Stuff

I intend to write at least two entries a week.

I have not met my expectations.

Stuff keeps getting in my way. Work kills most of my time. My work fascinates me, and currently it demands a great deal of attention to matters lofty and theoretical, as well as technical and challenging. My work can expand to fill all of the time I make available.

I don't make all of my time available to work, because my family also demands a huge chunk of time. Fortunately, my family fascinates me too.

I had a great time this weekend. Jess and I sorted stuff in the sun porch in preparation for Brendan's graduation party. We shopped for new end tables at a local furniture manufacturer. We tried to find rugs to replace the living room rugs we bought 10 years ago at Building 19. Twenty-eight years on, it amazes me how much fun I have doing mundane stuff with Jess. Brendan and I went to see Men In Black 3 on Saturday. (On the way home, Brendan played The Man In Black on the stereo. We share a love of all things Johnny Cash.) Sunday, I took Brendan to Hanover, NH for his last regatta. After his race, I left him behind and hurried home to take care of a quick work problem, and then helped Jess throw away more stuff. Sunday evening, I got to chat with Erin for a while, mostly about what stuff she wanted to save from our latest purge.

I feel like a decent person, because my family hangs out with me. I am very grateful to Jess. She has always ensured that I am tied to the real world and tied to people. It is entirely too easy to go down the rabbit hole of whatever problem seems to be important. It is too easy to feel that your work is too important for you to worry about other people. Jess and the kids keep me from isolating myself. They provide a steadiness in my life that prevents me from constantly chasing after some new fascination.

Less noble stuff also gets in my way. I discovered Spider Solitaire is installed on my laptop. I spent too many hours staring glassy eyed at the screen, hoping that one more game would see a victory. I think I am finished with that obsession. I still have my internet obsession. In one sense, it is my equivalent to reading the paper religiously, but the constant flood of information also sucks time away from generating my own thoughts. I am not going to give up the internet, but I am learning to discriminate between content that will be useful or truly entertaining (cute furry animals), from content that has little value (comments following any article.)

So here is an entry for the blog. It has helped me organize my thoughts on some issues.

I haven't abandoned the effort.

Stories and True Stories

I am looking for a textbook explaining ethics. My interest arises from the justification of test and development of medical products and public health efforts. For example, how do we weigh the pain inflicted on an animal against the knowledge gained in an experiment? Years of hard lessons have led to a variety of guidelines on human and animal testing. All organizations I have been involved with scrupulously follow these guidelines, both because people are fundamentally decent and because the penalties, financial and social, are too great to risk.

However, I want to learn how to construct ethical arguments for myself. I want to evaluate how well these guidelines mesh with my own ethical axioms. What I really want is an algorithm allowing me to carefully move from fundamental principals to deciding whether an action is consistent with those principals. I have analogous training for the physical world. I can move from first principals through a provably correct chain of arguments to a description of how a baseball will travel from the pitcher's mound to a catcher's mitt. This train of reasoning is useful, but too cumbersome for humans playing baseball. Despite no understanding of the physical principals, Little League players perform prodigies of differential equation every game they play.

In the same way, the algorithmic approach to ethical decision making is useful for writing institutional standards of behavior or for deciding upon the value of a proposed medical device, but too unwieldy to have practical value for a parent admonishing a child, a grocer culling vegetables or a soldier facing a crowd. Just as humans have the capacity to instinctively catch balls, we have the ability to instinctively make ethical decisions. Just as years of playing baseball, learning from coaches and training your body produce a professional pitcher, society and our parents spend years teaching us to make ethical choices.

The stories we tell form our ethical training. Stories show exemplary behavior and its rewards, as well as bad behavior and its punishments. We are the main character in a continuous narrative that we tell ourselves. The story in which we star provides ready-made choices when we face decisions.   The narrative we tell about ourselves conflicts with the character we play in other people's stories. These conflicts force us to change the narrative, and if severe enough, they force us to live a story we don't enjoy.

All people need access to stories where they are the main character. This was driven home recently by a video showing how even now African-American children belittle their worth. Women and men who flout the conventional stories display great imagination and courage in finding a tale they like better than they were offered. Pursuing these unconventional narratives also imposes great costs. It is important that their stories be told in full, including flaws and doubts and costs, so children breaking from the story they are born with expect adversity and know it can be overcome. It is important that our stories be true.

