Networks of Ideas

        Recently I have been thinking about the nature of ideas. What generates an idea. I watched a talk about what starts an idea. The speaker spoke about the myths of the Eureka moment, how we have a rhetoric that is lurid and rich in metaphors to describe ideas that come in a sudden moment. Yet, he says that reality often defies this description. Ideas come from networks. He uses the historical example of English Coffee houses in the eighteenth century as evidence of this. That stimulation through new drinks and the juxtaposition of ideas made for a fertile environment in which ideas jostled and fused with each other. THe marriage of various divergant ideas was made possible by the environment that allowed people to discuss, debate, in an area that was not bound within one area. Everyone at this time was a polymath and this plurality of disciplines created a climate where ideas could interact in new and dynamic ways. I would argue that we have lost a lot of this interconnectivity. C.P Snow in his lectures on the two cultures showed how we had divided knowledge up, so that there are two worlds: the world of science and the world of the arts. This still exists and the two bodies are impoverished as a result of this. Because they have no area in which they can interact they do not. Yet, there is much that can be learnt from each other, in fact the differant ways of viewing the world enriches and refines ideas. The scientific background can expose flaws in the historians arguement and the historian can point out conceptual flaws in the others. The reality is that every discipiline draws upon each other for ideas and methodology. Yet, we seem to be making this more difficult. The fetishisation of science and technology, and utilitarian subjects that have a pragmatic benefit has meant that we focus on them to the detriment of other subjects. The arts are seen as self-indulgance, and capable of offering little to humanity. So it they divide and carve up knowledge into these two worlds rather then trying to harmonise them. C.P Snow called for the two cultures or worlds to be unified. I think a discipline that shows this is the history of science, in theory this is an arena that would encourage such meeting of science and art. Yet, scientists seem to have little interest in their own history, and if they do they only want a narrative of progress and development, whereas the historian wants a more nuanced and accurate picture of the past that exposes the flaws as well as the successes.
        I think that part of the problem is that the structure of our education system divides rather then unites. From the age of 16 we are already started to be focused, the blinkers are on, and the boundaries of what we are to spend our timr studying focused. We look at three areas only, at a time when we should be experiencing academic freedom, being exposed to a giant melting pot of ideas, that liberate us, that allow us to discover and refine our interests. I was fortunate enough to mix arts and science, but had I not I would have limited my view of the world and my options for the future. We may havea depth of study, but we also need a breadth in order for balance. Indeed this questions the very nature of study, why is it that we educate? What is the purpose of university? Is it to provide training for jobs, if so then why is the university needed, surely we could just have on-job training, apprenticships as they did back in the victorian age. An education should prepare us for the future. It should give us the skills that will help us throughout our life. The reality is that our system is failing us, people go to university to get a degree not to become educated. The subject is irrelevant as many go on to jobs far removed from their subject, we need a system that encourages exposure to many differant worlds. If we want to have fresh creative thinkers that generate new ideas, then we need an environment that brings together the best minds in such a way that they can make a mixing pot of ideas. This comes only when people from differant disciplines are mixed. When sitting in a seminar a economic students insight into the development of the English Civil War could provide a viewpoint historians have missed. Likewise when considering an economic policy the historian, or english student able to think in abstract ideas can see the way in which the policy would fail if applied as they imagine the reality of it. This is just a few ways, the reality is that it is more dynamic and harder to quanitify then abstract or theoretical interactions. It will cause each area to focus on the ability to communicate their knowledge, knowing that non-specialists may be there will cause them to express their ideas in forms that enable all to comprehend them. It is true wisdom to be able to express a complex idea in such a way that anyone can understand them, this will force us to become better teachers and better listeners.
        It is interesting that even if someone specialises and goes into academic research and teaching they never use but a tiny fraction of the knowledge that they gain at university. If people who make full use of their degree do not use it all, then why do we bother going to such a depth? I am not argueing that we should not have depth, but that depth should be linked to the big picture, and limited, students should if they desire look into depth the area they are majoring in, but they should be able to connect this to the big picture, the general body of knowledge, so that they can orientate what they learn to the great resevoir of knowledge that mankind is creating. This will help us to keep ourselves and our knowledge in perspective. We may be anchored to the bed of the existing knowledge as we search the remaining depths of discovery.
        I think a fundamental part of unifying the disparaged units of learning is to reestablish philosophy. Philosophy is the core of all knowledge it is what provides the conceptual framework from which we study. It is the philosophy of science that evaluates the methodology of science, what constitutes what science is, and also the implications of science. The philosophy of science would be impossible without an evaluation and knowledge of general epistemological issues, or an understanding the problems of knowledge, and the claims of knowledge. But it is not the philosophy of science that is relevant but the philosophy of any discipline. Philosophy encouragesa self awareness and reflection on the state of a discipline, the problems that it faces, and the flaws that are inherant in it. For the most part we ignore the contradictions and flaws of our discipline, yet an awareness of the issues we face allows us to avoid falling into them and to analyise how we can rectify and solve them.
        Further it is a liberal art. This means that it liberates the individual. It opens up ways of thinking, it allows one to discuss, to understand the nature of arguement, the ability to compare ideas, to think critically, and to research and evaluate the claims, it involves the abilty to cope with contradiction, unsurety. The world of the past is riddled with uncertainity, and philosophy never is able to objectvely prove anything, it helps to develop negative capabilty. The ability to live in a world that is plagued with chaos and uncertainty without having to invent satisfying falsehoods, and illusions of certainty to mask the contradictions and uncertainty. It is this state that helps to create genius. We all lie to ourselves in order to preserve the unity of the world, for our world is one in which we like certainty and consistency when confronted with something that contradicts our world-view we just dismiss or alter what we see, we lie to ourselves in order to preserve the world we live in, how much better would it be if we learned to live in contradiction to know that we are not consistent all the time, and that it doesn’t all fit perfectly together, but thats alright. The liberal arts enable us to do this, to have a multuplicity of view points at the same time, and be able to know that they can coexist without only one being the only one that can or is the true or correct view or opinion.
        Philosophy helps to develop the intellect. To borrow a tired metaphor to broaden ones horizons, and enlarge the ability of the mind to think in new and creative ways. I love this quote:

The study of philosophy serves to develop intellectual abilities important for life as a whole, beyond the knowledge and skills required for any particular profession. Properly pursued, it enhances analytical, critical and interpretive capacities that are applicable to any subject-matter, and in any human context. It cultivates the capacities and appetite for self-expression and reflection, for exchange and debate of ideas, for life-long learning, and for dealing with problems for which there are no easy answers. It also helps to prepare one for the tasks of citizenship. Participation in political and community affairs today is all too often insufficiently informed, manipulable and vulnerable to demagoguery. A good philosophical education enhances the capacity to participate responsibly and intelligently in public life.

(Philosophy Major (1992)) At some point I would love to dissect this quote to fully elucidate on the many principles that it contains. It has given me greater reason as to why philosophy is both relevant and important. It gives tools that allow one to learn faster then specialised practical skills from a degree in a superficially more practical subject. The fact is that it is intellectually demanding and academically difficult, means that it refines the mind and the ability to think and digest information. To engage with the world, philosophy leads to action and we need to awaken people from their slumber.

“The great virtue of philosophy is that it teaches not what to think, but how to think. It is the study of meaning, of the principles underlying conduct, thought and knowledge. The skills it hones are the ability to analyse, to question orthodoxies and to express things clearly. “ Agust 15 1998 The times
I think that ultimately we need a liberal education. One that does not restrict and confine us but opens up the options for us. Philosophy should be taught in every school. One of the problems that we face is that our university system has no clear concept of its purpose. Is it a professional training facility or an educational facility. I think the diabolical state of our graduate schools further highlights this. To go on to graduate study which I feel is when one should specialise is not possible.
An interesting article on this appeared in the New York Times called "To Beat the Market, Hire a Philosopher” It basically told the story of Bill Miller and how he applied philosophical thought experiments to the financial market in order to help develop a a billion pound company. He used his philosophical training to enable him to connect dots that woudl have escaped him had he not refined his ability to think comparatively and link ideas together in novel and interesting ways.
Further in a world saturated with information and messages the ability to judge between them is more important then ever. This involves the ability to understand a text, and then compare it and critically engage with it, something that philosophy encourages and helps to refine the skill. In a world of so many websites and claims to knowledge it is vital that we give our children a philosophical background to prevent them from being deceived or brainwashed by the media, by politicians, by anything that purports to be knowledge or a claim. This is a vital skill that in a world full of information our children need to be able to orientate themselves in the vast seas of knowledge and information.

