Thoughts About Free Will

The first exposure I had to the determinism-free will discussion was in elementary school when we attended the Calvary Baptist Church in McAllen, Texas. The argument was if God knows everything and is all-powerful, he knows ahead of time what we will do and he made us that way, so we can't really be making choices. Differently put, no one really chooses the next step in life if it has already been decided by an omnipotent, omniscient God.

As a little boy, intuitively, I thought I was making choices, but I also had a strong sense I was being tossed around by powers far greater than me.

Although Baptists tend to believe in Free Will, there has long been a Calvinist contingent among the Baptists:
"...the earliest Baptists were not Calvinists, even though they had their beginnings in a Calvinistic environment. It was a quarter of a century before Calvinist views appeared in Baptist life. Even then, for a considerable period of time there were two different groups of Baptists in England, General Baptists (non-Calvinistic) and Particular Baptists (Calvinistic). Later (1891) the two groups merged, but many congregations on both sides were suspicious of the merger and remained separate. In America, the first Baptist church (FBC of Providence, Rhode Island) had both Calvinists and non-Calvinists in its membership."

The big issue is whether God picked those who were going to hell and those going to heaven before birth.

We are long since Catholic converts, but that does not really resolve the issue, even though the Catechism now state,

"Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts."

The anti-Calvinist protestants accuse Calvin of having cribbed from the Catholic St. Augustine for a reliance on determinism. And The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia (cited in the link) discusses the issue as far from settled. I discussed Pascal's falling out of favor with the powers of his day because of a Catholic belief in determinism.

Mostly now, people talk about biological and psychological determinism, but I think it is largely the same discussion as God's determinism.

My first exposure to this type of determinism was when I read Walden Two by B.F. Skinner when I was still in High School. I kept the intuition that I was making free choices, but I could not find an strong argument against Skinner's determinism.

In the decades since, I have seen little evidence that people have choice in life. At most, we have an illusion that we are making a choice, but that choice is determined by prior causes. Recently, I read Living Without Free Will by Derk Pereboom. He makes the case for "Hard Determinism" and "Hard Incompatibilism." That is, factors beyond our control produce all of our actions and this fact is incompatible with a belief we are praiseworthy or blameworthy for our actions.

If this is true (and Pereboom argues it as scientific fact), the implications for life and society are huge. For starters, it demonstrates our criminal justice system is based on a false premise.

Ice Will Suffice

I was recently sitting with a friend watching the river.  We were discussing how the world would end, or probably more accurately, how human beings would die out.

He urged, (correctly, I think) that it was inevitable we would blow ourselves up with nuclear weapons and the only question is when.  I suggested, that although I have a prejudice in favor of people over other species, this might leave a pleasant enough world for smaller creatures.   Chernobyl might be the pattern.  The horses and cows died and the human beings left or died. But the lynx and the eagle owl may have made a comeback after homo sapiens left their habitat.  Studies have shown plants like soy and certain rodents have evolved a tolerance for the radiation.  So the large animals may all died, but plants and smaller animals may thrive.

But I don't think we will be around long enough for the nuclear destruction.  The frogs are all dying.  Apparently a species of frog that lived with a certain fungus was shipped around the world for scientific experiments.  The fungus was fatal to other types of frogs and now all of the frogs are dying, all over the world.

There have been five mass extinctions before.  A mass extinction is defined to mean half the species on earth have died.  Now most of the scientists believe we are in mass extinction event number six.  It may have begun only in the last few decades or it may have begun 50,000 years ago.  A book called Twilight of the Mammoths by Paul S. Martin describes all the great animals in North America when human beings showed up.  These include mastodons (a type of big elephant), gomphotheres (an elephant with a mouth like a shovel), four species of mammoths (hairy elephants), ground sloths, a glyptodon (sort of a living PT Cruiser with a mace for a tail), giant armadillos, giant beavers, giant peccaries, dwarf antelopes, native camels and horses, saber-toothed and dirk-tooth cats and an American subspecies of the lion.  So maybe the frogs are almost an afterthought.

The problem, of course, if you are fond of certain human beings is that in these extinctions the big creatures tend to go, and we are a big creature.  The earliest extinction lost a number of different types of trilobites and they are all gone now.  It may be the sharks ate the rest of them.  I don't understand this web of life that includes the frogs and how they help hold the whole together, but I imagine that without the frogs to eat the bugs, the bugs will eat our food and us.  Also, it seems somewhat like the canary who dies in the cave before the miners start dying.  The frogs dying may just be a signal the hole we are digging is filling with poisonous gases.

Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus

Kindle books was giving away a Frankenstein novel for free and since I did not know if my debit card was exhausted or not, I opted to download and read it rather than various recommended best sellers.  Especially for free, it was worth the purchase.  And never before have I been more wrong about what I thought I knew about a book.

