Keep it Simple, In Every Way Imaginable

Time for shop talk.  Warning, when I use the preceding phrase, that means that I'm going to be talking about my bread and butter, my long-time mistress and first love, Philosophy.  I was trying to keep it away from my blogging, and it's funny that it was when I mad that decision, that was about the time that I stopped blogging with any frequency.  Funny how that happens, huh?  Well as you can see, I have decided to abandon that rather meaningless policy and throw my ideas out there so that they will be etched in the digital stone that is the world wide web, and not on a flimsy piece of paper in the drawer of my desk that my fabulous lady Erin is currently whispering that I get rid of (okay, I concede that it is made of plywood...plywood and memories).  However, though I will be intermittently wrestling with issues philosophical/theoretical on this blog, there are two things that will remain constant (so help me Plato):

1) I will still be writing about pushing myself in running toward a marathon and in being a grown-up man.
2) I will keep my posts accessible.  Though I may engage in "shop talk" (which will also be the corresponding tag for posts of a philosophical bent), I will not be esoteric or overly technical.  Anything that took me more than a few sentences of explanation to learn as an undergrad, I will explain briefly.

That stuff now out of the way, off I go!

Yesterday, in Metaphysics class, my professor was talking about the A-theory and B-theory of time.  There are many complications, but the main difference can be laid out thusly (and arguments extrapolated from what each statement implies):

A-series - There is a past, present, and future.  Each event goes from being the future, to presently happening, and then becoming past.

B-series - The A-series makes no sense.  Time is a dimension like space, laid out in a certain way.  Terms like "now" or "the present" are simply indexicals (like "I", where the meaning changes based on the conditions under which the word is uttered), and events are merely earlier than, later than, or concurrent with some arbitrarily chosen point in time.

Now, the big issue between the two, and between several different A-theorists, is that it seems that when we experience things, we seem to have, as part of the content "now".  Let me explain.  Let's say I'm in pain, I have a monstrous toothache.  The content of my experience is "tooth in pain" or something like that.  But the A-theorist says that in addition to that, we have a "nowness" that attaches to that experience.  The B-theorist, it seems can't account for that, because all of time is on an equal plane, there is no "now" that is priveleged, and it certainly can't be part of an experience.  I find that utterly convincing.  There's more jargon to the argument, involving propositions, truthmakers, etc, but I am truly convinced by it.

I really only bring that up as a segue into a larger theme of my learned life.  From my first Philosophy of Mind class as an undergrad, I've always had problems with certain philosophical doctrines.  With ethics and Moral Philosophy, it's easy to see the root of any aversions one might have with a theory, because there are certain moral intuitions and value judgments that people bring with them to any philosophical debate.  But things get murkier when you're discussing metaphysics.  After all, the main question of metaphysics is "what is reality like?".  And if you're doing metaphysics, and you make claims to describe reality, another metaphysician will no doubt ask you the above question, but without the last word.  That question, the more basic one, is the ontological question.  It is the question that W.V.O. Quine made philosophers focus on midway through the 20th century: "what is there?  what exists?".  This question can be asked more technically, in a sense, by asking "what do your quantifiers range over?".  I have always been inclined to answer these questions by saying "only concrete particulars exist, my quantifiers ranger over only concrete particulars, that's all that there is".  I thought that this was the bedrock of my metaphysical theorizing, and it led me to some pretty dismissive attitudes in metaphysical talks.  It would go something like this:

Philosopher A: Properties?
Me: Nope
Philosopher A: Propositions?
Me: No way.
Philosopher A: Concrete possible worlds?
Me: Uh-uh.
Philosopher A: Abstract possible worlds?
Me: Not a chance [there's a hidden philosophy joke there]
Philosopher A: Numbers? Sets?
Me: Null. [also a hidden joke]

You get the idea.  I however, did not really look at that until recently, when we were discussing Presentism.  That is the doctrine that the only things that exist are the things in the present moment, or more succinctly, to exist is to be in the present.  This means that there are no things in the past, and there is no future to which to travel at a faster rate than time moves.  But my inclination to this view enlightened me regarding my most basic ontological attitude: keep it simple!  I am concerned with keeping the leanest ontology possible.  This means that even with regards to time, I operate with the least amount of existing entities.  This gives me, in a sense, a new foundation from which to build my philosophical house.  It also gives me something to fight for in the "field" that I have chosen.  I fight for parsimony, I fight for simplicity.  Maybe it's an extension of my laziness, but I think I can live with that, so long as "laziness" is not an abstract property.

