Barney Frank

Barney Frank, kicking ass and taking names! He's so ready to grab that gavel. He's knows nothing but nonsense is about to come out of their mouths. He really starts to lose it every time American Samoa comes up.

"The gentleman will never mention American Samoa again!"

Check it out.

Doritos!(!!!)

I love Doritos. Right up there with the Arizona Green Tea and V8 when it comes to gas station snacking.

Some friends from college love them even more. They made this little ad that might appear in the Super Bowl (wtf?) if they get enough votes. It's a long shot but the music is actually really engaging.

Why it's hard

This conversation took place while my mom was in her office and my dad and I were in the kitchen, cleaning up from dinner.




My dad walks out into the living room for a second.
Dad: Who threw away my pinecone?
Mom: I don't know what happened to your pinecone. I didn't throw it away. Maybe Andrew did something.
Me: I didn't throw away your pinecone.
Me, remembering I did actually throw away a pinecone about a month ago: Wait, you're just talking about a regular pinecone?
Dad: Yes. It was a pretty big one.
Me: When did you last see it?
Dad: Oh, sometime last spring.
Me: Well I may have thrown it away about a month ago.
Dad, disappointed: Ok.
Me: Why were you saving that?
Dad: I wanted to make a button for my Peruvian sweater. It's missing a button. It has pinecone...leaves, or whatever...as buttons.
Me: Can't you just go get another pinecone under a tree somewhere?
Dad, as if he spends all his time looking for pinecones: Well I'll just keeping looking.
Me:...
Dad: It was a nice big one.

Turns out the pinecone is still there, sitting kinda near the fireplace. I didn't throw it out. Probably thought about it. And the sweater will be complete again.

Cleaning House

My parents' house is a total mess. Over the past two decades it's oscillated between just totally disorganized and unfathomably cluttered and messy. It's been a life-long dream of mine to clean the shit out of this place.

I don't know if this sounds easy or not, but I can assure you it's harder than you think. The causes of the mess are many. My parents bite off more than they can chew as a rule. They start projects that demand lot of follow-through and constant vigilance (adopting an elaborate, multi-bin compost system, maybe), go out and buy a bunch of stuff, and then abandon it, creating a brand new mess in the process.

They both also save everything that has any potential use. And for the two of them, that amounts to just about everything, period. Rubber bands can't be thrown away. Old scraps of wood can't be thrown away. Broken electronics, old clothes, a gram of grated cheese from dinner...it all has to be saved for some future use no matter the crowding.

To make things even worse, when it comes to throwing things away, they have impossibly high ecological standards (por ejemplo: a broken tape recorder can't go in the trash, it has to go to Alameda county where there's a facility that'll dismantle it and salvage the parts).

If this sounds crazy, let me assure you: it is.

But it goes beyond a case of too much junk and conservationism run amok. Swimming in the clutter are also family heirlooms (many poorly stored and thus broken), antiques, my parents' wedding pictures, still unpacked in their original box. My parents just have a really hard time taking care of what is important and letting go of what isn't.

To deal with the mess means confronting a history of bad habits, failed projects, and discontent between my parents that I only dimly understand. Growing up I was a subjugated minority in a hypocritical regime and had no authority to do anything about it. I had to get a college degree to clean my house.

And cleaning is a trip through an emotional and moral minefield, fraught with the liklihood of sudden explosions and injury.

Let's check out a room. Watch your step!



















This is the "guest room." I have no idea where the guest would go. It must be cleaned.















The things in this room are not organized. This is a pile of my mom's "work documents." There are probably some important financial records in here too. If I were to start organizing this, I'd be in for a few hours' fight with my mom. It's gonna have to happen.















Just another pile of junk? Not a bad guess, but no! These are four boxes of cremated remains. The cat, Sylvester, is in the little box on top. My grandpa, Ken, is, for some reason, in both the cardboard box and the maroon one. The dog, Roo, is in the nice wood box in back. Mom has been meaning to deal with these for years. Needless to say: emotionally charged.















In one corner of the room, the woodwinds section. I have never seen anyone play these.
















A hilarious set of books on one of the shelves. Probably time to read these again.

I'm just gonna get it over with

Here's the rest of my "debate" with Alex. There were some exciting moments but it was always a little lamer than I wanted to admit. The thing is, I hadn't really talked philosophy in a while so it was incredibly tempting to get involved. I'm embarrassed the whole thing happened but here it is, in one long post.

Me:

So we know that "this shirt is red" is not a B-statement because we can test it. We just ask someone with normal color sense.

Well we can test "murder is wrong" too. Just ask someone with normal moral sense.

