The mouths of babes

I was recently in Kuala Lumpur with my 4 year old daughter. We saw a lot of Hindu temples, and my daughter was impressed by all the gods on their rooves.

One day, we were walking by another temple and she asked, "Dad, are there Gods in Australia?"

"I don't know, what do you think?" I replied.

"I think they all died." she concluded.

World Philosophy Day

Apparently we missed the World Philosophy Day yesterday on the 20th of November. This is not too surprising considering Australia held no events to support the initiative.

Kellie Tranter laments our Government's inaction on the issue and postulates some questions Australia should be thinking about in On Line Opinion.

list of other country's events.

Internet Censorship in Australia

Unless you have been living under a rock you may have heard of this: Mandatory Internet Filtering. In an effort to (ostensibly at least) "protect the children", there is a plan to install filters in all Australian ISPs. Under the plan there will be two levels of filtering. One level will be optional, and will be 'child friendly'. The other , according to Minister for Broadband et al, Senator Stephen Conroy, will be mandatory, and will block all "illegal content". Sites that contain the banned content will go on a 'blacklist' that cannot be publicised and is exempt from Freedom of Information requests. An ISP employee chose to speak out against this and had the Senator attempt to silence him for his trouble.

What exactly the "illegal content" is remains to be seen, but speculation ranges from the obvious candidate of child pornography, to a broad range of Refused Classification and X18+ material and possibly some R or MA content. This largely seems to depend on what independent Senator you are attempting to buy off. 

Cynicism aside, this is an issue that should be of interest to Australians who do not want the government to decide what they can and can't view on the web. Of serious concern is how tempting it would be for a government to use this tool to it's own purposes. I'm not sure that it's quite a 'Ring of Gyges', but it is potentially pretty close. 

Given that it is too late in the evening for me to go on further I'll leave you to read up on this in your own time. Overclockers Australia is keeping a wiki on media related to this issue (note the massive explosion of interest when Senator Conroy let slip in Senate Estimates in mid October that it wasn't optional). 

Warning, shameless self-promotion approaching: I've also managed to bang out a few odds and end of my own analysis as well at Philosophy Hurts Your Head. Sites such as NoCleanFeed are also worth a look. 

Global Economic Crisis and the Spectre of Marx

With the impending collapse of the entire capitalist system, the revolution must surely be at hand. More likely the media needs fuel to feed its ever expanding furnace, and Marx is useful fodder, as the most tenuous link is all that is needed to run with a story, especially in the world of opinion and columnists.

What we have learned in the past few weeks is if you are not promoting the individual in economic practice, then you are a socialist, or worse, a communist. We know this from recent congressional debates over the Wall Street rescue package; this is a socialism for which I will not stand called several Republicans.

It is easy to see why we have seen such a surge in the term 'socialism' being bandied about in the media.

Apparently Germans have been rushing to buy up Marx's Das Kapital. BBC Story.

The obvious reality is that some good old fashioned Keynesian capitalism is being deployed to solve a problem of deregulated capitalism, so I really don't know how or why Marx has come into any of this at all (other than his analyses of capitalism is still fundamentally strong and some US senators still fear those reds under their beds to the degree that even George W Bush is an evil socialist).

Still, rather than buy yourself a copy of Kapital, or even to read it, Librivox has recently released it in free digital talking book form. Librivox Das Kapital

Two down, three to go

Richard Wright is with Syd now, performing that great gig in the sky. Wright was the keyboardist for Pink Floyd and father in law of Guy Pratt, the man who played bass in place of Roger Waters after he left. Pratt is a fantastic bassist, sadly Waters is not.



Echoes, part 1 off Live at Pompei (originally off the album Meddle). Wright is the beardy guy singing.

Simon Blackburn on the Sokal Scandal

The Australian have run a piece about the 1996 Sokal scandal by Simon Blackburn, a professor of philosophy from Cambridge, taken from his book How to Read Hume.

Misadventures in the quest for scientific truth

Flamboyant French Philosopher does Something

Here is an article by Carlin Romano about Bernard-Henri Levy and his new book newly out in the US Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism from the Australian.

Happy Higgs Boson Day

The time has finally come for CERN to fire up the old Hadron Collider and find some God particles in a mini big-bang. I for one welcome our new black hole overlords.

Summary by PHD Comics

Cern and the large Hadron Colider from Radio National's The Science Show

Cern Colider ready for power up from the BBC

Paul Davies on Lateline

BBC Today's On the Hunt for the Higgs Boson. Contains audio of Stephen Hawkings talkling about the Large Hadron Colider

Statue of Adam Smith

The Scottish have built a statue of economist and philosopher Adam Smith.

Article from The Australian

Article from adamsmith.org

Discuss!

Other Philosophically Inclined Writers Festival Events

Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone!

Free event at Bangarra Theatre, 14:00 to 15:00 on Saturday 24th

Craig Schuftan will talk about Nietzsche's theories on music and opera.


