I want to send this book to everyone in America

"Do you understand anything I'm saying?" shouted Moist. "You can't just go around killing people!"
"Why Not? You Do." The golem lowered his arm.
"What?" Moist. "I do not! Who told you that?"
"I Worked It Out. You Have Killed Two Point Three Eight People," said the golem calmly.
"I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr. Pump. I may be - all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!"
"No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded, And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr. Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses and Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Death Of Many. You Did Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs."

Going Postal, Terry Pratchett

Granny Weatherwax is the Shit

"There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
"It's a lot more complicated than that-"
"No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they mean they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as thing, that's where it starts."
"Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes-"
"But they starts with thinking about people as things . . ."

Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett

I Am a Strange Loop

Last week I finished reading Douglas Hofstadter's I Am a Strange Loop. It was a fascinating read, but the fact that I enjoyed it made me feel that I somewhat missed the point. A very boiled down summary of his thesis could be put thus: Consciousness is a phenomenon that emerges from a complex brain when it becomes self-referential. "Strange Loops" are self-referential systems that become self-changing and self-reinforcing, and a human brain is a strange loop. (He references Godel's Proof as the major example of how complex systems can begin to make statements about themselves.)

There is a lot that makes sense to me in this argument. To me, the crux of it is the idea that consciousness is a "thing which emerges", a result of thought, not a cause. My gradual acclimation to Orthodox Christian theology has prepared me for this leap - instead of the dualism of modern Evangelical Protestantism, I have grown into a greater appreciation for the importance of the body. Strange Loops do not exist without a brain, and so one cannot believe in them if one thinks that the soul lives in a body which can will be discarded with no or little loss to the soul.

A large section of I Am a Strange Loop is an intensely personal discussion of Hofstadter's experiences at the early loss of his wife. It was a brave choice to include it, and it emphasized the importance of what he is discussing. What are we? What happens when we die? and above all: What does it mean for someone to die? How are we to understand the meaning of that loss - do the lights simply go out? Hofstadter discusses the nature of human relationships in a way that makes a lot of sense to me. Though my brain is primarily host to my strange loop, my strange loop also lives in other brains in reflections of greater or lesser clarity, depending on the relationships. At the beginning of the book, Hofstadter refers to Chopin's etudes as "soul shards". Every time some of the work is played, other human beings participate in the work Chopin was doing, and a glorious continuity comes into being. I am left after reading all this with more images than thoughts. I see humans walking around with constellations of lights in their skulls. The lights dance, and as one person meets another, all their lights dance together. This is why I feel sure that I've missed the point. A work on the nature of consciousness should cause confusion and discomfiture, but I guess I'm so burnt out that all I can see are dancing stars.

There are consequences of these ideas that are very troubling, however. If consciousness emerges gradually, then "soul-havingness" (to borrow a Whedonism) is a matter of degree. Hofstadter explicitly says that infants are excluded from the ranks of the ensouled. This doesn't bother me because it is so demonstrably untrue. Think of any child you know - even one that really bothers you. See what I mean? And of course, the mentally retarded and others with developmental problems, dementia, or mental illness are in a similar quandry. He argues that our love for children springs from their attributes of "potential" and "cuteness". Hofstadter may be entirely correct in his understanding of the growth of self-consciousness, but I believe the above is a reductio that would indicate that self-consciousness and soulness terms that cannot be interchanged. I would argue that the ingredient missing from these definitions is love.

The other freaky consequence, and one that I find compelling, is that artifical intelligence is not only possible, it is inevitable. Universal machines are the wave of the present (please don't kill me, iphone!), and as they grow in complexity, Hofstadter's ideas seem to indicate that they must eventual become self-referential. I find this freaky because I just don't think mankind is ready for the responsibity. We have a hard enough time with our own kids; while I trust God to manage any new souls that start buzzing around, I'm not sure I like what we'll do in the meantime.

In the next week or so, I'll start up a discussion on the "Killing a Couple of Sacred Cows," section. In the meantime, start commenting and let's get a discussion going. I'm very curious to see what you guys think about this.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody!

One of today's readings from the Menaion, from Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

The readings for today from Vespers last night were amazingly joyful. I have great hopes for this coming year. I love you all!

Batman, and the Value of Camp

I bought the old Adam West Batman movie last week (5 bucks, suckers!), and I've already watched it twice. I liked the movie enough to buy it, but watching it this week has completely won me over in a new way.

I like campy movies. I've gotten more joy out of Plan 9 From Outer Space than from many legitimately excellent movies. This MST3K style of camp is on an entirely different wavelength than Batman, however. A lot of camp is based on the failure of a movie to maintain the illusion of the story. You can see the wires, and then you laugh not simply at the mistakes, but at the entire notion of movie making itself. Plan 9 reveals the limitations of the entire project of making a movie and the humor inherent in failure.

Batman takes place in a closed universe that is internally consistent and executed perfectly. Every aspect of the production is excellent, most particularly the acting and the writing. I've been so used to the Adam West schtick that he's been using for the last twenty years that I didn't notice what a note-perfect performance he gave as Batman. Burt Ward gives the perfect counterpoint. They are so earnest. Even the way they run is perfectly goofy. It takes an entire ensemble to hold a movie like this together, and the villains keep up the energy perfectly.

(An aside: Frank Gorshin plays the Riddler, and he is just scary. He doesn't throw the cast off, but of all the villians he definitely comes off as the one to keep an eye on. He fills much more of what I would consider a Joker role to be about.)

There is something terribly humble about these kinds of performances, and I find that touching. The most current 'camp' style comedy we have is of the Will Ferrell vein, which I enjoy greatly (Ron Burgundy is the funniest movie in the world after Batman. It's science) but which depends on everyone winking at the camera. We're in on the joke. We get it! Our characters are silly! None of that in Batman. They play it straight the entire way through, and the payoff is humor that is genuinely character driven. More than anything else, it reminds me of Discworld humor.

In conclusion, this movie is awesome, and you need to see it.

Finished!

Yesterday morning I finished Anna Karenina. It was my third time through in three years. I'm compiling some thoughts to share later, but for now, read this:

"And what he saw then, he afterwards never saw again. He was especially moved by children going to school, the grey-blue pigeons that flew down from the roof to the pavement, and the white rolls sprinkled with flour that some invisible hand set out. These rolls, the pigeons and the two boys were unearthly beings. All this happened at the same time: a boy ran up to a pigeon and smiling, looked at Levin; the pigeon flapped its wings and fluttered off, sparkling in the sun amidst the air trembling with snowdust, while the smell of baked bread wafted from the window as the rolls appeared in it. All this together was so extraordinarily good that Levin laughed and wept from joy." (Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, p. 403)

Tolstoy gives words to the way life is actually lived, at least for me. I've had that magical morning, and no one else in the world has been able to put it into words that I can understands. Tolstoy is the shit.

Office Orders

I just received my big fall order of office supplies. There should be enough paper and toner and charts to get us through until Christmas. I always have the strangest sense of relief after I receive a large order. I say to myself, "well, if society collapses this month, I can keep this office running anyway. Every new patient will have their own neat chart with the proper labels and sufficient HIPAA compliant paperwork. After their sessions we may attempt to cannibalize one another, but I'm ready for an audit!"

I really don't know what that's all about. I still feel relieved, though.