I thought I had read it before, but when I read it this time, since I did not recognize it all, maybe I never did.  I was relying on snippets of a dozen bad movies for my recollection of the book.

Did you know there is no Igor?    And Dr. Frankenstein is not an evil genius doctor at all, but a young college student who became over enthusiastic about his studies.  And the scene is set in cheery Geneva, Switzerland, not in some Eastern European castle.  And Victor Frankenstein does not flip a switch to turn on his creation, because he is still lighting up his studies with candles.  Nor were there batteries that could hold the lightning for animating the creature.  And Victor's Creation proves to be very intelligent.  He educates himself so he can persuade others about his point of view.

The book is published in 1818.  Mary Shelley had run away to Geneva with her then boyfriend, Percy Shelley, because if the creditors caught him in England, they would throw him in a debtor's prison.  They  had already scandalized society because Mary was pregnant and Percy was married to Harriet.  Harriet later conveniently drown herself so Mary and Percy could marry.  Mary became pregnant when she was 16 and Percy was 20.  If this had happened today in Texas, Percy would probably be prosecuted for Rape of a Child.

At any rate, Mary and her stepsister Claire Clairmont and Percy and Lord Byron and John William Polidori all stayed for a while at Lord Byron's house on Lake Geneva.  They were all telling ghost stories and out of that came Mary's Frankenstein.  Polidori wrote the first vampire story to be published in English.  Mary was 20 years old.

The title actually refers to the young student, Victor, and not his creation.  Victor is The Modern Prometheus.  That is, he steals fire from the gods, gives it to men and ends up being punished for eternity by having his liver eaten by an eagle, only to have it grow back and eaten again the next day.  Victor creates life out of dead material.  He has an understanding of watching the frog's leg jump and throw off a spark when it is touched with a scalpel.  By giving man this fire, he has to watch as the run away creation kills everyone he loves.

Mary grew up and hung around with the best poets and philosophers of the time, so it is not surprising she used Luigi Galvani's experiments as the basis for bring the creature to life.  Galvani thought animals were the source of the electricity.

Mary includes in her story, a false confession, a religious persecution of a muslim and the unintended consequences of the well-meaning scientist.  This all seems up to date.  Victor's creation wants a wife.  Victor won't create one because he fears the offspring will be so much superior to people, they will soon replace people. 

I suppose the genetic engineers are far enough along they could produce a creature bigger, stronger and smarter than people by tinkering with certain human genes.  Maybe this should be required reading. 

One thing I think Mary misjudged is that any creation could be so grotesque, no one would ever be able to look at it.  But Mary was just 20 and hadn't learned yet that we can get used to about anything.

OK, if not US Attorney, how about county court at law judge?

Still no word on the U.S. Attorney's office or the President's intentions along that line, so I remain unemployed. Perhaps my terms were too severe. Maybe we could put the office in Raymondville? Surely, Mr. President you do not expect me to go as far north Corpus Christi? At any rate, please do not feel rushed, my options are quite limited. One possibility, though is a race for county court at law.

The county court at law judgeship being vacated by Judge Robles and to which Judge Murray was appointed is of course in play. It appears the commissioners may have wanted a hot race, so I have to consider my obligation to help out.

The odds of me winning a race are negligible which is the only reason I would consider running. But to be fair, I better go ahead and let the voters know my requirements.

First, I'm not sure about this title, "Judge." Everybody from past and present who has ever been a city judge or a justice of the peace or U.S. Supreme Court Justice ends up being called "judge." I went to lunch recently and looked around the room and realized only the young woman serving the fideo and I could not claim to to be "Judge." Also, I would be unwilling to be called "Judge" for fear of the ultimate encounter with Someone who has the power to judge the quick and the dead.

I do call people by their titles, "Judge," "Father," "Doctor," especially when, in the pressure of the moment, I can't remember their names.

So for my title? "Your excellency," maybe. "Grand potentate?" After I saw a Robin Williams movie once, I tried to get the kids to call me, "O Captain, my Captain," but nobody would go along.

Now, how about clothes? Black robes never did much for me, except for prospect of being to wear pajamas underneath. On the other hand a powdered wig may be fun if the airconditioning is good enough.

Now to the practical part, I get stuck on the Mathew 7:1 stuff. So I really couldn't pass judgment on anyone. This means all those guys with the orange uniforms would likely get to go home. Besides, at the county court at law level, where everyone is accused of a misdemeanor, it is pretty hard to take many of those crimes seriously. Hot checks, DWI, possession of marihuana, prostitution, gambling, that sort of thing. "Go and sin no more." I've never heard a judge say that, but wouldn't it be fun to clear out a courtroom of defendants that way?

