Doctors debating vaccination

Dochotomy by MsLil (2021)

 

 

(This article is a L-O-N-G read, and it is incomplete. Constructive comments are welcome.)

The ground rules for the debate

Dr Provax: Greetings fellow doctor, what do you know?

Dr Novax: Afternoon doctor. What do I know? Not much. Well, not entirely true. There's one thing I know: I'm done with the continual coverage of COVID. It's been two years now.

 

Dr Provax: Agreed. And with the latest variant, and two years to prepare, it is time for nature to show the non-vaccinators the folly of their reasoning.

Dr Novax: Ah, so you're vaccinated?

Dr Provax: Absolutely. You're not?

Dr Novax: No.

Dr Provax: Oh my God, why not? You’re crazy. We need to stop you anti-vaxxers before you kill us.

Dr Novax: Whoa, whoa. We’re friends, so I’m happy to have this discussion, but only if we have ground rules.

Dr Provax: What ground rules?

Dr Novax: Let’s refrain from invoking any unproved metaphysical entities such as God who are unnecessary to the discussion here. No ad hominem -- meaning you can attack the argument, but not the person. Calling me 'crazy' is ad hominem. And try to wind back the hyperbole such as your presumption that I am an 'anti-vaxxer', and your exaggeration that non-vaccinators will kill everyone. Everyone? That seems a lot strong: for one thing, if the vaccine is protective, then the vaccinated ought not be especially threatened by the non-vaccinator’s choice.

Predicting the future imperfectly

Do humans want to know their future?

Yes, people are interested in knowing their future.

We want to know the future in terms of…

•  what the weather will be tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after…?
  
• whether our new product is likely to be a success in the market or not?
  
• whether our large investment will be go up or go down in value?
  
• what numbers will win next week’s lottery? 
• whether or not we will survive the fatal disease we have contracted (with certainty, not a probability)?
  
• can modern medicine prevent or cure the fatal disease I have contracted?
  
• can we humans live forever?
  
• do humans avert their own extinction?
  
• what is the human-experience after death (assuming our quest for human-generated eternal life fails)?
  

Can humans know their future?

The future remains uncertain. No matter how good our prediction skills, the future is uncertain, both empirically and logically.

Empirically, even if we have “big data”, massive computing capacity, and fantastic skills, the weather tomorrow may be as predicted, but it may not. There is no certainty about what the future holds, and complexity and chaos theory ensures that it remains so. 

Logically, even if the world is a series of causes and effects, there is no logic that permits us to say that many previous contingent events will occur again in the future (see Hume). Sure, the sun has ‘risen’ every day for thousands of millennia, but it does not logically follow that it will do so tomorrow. 

Even with “more data” and more skills, some of these questions about the future, especially the ones further down the list above, are likely to always remain beyond us. 

What is the human-experience after death? Who knows? It has not stopped many people developing stories of what they think, even believe, or perhaps wish will happen after death. But the truth is we do not know. And even more, that we are unlikely to ever know.

Do humans avert their own extinction? We might desperately wish it to be so, but humanity does or does not survive remains in the future, and is unlikely to be known. The problem is open-ended for even if humanity survives the current apocalyptic scenarios, the possibility of extinction in some other, currently unseen and perhaps unknown apocalyptic scenario remains.

Can we live forever? It hasn’t happened yet although it is clear that human life has been massively extended beyond the standard “three score years and ten”. Can a human live forever? Perhaps, but perhaps not. Even if we do manage to insert our mental selves into a machine, what happens if the world ends and the machine stops? 

So many unknowns. 

But there are also some confusions that get tangled with the idea of prediction.

The first is confusing possibility with prediction. It is possible that there is life after death, that humans escape extinction and that people get to live forever (or at least 200 years or more). So, yes, these outcomes might be possible, but that is not a prediction. The other outcome is also possible!

Which leads to the related issue of confusing guesses with predictions. Guessing that a tossed coin will come up heads is a guess, not a prediction. If the coin does come up heads, then it was a lucky guess, not a correct prediction.  