We need to ensure that all people have access to stories allowing them to live a life of which they are proud. This is why often maligned disciplines such as Women's Studies and African-American Studies are vitally important. That is why maligned efforts such as affirmative action and diversity are important. Lives lived well show new generations how to make their own story exciting and admirable. All of traditional science and humanities provide examples that I can emulate to live an enriched and meaningful life. It is important that people who aren't well-educated, strait, white, middle-class males have access to a correspondingly vast set of examples.

Knowledge is not a zero-sum game. We can afford scholarship in any area people are passionate enough to pursue. The knowledge may not be relevant to my story, but I don't lose anything by its existence. In the worst case, I cease reading after a few paragraphs and move on. In the best case, I expand my experience and my choices as my narrative progresses. The story in my head at the moment is devoted family man by day and seeker of scientific truth by night. Both narratives are vital to my self worth and both provide guides until something more profound comes along.

Why am I here (the Internet version)

The real audience of this blog is me. I try to argue for appropriate ways to behave and to exist. I want to codify ideas before I lose them in the jumble of succeeding thoughts.  It serves the same purpose as a diary, but writing for public display forces me to be thoughtful and (hopefully) cogent. (It also ensures that any future descent into paranoia is noted, and that people will stop me before I sell my worldly goods and wait for aliens on the top of Mt. Washington.)

There are many writers on the Internet who are less self-obsessed and who I find informative and insightful. I find a great deal of photography and other art that I would not know if not for the Internet. Certainly, I appreciate the web comics and cats. However, I find that I am losing my faith in the Internet as a place for reasoned debate.

What is the purpose of comment debates? I have not been convinced by the opposition's arguments in any debate in which I participated, and it seems unlikely that I have convinced anyone else. A good debate progresses to where a handful of issues have been identified. The remaining comments are votes for the points with which you agree. Occasionally, additional anecdotes are brought forth to support a particular view. In a bad debate the name calling starts early, and like toddlers, the two sides engage in parallel play.

One problem with comments is that it is hard to see the structure of the debate. I hope to have some thoughts on this in the future. I believe the problem is fundamental to any debate. You rarely change people's minds with argument alone. The Internet adds the special sauce of anonymity. Rancor and vituperation become easy.

Are there any benefits to Internet comment debate? I don't think so. Showing that people oppose a given position may have value, yet it doesn't translate to face-to-face opposition. Family bonds and social convention work against turning life into an Internet debate, and I avoid people that argumentative in person. Occasionally, I have witnessed arguments between people of different views, and the result is as informative as an Internet comment.

I prefer quiet contemplation. I want to work and to live with people without worrying about their political or religious views. I enjoy people expanding my perspective through new books and movies (However, I have not yet made it through Lone Survivor).

That is my belief, but I suppose it is debatable.

Happy Birthday Brendan

Brendan was born 18 years ago. He is a Michigander by birth, just like Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney, former President Gerald Ford and filmmaker Michael Moore.

The day before he was born, which Jess spent walking through contractions in the courtyard of Family Housing at University the Michigan, there was an annular lunar eclipse of the sun, (the moon did not completely cover the disk of the sun). There were curious double shadows on the leaves all afternoon. We often wonder what occult powers Brendan may possess.

I often think of Brendan as "The Boy Without Fear." From an early age he has shown a willingness to throw himself off of any precipice. One evening at about 1 year old I wasn't watching him as closely as I should. I became aware of his presence after he climbed onto the supper table and started tossing plates onto the floor.

Brendan has an older sister. He informed us early that he was different than his sister. When Erin was small she pretended to be a baby chick. When Brendan was small, he pretended to be a dead squirrel. (Actually, squirrel was his first word.) When he left the Michigan Union one morning, he found a stick and began beating the ground with it yelling "Dah!"

He has a talent for digging that he inherited from his Uncle David and me. His buddy across the street and he took over Jess' tomato patch in our backyard as their impromptu sandbox. Their excavations were so extensive that by the time they were in kindergarten, a plumber coming through the kitchen door asked Jess whether we were having sewer work done.