What about the civil cases? County court at law judges don't do divorces normally or injuctions, so that would save a lot of other unpleasantness. There are a fair share of car wreck cases. I believe my knowledge of insurance companies (contempt? disdain? scorn?) would make me especially "fair," in these cases.

This may not be so much a platform as a prediction of how things will go. Naturally, I would not bet on a second term or even surviving the first.

More likely, I'll make a bunch of push cards that say, "Experience, Integrity, Fairness," or "Justice for All," or "Character You Can Trust."

Who You Calling a Socialist?

Harold Meyerson is a Washington Post opinion editor.  In today's article (click on the title), he discusses all of this socialism talk.  He says the only "democratic socialists" he's encountered in DC are Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont and himself.  He says socialists don't want to nationalize industries anymore and Obama certainly isn't a socialist, but, like FDR, trying to save capitalism.  And that the capitalist system is failing on its own.

The new, uncrowned head of the opposition, Rush Limbaugh, likes to call everyone a socialist.  I wish Obama were a socialist, but it is clear to me he's not.  I have a socialist bookkeeper and and a socialist barber, but I'm not sure they're out of the closet on the issue.  So I think I can recognize a secret socialist and I just don't see it with Obama.  Rush is welcome to call and discuss this with me if he likes.

If I had to choose between Bernie Sanders to run things and Rush, I'd take Bernie.   But I don't want the government to take over the banks.  I'd like to go back to the days when branch banking was illegal and you knew your banker.  That way if he stole from you, he had to live next door or down the street and face you at the grocery store.  And if he was real bad, people could get together and tar and feather him.  But now banks are multi-headed hydra (with far more than the nine heads of the beast in Revelations) and much harder to kill.   Maybe it would be best if banks were turned into 24 hour libraries and coffee shops.  I don't want the government to take over the brokerage houses, but perhaps they could be converted into homeless shelters and public cafeterias.  I don't want the government to take over insurance companies.  I'm thinking ice cream parlors.  Anyway, you get the idea. 

 

I think if the government is to do anything, it should help poor people and not rich people, but I also think there are only rare periods in history when things work this way.  Maybe we are entering one now.  I hope so.  But in general, I think the rich will in the long run always corrupt government.

I have tried to read the doctrinal battles of various flavors of socialists and I find them as complex and impenetrable as the Sicilian defense.  

I like Big Bill Haywood, but I don't think he was really a socialist.  He was an anarchosyndicalist rather than a socialist.  He was in he Socialist Party of America for a while and campaigned for Eugene V. Debs, but Big Bill was too radical for the socialists and they tossed him out.

He was a bundle of other contradictions as well.  He was strongly anti-war, but when a Pinkerton man came to arrest Big Bill, Big Bill shot him.

I also like Big Bill's view of contracts, especially labor contracts.  He believed in industrial unions (that is, the whole industry rather than just trades, hence the Industrial Workers of the World) and not trade unions.  Trade unions tended to be racist and snotty about workers further down the pecking order from them.  Big Bill viewed most any contract for labor as a trap rather than a benefit for workers.  As soon as it becomes unfair, the workers should all be able to walk off the job.

I am not sure what Big Bill would make of today's world and Obama.  I am pretty sure he would not favor sending all of these soldiers to Afghanistan.  I doubt he would have bailed out IAG, more likely shut it down.  

Anyway, all you socialist-baiters, please be aware that socialists tend be calm, moderate people with whom you can negotiate and make contracts.  Before this particular collapse of capitalism is all over, and before the remains of the middle class is completely beat into submission, you may be wishing for more socialists.  

Who were America's best and worst presidents?

Who was the best president in my lifetime? In history?

These types of questions are asked a lot just now because Bush has shown himself to so appallingly bad and now we are teased with the possibility that Obama may be good.

So what does it take to be a good president? I've never agreed when the presidential historians make their rankings. Sort of like picking a good coach, it would seem we should have some ratings based on success. Success would seem to involve inflicting the least misery on the populace.

Two quick examples. Lincoln and FDR seem to be at the top of everybody's list, especially the historians (I've attached a link if you click on the title). I question this. Consider, would you want to live your life during the tenures of Lincoln and FDR of those of Jimmy Carter and Warren G. Harding?

If 620,000 people died in Civil War during Lincoln's tenure and 408,000 died under FDR, neither one would really be in the running. I'm not saying either caused their wars, I'm saying that the high misery index was on their watch and we can hardly give them top historical rankings, any more than we declare a losing coach the best just because he did not have good players.

Harding was only president for a couple of years, so I think FDR should be able to misery average, so his war deaths are spread over four terms. But even at that, Harding comes out pretty good (certainly better than Woodrow Wilson with WWI and 117,000 deaths on his account). So although Harding usually gets ranked as one of the worst, the only deaths to mar his service would come from the China Yangtze service that resulted in 5 deaths over a period of 20 years, and apparently none during his tenure. And he gets credit for pardoning Eugene V. Debs and releasing him from prison. This increased the happiness index for Debs and a lot of nervous socialists.