Know the Trick: The Trick is to Know.

Yes, I've not been posting for a while.  I could try to formulate an excuse for this that could not be reasonably rejected by any one of my readers, but I won't waste either of our precious time.  I got lazy, I had to take time off to rest a slightly defective ankle, and I started working.

Yes, that's right!  You did not misread the above line, I started a job.  I won't name names, or pay-rates.  Suffice it to say that I secured a retail job that I don't really like, but am comfortable with because it is temporary, uninvolved, and non-committal.  Those aspects come into play come January, because I will be re-assuming my old position at the University.  Yes, this is a good thing.  I will have said position until May, when I plan to graduate with my M.A. in Philosophy.  This brings me to my next point.

I have certain places on the internet that I value for their ability to give me valuable knowledge on a regular basis.  One site tells me how a grown man ought to dress, another tells me who's publishing which papers on what philosophical topics, and another tells me what the people I know are up to.  The list goes on, but I won't bother publishing any more of my increasingly geeky trail of links.  But there is one particular site that I perused today for the first time in a while, which really spoke to my recent productivity downturn (I'd link that phrase to a demonstration of said downturn, but you can't link to a lack of blog posts, know what I mean?).  The site is owned and operated by one Merlin Mann, not to be confused with Manfred Mann.  It's called 43folders.com (type in the address yourself, I'm tired of linking), and it's all about productivity and what's called "knowledge work".  Now, I read this post today, and it changed my way of looking at things.  If you have time, watch the video.  If you have less time, watch the first 8 minutes or so, you'll get inspired enough.  So what does this have to do with getting my M.A. in Philosophy? (Thought I forgot, didn't you?)  Well, in case you didn't stop reading my blog to watch the video on the last link, the subject of the video is a little secret about how to be productive.  The key is to not forget who you are. 

I'll try to simplify as much as I can.  Productivity is what we in the philosophical field call a "teleological" concept.  It only has meaning so far as it is attached to a thinker (and in this case, a thinker who acts on thoughts) and a goal.  No one is just "productive" full stop.  A person is productive with regards to a certain goal.  This goal is largely a product of, or may very well define who you are.  Answer the following question: What do you do?  The answer will most likely be a description of your profession or desired profession that you are trying to break into.  I am a philosopher, that would be my answer.  So, I am productive if I do the things that I set out for myself philosophically speaking.  I have articles to read, papers to write, comprehensive exams for which to study.  My being productive comes from knowing what I have to know, knowing what I have to do, and doing what I have to do.  My NOT being productive happens when I forget that I am supposed to be doing philosophy.  I can attest to this.  I find myself on all sorts of internet oddysseys  in which I am learning all sorts of facts that it was not my goal to learn, and in which I have no interest.  Then I lose track of where I was when I was on task (if I was on task at all), and I am not productive.

This is not to say that you always have to be doing work that contributes to your life's work.  Well......actually, let me rephrase that.  You will find that as you start working more--I mean "heads down", 90 words-per-minute type work--you will find that taking breaks and having fun and free time is actually a vital part of your work.  My work is largely based on theoretical frameworks, fleshing out arguments, cross-referencing, use of analogies, and so on.  Long spans of time doing that work can make innovation and creativity slower to come.  I have found that I am most productive when I can get up, do something else for a bit, and get back to work.  But here's the catch; I have to fully participate in that break (whatever the task is). If I am talking to my lady, I have to only talk to her, not think about one of my argument's sub-arguments or try to remember why Scanlon takes reasons as primitive (it's roughly the same as resemblance nominalists taking similarity as primitive, don't worry!).  This way, when I come back to the laptop and the books, I am fresh, and I don't resent my work for taking my attention away from the other things I choose to do.  Much like the Offspring wisely said; "You gotta keep 'em separated".

So what should you take away from all this sludge?  Know who you are, and do the things that you need to do.  Don't forget that, and you'll be fine.  It's simple.  But as I believe I've said before, simple does not mean easy.  I must also apply this to running.  I am a philosopher, yes, but I am also a man training to run a marathon.  So I need to focus on running when I'm running, and make progress when I must.  In that vein, it's been tough.  I did something to my ankle, and though I did 5 miles Monday and 4 and some change today, it's still keeping me from pushing hard.  I'll accept that, it comes with the territory.  But when I can push, I'll be doing just that.

Onward!

(This post is dedicated to KJ.  He left this world too soon, for he wasn't done changing it yet.  You are in my prayers, buddy.)