Søren Kierkegaard on the Religious Problem

Søren Kierkegaard on the Existential Problem

Road to General Relativity - November 25th 1915

November 25th 1915

Gravity is communicated by the shape of the universe, warps and curves in space and time. This is the heart of the new picture of how gravity works. This is the heart of the General Theory of Relativity.

~Brian Greene

Road to General Relativity - November 18th 1915

November 18th 1915
 
[Einstein] receives a paper from [German mathematician] David Hilbert, and this paper completely shatters Einstein's triumphant mood.

~Brian Greene
 

Road to General Relativity - November 11th 1915

November 11th 1915

Mercury had a particular (peculiar) orbit around the sun, which baffled Newtonian-oriented physicists. Albert Einstein made a bold, fateful decision: To apply the equations he had been working on for the General Theory of Relativity, and ... it worked! His equations predicted the orbit that Mercury took.

Road to General Relativity - November 4th 1915

November 4th 2015

"It is quite an unnerving moment for Albert Einstein, because for the first time in his long journey, he realizes that he's got stiff competition on this final leg of the race toward the General Theory of Relativity."

~Brian Greene

What was the unnerving moment?
 

Science and Islam (3) Universality

[2:54:15]

Nature's rules are refreshingly free of human prejudice.

That's something the scientists of the medieval Islamic world understood and articulated so well...

These scientists' quest for truth, wherever it came from, was summed up by the 9th century philosopher Al-Kindi, who said:

It is fitting for us not to be ashamed of acknowledging truth and to assimilate it from whatever source it comes to us. There is nothing of higher value than truth itself. It never cheapens, or have bases, he who seeks.

One moral emerges from this epic tale of the rise and fall of science in the Islamic world between the 9th and 15th centuries, and that is that science is the universal language of the human race.

Decimal numbers are just as useful in India as they are in Spain. Star charts drawn up in Iran speak volumes to astronomers in Northern Europe. And Newton's "Principia" is just as true in Arabic as it is in Latin or English.

What medieval Islamic scientists realized, and articulated so brilliantly, is that science is the common language of the human race. Man-made laws may vary from place to place, but nature's laws are true for all of us.

~Jim Al-Khalili
Professor of Theoretical Physics
University of Surrey
 

Science and Islam (2) Methodology

[1:54:45]

"On my journey so far, I've been overwhelmed by the sheer intellectual ambition of medieval Islamic scientists. When their leaders asked them to find out the size of the world, scholars like Al-Biruni used mathematics in startling new ways to reach out to describe the universe. And as trade and commerce boomed, scientists like Al-Razi responded by developing a new kind of experimental science - chemistry. But if there's one Islamic scientist we should remember above all others, it is, in my view, Ibn Al-Haitham, for doing so much to create what we now call the scientific method.

The scientific method is, I believe, the single most important idea the human race has ever come up with. There is no other strategy that tells us how to find out how the universe works and what our place in it is. Of course it has also delivered technologies that have transformed our lives. So the next time you jet off on holiday, or use your mobile phone, or get vaccinated against a deadly disease, remember Ibn Al-Haitham, Ibn Sina, Al-Biruni, and countless other Islamic scholars a thousand years ago, who struggled to make sense of the universe, using crude mirrors and astrolabes. They didn't get all the right answers, but they did teach us how to ask the right questions."

~Jim Al-Khalili
Professor of Theoretical Physics
University of Surrey
 

Science and Islam (1) Transcendence

[56:30]

I believe that the first great achievement of the medieval Islamic scientists was to prove that science isn't Islamic, or Hindu, or Hellenistic, or Jewish, Buddhist, or Christian. It cannot be claimed by any one culture. Before Islam, science was spread across the world. But the scholars of medieval Islam pieced together this giant scientific jigsaw by absorbing knowledge that had originated far beyond their own empire's borders. This great synthesis produced not just new science, but showed for the first time that science as an enterprise transcends political orders and religious affiliations. It's a body of knowledge that benefits all humans. Now that's an idea that's as relevant and as inspiring as ever!

