You've probably heard someone say that gravity is the curvature of space-time, or that gravity is a result of the curvature of space-time. This is something I can't warp (I mean wrap) my head around. Can you? If you can, please don't say it's on account of the trusty model that's often called upon to explain the mind bending concept. This model has bugged me for quite a while now. It seems intuitive enough at first, until you realize that a model that's being used to explain how gravity is the curvature of space-time, is itself already relying on gravity without explaining how it got there. Here's an image, typical of the the image we're asked to contemplate:
Now, if something is counterintuitive, that doesn't mean it's not true. If a particular way of viewing the universe rewards us with awesome predictive power, we should probably assume, with Hilary Putnam, that there's probably "something right about it." But this model is used to explain a complex concept to laypeople like me. So I, the layperson, can only respond, how is the ball bending space-time? Why is it attracted to the lowest possible space? More to the point, how does the image make this counterintuitive proposition more intelligible to a layperson like me, if not by relying on my intuitive grasp of gravity in the first place!? Some may reply that this is merely a visual metaphor of sorts, and as such, is imperfect. My partial reply is that I agree that it's imperfect. But I also want to protest that if the proposition "the curvature of space-time=gravity" is made no more intuitive by the image, without already relying on our intuitive grasp of the concept of gravity, then what good is the image? The theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, in this article, calls this particular visual metaphor "a scam." What a relief! Thanks to George Johnson for relaying this article and its contents (near the end of this clip) in his discussion with John Horgan on Bloggingheads:
I like thinking about categories, but I'm also struck by things that defy categorization. When presented with something that defies categorization in the typical ways, the right course of action may be to analyze, but it's sometimes irresistible to simply gawk. The irresistible latter cases are what I'm interested in here. In this series, Sui generis, (latin for, roughly, "one of a kind"), I'll pass along things that strike me as better off unanalyzed. I'm inspired by the series "Moment of Zen" at the end of The Daily Show, and in just about every video on the Everything is Terrible website. Many times in this genre, subtle (or not so subtle) mockery is the point. That's not necessarily the case here. It may be that something needs to be mocked, but it also just may be a desire to bask in the many kinds of feelings that can be called "surreal". In entry one, I'm struck by the surreal feeling of how things used to be:
That's Earl Campbell, the large-thighed running back and Heisman Trophy winner from the University of Texas. After college, Campbell played in the NFL for several years, most notably with the then Houston Oilers (now the Tennessee Titans). I grew up hearing his name, as my uncles would speak of his running ability (I was raised on the sports-religion of the Arkansas Razorbacks, who at the time were in the same conference as the University of Texas). The thing about Earl Campbell is you couldn't bring him down; he would run right over you. Back in the early 1980's football coaches implemented training regimes that are viewed, by today's lights, as inefficient. For example, players had to run relatively long distances in training, up to 800 meters or a mile, in spite of the fact that this kind of training doesn't resemble the physical demands of American football. Oilers coach Bum Phillips caught onto this early in the case of Earl Campbell, as he remarked on the fact that Campbell couldn't finish a mile run in training camp, "When it's first and a mile, I won't give it to him."
Unfortunately, Campbell paid the price for his years in football, and is plagued by long term physical problems, at times requiring the use of a wheelchair. One wonders if his bruising style is what ultimately proved too much for his body, and there's debate over whether Bum Phillips' chosen use of Campbell caused or contributed to Campbell's physical deterioration.
One thing's for sure, he was one of the most bruising running backs in football history. Earl Campbell was a figure that was once on top of the football world but precipitously declined. In the video, he was in his glory days, pitching Skoal to the public. And well, that's video gold right there. I'll leave most of subtleties to the viewer, but I can't help but remark that hearing Earl Campbell's transformation of "soulbrother," on behalf of a tobacco company, into "Skoalbrother" is extremely catchy, and I'm not sure whether that's cute, or pernicious, or both.
I recently posted my first entry on this blog, briefly explaining the spirit of the endeavor. Now I'll introduce a series that I hope will appear not infrequently. I'll call it "Shooting Fish In a Barrel." Tyler Cowen, at the amazing blog Marginal Revolution, has series such as "Markets in Everything," "The Culture that is X," (be it Japan, Russia, or wherever), Brad DeLong has a "Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?" series, and so on.