Apparently that's not a B-statement either.

I was trying to point out that if redness could only be tested by asking someone who kinda represents a consensus opinion ('cause it can't be identified with a convenient physical property of the world) then it's on him to show that rightness can't be dealt with the same way. I still think this point is incredibly solid.

Alex:

Dear Andrew,

You are not testing “murder is wrong” as commonly intended by asking one random person. Unless you define wrongness as “whatever that random person says is ‘wrong’” [or can otherwise show why a given individual saying so means it’s true]. And if you do redefine wrong to make it testable then it will no longer be a B-statement but will still not have any relevance or significance until logically established.

As you can see he kinda missed my point. And then confused the shit out of me with all his home-made jargon (which, as I eventually discover, is totally inconsistent). I forget what I wrote back. Let's find out...

Me:

You weren't thinking of checking redness with a random person (you could end up with someone who is colorblind).

I described my tester as someone with "normal moral sense" because I wasn't suggesting we check wrongness with any random person either (you could end up with someone who is, for lack of a better term, "morality-blind"). I guess that wasn't clear.

We may have to back up. The following will help:

What definition of redness are you working with? And how do you define "fully functional color vision"?

Oh yeah. I got kinda pedantic. But then Alex retreats and gets a little pissy.

Alex:

Dear Andrew,

Although totally unproven we can even give benefit of the doubt that “murder is wrong” is not a B-statement. The validity of my site does not rely on the premise that such claims are B-statements [some usages are, some aren’t].
If you can also show why any rational person has any motivation to follow this “moral sense” then you have established something relevant. So I challenge you to write a reason-line to that effect. But even if you can, which I doubt you could, you would simply have done something scientific [by simply establishing a physical fact about the universe].

As for the definition of red I don’t remember too much of the specifics. Red light is light of a certain electromagnetic frequency [which I don’t care to look up]. And a red object is an object which emits only red light or reflects only red light.

If you want to continue this debate I want you to pick any claim on my site which you disagree with as a topic [and be certain that you understand and accept the definitions I’m using in that claim]. Then I want a summary of your argument on why it is false. For example, if you think that “my shirt is red” is a B-statement by my tests, and is also physical and therefore my test of whether or not a statement is a B-statement is invalid then simply say so to begin with.

Sincerely,
Alex

In retropsect I should have pressed him on what kind of distinction could be drawn between redness and rightness 'cause I think that would have blown his whole system wide open. Anyway he fought fire with fire and came back doubly pedantic, challenging me to understand his nonsense and write a "reason line." No way that's gonna happen...

Me:

Hi,

I was (and am) less concerned with proving myself or you right or wrong in a "debate" than I was exploring some of your ideas a little further. I have found that staking out one's position in advance often makes an honest search for the truth more difficult. We can cut it off or continue.

Some of the more sensational conclusions you draw seem to rely heavily on this distinction between B-statements and other statements.

I saw this distinction as being rather fuzzier than you gave it credit for. I thought the case of redness might be an interesting point of entry to getting at a clearer distinction than your site offers, which I assumed you'd be interested in doing.

You offer below that something is red if it "emits only red light or reflects only red light." This is actually not the case (Readings on Color, vol. 1, Byrne and Hilbert). I'm sure you didn't intend to stick with that definition through thick and thin. That's fine. What is interesting is that lots of things that reflect specific combinations of other parts of the light spectrum (and little red light) actually appear red to most people. What this (and other results from the empirical color sciences) leads many to conclude is that what "redness" is, as most people use the word, is just appearing red to most people.

So what's your current thinking about the status of "shirt S is red"? The reason this is important is that if we don't know how to test for B-Statements then we can't be sure of our reason lines (and that's another reason we'd be advised to hammer this out before using the reason lines).

Boo-ya!

Alex:

The statement “shirt S is red” can be used many different ways and is. The simplest example would be people who consider maroon red versus those who don’t. In addition, different people use different criteria: some use their own eyes, the blind rely on those they trust, and certain scientists use the word to refer to some other aspects. In each of these cases people use slightly different meanings that usually [but not always] overlap and so are saying different things but using the same English sentence.
And since each has a different meaning, each will have different criteria and different significance.

Regardless each and every one of them uses criteria (physical criteria) and so in none of the listed cases is it a B-statement. The signals sent by the rods in our eyes, the words we hear, and the readings of our instruments are all physical.