~Jim Al-Khalili
Professor of Theoretical Physics
University of Surrey
 

Thinking is difficult...

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Our thinking default, it seems, is simplicity.  It is far easier to determine things as either black or white, rather than as gray.  The gray zone is vast and murky.
 

Any fool can know...

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It's easy enough to Google anything we want, but if we're to truly understand something, then we have to mull it over, make sense of it etc.
 

(7) Back to the Curious Case of Kelsey Alexander

Not Kelsey Alexander

Department Of Education Hires Art Teacher To Spread Evenly Across All U.S. Public Schools is evidently a satire, and if so, it's directed at the beleaguered Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. These art lessons for students at 98,000 schools across the US are a sham, and this particular Kelsey Alexander probably doesn't exist.
 

(6) Comedy of Err ... Comedy of The Onion

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Now I see that there was reason why I rarely read "The Onion." To wit:

The Onion is an American digital media company and news satire organization. The publication's origins are rooted in its distribution as a weekly college print publication beginning in 1988, but in the spring of 1996 The Onion put its content online in the form of a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news. Starting in 2007, the organization began publishing satirical news audio and video online, as the Onion News Network. In 2013, the publication ceased publishing the print edition and launched Onion Labs, an advertising agency.

The Onion‍ '​s articles satirically comment on current events, both real and fictional. It satirizes the tone and format of traditional news organizations with stories, editorials, op-ed pieces, and man-in-the-street interviews using a traditional news website layout and an editorial voice modeled after that of the Associated Press. The publication's humor often depends on presenting mundane, everyday events as newsworthy, surreal or alarming. Comedian Bob Odenkirk has praised the publication stating, "It's the best comedy writing in the country, and it has been since it started."

Reference: The Onion.

BTW: The "Fake news sites" list in the image is from Facebook “satire” tag could wipe out the Internet’s terrible hoax-news industry.
  

(5) What about The Onion?

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I've read The Onion only a few times over the years, and it describes itself as such:

The Onion is the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events. Rising from its humble beginnings as a print newspaper in 1765, The Onion now enjoys a daily readership of 4.3 trillion and has grown into the single most powerful and influential organization in human history.

In addition to maintaining a towering standard of excellence to which the rest of the industry aspires, The Onion supports more than 350,000 full- and part-time journalism jobs in its numerous news bureaus and manual labor camps stationed around the world, and members of its editorial board have served with distinction in an advisory capacity for such nations as China, Syria, Somalia, and the former Soviet Union. On top of its journalistic pursuits, The Onion also owns and operates the majority of the world’s transoceanic shipping lanes, stands on the nation’s leading edge on matters of deforestation and strip mining, and proudly conducts tests on millions of animals daily.

The Onion is now available exclusively online without charge in order to take advantage of various charity tax benefits.

Reference: About The Onion
  

(4) How many handcuffs on Arne Duncan

Arne Duncan

“The question is not whether we’re going to put handcuffs on Arne Duncan,” said Lanae Erickson Hatalsky of Third Way, a centrist think tank. “The question is how many handcuffs.”

Reference: Even as Congress moves to strip his power, Arne Duncan holds his ground
 

(3) More on the Curious Case of Arne Duncan

Arne Duncan

Salon writer Diane Ravitch:

"It will take years to recover from the damage that Arne Duncan’s policies have inflicted on public education. He exceeded the authority of his office to promote a failed agenda, one that had no evidence behind it. The next president and the next Secretary of Education will have an enormous job to do to restore our nation’s public education system from the damage done by Race to the Top. We need leadership that believes in the joy of learning and in equality of educational opportunity. We have not had either for 15 years."

Reference: Diane Ravitch’s devastating Arne Duncan critique: The education secretary earned his F.

You see, friends, education matters a lot to me. I agree with a lot of advocates that it's the royal road out of dire circumstances: poverty, crime, and violence. But if delivered incompetently or corruptly, then that very same "education" becomes a farce at best and a disaster at worst.

