My attention has been brought, recently, to my own state of mind. I suppose it has been towards the back of my mind for a while that there is something not very healthy about the state of my mind at the moment. A combination of dissatisfaction at work and life in general has been growing over the last few years.
The behaviour of our eldest daughter, which, although not abysmal, was cause for some concern, prompted my wife to borrow a book by Tanya Byron, the child psychologist, from the library. There is nothing in the book that I was not already aware of from her programmes (House of Tiny Tearaways and Little Angels), but it was useful to be reminded of her approach; in particular, the need to examine ones own psychology. As she says, children are little barometers of our own mental health.
What I am most concerned about is the constant level of anxiety that I suffer. It is not a strong anxiety such as some suffer, leading to panic attacks. However, it needs examining. I have been interested in Cognitive Behavioural Therapies since I read a paper someone lent me at university to help me with depression. Previous to university, I borrowed a book from the library in Hull called "Self-help with Your Anxiety". This taught me some very useful relaxation techniques and transformed my life, for a little while, until the depression of my university years kicked in.
Depression isn't such a problem for me any more. Somehow, I have learned to spot the signs early on and modify my thoughts accordingly. I haven't been able to modify my thoughts at all with this general, low-level anxiety, however.
I have, therefore, bought a book from Amazon called "The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook". It has some pretty good reviews. It takes a practical approach, which is obviously what I need.
I suppose I am hoping it will do two things:
1. Provide me with a greater sense of peace. Someone, a very long time ago, once said that I should give my soul a rest. I feel like I need to take that advice, at last.
2. That I will gain some clarity on what I would like to do in life. My dissatisfaction with work may just be an illusion; or it may be that I need to do something radically different; or, maybe I just need to change job! I am hoping, however, that I will decide that I want to write a children's book in my spare time. Not that I have any spare time!
You see, I feel as though there are so many things I would like to do with may non-existent spare time: practice my piano more, learn JavaFX, learn Scala, write an application for monitoring personal finances, write an application to help with examining data sets; but I cannot do any one of these very well or quickly. If I can gain some clarity of thought and a little more peace of mind, I might be able to decide on one thing.
And behind it all is a desire to make money so that we are not poor in our old age.
My blog entry Can humanity be redeemed describes how I have lost belief that humanity can be, in balance, a force for good. Maybe that belief is a prerequisite for good mental health.
I am lucky in that I have a life partner whom I can talk to about these things. How awful it must be for people who have to hide their innermost selves from those closest to them.
Friday 25 June 2010
Thursday 6 May 2010
Markets' unrealistic expectations
According to the FT, the markets are gambling on a Tory victory.
Is that really true? It seems to me that either markets are unbelievably stupid or they really aren't that affected by the outcome of the election.
All three major parties want to reduce the deficit. The question is only one of timing. I think that those who work in the financial markets who are commenting are just politicking rather than making a true statement about market sentiment.
Seeing the UK as a save haven is only sensible given the huge problems the Eurozone faces.
Is that really true? It seems to me that either markets are unbelievably stupid or they really aren't that affected by the outcome of the election.
All three major parties want to reduce the deficit. The question is only one of timing. I think that those who work in the financial markets who are commenting are just politicking rather than making a true statement about market sentiment.
Seeing the UK as a save haven is only sensible given the huge problems the Eurozone faces.
Monday 15 March 2010
Thoughts on The God Delusion
I can honestly say that The God Delusion is a wonderful book; well-written, and full of clear, logical thinking. Since I am myself an atheist, it is not surprising that I should make such a positive statement. However, there is something about Dawkins's book that I feel somewhat dissatisfied with. Dawkins is an anti-postmodernist. He dismisses relativist thinking and what I might call liberal culturalism.