Michael Morpurgo - singing for mrs pettigrew

A mark of a great story teller is their ability to take you away into magical worlds. They have an ability to breathe a sense of the extraordinairy in the ordinairy world. To remystify the world that has stripped the world of all that is mysterious. Michael Morpurgo is a master story teller, able to reinvigorate the impoverished world with wonder and awe, and transport the reader into worlds that ache with beauty.

singing for mrs pettigrew, is in essence a reflection on the story-makers journey. Morpurgo wants not only to transport readers into his fictional worlds, but in this book he wants to give us an insight into the way in which he sees the world, and what an experience it is to see the world through his eyes, we are taken through a nostagic vision of the past, where everything in the world has a story, a tale waiting to be told. It is a fantastic journey that both inspires, edifies, and brings a fresh view of the world. This is a deeply personal book, and one can feel Morpurgo’s soul in the pages, as he shares stories drawn from his past, and his explaination of them in terms of his writers craft. Reading it one feels like they are getting to know some fairy tale story-teller who wanders the world sprinkling the magic of his words to inspire others. You get a real sense of the love that he has for words, and for stories, you feel the richness of his imagery that entices with metaphors that are subtle yet potent, you feel a real sense that he has brought everything into the story, the characters, the landscape, the situation, the plot all forming a recipe carefully developed organically. It is as if the story has a life of its own which Morpurgo has carefully caught and transposed onto paper, and still it is kicking and breathing on the pages, trying to escape into fertile minds to invoke a magical sense of awe.

The stories are very well crafted. One feels a deep connection to the story, the characters are those that are meaningful, and the treatment Morpurgo gives them reflects his respect and love for them. This is in part due to the autobiographical basis for many of the stories in the collection. He treats themes such as death, loss and tragedy with a sympathetic manner. The giants necklace the story of a girl who gets caught by the sea as she collects shells for her necklace, is both haunting and beautiful. In the mozart question he delves into the past and how we should be truthful about the past through a jewish violinist. Other themes such as that of alienation and loss are treated, yet to look at the themes is to miss the beauty of the writing, each is a gem that is about the story not about a moral or theme, these come along naturally as the story evolves. I believe in unicorns is a story that reveals the authors love of literature, as the town save the books from a burning library in order to keep a treasury of literature. Half a man treats the story of a man deformed from a war, and his coming to terms with his estranged family, through a child’s wonder and lack of repulsion. War and the effects of war feature a lot in his stories in this volume a token of the things that Morpurgo himself understood. The result of his excellent craftsmanship in his writing, and his wonderful ability to conjur eup vivid worlds, results in a book that is both readable, magical and spellbinding. It inspires wonder, and to want to see the world as Morpurgo describes the world.

Franz Kafka - The Castle

Everyone has experienced that infuriating feeling when you call a customer helpline and the never ending series of ‘press one if you want this’ ‘press two if you want that’ and none of them have what you are looking for as an option. So then you start pressing random buttons before finally talking to a human voice who has no idea what you are talking about and starts a series of never ending series of transfers, speaking to one person to explain the problem only to be told you need to speak to the manager, who then says its the wrong department, and so it all starts again. This nightmare of beauracracy and legislation is essentially what Kafka’s castle is about. Except it is more confusing. K. The protaganist has no idea why he even needs to call the helpline, and the phone he has no buttons, and the buttons change, and doesn’t even make sense.

The essential basis of the plot is that K. has been summoned to the castle and once he gets there has to try and make contact with the authorities in the castle. Yet, he is constantly thrawted in his attempts, as K. is situated in the village beneath the castle it we have a forboding image, the castle looming constantly over K. a powerful symbol of authority. Protected with a never ending complex system of beauracy with multiple secretaries and paperwork that has K. stumbling to try and gain access. the system is seen as flawless yet it was a flaw that brought K. to the village in the first place. It is the story of alienation, the frustration of modern beaucracy and mans frustrated attempts to fight the system.

The style of the book is very fragmented, the characters shift and change, events break up, in a dream like fashion. The events are often illogical and meaningless, and what was insignificant latter becomes crucial. All these creates an atmosphere of tension and uncertainty. We become as confused as K. is in the situation. The dream seems more like a broken nightmare.