The following are three of the "accomplishments" in Duncan's Secretary of Education resume, which Ravitch lists:

(1) He used his control of billions of dollars to promote a dual school system of privately managed charter schools operating alongside public schools;

(2) He has done nothing to call attention to the fraud and corruption in the charter sector or to curb charters run by non-educators for profit or to insist on charter school accountability or to require charters to enroll the neediest children;

(3) He pushed to require states to evaluate teachers by the test scores of their students, which has caused massive demoralization among teachers, raised the stakes attached to testing, and produced no positive results.

Very unfortunate, indeed.
 

(2) The Curious Case of Arne Duncan

Arne Duncan with Jon Stewart

"The subject of [Washington Post education journalist Lindsey] Layton’s reporting, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, was the bipartisan stud when the Obama administration debuted but has now devolved into the bipartisan flop as new bills in Congress seek to do all they can to neuter the secretary [yikes!] and make sure future secretaries never do what he did ever again [whoa!]."

Reference: Washington Post writes the most embarrassing, awful profile of Arne Duncan ever, completely misses the point 

It was Secretary Duncan who hired the curious Kelsey Alexander, whom I was curious about in my previous post. Apparently the Secretary has been a colossal flop!
 

(1) The Curious Case of Kelsey Alexander

Kelsey Alexander (?)

So I read this short article - Department Of Education Hires Art Teacher To Spread Evenly Across All U.S. Public Schools, in The Onion - and on first blush I really liked it. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praised the recent hiring of art teacher Kelsey Alexander. She is tasked with promoting art for all students across all public schools in the US.

If you're scratching your head, and wondering what is wrong with this story, then you're in the same boat as I am:

(a) There 98,000 schools for Ms. Alexander to visit, and she is slated to teach at every single one (hmm). She will cycle through these schools, and when she's finished, she will cycle again.

(b) “An education in the visual arts is a vital part of every child’s education, and with Ms. Alexander’s hiring, we can now guarantee that each student in America will have an art class at some point during their K-through-12 years. We know she will make a wonderful addition to every single school district in the country," says Secretary Duncan.

I thought: Wouldn't it make more sense to craft a strategic plan to engage current art teachers, train and hire more of them, and fund their curriculum and materials? This way, students actually get a program, as opposed to one-off, "40-minute art course."

(c) Speaking of "fund," apparently the 26-year old art teacher has already spent about $3.2 million on art supplies out of pocket for her cross-country lessons. $3.2 million (huh), an art teacher has this sort of wealth (huh)?

(d) Who is Kelsey Alexander anyway? Here is a Kelsey Alexander who's a dancer, choreographer and director.  Here is another Kelsey Alexander who's an art teacher at Asheland Studios.
 

With great power comes great ability...

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True (lol)! The statistician knows that if he or she cannot reject the null hypothesis, then the results are much more difficult to interpret. So great power is definitely key!
 

With great power comes great responsibility

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The quote “With great power comes great responsibility,” which highlights the principle of _Noblesse oblige (obligation of Nobility), is variously attributed to the Oevres de Voltaire, Volume 48 (1829)[1], Thomas C. Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates (1827)[2], and a variety of other sources and derivations.

Reference: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.
 

With freedom comes responsibility

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It seems like a paradox, but in reality it is not.  It is only a paradox, in large measure, because some people have an incomplete grasp of freedom.  They see one side of the coin, and neglect looking at the other side that speaks to responsibility.  That is, to exercise our freedom responsibly.
 

What is art? Teresa Herrera on affecting us

Teresa Herrera suggests that art is "something in the world that exists that affects people" and "makes you sensitive to things around you."
 

What is art? Eric Hullquist on engaging us

Eric Hullquist defines art = imagination + skill, which arouses an emotional response and engages us in some way.
 

What is art? Leon Botstein on transforming us

Leon Botstein argues that art is "the fingerprint of our existence in the world, that has its impact on things we transform through the use of our imagination."
 

