Random Thoughts, Part 18: Random is the New Order

 

My Random Thoughts series continues with Part 18! Still with random memes for exponential randomness! In fact, my inventory of memes is at an all-time high. These memes have to go! Enjoy!

What would Gene Roddenberry think about William Shatner’s Blue Origin flight?

 

Today William Shatner took a trip on a Blue Origin rocket, and I had some thoughts about it and wrote some of them down in my pandemic journal as I was procrastinating doing the stuff I was supposed to be doing this morning. To be more honest than you're supposed to be at the beginning of a post like this, I have to admit I'm not sure what Gene Roddenberry would think about today's events. I never met him while he was alive, and I'm not as familiar with his biography as I'd like to be, but he did create Star Trek as an unabashed post-scarcity socialist utopia, so that's in the background of my thoughts. This question seemed to me like a catchy way to think about space travel, Star Trek, the Overview Effect, where we are as a global society, and where we're going. So here you have it...

Le Guin's Earthsea on Worlds of Speculative Fiction

I'm excited to be a guest for Dr. Greg Sadler's Worlds of Speculative Fiction tomorrow (Sat. Dec. 19, 2020). We'll be discussing Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series.

Here's the Facebook event, video link, and Zoom link. This is free and open to the public, so feel free to attend virtually.

Pandemic Journal, Part Seven (Now With More Memes!)

I've done it. I changed the name of this series to "Pandemic Journal" as threatened in the previous entry. We're on to Part Seven, which covers some of what I've been thinking about April 18-May 9, 2020. Also, this part is chock-full of even more memes that have amused me recently. Enjoy!

COVID-19 Pandemic Journal, Part Six

I'm introducing a bit of a ret-con and calling this a "COVID-19 Pandemic Journal." See the previous entry here. Read more about the point of this journal in the first post. And as usual, I'm putting in lots of amusing memes, so come for the memes, stay for the journal.

The Dogged Persistence of Fate: Cujo by Stephen King

Cujo is not my favorite Stephen King novel, but not my least favorite, either. This is vintage 70's/80's King. The characters are a bit less vivid for me than his characters usually are, but there's a heavy meditation on fate and chance, cause and effect. And that ending... it's a gut punch, and Uncle Stevie does not pull his punches here.

Who Started the Fire?: Firestarter by Stephen King

Firestarter was the next stop on my tour of classic Stephen King novels, partly because I've developed a strange obsession with Stephen King's work in the last few years after hardly reading him at all for 20 years, and partly to get ready for his new one, The Institute, which is supposed to involve The Shop, or something a lot like it (The Shop is also featured in the miniseries Golden Years).  Firestarter is also one of King's more straightforwardly science fictional tales (if psychic powers can be science fiction... I guess some people have them on Star Trek).

So, how'd it go?  I took a few days to kindle a review.  Hopefully I can control the burn.

Suicide and Suffering

Recently a friend took his own life. We weren’t especially close. I hadn’t seen him in years, although we occasionally interacted online. I’m not going to give his name here, out of respect for his family at this difficult time and because I don’t want to make his life or death about me.

Before going on, I want to make it clear that I am not a mental health professional. If you are experiencing serious depression and/or suicidal thoughts, please stop reading this immediately and talk to someone, anyone. Call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline (https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org) at 1-800-273-8255. Visit a school counseling center. Talk to somebody.

Vote 2018! A Weird Al-Themed Voting Round Up

Today is Election Day here in the United States!  Here's a round up of a few things I've read and a few things I've written about voting.