Wow, ok, reading that one again reminded me of how frustrated I got. He just introduced--wait, let me count--yep, a zillion questions he is not equipped to answer. A few:
1) So is there any fact about a statement's status as B-Statement or not? Looks like it all depends on what someone means.
2) How do we know what someone means?
3) Does a speaker always know what he himself means?
4) Are there better and worse "meanings" for terms like "red" or "right"?
5) etc. etc. etc.

I could see this correspondence spinning way out of control without some better definitions.

Me:
Ah, ok. So that seems reasonable. I'll try to summarize what you're saying so we're on the same page. Let me know if I get anything wrong.

1) We sometimes have to distinguish between the words uttered and the "meaning" conveyed.
2) The "meaning" is best understood as what (if anything) the words tell us about the physical world.
3) The "meaning" may or may not be consciously recognized (or endorsed) by the speaker.

I'm putting 'meaning' in quotation marks because it looks like we're developing a kind of technical definition for the term.

On the third point, I say the "meaning" might not be recognized or endorsed by the speaker because when a blind person says "shirt S is red" he almost certainly doesn't think of himself as saying "shirt S has some property that causes most other people to label it "red" and this labeling manifests itself in the words they speak, which are testable physical criteria in the patterns of air pressure around my head".

So did I get anything wrong with those three points?

Alex:

To avoid confusion I find it most efficient to avoid the word “meaning,” especially in terms of single words instead of sentences as a whole. I’ll rephrase/clarify.

I agree with point 1. The other two claims are unclear. I think it’s most efficient to minimize usage of the word “meaning” and when it’s a necessity to use it only in situations where the rest of the sentence is very clear. I don’t think I agree with point 3, what I say is that people have different understandings of the same word, usually overlapping, and use the same word. My understanding of a car’s ignition may only be based on the sound it makes while a mechanic has a deeper understanding. If there was a different component that I was aware of that made a similar noise, I might mistake it for an ignition while a mechanic would not.

Note that there are a million different ways to use the word “meaning,” and each will result in different conclusions. I have found discussions of “meaning” to be fruitless. The validity of my site does not rest on my current versions of point 1, 2, and 3. I have only explained them because you seem to find them necessary to further this debate.

Frustration mounting...

Me:

I was also nervous about the word "meaning." You started using it, and I followed your lead, but we certainly don't have to.

In the previous email you said:
people use slightly different meanings that usually [but not always] overlap and so are saying different things but using the same English sentence

Below you say:
people have different understandings of the same word, usually overlapping

Meanings? Understandings? I don't care. We don't have to use either but it would be nice to keep terminology consistent. Things are confusing enough as it is.

Let's just say the same sentence can have different physical-test criteria. This is both obvious and useful (interestingly enough). It's obvious because sentences like "this shirt is cotton" have different physical-test criteria depending on which shirt the speaker happens to be pointing at.

It's useful because it also covers the case of redness. "Shirt S is red" has different physical test criteria (as you say in email of the 4th) depending on the speaker, their experience of color, their visual equipment, etc.

So are you on board with the new terminology? The same sentences can have different physical-test criteria.

Anyone still reading?

Alex:

I prefer the new terminology (which is why I moved toward it), but it’s not perfect. Testability is not the only thing which I intended to get at with that word. There are some claims that cannot be proven true [at least in practice, I think…], nor proven false, so have no test criteria, yet are “meaningful.” For example, I can never prove or disprove certain historical claims (when all the records have been destroyed) yet those claims could have significance [I make an effort not to fall to the fate of the positivists].
An example situation might be that I can never prove or disprove aliens built Stonehenge [which I find totally absurd just to be clear]. Yet if aliens had build Stonehenge , it would increase the probability that aliens would return to earth, no? [Yet alien return to earth would not prove that Stonehenge was built by them]. If you see a way around this I’d be glad to hear because I find it an annoying obstacle and I’d like to simplify my idea as much as possible.

So significance [the ability to use a given statement to prove/disprove [or simply adjust the probability] of other statements] is the criteria I try to use on my site. And obviously if a statement has no physical significance [cannot be used in a reason-line] then it will not influence anybody who chooses based on physical things. Even trivial made up words can be used in proofs [by using circular definitions and such, if you don’t see how I’ll elaborate]. So I use proofs of physical facts to avoid this issue.

So I say statements which cannot be used in reason-lines are B-statements. But also I make the point that as we change the criteria of a statement, we also change the significance. And if we redefine a word, we change both. This allows us to redefine words however we wish (say defining stupid as Alex Rohde) without ever creating logical flaws (because even though this makes me stupid, none of the previous conclusions about the significance of stupidity would necessarily hold any longer. The claim “Alex is stupid” would be an identity statement.). This doesn’t seem particularly noteworthy to everybody, but when we apply it to common social terms it provides a new way of looking at things.