Buckminster Fuller vis-a-vis The Tripartite Model

Buckminster Fuller

I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing - a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process - an integral function of the universe.
~ R. Buckminster Fuller ~

R. Buckminster Fuller was a renowned 20th century inventor and visionary born in Milton, Massachusetts on July 12, 1895. Dedicating his life to making the world work for all of humanity, Fuller operated as a practical philosopher who demonstrated his ideas as inventions that he called “artifacts.” Fuller did not limit himself to one field but worked as a 'comprehensive anticipatory design scientist' to solve global problems surrounding housing, shelter, transportation, education, energy, ecological destruction, and poverty. Throughout the course of his life Fuller held 28 patents, authored 28 books, received 47 honorary degrees. And while his most well know artifact, the geodesic dome, has been produced over 300,000 times worldwide, Fuller's true impact on the world today can be found in his continued influence upon generations of designers, architects, scientists and artists working to create a more sustainable planet.

I've encountered Fuller here and there, thus far, but he definitely warrants a deeper study.  Certainly I'm impressed by his accomplishments, and right now I can only aspire to match these.  But more importantly, I'm intrigued by however he thought, however he reasoned, however he came to understand whatever it was that he was working on.  In other words, I want to learn more about the process than the outcome.

Why?

Because the more bits and pieces I learn about him, such as the above notes from Corina Marinescu, the more I sense that Fuller's thinking resonates with mine, specifically The Tripartite Model, which speaks to a much wider range of scholarship and discipline - Science | Art | Religion - than any one scientist, philosopher or professor is used to.
 

Think small to solve big problems

Transcript 

One argument that we make is that we could all benefit a little bit from thinking more like children, okay. Now you could say well, we're -- first of all everybody's biased in a lot of ways and we have our set of biases too. It may be that we embrace the idea in this book of thinking like children because we're kind of, you know, childlike. We have kind of obvious observations sometimes. There's observations that strike people as obvious. We ask a lot of questions that are not considered, you know, the kind of questions that people ask in good company or smart company. But one of the most powerful pieces of thinking like a child that we argue is thinking small. So I realize that this runs exactly counter to the philosophy of the arena in which I'm appearing which is thinking big, Big Think, but our argument is this. Big problems are by their nature really hard to solve for a variety of reasons. One is they're large and therefore they include a lot of people and therefore they include a lot of crossed and often mangled and perverse incentives.

But also a big problem -- when you think about a big problem like the education reform. You're dealing with an institution or set of institutions that have gotten to where they've gotten to this many, many years of calcification and also accidents of history. What I mean by that is things have gotten the way they've gotten because of a lot of things a few people did many, many years ago and traditions were carried on. And now to suddenly change that would mean changing the entire stream of the way that this institution has functioned for many years. Therefore, attacking any big problem is bound to be really hard and the danger is you spend a lot of resources -- time, money, manpower, optimism which is perhaps one of our most precious resources attacking a problem that you can't make any headway on. So I mean, you know, history is littered with brilliant people who have attacked large problems in the past half century, century among them famine, among them poverty and most recently I think education reform, a healthy diet and so on. So these are all really big problems.

So our argument is -- you know what? There's a lot of people out there thinking big. Maybe some of them will be successful. Probably not so many honestly. It's very, very hard. Our argument is -- you know what? Let the people who are gonna try to think big solve big problems -- let them go. There's enough people doing that. Why don't you just try to think small. Why don't you try to find one piece of the problem that you can identify and peel it off and try to solve that problem or answer that question. So there are a lot of reasons why it's better to do that. It's easier to satisfactorily answer a small question or solve a big problem because you can get the data, you can understand the incentives, it's just inherently much less complicated. If you can come up with a solution to a small problem there's a much better chance you'll actually be able to get it done. A lot of people feel like they come up with the answers to big problems but then you need to get all the political and capital will to do it. And that can be much harder than actually solving the problem.