• "You're Disillusioned.  That's Fine.  Vote, Anyway." Some really great advice from Roxane Gay.
• "What if the Polls Are Wrong Again? 4 Scenarios for What Might Happen in the Elections."  Some interesting analysis from NPR.  Not a bad way to practice Stoic preparedness for some of the possible outcomes.
• "A Guide to Voting for UTC Students."  A guide for students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga that might also be inspiring or useful for students elsewhere.
• "Voting is Like Going to the Dentist."  My recent attempt at a metaphor for voting: "Voting is like going to the dentist. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to look forward to it. But every so often you should probably do it."
• "Uses of Philosophy, Part 3: Intellectual Empathy -- Understanding Without Agreeing."  My defense of one of the benefits of philosophy and how it might apply to our current political culture.
• "Dreaming, Principles, and Cooperation: Science Fiction, Philosophy, and Politics (Part One)." It's a bit melancholy going back to stuff I wrote before the 2016 election (see the above Weird Al meme for context), but this one gets at a bit of how I approach politics overall.
• "American Voters and the Fate of Us All: Eight Reasons to Vote with Objections and Replies." Another melancholy throwback to 2016, but I still stand behind the reasons and responses to common objections that I gave here (especially the bit about cool stickers).

And now my fellow Americans, I ask you to stop reading this, and please, for the love of whatever you hold dear: vote!


Bonus tweet from Weird Al!

EDIT (10 Nov. 18): I'll have a post on my thoughts on the results of the election later, but I just realized this is the 300th post on this blog!  Congrats to me!

Reflections on Life, the Universe, and Everything Upon the Event of my 42nd Birthday

For several years I’ve been looking forward to the day when I will finally arrive at the age at which I will discover the answer to life, the universe, and everything.  I am speaking of course of my 42^nd birthday.

I have also been predicting that when this day comes the answer will remain elusive or will prove to be more perplexing than the question. So, is the answer 42 as told in Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?  Let’s investigate.

Rewatching the Matrix Sequels

Morpheus in The Matrix Reloaded

Like many teachers of philosophy who love science fiction, I show clips from The Matrix whenever I teach anything to do with external-world skepticism.  It's a nice way to dramatize the question: how you could know that you're not in some radically different world like the Matrix right now?

Another thing I often mention to my students is that I pretend the sequels (The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions) never happened.  The Matrix is a science fiction classic.  The sequels ... not so much.

But was I right?  Could my assessment of the sequels when I first saw them 15 years ago be as wrong as Neo's belief that he's not in the Matrix?  These questions were there like a splinter in my mind.  (Sorry, I couldn't resist).

So the other day I thought I'd conduct an experiment to answer these questions by rewatching the sequels.

Listening to Asian Philosophy: Responses to Pigliucci

Śaṅkara, Maṇḍana, and Ubhāyabhārati engaged in philosophical debate

In an earlier post I mentioned a recent conference presentation of mine that generated a blog post from philosopher Massimo Pigliucci.  In my earlier post I reproduced the original handout from my talk.  Here I'm reproducing (maybe for posterity, maybe for fun) some of my responses to Pigliucci's post, particularly on the topic of "Eastern philosophy."  You can see all of the comments on his original post.

The Truth Shall Set You Free? - Naiyāyikas, Stoics, and Skeptics on Philosophy and the Good Life

Marcus Aurelius: Stoic, Emperor, Horse Lover

I recently gave a talk at the Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association called "The Truth Shall Set You Free?: Naiyāyikas, Stoics, and Skeptics on Philosophy and the Good Life."  Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher of science with an interest in Stoicism, was in the audience and recently wrote a blog post about my talk on his blog How to Be a Stoic (you can find his post here).

Given the interest in the talk, I thought I might reproduce my handout here on my blog.  So, here it is (with a few minor edits).  If you wish to learn more about any of the schools and figures I mention here, check out the bibliography at the end.  I may reproduce my comments on Pigliucci's post as a separate post here.  Stay tuned.

Tectonic Fantasy, Part Three: The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin

The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin is the third in the trilogy following The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate.  As both of this novel's predecessors won the Hugo for Best Novel, there were a lot of expectations for this one.  How does it hold up?

Where Did Far-Future Science Fiction Go?

Many of the most beloved science fiction series of the 20th century are set thousands or even millions of years in the future: Frank Herbert's Dune series, Ursula Le Guin's Hainish Cycle (which includes The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed), Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, and so on.

By comparison, relatively few science fiction stories written in the last 20 years take place more than a couple hundred years in the future and most take place in the 21st century.

Where did all the far-future science fiction go?