The bizare world that K is subjected to he freely participates in, K. is always free to leave the village and never forced or compelled to follow the castles strange laws. K. could leave the village but instead engages and adheres to the strange and crazy protocols and rules of the castle. K. sees himself fighting against the system but in his fight he follows the rules dictates to him by the system and in so doing he creates and sustains the system. The message is that each of us finds ourself in a a bewildering world full of rules that make no sense to us, K. in the end subjects himself to them, in order to gain acceptance in the village. Sadly, kafka died before completing the book, yet MAx Brod said that he had intended that K. was to die in the village as he finally was granted permission to live there. This for me makes the point that a theme of the book is that K. was buying into the beaurocracy in order to gain acceptance, his original quest became secondary and all that mattered was for him to follow the rules. The Castle is as much a thought experiment, where K. is presented with situations rather then a clear narrative and character development. The result is a book that makes one think but can also be difficult to follow with its fractured development.

Thomasso Campenella - The City of the Sun

Thomasso Campenella was a big thinker in the seventeenth-century. He had grandiose plans for the reformation of society. Campenella like his contemporarys Johanne Andreae and Francis Bacon articulated his aspirations through the emerging medium of utopian dreaming. Like Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Christianopolis the city of sun is an attempt to reconcile the emerging new knowledge that was being generated. It hoped to show how science could function in a society. For this reason City of the Sun gives a fascinating insight into the mind-set of seventeenth century thinkers, and the hopes and fears they saw the future held.

The book is delivered through a dialogue between a sea-captain who has visited the CIty of the Sun, and the grandmaster who wishes to learn more about this city. The sea-captain takes the grandmaster on a detailed description of the city, taking him through the series of circles that educate the city through the paintings on the wall. followed by an a description of the customs, procedures and rituals of the municipality. The book is a fascinating insight into seventeenth-century idealised values, as this was what it attempted to achieve. It is notable for the influence it had upon Andreae's Christianopolis and Bacon's New Atlantis, which would be two crucial texts. Whilst not the most engaging utopian work, it is worth reading to understand how it interacted and compared to comparable utopias.

Isaac Asimov - The End of Eternity

The control that we have over our destiny and fate is something that has always been a concern of humans. Philosophers and writers have expended thousands of pages exploring the extent that we are able to determine our destiny. In Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity we have an excellent work that explores this theme of free will and destiny. Asimov writes a tale that at its heart is about how what we chose determines what our reality is, and who should have control over our destiny, this is delivered in an fascinating plot that revolves around the paradoxes of time travel.

The writing for the most part is clear and engaging, and whilst he never fully develops the characters beyond the one dimensional images we get a glimpse at, the strength of the philosophically dense plot is sufficient to maintain interest in the story. Asimov allows the complexity of the narrative to unfold out in an unexpected series of revelations concerning the nature of Eternity and reality. The crux of the book is the organisation called Eternity, a group of time-travellors who observe the course of history and intervene in its path in order to improve the end result in a utilitarian manner and reduce the suffering in the universe as a whole, however manipulating the past through the myriad of cause and effect relationships is a complex procedure and in the end has serious repercussions for humanity and its future existence.

The central tension in the book is that between the desires of the individual and the desires of the organisation. Harlan a product of the system, who is indoctrinated in the dogma of the group starts to struggle to reconcile his allegiance to Eternity when it starts to conflict with his own personal desires. This conflict arises when he meets a female from the outside called Noys, and the dispassionate Harlan finds himself victim to the phenomena of love, when Harlan discovers Noys existence is in threat, he then starts to violate the code of practice to save Noys and his love.

The narration throughout is tight and controlled with Asimov laying out the parameters of the problem with sufficient clues to guide but withholding enough to keep the fascination of the reader. We are guided through the story via the eyes of Harlan, who seems to driven without sufficient motive to be believable. Likewise his companion Noys is presented as a non-entity and never fully developed yet turns out to be crucial to the plot, making it difficult for the final revelation to have the potency it needs. Whilst the weak characters, the precision and depth in the analysis and exploration of the philosophical issues of time travel more then makes up for this. The End of Eternity is a thought provoking work, with a powerful enough idea to drive home its point that in the end each of us our masters of our own destiny.

Joseph Conrad - Short Stories

In this collection are four of Conrad’s short stories. Of the four only two really stood out to me and made me think: An Outpost of Progress and The Heart of Darkness. Both of them have themes of obsession and the depths of cruelty that man can stoop to.