So if you can peel off a small piece of a problem and then someone else peels off another small piece and you add them up, you're constantly, you know, working toward a better place. So I'll give you an example. If you think about, let's say, education reform. Even that very phrase is kind of weighted or biased toward the supply side, the schools. It's basically saying that oh, all the kids and the families who are sending their kids to school -- they're all doing exactly the right thing. But education needs to be reformed because plainly the schools and teachers and principals, they're the bad people. So that's kind of an assumption already about where the problem should be solved. So you think, you know, people have been talking about the many, many inputs that go into education -- class size, technology in the classroom, resources spent, curricula -- the way the curricula are taught and so on [transcript truncated].

My notes

Instead, look at it from the standpoint of the students going to school. Look at areas where they’re not doing well.

Pilot program ▪ School of One (NYC). Give students options, such as format, setting etc., for learning the same material. How did each student best learn? [1]  

At the end of the day, you have an algorithm about how students best learned.[2]

Having eye glasses is a really big deal in learning. [3]

My comments

[1] Assess students, managers et al. Learning Style.

[2] Yes, of course. This algorithm is uniquely crafted for each student, much as the teacher or the school may tend to cluster, to lump, to categorize or segregate. What’s more, the optimal is to ▪ assess Learning Style, ▪ adapt classroom teaching accordingly, then ▪ see how it all works and ▪ adjust further as necessary. This is the algorithm.

[3] Think big, act small. If we are really to solve the big, entrenched, more serious, we must keep our eyes on the ball. No, we cannot solve big problems in one fell swoop or even in one lifetime. But if we have our collective eyes on the ball, then the small steps we take will eventually solve those big problems.
 

Too much focus is a problem when problem solving

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Individuals and organizations suffer from too much focus much of the time. That was the sense of the majority of responses to this month's column. Respondents didn't stop there. They described why it happens and what to do about it. In the process, they provoked a new round of questions.

David Physick teed up the discussion nicely by commenting, "The wonderful American motor racing driver, Mario Andretti, who was as focused an individual as any racer, remarked he'd stop driving when his peripheral vision reduced." Like race cars, he continued, businesses can be 'raced' by drivers whose peripheral vision has failed. "They could see the clear track ahead of them as they initially led their markets but failed to notice the competitor coming up on the inside until it was too late."

Reference:  Is Too Much Focus a Problem?

I've generally felt, in my work and social life, that focusing (i.e. concentrating, analyzing) must be balanced with being mindful (i.e. open, attentive).  But that's easier said than done, as the above reference from HBS Working Knowledge discusses.

What to do?

Possible antidotes start with a realization that noticing is something that can be learned, both individually and organizationally, something that [Max] Bazerman [author of The Power of Noticing] believes strongly (or he wouldn't be teaching and writing about it). It requires leaders who, among other things suggested by Bazerman, develop a habit of asking the equivalent of Groopman's "What else could it be?" and then listening carefully for the answers.

Moreover, let's take the image of the maze above.  If the man's attention were narrowly focused on sections of the maze, he'd have difficulty finding the right route from entrance to exit.  He'd have to step back and see as close to the whole of the maze as possible.  But more specifically, I think, he'd have to oscillate deftly between a narrow focus and a broader look to identify the right route.

Of course it's easier to be outside the maze, but what if one were actually inside the maze?  It's definitely more challenging.  Still, that oscillation applies.  In the absence, let's say, of a map or GPS, who does one proceed?  Through a strategic trial and error: One goes forward, checks for clues, and adjusts accordingly.  One creates a mental scheme of the maze (i.e. broader look), based on methodical moves vis-a-vis openings and deadends (i.e. narrow focus), and assesses how well he progresses.

When I lived in Dubai, I sometimes had difficulty finding places.  The logic of highways, avenues and side streets were either absent or different from what I used to, as an American in the US.  The spatial algorithm I created essentially oscillated between focusing and noticing, and it also drew from previous experience and knowledge of the city (i.e. what I was learning on a day to day basis).
 

Key & Peele: Sexting Scandal

Perhaps sexting is more than a personality quirk.  Perhaps it is a veritable addiction that some people lose control over, despite resounding-turned-feeble denial.
 

