Archive for June, 2008
A slave to fickle interests
Despite my continued sporting of a lab coat, I am not a scientist and am not a huge adherent to the scientific method (theory, experience, counter-theory etc.). At present I am incredibly into philosophy, and I continue to appreciate maths and abstract similar practices such as logic puzzles, if not formal logic of which I have very little experience. Why am I into philosophy so much? Some would say I simply do it because it makes me the happiest as compared to others, I would try to defend the view that I do it because it is fundamental and deals with the assumptions other subjects take for granted. Yet a few short years ago I saw no value in the even vaguely artistic subjects and thought that maths and science were the only worthwhile practices. Until work experience I even wanted to be a computer programmer. The fact that such things seem to change so frequently concerns me when I am making decisions about the rest of my life.
My maths teacher pointed out to me the other day that I was basing career choices one one year of A level philosophy which barely represents the subject at degree level anyway. I’m a great critic of the assumption that decisions made at an older stage of life (e.g. senior citizenship vs. middle age vs. adulthood) are automatically or even generally superior to previous stages based on this alone: they might well be better due to having had more time to consider, of course. I much prefer to rationally look at the strength of arguments. So I can try and rectify this situation by arguing that I’ve argued for longer and talked to more people and read more books. But then, surely I’m likely to do that again in future years? Right now of course it feels like I’ve reached a fundamental point with a choice of philosophy. But I can see that could change.
It’s worth considering here the issue of future vocational career options. I’ve been aiming for a good while to do a law conversion course after university, and then become at some point a barrister. But while I could definately see myself doing that, I no longer think I could be competative or driven enough to be a successful lawyer. I haven’t done work experience or shadowed to the degree those who will be successful have. I merely see it as a way of using my skills of public speaking and argument to help others. But could I avoid corruption into the traditional painting of the law profession? I’m not sure. So one can see here how my interest has changed so dramatically.
On the other hand, I am still very enthusiastic about maths and philosophy when I can clearly see others are not to the same degree or at all. When someone says ‘let’s try and prove that god exists [or not]‘ I leap into the fray. But then, I used to do this with regard to interesting parts of physics, a subject which while interesting is merely a sideshow A-level now. However, I’m proud of the fact that I love to learn, and had so many A level subjects I would have taken if I wasn’t of course constrained by good old time or simple space in my head, and this seems to suggest that I’m not going to find myself seriously unhappy with degree choice. I can only hope that my judgements about present interests will hold for the next five years (Y13 plus four years at University minimum).
But then, I love a subject when I am being reasonably successful in it, and find that (in many ways like most, but perhaps more so) I can be put off suddenly and devastatingly by not understanding something pretty quickly. I have tendencies towards lazyness and lack of perseverance and *at times* I can find it very difficult to apply myself to a real challenge, even though I would like to say I relish such opportunities. And of course as usual I am either very uncompetative (when I am like that I am happiest) or very so, and since I’m not generally top in ability at things, this sets me down into losing interest. But then, what choice do I have but to go for what I seem to be cut out for (philosophy, and to a lesser extent maths)? I’ll just have to hope I haven’t made a mistake.
As I said to someone recently, I am most alive, happy, content or whatever you want to say, when thinking successfully and not in circles and debating this with others. What else have we humans got to aspire to?
The most worrying thing here is that I have a requirement of interest to do something that is worthwhile. Worrying, but not surprising.
Labour has lost too much credibility by playing to modern British politics, but it is still the best choice
I’ve argued before about how idealism is dead in British politics, but as political commentators look back on a year of Gordon Brown, the tale seems all too true once more. Brown always comes across to me, for example on the Today programme, as someone I would support as a progressive, socialist leader. He’s very much dedicated to his job and has been putting across some strong green policies, and has poured money into public services. He might have also partially privatised the NHS, but he does seem to have some principles hidden somewhere in there. And it is the fact that they are hidden and frequently ignored that is the problem with Labour and why it is sinking so fast at present. Brown pushed so incredibly hard for 42 days of detention without charge when all the experts said it was unnecessary and the philosophers said it was unethical. He cut taxes on middle England and increased them, effectively, for the very poorest with the 10p tax row. And he has U-turned again and again on such issues, compromising all the way. This is not democracy at work, this is a desperate leader playing on those who he feels he needs to win votes back from, who have drifted over to the showman Mr Cameron.
