Aria PN

This is just a quick rundown. Hopefully I have time to elaborate more later on.

If the whole tradition of western thoughts is a human body, then the body stands on two legs. The right leg is the scriptural tradition, originated in the Near East, preserved by Jews for hundreds of years BC, expanded by (and survive of) the Christian Roman Empire (the West and then Byzantium), and strengthened using power and organizations by the Church. The Jews held on to their society and identity, while Paul spreads Christianity to the masses.

The left leg is the philosophical tradition, started in Greece before Socrates, argued (literally) by Plato’s dialogues, analyzed and classified by Aristotle’s logic and methodology, lived by Epicurus, doubted by the skeptics, and practiced by the Roman stoics. Plato points upward to the divine soul, while Aristotle points to the worldly and human nature.

Augustine might be the first part of the torso which joined the two legs. He had a neoplatonist view before he formulated doctrines on soul and freewill. But, there was no major development in the west after him (I’m hesitant to use the term ‘Dark Ages’ here).

On the other hand, Muslim thinkers from Al Kindi, Al Farabi, to Ibnu Sina and Ibnu Rusdh, flourished during this time. In fact, without them the torso wouldn’t be fully formed as we know now. Their scriptural traditions were not those of Augustine’s but the philosophical traditions had the same origins. In fact, they got from the West more than Islam ever did and the West got more from them than Islam did.

Finally, Aquinas completes the top part of the torso. He studied Aristotle using Ibnu Rushd’s commentary. He disagreed with Ibnu Rushd’s double-truth that philosophy and theology might have different sets of truth, and tried to unify them. By and large, Aquinas was an Aristotelian, with his Natural Law built firmly in this tradition.

The next part will deal with the other part of the body, ie. arms, neck and heads which correspond to the more modern tradition.

Looking at the picture (NY Times, 2004/12/31), I feel so guilty in a strange way. Lives for so many people will be different, while I’ll carry on without any discernible changes. Maybe most of the people praying also will go on with their lives, but I just don’t feel right about this. I’m afraid that being far away will make me so detached and soon forget about their lives and deaths. I hope to stamp this however awful moment in my memory, to always keep me grounded and rooted.

I found the DVD of this documentary in the children section of the library. We really liked it. It’s wonderful to see different expressions of ecstasy, surprise, confusion, or relief in the face of the children after they (mis)spelled their words. We also enjoyed watching the parents interact with their chidren during preparations and after the competition.

The six and four years old also really enjoyed the movie. Incidentally I just bought a children dictionary for them last week, so they followed along with all the spellings.

It’s not for me if the lack of updates in the last couple of months is any indication. But, enough about me, blogging is not for Becker and Posner either, if their first posts are any indication. As bad as Becker is, Posner is even worse. The economist made a law argument (self defense), while the lawyer made an economic argument (expected cost-benefit), both ending up nowhere. Kieran Healy of Crooked Timber even had a little fun and said those posts might be from impostors.

Yes, their names and reputations attract a lot of attentions already. Yes, blog can be one of Hayek’s mechanism for distribution of knowledge, and they certainly have a lot of knowledge to distribute. Just maybe, making and presenting arguments in this forum need different set of skills from those in the fora they are used to. Maybe blogging is not for them. Certainly it’s too early to make any definitive pronouncement, so let’s hope it will get better.

She claimed this is original. She wrote it in about an hour while asking me for spelling of some of the words. I tried to stick to her writing as close as possible.

a Little Bat

once upon a time
There was a Bat
who was Flying
aLL night

That He sleeps aLL
day Long one day
some thing changed

He was sLeeping
in the nightTime
and playD aLL day
Long

anD He DiD That
EvEry Day That
LittLe Bat srue
Is Funny

I think that Bat is
sure changed
His LiFe

The End

Nicely summed up by DeLong — about Krugman –  on balancing the roles of market and government: “Paul Krugman loves the market more than any other economist I know–in a “tough love” sense. That is, he’s not one of those on the right who thinks that market failures don’t exist, pretends that every market everywhere functions perfectly, and doesn’t care much about how markets really work. He’s not one of those on the left who thinks that market failures are unfixable, and that command-and-control is nearly always and everywhere a better alternative.

“He’s one who believes that market failures are dangerous things that can be neutralized: smart reorganizations of property rights, or small steps that put the government’s thumb on the scale to improve incentives, or tweaks to the legal structure that rule certain kinds of contracts out and other kinds of contracts in will, he thinks, almost always turn the market into an effective and efficient social planning and organization mechanisms that everyone can love. His is a “tough love” approach to markets–and it is a sign that he cares and that he has great faith in Adam Smith.“

Of course, I’m no expert in the matter of (Ushul) Fiqh, so CMIIW.