Key & Peele: Turbulence

In recent months, I've been on several flights, crisscrossing continents and navigating both safety requirements and biological needs.  But Key & Peele take what is a common scenario among jet setters, and inject an air of sinister that make for a devilishly delicious sketch.
 

Key & Peele: Spoiler Alert

What makes Key & Peele so funny is that they exaggerate reality, but not too much to seem unrealistic and not [too] little to be boring, but just right to be funny and realistic. Key & Peele are the Goldilocks of comedy.

It's awkward how some conversations grind to a halt.  Yet, the foibles that lead to such awkwardness are also the stuff of comedy.  The foregoing comment is spot on:  Key & Peele are brilliant at parodying our social reality to just the right degree.
 

"Not because you think you know..."

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Very well said. It amazes me how some people are so sure about something, that they aren't willing to field questions, alternatives or disagreements.
 

Sometimes the oppressor is we ourselves...

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Sometimes the oppressor is we ourselves, and the oppression is our own doing.
 

"Those who do not move..."

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... which suggests the following dark notion: If oppressors are to sustain their oppression, they'd have to find a way to prompt, persuade, or otherwise compel people not to move.
 

Cindy Foley - Thinking like an Artist

What is the purpose and value of Art education in the 21st Century? Foley makes the case the Art’s critical value is to develop learners that think like Artists which means learners who are creative, curious, that seek questions, develop ideas, and play. For that to happen society will need to stop the pervasive, problematic and cliché messaging that implies that creativity is somehow defined as artistic skill. This shift in perception will give educators the courage to teach for creativity, by focusing on three critical habits that artist employ, 1. Comfort with Ambiguity, 2. Idea Generation, and 3. Transdisciplinary Research. This change can make way for Center’s for Creativity in our schools and museums where ideas are king and curiosity reigns.

Cindy Meyers Foley is the Executive Assistant Director and Director of Learning and Experience at the Columbus Museum of Art. Foley worked to reimagine the CMA as a 21st century institution that is transformative, active, and participatory. An institution that impacts the health and growth of the community by cultivating, celebrating and championing creativity. Foley envisioned and led the charge to open the 18,000 sq. ft. Center for Creativity in 2011. In 2013, the museum received the National Medal for Museums in recognition of this work. Foley guest edited and wrote chapters for Intentionality and the Twenty-First-Century Museum, for the summer 2014 Journal of Museum Education.

In 2012, Foley received the Greater Columbus Arts Council Community Arts Partnership award for Arts Educator. She was a keynote speaker for the OAEA (Ohio Art Education Association) 2012 Conference. She is on the Faculty of Harvard University’s Future of Learning Summer Institute.

Foley is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and The Ohio State University. Prior to joining the Museum, she was with the Institute of Contemporary Art at the Maine College of Art, the Portland Museum of Art, and the Wexner Center for the Arts.

"Artists realize that ambiguity is part of the process. They take it, they identify it, they tackle it head on," says Cindy Foley.
 

Katerina Gregos - Why Art is Important

Katerina Gregos is convinced that contemporary art has an important role to play in society, as one of the last frontiers of free expression. Today, artists and cultural practitioners, rather than politicians, are leading some of the key discussions about the state of the world. Contemporary artists challenge each and every one of us to reinterpret social and political events, and crack cemented opinions as well as dominant narratives propagated by the media and those in power. As an internationally respected curator, Katerina has curated a number of exhibitions dedicated to exploring the relationship between art, politics, democracy, the new global production circuits, and human rights. Let yourself be inspired by Katerina’s talk at TEDxGhent 2014, and find out what contemporary art can contribute to society.

"No great artist sees things as they are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist," Katerina Gregos quotes Oscar Wilde.
 