I remain however reasonably optimistic regarding Labour’s chances at the next election. They have two years to pull things around. So many problems the country is having that are pulling ratings down are due to the economy because voters turning away from Labour are often doing so because they feel a material squeeze. Some economists are saying that this international situation is more of a V-shape than a U: things went bad quickly and will recover quickly rather than steadily degrading and improving. Without moaning about how it is so silly that we are held in suspense by what is essentially a matter of confidence for a few high-flying traders, so much of Labour’s problems of late are based upon this. So, when the recovery happens, Brown will be able to pour money back into public services and people will realise that actually, Labour do make things better. It didn’t take much for Labour’s ratings to tumble so it can’t take much for them to come roaring back.
Of course, this is probably wishful thinking on some level. My mother has often said to me how much my good state education (well, relatively speaking and not comparing with the rest of Europe…) depends on the fact that Labour made such changes on coming to power, and this is my real concern: that as soon as the Tories get in, the real right will come back to the fore and all of the welfare projects of the last decade will be torn down. Would opposition reinvigorate Labour, or would it merely destroy further what it actually stands for more by forcing the party into more populism? Either of these could happen, but if the country slides away into more laissez-faire policies the poorest are only going to suffer. My grandfather always said to me that he tries to vote for the party that helps the poor the most, because whoever is in power we are not hugely affected, and for him that has always been Labour. Even now, Labour is still likely to help the poor far more than any other alternative, and that is why we must keep faith, despite so many failings.
Oxford University open day
On Tuesday evening, following logistical setbacks involving a toothbrush, my grandfather and I headed down to Oxford for the open day yesterday. I’d booked into Balliol College for the morning where general information was to be given and to have lunch there, but the whole university including departments was open to be explored. A small group of people from Silverdale went down via coach too and I met up with one for a part of the day to look at the course I am interested in, that is Maths and Philosophy. My conclusion from the day was that I am now pretty much set with my Oxford research: I would like to do said course at said college, and thus I can now concentrate on finding a second choice, for of course only a quarter of applicants manage to get in to Oxbridge. At this point I am concerned about how dissapointed I will be if I fail to get in. I have been building this up for years, and have long had it as a goal and something that I am aiming for, the next step on the staircase. Rationally it is not the end of the world and does not make me a failure if I don’t get in, but I’m not sure the version of Sean after a rejection will be able to think quite so clearly. On the plus side, I have no idea about my chances of getting in besides the fact that it is definately worth applying. Hopefully I can console myself with this.
At the beginning of the day, I was put in touch with a third year student in Maths and Philosophy to discuss the course, and my list of questions (in my highly-coveted commonplace book of collected notes) was swiftly answered. I then ended up having lunch with the admissions secretary, the third year, a second year in the subject and another prospective applicant for it from Germany. It seems that the first year of the course is somewhat maths focussed, or it at least appears to be like that, because the philosophy side is composed of maths-like topics such as logic. However, after this year there is considerably more flexibility. There is no applied maths, plenty of pure and the flexibility to do other philosophical topics such as ethics or political philosophy, which is good: I was afraid of finding the course primarily taken up by mathematical philosophy and the like but this is not the case after the first year. This is thus a fantastic option: I love both subjects and really wouldn’t want to give either up, and they do of course complement each other very well. The other choice in applying is then college. For those who aren’t aware, Oxford is a collegiate university meaning that you live and have a tutor in one of thirty colleges, but go to lectures organised by institutes or faculties. I’ve looked through all the colleges in the prospectus and basically there are none that stood out aside from Baliol for being lefty-liberal, so there is no real reason not to go there. It’s also a very good place for my subject choice. In any case, 20% of successful applicants don’t go to their first choice college so it is important not to place too much stock in this. So my Oxford choices and research are pretty much wrapped up nicely.
At this point there are then a number of things that I need to be doing with regard to university application. I need to draft, redraft and get read my personal statement, which is a difficult document because it has to cover all five of the places one applies to and for different courses if this is done. I need to get some more philosophy background reading done over the summer but this is hardly a chore as some of these other things are. And more importantly I need another few places to apply to, one of which is a firm second choice with an open day visit if I haven’t missed it already. My school run lots of nonsense for those applying to Oxbridge so I should be able to get all this done pretty efficiently. Then, of course, comes the hardest part: the interview. Oxbridge interviews are unlike any other. They aim to find something new that the candidate hasn’t seen and attempt to see how they think. Scary stuff, but I’m trying to remain reasonably confident by not considering my chances either way, and just going in and trying my best. And hoping I don’t have a headache which are becoming increasingly frequent of late.