I was reading the fundamental principles of Fiqh, and saw that there are three principles where utility theory might come into play. First, “select the higher of the two benefits, or incur the lesser of the two harms when faced with them both.” Now, to do that, you certainly have to be able to order your preferences for the choices you have. If your set of preferences are already in the rulings derived from the well established sources, your (dis)utility is set.

If not, your ordering must be based on other principles, and require extensive knowledge not only on the rules of law but also about the subject of your choices. Usually this kind of ruling involves experts from various fields.

This principle is often misused by ignoring other principles, especially what comes right after it, “repelling harm takes precedence over procuring benefits.” You have to be aware of the consequences (to others) of your maximizing your own utility based on your own preferences. You have to minimize the disutility, and make that your top priority.

[Utilitarianism (Bentham, J.S. Mill) also wants to maximize utility, with no mention of minimizing disutility as the top priority. Some say utilitarianism is the superset of consequentialism. Without the latter, the former can lead to hedonism.]

The other principle of interest is, “certainty is not invalidated by doubt.” OK, you find your best option, but it doesn’t always give you the utility you were estimating when you ranked your preferences. The probability is not 1. Does this mean you should eliminate this option? What happens if none of the options are certain to give you the calculated utility? Do you have to rank them by their probabilities? Or do you use expected utility?

Maddux excelled beyond the physical: “We were playing the Astros in the middle of the season and Jeff Bagwell was coming up, and Doggie had told me before the game, ‘We’re not going to pitch this guy inside. We’re going to stay away. He’s pulling everything, and if we go in he’ll hit it out.’

So it’s late in the game, we’re up something like 8-0, and Bagwell is batting with a runner on. All of a sudden, Doggie wants to go inside. ‘What?’ He nods that’s what he wants to do. So he throws it in, and Bagwell hits a bomb. We still won the game, but I was mad. ‘Why did you do that? I wanted you to pitch a complete-game shutout.’

He said, ‘You know what? Two months from now we’re going to meet these guys in the playoffs, and he’s going to be up there with runners on and he’s going to be looking for that pitch, and we’re never going to throw it.’

I said, ‘Whatever, dude. I wanted the shutout.’

Sure enough, two months later and Bagwell is hitting. They’ve got two men on and Doggie strikes him out. He says, ‘Do you remember two months ago?’ I had already forgotten about it. He said, ‘You got mad because we went inside and he took us deep, but he was looking for that pitch today, and we won the game because of that.’

No other pitcher can do that. No one can get away with that kind of stuff. It’s almost illogical. You don’t throw inside changeups to major league hitters. He’ll hang a slider on purpose. He wants people to get hits because everything he does is setting up the hitter for a situation later on.”

I’m always a believer that if you trust someone enough to let him do a job for you, then let him do it in his own terms. Additional oversight is not always the solution every time there is a failure in a deletegated task.

I agree with Tyler. If you have your boss always looking over your shoulder, you become more risk-averse. You just want to avoid making mistakes. More oversight may discourage “imaginative, long-run thinking”, and promote groupthink. Generally I prefer less oversight, make people more independent rather than more accountable. “Give them a culture of internal pride”. Then,, they will be accountable to themselves. See also Ibnu Khaldun on child rearing.

The question then is when to oversee and to what extent. To this I’m reminded of Ki Hajar Dewantara’s saying: “ing ngarsa sungtulada, ing madya mangun karsa, tut wuri handayani“. Leaders should be everywhere, playing different roles in different places.

Right off the bat I have to say that I’m slightly leaning towards Democrats politically and economically, but not socially. I liked good speeches, so I rather enjoyed the presentations last night. I’ve been watching conventions since 1992. And of course the main constant speaker for the Democratic Convention since then is Bill Clinton. I have difficulty liking him personally, but I have to admit he’s a great public speaker.

Not only can he give a commanding rhetoric performance, but he also displayed extensive knowledge about his topics. Obviously he did his homeworks on those subjects before his speech. Still, he can make boring policy speeches so compelling without ignoring the substance. He did all that policy comparisons and propping Kerry in under 30 minutes with several ovations. No wonder people say he can be elected to a third term if that’s possible.

What I liked most about his speech last night is he has the confidence to be self deprecating. He used the fact that he didn’t go to Vietnam and coupled that with Bush and Cheney not going to highlight John Kerry’s career. It was very effective. I do think more people, especially in the leadership role should be more self-deprecating, be secure about who you are and your weaknesses. Knowing your weaknesses is one of your strength.