This means, for example, that the definition of “human,” “alive,” and “sentient” are all variable. All of this of course is backed up by reason-lines. The variability point isn’t actually technically necessary if one uses reason-lines to begin with [you can never prove somebody “Should not kill humans” do this or that with a reason-line until should and humans were clearly defined/conveyed].

Me, trying to zero in on the important ish:

So you say in your email of the 4th that there are different ways of taking the significance of "shirt S is red". (You actually use the word "meaning" but I'm trying to keep up with the most recent terminological preferences).

You say that what significance this statement has depends on who is speaking and in what context.

Who decides (or how is it decided) what the significance is?

Alex:

Well obviously the speaker picks a significance and the listener(s) pick a significance. Usually the usage is decided internally. Then of course there are cases when a consensus must be come to outside of a particular person (say in a court of law). In a court of law, common usage will mostly dictate the significance of red when they say “You ran a red light” [they most likely mean that it appeared red to the non-colerblind human eye, if you made a scientific argument that it was actually a combination of colors you’d get laughed at].

Me, tiring:

-So significance can be determined by a court.
-And "stem cells are humans" is a B-Statement unless one can imagine a hypothetical state of the universe which contradicts them.
-One can imagine a court deciding that stem cells are not humans.

So "stem cells are humans" is not a B-statement.

Actually a pretty lame response on my part.

Alex:

If you are saying that a court determines significance therefore a court is correct when it says stem cells are not human therefore this state of the universe is contradicted. If so, it does not follow that because a court determines significance in its own usage that it is necessarily correct in all claims.
If you are saying that a court can pick a set of consequences of being human (e.g. X being human shows X has a brain) of the term “stem cell” whereby it can prove that stem-cells are not human [by not producing the consequences], then this is fine. The court will have set physical criteria for being human and it will no longer be a B-statement. Mind you though that being called “human” by a court doesn’t give any rational person any reason to treat it differently (unless you know that you’ll get arrested for smashing things a court calls human, for example).
Perhaps you were confused by what I meant when I said “decide on consequences for.” [not an exact quote]. I meant it in the same way that you meant “decide on the criteria for.” To effectively pick something and adjust the definition of the word as necessary.
I have decided that not having a term like meaning makes debate nearly impossible. I will instead rely on definition. I acknowledge that not all words have definitions, but not all words need to be defined in a logical proof (just like in mathematics). A word’s definition [combined with logic] determines its criteria and its significance [and any particular entity that can communicate can decide it wants to use any definition it wants].
Anyways, this is why I was reluctant to stray from the material on the site. It seems every alternative way to attempt communication has pitfalls and so it’s extremely laborious to be correct and clear. In addition I still don’t think this [deciding on “meaning” and such] is necessary to the site.

And I gave up. I may send him one final email just to officially end this nonsense.

...and then he was like...

Alex responded with this. He was walking right into my trap.

You would use the naked eye of anybody who has fully functional color vision, in conditions of appropriate [a sufficient source of white light] but not excessive lighting, from a distance such that the shirt is visible, without any objects [including opaque gasses] obscuring the view, and such that the observer is fully comfortable etc [and I reserve the right to add a million little other details in as necessary]. I don’t see what you are getting at with the request for an extremely detailed listing of the process.

...and then I was all like...

My response:

If you are testing whether something is red with the naked eye, whose naked eye do you use, when, and under what conditions?

If you are testing for redness with a machine, what machine do you use and how does it work? Checks reflectance properties? Under what conditions? Who checks if your machine is working right and how to they check?

Feel free to publish any of this.

Andrew

First Exchange

Here's the first of it with Alex:

Me:

Here's a quick question: would "my shirt is red" be a
B-Statement?

I have a philosophy degree. May be interested in a
debate. I would also
humbly suggest you check out some phil of language.

A

Alex:

Dear Andrew,

My shirt is red would not be considered a
B-statement. "My shirt"
(at any given moment) refers to an object and the "is
red" aspect refers to
color which has to do with color [certain frequencies
of electromagnetic
radiation] reflection. It is simple to test whether a
shirt is red [either
with the naked eye or a machine]. A universe where
your shirt was black
would clearly contradict the statement, therefore it
is not a B-statement.

If you would like to debate then make sure you have
read all the
site, figure out what you object to, verify those
objections are different
from those posed by Ben Gorman [first debate
challenger] or are not
addressed by my responses to him, and lastly put those
objections to my site
in your email.

I look forward to discussing my site with you.

Sincerely,
Alex Rohde