Brendan also picked up a lot from his sister. Once when parring through the checkout at Kroger, I was holding Brendan as we passed a display of Cosmopolitans. His comment on the cover model was "Barbie!" Another time (now in New Hampshire) I went to clean up the bathroom after he had taken his bath. I found that Brendan had taken one of his sister's Barbie dresses and put it on his plastic T-Rex.

Brendan has a dry sense of humor that is inherited from his mother, his Grandpa Norm and his Great-Grandpa Irving. At an early age he loved to tease his sister in the car by pointing at the window and saying his second word, "Tree!" Erin would acknowledge it was a tree and go back to her book. Brendan would wait half a minute and then yell "Erin!" (Actually, he yelled "Eh!") When she looked up, he would point out the window and say, "Tree!" and chortle wildly.

Brendan is one of the most widely read people I know. If you include re-reading books, he probably reads more than anyone in the family. He can offer and support opinions on politics, military policy and training, the nature and direction of military/civilian interaction, the psychology of conflict, the merits of The Simpsons versus  South Park, and who could beat up Batman (answer: only River Tam).

Brendan is my opposite in many ways. He is athletic and driven to challenge himself physically. He is graceful and fluid in his movements. He desires action and has little tolerance for activities and people which serve no useful purpose. His worst nightmare is to spend his days in a cubicle reading paper studies of hypothetical situations.

Jess and I have raised him to be gentle and question authority. He has learned these lessons well and is an independent-minded man of great ethical and moral conviction. He respects tradition and those who have sacrificed for us, but he is impatient with pettifoggery and bureaucracy. He is idealistic, and he hopes to act on this idealism by attending Norwich University as a member of the Corps of Cadets, ultimately to serve in the military. He wants to be an EMT, and I suspect that he will follow his Granddad Kane into a life of public service.

He is one of the coolest people I know, and I hope he has a happy birthday.

Stability and humility

The current political insanity tempts mathematicians, scientists and engineers to advocate well-reasoned, quantitative solutions to human problems trivial, crucial and existential.

My unhappiness with politics lead me to the tautology:

• A stable political system will not change.

This explains a system I find objectively horrible and irrational. Enough elements contribute to its survival and few enough elements pressure it to change. (Certainly my discontent is too small to shift society.) This tautology is dangerously analogous to Newton's first law: an object at rest remains at rest unless acted on by an outside force. There are a variety of physical analogs: phase change, crystal fracture, etc., and mathematical models: finite automata, game theory, etc., which could be plausibly applied to studying how humans organize and how they should organize.

Mathematicians, scientists and engineers should squash the urge to shape society rationally like a bug.

Scientifically directed political movements have a horrible history: eugenics and communism are two shining examples. Our models are marginally sufficient to describe physics, overwhelmed by biology and completely inadequate for understanding human complexity. Giving approximations and analogies the force of law is a recipe for disaster.

Yet I cannot argue that we should direct human affairs by random intuition. Clearly, careful deliberation, precedence and structure form a successful society's basis. However, there must be room for intuition, dissent and clemency in any pleasant society.

I find the intuitive nature of traditional medicine disturbing. Evidence-based medicine appeals to me, but data is not available in sufficient quantities to guide every decision that a doctor makes. I have also found medical school and residency to be pointlessly cruel and counter to creative inquiry. A friend of mine argued against this view. The point of medical training is to expose doctors to a huge variety of conditions, diseases, treatments and outcome. The hope is that 15 years later when a patient presents with a puzzling symptom, your memory will be jogged back to a case and treatment that you witnessed as a student. As another friend told me, "You are creating a human neural net." The human capacity to do some tasks better than machines is astounding.

I suspect successful politicians are another human neural net. They have learned how to read humanity and to direct it toward an objective. Mathematicians, scientists and engineers don't have the same expert knowledge, and that is likely why our political solutions fail.

Nostalgia

This has been a big week for nostalgia.

Last weekend Metafilter directed me toward Choice of Broadsides, a browser implementation of a choose your own adventure game. In this case, you play a young officer in the Albion navy fighting against Gaul. If you have ever read the Hornblower Saga, you will easily navigate through the game. (Although there are some paths you can take which seriously warp C.S. Forester's vision.) Consequently, I have started the task of rereading the entire Hornblower Saga, and I am currently up to Hornblower and the Hotspur.