This is a question I've thought about a lot lately.  I recently re-read the last book in the Dune series and am working my way through the delightfully/impossibly difficult Book of the New Sun, which my Goodreads review describes as "like taking an acid trip through a thesaurus."

Root for the Apes: War for the Planet of the Apes

The thing I've always loved about the Planet of the Apes movies (as well as Pierre Boulle's novel) is how deeply subversive it all is.  Stories about "a planet where apes evolved from men" turn so many of our self-assured certainties on their heads when it comes to evolution, "progress," intelligence, race, and the place of humans in relation to our fellow animals and the universe.  If you didn't read "a planet where apes evolved from men" in Charleton Heston's voice, I must insist that you go back and do so immediately (see the clip at the end if you need help).

Science, Magic, and Silliness: All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

I picked up All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders after it won the Nebula Award for best novel and to do my diligence as a Hugo voter as it's a Hugo finalist.  I found it mostly entertaining with some interesting ideas and funny bits, but I don't understand the hype.  Maybe Anders is close friends with a lot of SFWA members (Science Fiction Writers of America - the group that votes on the Nebulas)?  Maybe her rightly praised work on the i09 website is doing some of the heavy lifting in the background?  Maybe I just don't get it?

I'll say more on the humor and the ideas in a bit, but first a bit on what didn't work for me.

Uses of Philosophy, Part 2: Coolness of Mind

How do you get the philosopher off your porch? 

Pay for the pizza.

Jokes like this demonstrate the eternal verity that philosophy is useless, an attitude that goes back to ancient times.  As a person who makes a living teaching and writing about philosophy, you’d expect me to disagree with this negative assessment of philosophy.  And I do!  Back in 2015 I wrote a post called “Three Uses of Philosophy” that suggested philosophy has at least three uses: it can be fun, it cultivates intellectual skills such as critical thinking, and it can make us less dogmatic.

I happen to think that philosophy has lots of uses, a lot more than three, anyway.  So I decided to make a series based on my earlier post.  Another use occurred to me a few months ago when I was teaching the 17th century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza in one class and the classical Indian skeptics Nāgārjuna, Jayarāśi, and Śrī Harṣa in another.  I call this coolness of mind, a state in which your worries melt away, a freedom from the heat of mental disturbance and the churnings of suffering and anxiety.  Coolness of mind contains a subtle and peaceful beauty of its own, like the quiet of the desert just before dusk or a moonlit midnight after a gentle snowfall.

About Time: A Review of Arrival

I’ve been looking forward to this movie for months as the antidote to 2016’s largely disappointing summer movie season. Up until a few days ago I was also looking forward to seeing Arrival as a way to relax after having narrowly avoiding a Trump administration.  Looking backwards I’m happy to report that the first of these aspirations has been fully realized. The second … not so much.

I’ll have more to say about the election in another post, but for now let’s focus on a movie that I suspect might come to occupy a place on my list of all time favorite philosophical science fiction films.

Sci-Fi Stoic Week 2016: Star Trek, Relationships, and the View from Above

For the past few years I've been participating in an event called Stoic Week.  This year's Stoic Week is a bit earlier than usual: Oct. 17-23, 2016.

The idea is to try living like a Stoic for a week by doing things such as contemplating interesting quotes from ancient Stoic philosophers and engaging in mental exercises.  You can find out more about Stoic Week, register, and download the handbook at the Modern Stoicism blog.  You can do the exercises any time (you might say they're timeless!), but it's fun to share your experiences with others on the Facebook group and the Google+ group.

Last year I wrote four posts for what I called Sci-Fi Stoic Week 2015 (see here, here, here, and here).  This year I'm not quite so ambitious, so I've decided to condense my Stoic Week blogging into one post (you're reading it!).


Stoicism, Star Trek, and Galactic Cosmpolitanism

Since we recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of Star Trek and a lot of people (including me) have noted Stoic themes in Star Trek, I thought it would be nice to concentrate on Star Trek for Sci-Fi Stoic Week 2016.

The crew of the Enterprise