Linda Nathan - Why Art Matters

An internationally recognized teacher, author, and speaker on school reform, Linda Nathan is the founding headmaster of Boston Arts Academy, Boston's first public high school for the visual and performing arts. Under her guidance, BAA has won state, national and international awards and recognitions, and consistently sends over 94% of its graduates on to college. Dr. Nathan is the author of the book, The Hardest Questions Aren't on the Test: Lessons from an Innovative Urban School, and is currently executive director of BAA's Center for Arts in Education. In this talk, she explores the importance of the arts as key to a complete educational experience.

"I learned early in my training as a young teacher, that there was something about the arts, that could bring people together, across racial divide, across linguistic divide, across socioeconomic differences," say Linda Nathan.

Raul

"When you drum, you can't lie. Drumming comes from the heart. Drumming is my soul. When I drum, I'm at peace. And I want to do something in the homeless community, that will give those men the same experience," say Raul.
 

The Curious Case of Rachel Dolezal (5)

An All In exclusive: Melissa Harris-Perry's extensive interview with the highly controversial former head of the Spokane NAACP, who has been accused of deceiving everyone about her race.

Melissa Harris-Perry is firm but empathic in her interview: She seeks earnestly to understand who Rachel Dolezal is and what she has experienced.

The Curious Case of Rachel Dolezal (4)

"The city of Spokane, Washington, has opened an investigation into whether Rachel Dolezal, the president of the local chapter of the NAACP, lied about her race when she identified herself as African-American on her application to serve on the citizen police ombudsman commission, thereby violating the city’s code of ethics.

In addition to serving as the chair of the police commission and president of the local NAACP chapter—which the Spokesman Review credits her with revitalizing—Dolezal works as an adjunct faculty member at Eastern Washington University."

Identifying with a race or ethnicity that isn't yours is one thing. But lying, deceiving, or otherwise misrepresenting your race or ethnicity is quite another thing. This is definitely a curious case!
 

The Curious Case of Rachel Dolezal (3)

A CNN panel tonight on Rachel Dolezal really just unloaded on her completely unnecessary posing as a black woman when she still could have been involved in race issues as a white woman. Marc Lamont Hill in particular was incredibly puzzled by Dolezal’s actions, saying that no one really chooses to be black as an identity.

"People historically have lied about their race, in order to get more stuff," Hill points out. "Very few people choose Black as an identity, unless they have to. Black is something people have historically tried to get out of, which is also problematic."
 

The Curious Case of Rachel Dolezal (2)

Ruthanne and Larry Dolezal, parents of Spokane NAACP President Rachel Dolezal, talk about why their daughter might be masquerading as African-American.

"I think a lot of people are puzzled, this TV anchor [CNN Kate Bolduan] included."
 

The Curious Case of Rachel Dolezal (1)

Rachel Dolezal, president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, talks to KXLY4's Jeff Humphrey about several hate crimes she's reported over the years, but walks away from the interview when asked questions about her ethnicity.

"I would love to live in a world where hate crimes didn't exist, and I could assure my children that we're safe," says Dolezal.
 

Thinking about what the Dalai Lama said (3)

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"Seek first to understand, then to be understood" is one of seven habits of highly effective people. It requires listening, specifically active listening and empathic listening.
 

Thinking about what the Dalai Lama said (2)

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Sure enough, literally just a night or two after I saw this post, a mosquito woke me up from the dead of sleep. The air was cool, so I opened the window, before I retired. It clearly buzzed right into my bedroom. I swatted at the air, with increasing annoyance and force, as the tiny creature seemed intent to keep me awake. I tucked my head under the covers, and kept it so, until I couldn't stand having my head covered. Was I scot-free of my nemesis? No, as it buzzed around my head after a couple of minutes. I finally got out of bed, and did this and that, for about an hour. Then, I was finally able to return to sleep.

Wise words indeed, from the Dalai Lama (sigh).
 

Thinking about what the Dalai Lama said (1)

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I'd like to believe that the Dalai Lama speaks only to a segment of humankind, which fall into a quandary about how to live life. How big this segment is, I don't know. But I'd also like to imagine that there are many who earn a living, and live reasonably happy, healthy lives and who worry about the future but aren't paralyzed into an empty, meaningless life.
 

