-right camps that they do themselves a disservice by reading only the work of those they already agree with; a rightie should seek out the best arguments of the leftists and study them, and vice versa. This is something I believe in rather strongly: keep challenging your assumptions, or your mind will end up stagnant. There is always the chance, however remote, that my take on astrology might fit in one of the areas of “The Ignorance Map” (see image), and if so, then failing to read about it will perpetuate that situation. So my cousin is right to challenge me to read some substantial text on astrology with an open mind.

But I still will not do that.

The reason, of course, is that my time on this planet is limited (can you smell a hint of upcoming-thirtieth-birthday angst? ☺ ) and there is rather a lot to read and acquaint myself with. I have to pick and prioritize according to the estimated personal gain/growth/entertainment to be had in each area I explore. And in that prioritization, astrology inevitably ends up so low on the list that I will almost certainly be dead long before I get to it.

“Ends up low on the list” means sure, I could give it a chance, challenge my assumptions, look for that kernel of truth and wisdom, etc., and it might yield something very interesting for me, but I judge it far less likely to do so than zillions of other things I could spend my time looking for a kernel of truth and wisdom in. Why do I judge it far less likely? Because:

1. while I do not know its details, I do know the overall principle as manifested in “western” astrology (that the positions and motions of stars and planets are significantly correlated with our personalities and the events of our lives), and I find that principle preposterous — a.k.a. fundamentally incompatible with my existing world-view and beliefs. And while radical, abrupt changes in world-view and beliefs do happen in adult life, they do so more often by a loss of mental health than by a gain of wisdom :) so it makes sense to go by the expectation that my world-view will evolve for the most part in baby steps from now on.
2. there are far less astounding explanations for astrology’s prevalence, popularity, and perceived effectiveness, than the idea that there might be real truth in it. When I have a choice of two things to believe, one of them mundane and rather boring, and the other exciting and romantic and mystical … well, obviously my mind wants to believe the latter. My mind is a nifty little bugger, but treacherous: it tends to weigh credibility by desirability. I recommend that you suspect yours of the same!

So I hereby make the conscious decision of staying astrologically ignorant — “life’s too short!” — and in my ignorance, stay vigorously convinced of the invalidity of this field I am ignorant about. :)

And the day the validity of astrology is proven to me — just like the day I die and arrive at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter greets me with the words “well well, somebody must be feeling like a bit of an ass today” — I promise I will gorge myself with humble pie as if it were Malín’s vanilla-and-white-chocolate ice cream (a phenomenon that, by the way, has changed my world-view more than astrology ever will).