These series enable bloggers to highlight interesting things that fall under the title. The series I'm introducing here allows me to point out my reactions to "duh" moments, moments that reasonable people would agree deserve disapprobation of some sort. I get to express my reaction to something without implying that I'm going out on a limb. You ever been in a class, or seminar, where you knew the answer to a question posed by the professor, but didn't want to answer, because the answer was too easy? In cases like these, the hesitation to answer comes from not wanting to appear as if the issue strikes you as anything other than obvious. Such are the cases of "Shooting Fish In a Barrel." In this series, I'll highlight obvious cases of something gone awry, whether my method of diagnosing what's gone awry is typical or not. To get started, take a look at this clip I came across while browsing the link section at Bloggingheads:
I imagine most of us cringe at the analogy drawn by Rick Santorum between African-Americans on the one hand, and, say, an embryo or fetus on the other. So, many people would express this feeling, and walk away. But I don't want to leave it at that. And although I'll have to discuss it somewhat, I ultimately want to bracket off the whole racial issue, and its attending controversy.
What Santorum has done is to act as if Barack Obama has a "remarkable" view of the relative moral status of African-Americans and the unborn, but that's not the case. Most of us (and not only because of the constitution's silence on the matter) are less than certain about what kind of attitude we should take toward the moral status of an embryo or fetus. On the other hand, we find it to be obvious that a person standing before us is a full moral person regardless of race. When it comes to human beings after they've been born, after they've been named, are physically not attached to their mother, etc, we feel much more confident about what kind of attitude we should take. If Rick Santorum wants to bemoan the state of affairs that has come to pass where we're confident of what to think in the case of African-Americans, but less confident of what to think in the case of an unborn being, he may. But what he shouldn't do is act as if this general state of affairs is a quirk of Barack Obama's in particular.
We do this kind of thing in argument from time to time (Rick Santorum isn't alone here). We place pressure on our opponents because we find one of their premises prima facie absurd. In such cases, we may be right, but it's not enough simply to note our displeasure if in fact our opponent holds a common view. Common views have been wrong (and absurd) before, and it may turn out that the Roman Catholic view of the status of the unborn is more to our liking than the secular-liberal view many now hold. But until that happens, it can't be that Barack Obama has a "remarkable" view. If I'm right about that, then Barack Obama is under no obligation to answer, Rick Santorum is. Santorum is the one implying that Obama's view is remarkable, and in order for him to do that he must assume that the general zeitgeist is against Obama on the matter. When we imply such things about our opponent's arguments, we place a special rhetorical pressure on them, but this pressure is unearned when the implication is not true.
This blog is ultimately about categories. Some posts will obviously be about categories, others less so. In the latter cases, my excuse is that I believe that ultimately many of our important experiences (thoughts, emotions, opinions) are underwritten by our habits of comparison and categorization. And thus many of our disagreements come down to unexamined divergences in these habits. We rely on general categories to structure what we believe, so the process of deciding what to believe in specific cases is a process of deciding issues of similarity and difference (this unquestionably happens, but not always, or even usually, in a reflective or self-conscious way). "Lumpers" are quicker to lump things together; "splitters" are quicker to split things apart. This method of dividing up the way people think is used in biology, linguistics, and other fields (see a detailed explanation here). I think we can extend this way of thinking to a more general effort to understand how we form beliefs, and how we argue with one another.
Calling attention to the fact that the way we categorize has important implications for how we think will make us more deeply self-aware of what we believe, and why we believe it, (or at least that's the hope). Tweaking the way we group things (in a direction of lumping or splitting) can bring about large changes in the way we view the world and can change our take on topics of passionate disagreement. The groupings we implicitly (and in many cases, unconsciously) reply on so fundamentally shape our thinking that the work of belief formation is mostly done by the time we consciously set about to do it.
I've long been enamored with Alfred North Whitehead, who said, "It takes extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious." I'm sure Whitehead had something in mind that goes beyond merely what motivates me to blog, but what motivates me to blog at least has a lot to do with what Whitehead meant. Here, I'll contemplate the obvious, and hope my intelligence is up for it.
I'll start the first day with something very impressionistic: A video by the band Washed Out. This clip makes me consider all the genres that come together in the video, in both sight and sound. It forms something whole, but I'm not immediately sure what it is (we could just say "Chillwave" and leave it at that. But that's just the name, not the parts). I hear some contemporary electronic sounds, some 70's stuff, some ambient singing. I see a old video with some snags in it. I wonder if this is more retro than anything else, or if it's the kind of thing we'll see more and more. My posts will not always be this impressionistic and holistic, but what better way to start than slow and easy? I won't have a particularly quick posting pace, so you get to sit back and let it all digest slowly. Think of it as "Lumping and Splitting, Slowly."