Jimmy Carter gets blamed only for 8 deaths in Iran during his tenure. And he gets credit for the Vietnam War draft dodger amnesties, this increased the happiness index for about 100,000 men who got to come home.

I don't think war deaths or pardons should be the only measures. I think the misery index should include unemployment and inflation (granted, Jimmy may get into trouble here). Percentage of the population in poverty or prison, health of the nation, numbers of work injuries, life expectancy, alcoholism, drug addiction, education are all areas that would make a good rating under a happiness/misery index.

Better historians than I am can help straighten this out, but I think it is a better system than "leadership qualities" that seem to have no concern for the numbers of countrymen who are butchered, impoverished and jailed.

Next President's Day, think of Warren and Jimmy.

The New US Attorney

I don't think we have a new appointment for US for the Southern District. I heard some names floated and had heard that DA Armando Villalobos wants the job.

I doubt Armando would really be happy in the job and if he reconsiders and no one else wants the job (which I can understand)we may be short on candidates. So, I am considering stepping up to the plate.

This is not as completely far-fetched as my friends may think. It is true I've never been a prosecutor for philosophical, even religious, reasons, and that I don't believe in punishment as a goal of the criminal justice system. But my naysaying friends should consider three facts: 1. I could use the salary. 2. I was an early Obama supporter (after it became clear Kucinich would not get on the ballot). 3. I am an old buddy of Congressman Doggett (though I will deny this if it should ever become a campaign issue against him, like with that Chicago college teacher) and Doggett apparently is collecting the names for the selection process.

However, I must throw my hat in the ring with certain reservations. First, the office has to be moved to downtown Brownsville. I suffer from motion sickness when I go north of Ruben Torres Blvd. I think it has to do with the speed at which the earth spins at different latitudes.
Also, I don't think I could get anyone to loan me the money to buy a house in Houston and my credit's not good enough to rent. Although I like the concept of a homeless US Attorney and the empathy that may produce for the poor immigrant being prosecuted, I don't see how I could meet the federal court dress code of "dressing with dignity" while sleeping in a dumpster. Also, Kathy would probably complain.

Second, there are certain types of prosecutions that I can't do and I would have to take the appointment with the understanding we would dump these types of cases. Basically, these are the prosecutions that I believe come out of class warfare of the rich against the poor, North against South, and all those other nasty splits in society. I think immigration prosecutions are immoral, so those would have to go. That, of course, would put an end to immigrant transporting cases.

I think the war on drugs is really a war on poor people, so I would dump those prosecutions as well. If the drug trade goes so will the gun trade, for the most part.

That pretty well limits the prosecutions to Mexican shark fishermen and bad xerox copies of $20.00 bills. As worrisome as those crimes are to the Republic, I think we can probably squeak by with just me and a good secretary. This should save a lot of money.

Of course, I don't have the energy to mount a campaign on my own without risk of cutting into the afternoon naps, but if you think this is a good plan, I await the groundswell.

Happy Birthday Mr. Darwin

Today is 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. No doubt the national holiday will be called before the day is over.

I read the Autobiography and the Voyage of the Beagle many years ago and I have "read at" Origin, Descent and Expression of Emotions of Man and Animals. This last, the Expression of Emotions, I think is still important even with all the recent research.

Darwin wrote before the discovery of genes. Although he was a contemporary of Gregor Mendel, Mendel's work was lost until the 20th Century (Mendel was an abbot and his successor burned his papers). Somehow, even before genes and long before the human genome project, he managed to get it right.

What a great century the 19th Century was! Except for the United States and the Civil War, it was one of the more peaceful centuries. Inflation was low. And it produced Darwin, Freud and Marx. Of these three, I think Darwin has best survived modern discoveries, but it is quite an impressive collection.

To me the towering genius of the last thousand years is Tolstoy and he came out of the 19th Century, but Tolstoy was not writing science, so he was less likely become obsolete than Darwin.

I love the Darwin-Wallace story. I suspect I would like Wallace more than Darwin; not as stuffy, I'd guess. And more mod est on the struggle for scientific recognition. More likely to go native. More socialistic.

But I also like a detail guy and Darwin was sure one for details. And all these years later, even if the subject is vegetable mold, he is a delight to read.

When Austin was in High School at St. Joseph's, he was hoping to get a rise out of the Brothers by putting one of those Darwin Fishes on his car. I told him, "Fine, but read the Autobiography first, so if someone asks you about it, you won't be stump ignorant." I think it had a civilizing affect on the boy. If reading Darwin will temper male adolescence, what other cures might be in store.

Happy birthday, Charles Darwin and here's to the next 200 years.