Firstly, let me make clear what I mean by 'relativist thinking', since this is the most important part of my argument. I am a sort of amateurist Nietzschean. That is to say, I find Nietzsche's writings amazingly powerful, but could not say that I really understand them in any depth. Frankly, I do not have the time to study them in detail (unfortunately). What I have got from the Nietzsche I have read is a sense that meaning (and morality) is not fixed. We gain our ideas of morality from our culture, our upbringing, and that cultural heritage lends us a moral compass. In that sense, Christianity is seen as a cultural phenomenon rather than a Truth (note the capital 'T', it is very important). Nietzsche sees mathematics and science in the same light. Even logic. There is a difference, of course: Nietzsche, I am sure, would not argue that scientific discovery is the same as religious faith; what I think Nietzsche is saying is that the value we place on logic is not fixed. In that sense, although the observations of science cannot be counter-argued, the value we place on those observations can go up as well as down.
This is, unfortunately, something that we witness every day. Dawkins's own book has many accounts of people who fly in the face of logic and observed phenomena. For example, many (if not all) religious Christian fundamentalists believe that dinosaur bones were placed in the earth by god to test our faith. Now, to my mind, this is an observed phenomenon. We know that many people do not value science highly, even though its methods have yielded wonderful truths about ourselves, the planet we live on and the universe at large. What relativism explains is this observed phenomenon. One might say that relativism is a fact rather than a political bias (although I don't like the word 'fact').
Dawkins, however, sees relativism as a problem. He seems to think (and many 'relativists' may agree with him) that relativism means that there is no way to value competing viewpoints: that world-from-god has equal value to world-from-existential-fact. Nietzsche would disagree with him. To value is human. We cannot help but value. The key is to state your prejudices - your "sine qua non" - the premises on which your judgements stand (belief in logic being one of your prejudices). For Nietzsche, 'saying yes' - being positive - being 'healthy' was his stated underlying principle for judgements - and being honest!
My argument here stems from the fundamental reason that atheism struck me as the only option as a teenager. The argument was put to me that being a Christian depends on being told about Christianity. For people who existed before Christ and for people geographically remote from the Christian world or for people with different, competing cultural identities, Christianity is not an option. To put it another way, had I been born in a remote Borneo village, I would not be a Christian: I would believe with equal force something else. The 'truth' I had been told about for most of my childhood seemed to have little value. It was dependent on chance.
Cultural relativism, then, led me to atheism. It seems to me a great shame that Dawkins does not see the value of it to support his arguments rather than weaken them. It does not seem absurd to me to state that the value of truth-through-scientific-methodology is greater than the value of truth-through-revelation and that this is not incompatible with notions of cultural relativism.
Indeed, embracing cultural relativism would strengthen Dawkins's arguments considerably.
Firstly, let me make clear what I mean by 'relativist thinking', since this is the most important part of my argument. I am a sort of amateurist Nietzschean. That is to say, I find Nietzsche's writings amazingly powerful, but could not say that I really understand them in any depth. Frankly, I do not have the time to study them in detail (unfortunately). What I have got from the Nietzsche I have read is a sense that meaning (and morality) is not fixed. We gain our ideas of morality from our culture, our upbringing, and that cultural heritage lends us a moral compass. In that sense, Christianity is seen as a cultural phenomenon rather than a Truth (note the capital 'T', it is very important). Nietzsche sees mathematics and science in the same light. Even logic. There is a difference, of course: Nietzsche, I am sure, would not argue that scientific discovery is the same as religious faith; what I think Nietzsche is saying is that the value we place on logic is not fixed. In that sense, although the observations of science cannot be counter-argued, the value we place on those observations can go up as well as down.
This is, unfortunately, something that we witness every day. Dawkins's own book has many accounts of people who fly in the face of logic and observed phenomena. For example, many (if not all) religious Christian fundamentalists believe that dinosaur bones were placed in the earth by god to test our faith. Now, to my mind, this is an observed phenomenon. We know that many people do not value science highly, even though its methods have yielded wonderful truths about ourselves, the planet we live on and the universe at large. What relativism explains is this observed phenomenon. One might say that relativism is a fact rather than a political bias (although I don't like the word 'fact').
Dawkins, however, sees relativism as a problem. He seems to think (and many 'relativists' may agree with him) that relativism means that there is no way to value competing viewpoints: that world-from-god has equal value to world-from-existential-fact. Nietzsche would disagree with him. To value is human. We cannot help but value. The key is to state your prejudices - your "sine qua non" - the premises on which your judgements stand (belief in logic being one of your prejudices). For Nietzsche, 'saying yes' - being positive - being 'healthy' was his stated underlying principle for judgements - and being honest!