On Tuesday morning I received e-mail from my college roommate. He was in town, and we were able to get together. It was the first time I have seen him in 16 years. I met him almost 30 years ago. We spent the whole dinner talking about our kids, which is not something either of us envisioned in 1982.

Friday, May 4th was the 28th anniversary of the day I met Jess. The weather was very similar, but this year she did not wear a spaghetti strap dress in 50 degree rainy weather, and we did not dance to Michael Jackson (or even Billy Idol). We haven't had the opportunity to go out to eat to celebrate this milestone, but if we do, we will end up talking about our kids, cats and dog. This is not something I envisioned in 1984.

I also pulled some old text books from 24 years ago off the shelf this weekend. I am working through some analyses at work, and I find myself doing serious math again. I love tackling a real math problem. This is what I envisioned in 1988.

A few weeks ago I reestablished contact with a woman I knew in Junior High School. In the process of catching up with what has happened over the past 30 years, I realized that I was essentially writing blog posts about what I am interested in and what I am doing. This made me feel nostalgic for this blog, which was my last attempt to contemplate these sorts of things.

I started this blog to step through ideas and events that were important to me. Then it was prompted by my daughter's graduating from college and my son completing his first year of high school. This time it is prompted by my son graduating from high school and preparing to go to college. I just told my daughter that when something major happens in my life, I either switch jobs or start writing blog posts. This time the blog posts won.

As before, I am trying to write down the questions and ideas that occur to me. I am trying to organize my thoughts and my life into a pattern that shows how my existence can be a net positive for the world. As before, I can't vouch for the originality or importance of my thoughts. As always, I appreciate any insight you have to offer. (Grammarians, please be gentle.)

Lack of Vision

I am currently proctoring my final exam, and I have time to write in my blog. I don't want to obviously be the least interesting person in the universe, so I won't apologize. I will note that there is a competing blog spurring me into action.

My current leisure activity is taking pictures for Boston.com's amateur photo contest. This month's theme is architecture. If you want to see some of the entries, go to flickr, and search for the following tags: boston.com august2009 architecture contest.

I find the contest frustrating. Manchester, NH, has stacks of dramatic architecture. The mill yard was the largest industrial complex in the world at the beginning of the 20th century. The neighborhoods jumble together in a mix of private homes, company housing, and three-family apartments. The banks, city hall, and library display the pride and wealth of the Amoskeag Corporation. Everything crashed with the Depression, so hard times added a layer of grit which should heighten the visual impact.

I have some pictures which I kind of like, although I think they are derivative, but I don't have a picture which tells the whole story, or even a compelling part of Manchester's story. I don't have the artistic vision or technical skill (yet?) to make a single image be anything more than a (hopefully) pretty picture. Contrast this with my two favorite works of art, En Brie and the Pieta. These single images tell a complete story and drag emotions from the observer.

I should not compare my work for a contest with a first prize value of $100 in a medium in which I dabble to masterworks of two of the preeminent geniuses in their chosen medium, but I wonder why I can't convey what I see and feel. I wonder if motion and narrative would allow me to show what I want.

I want to show not just a low slung brick building with a children's furniture store and an upscale pizzeria, I want to show the home of the Amoskeag Locomotive Works. A company which also built fire engines and even self-propelled steam-driven fire engines. This was massive industry and tremendous innovation. I want to put together a Flash animation or movie showing the history hidden behind the brick and rows of windows. At least I could write the story behind the pictures in this blog.

I want to show the falcons and hawks swooping through the building. The pigeons startle when the see them, and the sky is filled with fleeing birds. The crows attack the raptors and the shrieks of the falcon and the cries of the crows bounce off the rows of brick buildings. The sparrows swarm through the Rose of Sharon that line the streets in the mill yard, and the ruby throated sparrows match the Dig Safe signs scattered through the construction sites. I am tempted to buy the Nikon D90 which can take video, so that I can capture all of this motion and sound.

But there are people of genius who don't need props. Guernica or The Cowboys or Migrant Mother provide story and motion with single, unmoving, unnarrated images.

I don't have a lifetime to spare to develop an artistic vision, and genius is pure happenstance. I should be able to achieve technical competence with enough dabbling. Hopefully, a well-focused camera, properly aligned with Manchester's dramatic mill buildings should allow me to do better in this month's contest.