Are Atoms Illogical?

The word "atom" comes from the Greek for uncuttable.  The idea in the doctrines of Democritus and Lucretius was that there was a basic unit of material existence that had no parts, was complete unity in itself.  Descartes, in his book The Principles of Philosophy (his book about physics), argues that the such an atom is a logical impossibility.  His argument is based on an insult to God's omnipotence along the lines of the inability to create a rock so heavy He can't lift it.  The idea of an atom would require God's ability to create an entity He could not divide.  Since an all-perfect God was a logical necessity according to Descartes, atoms had to go.

We can create a non-theological version of the argument from another element of Descartes' views on physics.  According to Descartes, the primary property of a material entity is extension, having size.  If we posit for the argument's sake that classical atoms exist, then they have to have size.  This size could be mapped onto the real numbers, that is anything that has a size can be measured and we can determine how big this size is.  But for every real number, there is a real number that is half as large, that is we can split any real number in half.  Couldn't we then split the space occupied by the atom in half and talk about, say, the left half of the atom and the right half of the atom?  Would this undermine classical atomism? 

Could Democritus respond to this secular Cartesian argument?  What about something Leibnizian along the lines of the division would not create things out of the "parts" of the atom because they have no properties since the atom itself and not its parts are the sole possessors of properties?  The parts, in essence, are not parts.  But wouldn't they have properties of being to the left of or to the right of the other part?

We know the ancient view is factually wrong, but is it logically possible? 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the Birth of American Freedom

This is the 50th anniversary of the publication of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.  Few books hit me as hard as that one did -- only Hiroshima and Death of a Salesman have affected me that deeply.  It's not only a timeless allegory, but seems to better and better describe the times years later.

The movie version is wonderfully done, but misses the entire point of the work.  It is Chief and his meditations of the combine that frame the telling of the story, giving it it's meaning.  The Christ figure of McMurphy is the Marlboro Man, the libertarian, Ayn Rand individual, the American, rugged individualistic free spirit.  He brings the American hope of freedom from then system.  He escapes justice through cleverness, getting himself wrongly transferred to the asylum from prison.  Thinking there are systems that can be played, not a system, he denies the existence of the machine, the combine.  The will of the individual, Kesey shows, even at its most audacious and liberated, is no match for the structure.  The combine will harvest it and grind it to dust.

One of my favorite essays in The Grateful Dead and Philosophy was written by my friend and colleague Gary Ciocco and traces the move from the beats to the hippies.  The beats were expressing individuality.  They were atoms bouncing around the void of the American cultural soul.  The next generation were the hippies who latched onto freedom, but moved it from Kerouac's adventures told in ones and twos and created communes.  It became about us, about changing the system itself.  Ken Kesey was the pivot point about which this change rotated in its ninety degree shift.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest details the fatal flaw in the beat philosophy.  The free individual is still inferior to the combine, the system will crush the one.  Freedom cannot be freedom from the machine, but rather freedom only comes in dismantling the machine and for that we must have many hands, we must be together. 

The hippies spoke as much about love as freedom.  Freedom may be possessed by an individual, but love is a relation requiring a lover and a beloved.  It is in relations between people that freedom is found.  In this way, Chief love McMurphy and in his love destroys the machine that destroyed McMurphy and walks out of the asylum into freedom.  Freedom requires relations between people.

Kesey was the intellectual and material bridge from he beats of the 50s to the hippies of the sixties.  His Merry Pranksters were the end of the beat generation and their acid tests created the scene from which the sixties emerged.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a unique point in our cultural history and one whose message must still be heeded in contemporary life.  when you hear a politician campaign on notions of "individual responsibility" what he is trying to do is drive us apart and protect the combine, protect the machine that keeps us from being free.  They invoke freedom and liberty with the intention of subverting it.  fifty years ago, Kesey showed us the trick.  It is now for us to summon our inner-Chiefs.