A few other nice things happened worth recording here. Firstly, we met a mother and son on the train who were also going to the open day, and got talking about philosophy. Then the wonders of how well the Internet has been got going and used in recent years came in: I merely handed him an arrogant business card and he has since got in touch on Facebook, and on Wednesday morning he texted me an involved conclusion to one of the thought experiments I posed. Secondly, I got my picture taken outside the Oxford Union, the intellectual debating powerhouse that really is an international centre for it all. I am very much letting that go to my head. Cambridge may be a significantly prettier city, but the Union would be a major bonus to going to Oxford, in addition to a lot of variety of ringing.
This post is very decisive and it seems to suggest a clear direction. This is great: I can apply myself to this and attempt to make it work, not thinking too hard about the outcome and not considering whether I am putting too much focus into one thing. But really this has been what I have been using to force myself through GCSEs and some aspects of A levels, and I remain concerned about what will happen if I fail. Despite the fact I am told by others that I have a very reasonable shot at it. I keep telling myself that this is not what my life is defined by and is all about, and repeat to myself what someone who went said to my grandfather: it’s very easy to forget you’re not in the centre of the thinking world.
Hatred
I watched the original Star Wars trilogy (i.e. episodes IV – VI) again recently (and wasted half an hour instead of going to bed last night watching lightsaber duels on YouTube), and am as usual seeing things in I didn’t see before. I used to watch it over and over some years back and it is still an exceptional series. Particularly, I like the Jedi: I believe I would make an excellent Jedi knight because I could follow the code:
- There is no emotion; there is peace.
- There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
- There is no passion; there is serenity.
- There is no death; there is the Force.
The dark side of the force is defined by power surrounding darker emotions: “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering” – Yoda. This has got me thinking about hatred. It is clearly incredibly powerful but really the Jedi are absolutely right: it can only be destructive. Is anyone truly evil, that they deserve to be hated? Given the fact that all we do is likely to be pre-determined by a chain of cause and effect, it has seemed to me for some time that we can’t call anyone truly evil, putting aside for a moment all notions of what good and evil actually mean and taking an intuitive stance. Can we really blame someone for doing something we might call evil, and if they do it enough, can we call them evil? We can, and we do, but firstly no-one is helped by this, and secondly it seems clear to me that any blame is merely attacking someone for being in the wrong place at the wrong time – or to be more specific, being at the end of the wrong chain of cause and effect.
Often though we use the term hate far more liberally than with this kind of severity. ‘Oh I hate it when that happens’ is often heard, from myself of course too. We’re just using language in a different way here. One thing however that I am regularly criticised for is how I have said for years that I hate my father. As I’ve posted about on here at least once before, we have not had a good relationship for many years. It seems to me that he is very unreasonable with demands made, and it seems to him that I am consistently rude and thus should change who I am in order to suit his standards of politeness. Of late, I really had thought that we’d been doing a lot better, and I hadn’t said it because I was trying not to jinx the situation, so to speak. However this was broken last night.
The row was the usual kind of thing: put simply, I had forgotten to empty the dishwashed as asked and was settled in bed. I apologised, said I would do it in the morning (I would have been happy to get up ten minutes earlier than usual), but because I believed that 10:20pm was not the time to be emptying it, I have been banned from his computer for Wednesday and Thursday evenings. This is a typical situation, but the real issue is how I then tried to mentally deal with it. Being human makes one so fickle in one’s opinions towards others! But yesterday, having watching Star Wars, I was ready for the inevitable burst of hatred. I tried to ‘let it wash over me’ as is described in books and considered the rational view described above. It worked, but of course the situation wasn’t changed. I still think my father is being unreasonable. But at least I’m no longer emotionally hung up on it.
This seems to me to be the core reason why we must be so careful about what is actually causing us to do something. So often we blow things out of proportion due to emotion and we must have others to keep a check on this. Of course, this post probably seems like a lot of common sense, but I’m just trying to point out that I’ve recognised myself doing something, and I intend to continue to recognise when I do things like this, as I’ve said before.