David Rieff on ABC Radio National’s Book Show

Ticketed event at Pier 2/3, Downstairs, 10:00 to 11:00 on Friday 23rd.

The son of Susan Sontag will talk about 'Swimming in a Sea of Death', a memoir of his mother's illness.


The Future of Feminism

Ticketed event at Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay, 12:30 13:30 on Sunday 25th.

Sarah Hall, Emily Maguire and Lynne Segal to discuss the future of feminism.

Zombie Leprechaun Nietzsche's Pot of Coal Threatened

There are plans to dig up the grave of Friedrich Nietzsche in Rocken, Germany to get to his precious precious coal. It turns out that Nietzsche carcus guards a brown coal seam.

The site was earmarked for mining in the 1980's when he was blacklisted by the then communist regime who failed to separate him from his sister's revision of him as the official philosopher of Nazi Germany. Now for the irony: as they are buried next to each other, they may finally rescue Nietzsche from his evil sister.

I am lead to believe brown coal is dirty and inefficient as a fuel source. We should be asking why are they planning on making the entry in the Rocken church grave yard register declaring that here lies 'a known anti-christ' a lie, when they should just buy our superior coal.

England Times Article
Times Article on Nietzsche's Sister

Chalmers: Happiness is Overrated

David Chalmers was an attendance at a Buddhist conference on happiness held in Sydney this week. This is an Article from the Sydney Morning Herald about the conference. Chalmers position apparently is that the 'bad' emotions are as fun as happiness.

Do we value happiness above what it is worth?

Simon Critchley at the Sydney Writers Festival

The Sydney Writers Festival, on between the 19th and 25th of May, is hosting Simon Critchley as one of its speakers. Critchley, who is a professor of philosophy at the New School of Social Research, will be talking about death at the festival at three events. His latest book is entitled 'The Book of Dead Philosophers'. Critchley has previously written about the ethics of deconstruction.

His events are:

22 May, 10-11am What's the Big Idea?: Critchley will be discussing big ideas such as death and religion with John Gray and Maria Turmakin.

23 May, 2.30-3.30pm The Great Beyond: Critchley and Mark Wakely talk about 'mysteries, rituals and myths surrounding death.'

24 May, 4-5pm Dead Philosophers: Critchely to talk about attitudes towards death.

Each event costs $15/$10, bookings made on 9250 1988 or at Sydney Theatre

Darwin Rarities Online

Charles Darwin (along with that other Charles, Mr Sanders Pierce) died on the 19th of April, which just happened to be yesterday. To roughly coincide with the day, there has been a substantial new addition to the electronic catalogue of Darwin's writings at The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. The new release includes the first draft of his theory of evolution and The Decent of Man, notes from the voyage of the Beagle, Emma Darwin's recipe book, and reviews of his work from the time.

Inventor of Black Holes Dead

Keeping with posting obituaries several weeks after the event, John Wheeler, the theoretical physicist who coined the terms ‘Black Hole’ and ‘Worm Hole’ died last week on the 13^th of April. Wheeler had collaborated with Albert Einstein, and that is about as much as I know. Instead of trying to write up something more substantial, I have decided instead to link to an interview with Wheeler by Paul Davies, recorded in 2003 and played on Radio National’s The Science Show this weekend.

Gary Gygax fails his save verse death

A little belated: Gary Gygax, the man who co-invented Dungeons and Dragons, author of the first edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and co-founder of TSR, Inc. (tactical studies rules), died last week on the 4th of March.

While strictly speaking not a philosopher, in fact not a philosopher at all, I always liked Pete's description of philosophy degrees as 'top gun for nerds'. In this vein I feel his passing should be recognised by the greater nerd community which we are probably part of.

Grayling’s ‘Against All Gods’

Aware that many of the members are fans of polemics, I would commend AC Grayling’s Against All Gods. I would even commend the work to those members of theistic persuasion, and those that maintain a belief fairies and/or goblins...

Philosopher’s Carnival, No. 63.

The Sixty-Third Philosopher’s Carnival is presently being hosted by a Mr Noah Greenstein. Mr Greenstein’s theme is comedy.

Now, if only we had Aristotle’s work on comedy …

Philosopher’s Carnival, No. 62.

The Sixty-Second Philosopher’s Carnival is presently being hosted by Meaning More.

Club Notice - The University of Newcastle Philosophy Club 2008

The Executive, having had some preliminary discussions about the Club in 2008, is asking for comments and suggestions.

Having organised the Club since 2005, the aim for 2008 is to engage the large membership we attract. The Executive intends to maintain the anarchic organisational practice that it has long adopted. It is this will allow for members to organise a vibrant range of activities.

At present, the Executive intends to maintain the weekly discussion group and Dialectic.

The Executive is interested in suggestions for events and forums beyond the weekly meeting, and in hearing from members who would like to organise reading or specialised discussion groups.

Notice – Tarrant’s Translation of Proclus

Professor Harold Tarrant, of the University of Newcastle, has translated the first volume of Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. The translation is published by Cambridge University Press.

[Thanks to NDPR.]