The first story An Oupost of Progress is a very cynical look at imperialism. It is based around two people who live at an outpost of the British Empire. The two white men stationed at a trading post are viewed very cynically. The place that is meant to be a symbol of western ideals and of progress, in the end is run by two people unable to think for themselves. They as white men feel that they are both safe and superior from those around them. Who they are Conrad states is just a manifestation of the people not them. As a result they are incapable of making decisions and thinking for themselves. All independant thought is taken away from them and they have no initiative. It is in essence almost if they have simply jumped on the bandwagon, they see the Empire as a means to make a name for themselves and have enlisted themselves yet they have no drive, it is the safety that comes from the association with the trading station that the hold onto, the prestige that they have endowed the location with. The chief two protaganists are Kayerts and Carlier. Both of whom are portrayed as having spent so long together that they despise each other as they both are searching for a way to escape and move out from the outpost of progress. The implication is that civilization is hollow at the core like the two men, they are just a manifestation of a system of deceptive innistutions and social conventions that sustain the illusion of progress. The emissaries of progress have become isolated alienated in the wilderness of the Congo, they are only there as a commercial enterprise and as a result they are unable to cling to their motives and become the ghosts of society. The illusions can’t be sustained in isolation, and out their in the Outpost they can not maintain the dillusion as there is no one who will participate in the act outside of them and it has hard to maintain a superficial stance all the time. The final result is that the locals, who fail to buy into western europes ideals and illusion and betray the two traders, thus when the manager comes to look on the trading post he encounters Carlier dead and Kayert hanging from a cross, the ideals and valies of progress when isolated in two people who have been deadened of their individuality leads them to kill themself.

The second one I liked was a Heart of Darkness. This is Conrad’s most famous story, I found it hard going to read, and wasn’t a big fan of his style. I think partly because it was long winded at times. It was famously adapted in the film Apocolypse Now. I think it is interesting but not as much as it is hyped up to be. For me it is all about how we build up things, goals, ideals and spend our life pursueing them, although we are never fully sure about why we are chasing them, that when we find them we are always disappointed in them . Marlow is sent to go bring Mr Kurtz back from his post, and the voyage is seen as one of self discovery where he is able to look inside himself and reveal his inner thoughts and feelings. I think that it is very much the case as his view of the world causes him to look inside himself. THis feeling of isolation is a theme that runs throughout the books. The concept being that western man when put into an alien environment discovers that the world is an isolated place, the objective is to spread colonialism but in the end they discover how alone they really are. This is echoed in the passage ‘It is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence - that which makes its truth, itsmeaning - its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream - alone..’ Here Conrad through Marlow wants to describe the phyronnian scepticism the idea that we only can understand shadows of external reality, our perception of the world is ours alone and no one else can understand it. This can clearly be seen to be a product of his experience in the Congo when surrounded by that which is unfamiliar it is easy to assume that only you understand yourself, the others external of you seem alien and incapable of understanding each other, you can’t comprehend them thus they must be unable to understand you. Marlow goes on to build upon this idea of the solitary man, of mankind isolated when he discusses work ‘I don’t like work - no man does - but i like what is in the work, - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - what no other man can ever know. They only see the mere show, and never what it really means.’ Here we see that Marlow through his voyage has seen the intrinsic laziness of man, the traders and colonial generals have been seen as lazy, money grabbers who just want an easy life. Here Marlow uses this to make the point that he himself is like them against work but he sees the need of work. To find his own meaning, and the same theme of the isolated reality that no man bt yoruself can ever know what it means. These were the points that I really got from the work it is easy to look deeper and find an extended metaphor for life, how when th boat is broken, and our purpose in life, the idea that we stumble along finding our own meaning, informed by our own stereotypes and prejudices, we make the world mean what we want it to mean.

Marcus Aurelius - Meditations

I read this book today by the self proclaimed philosopher king Marcus Aurelius. He tried to emulate the platonic ideal that a leader should also be a philosopher. The meditations were wrote whilst he was preparing for military campaigns and were very much for self reflection and meditation and were not intended to be published. Thus, like St Augustnes Confessions, you end up with a very confessional set of reflections. I found them interesting but not particularly ground breaking. I think the greatest theme that I got from it was how the world is in a state of mutability and the role that change plays. Aurelius points out that change is what allows us to do everything, if we did not change from one state to another from inaction to action then the world would fall apart. Change is the blood of existence. I think this is an nice concept.