Sexualized Nerds

I've been reading Daniel Boyardin's book Unheroic conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man.  He argues that our contemporary picture of sexuality arises from the Christian division of masculinity during the Middle Ages into the monk and the knight.  The knight is physical, strong, bold, gallant, and brave.  He is rewarded for his life of the body with romantic love, that is, he is the image of the sexually desirable male.  The monk, on the other hand, in devoting his life to the spirit and to study, is removed from the body and completely desexualized.  He is does not desire (or at least seeks to elevate himself above mere desire) and, more importantly, cannot be seen as an object for desire.  This picture, Boyardin contends, is -- to paraphrase Nietzsche -- rendered invisible because it has triumphed so completely.

But it is not the only picture out there.  Boyardin argues that the Jewish construction of masculinity in classical Talmudic times and in 17-19th century eastern Europe was completely different.  There it was the scholar, the skinny, sensitive, clever nerd who was the real husband bait.  Non-Jews, goyim, were big, strong oafs who were violent and drank too much.  Jewish men who were strong and physical were seen as inferior husbands and fathers.  Unlike the Christians, the Jews had sexualized their monks.

When the notions of heterosexuality and homosexuality were being codified at the end of the 19th century, this sexualized nerd of the Jews is what made it easy to conflate Jewish and gay men, Boyardin holds.  In reaction to this and political injustice Jews were subjected to, we see Freud and Hertzl trying to change Jewish masculinity.  Zionism was an attempt to create muscle Jews, to conform Jewish masculinity to Christian masculinity.  It was, he argues, a move that succeeded, but which impoverished our approach to sexuality.

I look at the rise of the tech world and wonder whether our capitalist presuppositions are undermining this.  If a good husband and father is one who provides for his family and if one could provide better by being a nerd, does that make the nerd hot?  Bill Gates is a better "man" on this account than Joe the Plumber, despite the fact that he is less "masculine."  Is the digital revolution leading to a new kind of sexual revolution allowing us to re-envision masculinity?

While Some See Philip Glass as Half Full

Today is Philip Glass' 75th birthday.  One might claim that he is the last major symphonic composer.  Provocatively, one might even claim that he could be the final great symphonic composer.  With film scores becoming more and more dominated by popular music, could we be seeing the end of an art form?  Every college and university has a music department or conservatory where composition is taught.  Every major city has at least one orchestra.  So, it is not that symphonic music is not performed. With so many teachers and students and surely advances in pedagogy and understanding of method, why aren't we seeing a string of new Copelands and Iveses?  There is some contemporary music performed, but it tends to be boutique.   It is the 17th through early 20th century stuff that brings in the crowds, well, that keeps the orchestras in business at least.  Why don't we have contemporary big names in symphonic composition?  Will Philip Glass be the last great symphonic composer?

Indexical Obsolescence?

Tightening up the index for Einstein's Jewish Science.  Last item before it goes to the printers.  It will be released in mid-April in both hardback and e-book formats.  If we are moving towards an all e-book world in the next decade or so, will indices be necessary?  With the ability to search for any term you choose, is there still a function for the list of names and terms the author thinks make up the essence of the book?  Is the index about to go the way of the 8-track or does it have some special standing?

Do We Pass the Funny Down to Our Kids?

My Fellow Comedists,

Some speculative comedist sociology this weekend. Are you more likely to be funny if you come from a funny family? Is the funny something biological that some folks have and others don't? Is it something we get from our environment? Whence comes the funny?

Live, love, and laugh,

Irreverend Steve

Why Was the Republican Field So Weak This Time?

It has been interesting to see the Republican primary process work itself out.  The party is clearly not satisfied with Mitt Romney, for whom they have been trying repeatedly to find a substitute.  None of the other flavors of the month which came and went were terribly strong.  Newt Gingrich, seemingly the last one standing, has generated panic among party powerful.  There have been calls for a savior to enter the race since it started and they continue, albeit somewhat muted at this late point.

There are stronger candidates that could have stepped up and chose not to -- Jindal from Louisiana, Christie from New Jersey, Daniels from Indiana, even McCain with another run.  During the process, there seemed to be a weakened incumbent, so why did the field that developed turn out to be so weak?  Is the threat of an incumbent so powerful that even with a bad economy, it seems too high of a mountain to climb?  Is there something amiss in the party recruitment apparatus?  Has the tea party fractured the GOP in such a way that the usual recruitment mechanisms don't work?  How did the Republicans come to have the field they did and not a stronger one, even in their own estimation?