Julia Galef: Bayes' Rule changed the way I think

Bayes' Rule is a simple formula that tells you how to weigh evidence and change your beliefs. I don't go around plugging numbers into a formula all the time, but nevertheless, becoming familiar with Bayes has shifted the way I think in some important ways.

My beliefs are grayscale - and my confidence in them changes as I learn new things. Well-said, by Julia Galef.

Her example about believing she is a good driver is instructive. A subsequent road accident may require altering that belief, but then again it may not require altering that belief. Galef's point is that we cannot stop at a superficial review of an incident or event vis-a-vis some preexisting belief. Instead, we need to probe more deeply into such incident or event, and determine its cause.

If the accident were purely another driver's fault (e.g. misjudgment, carelessness), then she can viably maintain her belief that she is a good driver. However, if the accident were entirely her own fault, she may still have good reason to hold to her belief. For example, if she had a five-year history of driving with no accidents, a one-off accident now doesn't necessarily mean she is suddenly a bad driver. But, to her point, that one-off accident may prompt even a minute decrease in her confidence in that belief. Of course, repeated driving mistakes, resulting in frequent accidents may require significant alteration or dismissal of her belief: that is, she is no longer a good driver; she is a bad driver.

There is a name for beliefs that people hold as true, no matter the reality surrounding them, no matter a raft of opposing evidence: dogma. Bayes' Theorem or Bayes' Rule is an antidote :)

Julia Galef: Think Rationally via Bayes' Rule (2)

Recently I posted this talk by Julia Galef, along with the following comment on Google+:

I am working to steep myself in Bayes' Theorem or Bayes' Rule. I very much like the fact that it helps weigh our beliefs against perhaps a host of evidence that confirm (or disconfirm) our beliefs to varying degrees. The principles underlying Bayes Theorem help sharpen our thinking and strengthen our reasoning. In an optimal scenario - that is, if we are open and willing - we ought to modify our beliefs depending on the evidence we encounter. In other words, we ought to be think logically or rationally about ourselves, people and the world around us.

But the thing is, we as humans are not entirely logical or rational; we are also intuitive, subjective and instinctive. For example, we may hold on to the belief that all teenagers are undisciplined and irresponsible, even though we meet some who are quite the opposite. So the tenacity with which some may uphold their beliefs, despite evidence to contrary defies Bayes' Theorem. This is the stuff of prejudice and discrimination.

However, this example of defiance doesn't necessarily discredit the usefulness of Bayes' Theorem, in ways that Julia Galef talks about it. Say, we have a friend who's prejudiced or discriminatory against teenagers, we might try to firmly and-or gently persuade him to think otherwise via Bayes' Theorem.

Our tact may first draw on one of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, in particular: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Maybe he's faced an assault or trauma in relation to teenagers; maybe he's a father who weathered a terrible storm with his teenage children. Using empathy - that is, the ability and willingness to walk in others' shoes or to sit in their seats, we might help our friend resolve such trauma or storm, so that perhaps he comes to see that despite all of what he experienced, not all teenagers are undisciplined or irresponsible.

So: empathic understanding + Bayes Theorem underpin not only more effective thinking and reasoning, but also better understanding and relationships between people.

My post generated a bit of a discussion:

+Gerallt G. Franke What you say makes very good sense, and it resonates with my working notion that we approach any thing, any phenomenon or context as it is. That is, we do our best to avoid (or at least set aside) any preconceived idea, preexisting framework, or preset methodology. In short, we approach that thing etc. with a blank slate and an empty "toolkit." Then, we let that thing itself point us to an idea, framework or methodology for knowing it, analyzing it, and solving it.

I believe you're quite right: If, instead, we began with a prior logic, reasoning, inference or deduction - perhaps because we have difficulty tolerating or grasping uncertainty - then there is a good likelihood that logic etc. will be off (at best) or break down (at worst). Alternatively, by examining something as it is, again without preconceived ideas, we are much more likely to arrive at the right logic for that thing itself.