My argument here stems from the fundamental reason that atheism struck me as the only option as a teenager. The argument was put to me that being a Christian depends on being told about Christianity. For people who existed before Christ and for people geographically remote from the Christian world or for people with different, competing cultural identities, Christianity is not an option. To put it another way, had I been born in a remote Borneo village, I would not be a Christian: I would believe with equal force something else. The 'truth' I had been told about for most of my childhood seemed to have little value. It was dependent on chance.
Cultural relativism, then, led me to atheism. It seems to me a great shame that Dawkins does not see the value of it to support his arguments rather than weaken them. It does not seem absurd to me to state that the value of truth-through-scientific-methodology is greater than the value of truth-through-revelation and that this is not incompatible with notions of cultural relativism.
Indeed, embracing cultural relativism would strengthen Dawkins's arguments considerably.
Tuesday 2 February 2010
Alternative Vote is a smoke screen
It may sound positive that the government is planning to introduce legislation to force a referendum after the next general election. However, the Alternative Vote is no more than a sticking plaster for our broken electoral system.
To my mind, in a representative democracy, proportionality must be the keystone of the electoral system. Without proportionality it is arguable whether the system is either representative or democratic. The Alternative Vote does not produce proportionality.
I understand why MPs want to keep the notion of one MP representing one constituency; but this fails to meet the reality that most people vote for a party or a principle: it is only in a small minority of cases that personality plays a part. Yet it is this notion that stops MPs declaring in favour of the Single Transferable Vote, which has larger constituencies served by multiple MPs. However, even in such a system, it would be feasible to allocate a portion of the super-constituency to each of its MPs. This could even be done on a preference basis. Thus an MP would still be MP for Little-Piddling-in-the-Water, which [s]he represents, but h[er|is] electorate would be wider than this.
I suspect that the real reason that MPs from the Labour and Conservative benches do not favour proportionality is that it is not in their own interests. Proportionality would mean that there would seldom be a majority government made up of a single party. Critics argue that you never know what you are going to get with such systems since coalitions tend to be formed after the election. One answer to this is that parties should, by law, have to declare the parties that they would form a coalition with. Such a system works well in Ireland. What is more, there is not that much space between Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats - there has not been for a decade - especially with regard to the economy. What differences there are are implementational rather than theoretical.
The bottom line, it seems to me, is that a government does not have a mandate from the people if it does not represent at least 50% of them. The Alternative Vote is a dangerous step because it gives the illusion that things have really changed and further reform may not happen for another 100 years.
To my mind, in a representative democracy, proportionality must be the keystone of the electoral system. Without proportionality it is arguable whether the system is either representative or democratic. The Alternative Vote does not produce proportionality.
I understand why MPs want to keep the notion of one MP representing one constituency; but this fails to meet the reality that most people vote for a party or a principle: it is only in a small minority of cases that personality plays a part. Yet it is this notion that stops MPs declaring in favour of the Single Transferable Vote, which has larger constituencies served by multiple MPs. However, even in such a system, it would be feasible to allocate a portion of the super-constituency to each of its MPs. This could even be done on a preference basis. Thus an MP would still be MP for Little-Piddling-in-the-Water, which [s]he represents, but h[er|is] electorate would be wider than this.
I suspect that the real reason that MPs from the Labour and Conservative benches do not favour proportionality is that it is not in their own interests. Proportionality would mean that there would seldom be a majority government made up of a single party. Critics argue that you never know what you are going to get with such systems since coalitions tend to be formed after the election. One answer to this is that parties should, by law, have to declare the parties that they would form a coalition with. Such a system works well in Ireland. What is more, there is not that much space between Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats - there has not been for a decade - especially with regard to the economy. What differences there are are implementational rather than theoretical.
The bottom line, it seems to me, is that a government does not have a mandate from the people if it does not represent at least 50% of them. The Alternative Vote is a dangerous step because it gives the illusion that things have really changed and further reform may not happen for another 100 years.
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