Predicting the future is already an uncertain game, but it seems certain that uncertainty will always plague questions about particular futures such as the human experience after death, whether humans avoid extinction, and whether humans can live forever. 

My prediction is that we will only ever be able to predict the future imperfectly.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"The history of predicting the future" (Rees 2021, Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/history-predicting-future/

"Humans are bad at predicting futures that don't benefit them" (Beaton 2017, The Atlantic)
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/humans-are-bad-at-predicting-futures-that-dont-benefit-them/544709/

Why is time so warped?

Time has a curious essence. Unlike the other three dimensions - length, breadth, depth - we can travel in only one direction through time: from past to future via the present.

 
We cannot visit a moment in time that we have passed.

Despite the past and future being simply two ends of one dimension, we take the past as cast in stone, and the future as unknown.

Travel into the past is impossible, travel into the future a dream.

How well do we ‘know’ our past & our future?

We fool ourselves that we ‘know’ both our past and our future with stories about each.

The story we tell ourselves about our past is called history.

We put a lot of faith into this story in some ways, but it seems unjustified. If history is important because it facilitates learning, how come our own history is full of stories that are like repeats on television where at some point, often much too late, we realize that we’ve seen this before?

The story we tell ourselves about the future is called a prediction. We put less faith into predictions in general, but curiously, we do put a lot of faith into some predictions. We have many imaginings about catastrophic futures – pandemic, climate change, nuclear war, etc.

All are quite possible, but we tend to focus on one at a time, a flavour of the month (or year). While the possibilities for global annihilation are plentiful, even infinite, annihilation by pandemic is the most current scare du jour.

Before death by pandemic was imagined, we feared annihilation by climate change. Before annihilation by climate change, we feared an ending in nuclear war. Before an end in nuclear war was imagined, we feared … and so on back to various doomsday scenarios, secular and religious.

Outrage ain't right

 “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions”
  – David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Book 3, Part 3, Section 3)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enough of the outrage!

I hear your passion, your judgment, your indignation, your disgust. All because I'm unwilling to agree with you.

Outrage is easy to hear because it is pure passion speaking out. Loudly. 

Do you know what time it is ?

 

Claire asks Tiffany "Do know what time it is?"

 

Tiffany looks around at an old-fashioned clock sitting on the sideboard which shows that the time is 6.56. 

"Yeah, it is four minutes to 7," says Tiffany.

  

Following Tiffany's glance, Claire says, "Oh, that clock doesn't work. It always shows 6.56. So you are mistaken."

 

Tiffany looks at her mobile phone and says "Really? I think you are mistaken as my phone confirms that it is 6.56 at the moment."

 

(Adapted from Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its scope and limits, 1948)

QUESTIONS

 

Does Tiffany have a legitimate claim to "knowing" the time after viewing the stopped clock? 

 

If the time was 6.56, and Tiffany believed it was, and justified that belief by reading the clock, does she have knowledge? 

 

The notion that knowledge is 'justified, true belief' suggests that she does. Perhaps we ought to change the definition of knowledge? How would you change the definition?

 

ADDITIONAL SOURCES

https://philosphere.blog/2018/03/28/russell-and-the-stopped-clock/ 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem 

Be who you are

 

Be who you are --
for no-one else can be

Become who you can be --
for no-one else can do it

Ssh

 ----------------

To be what we are,
and to become what we are capable of becoming,
is the only end of life.

Robert Louis Stevenson

----------------

Be who you are and say what you feel
because those who mind don't matter,
and those who matter don't mind.

Dr Seuss

More is the enemy of enough

 

 

'More' 

is the enemy of

'enough'

(Ssh)

 

 

From impossible to improbable: small step or giant leap ?

Simon: Isn’t it ludicrous that some people think that the moon landings are a hoax? Bloody conspiracy-theorists! The moon landings happened, the evidence is incontrovertible.

Thomas: What is that evidence?

Simon: This article tells and shows how photographs taken by NASA's reconnaissance lunar orbiter reveal human footprints on the moon.

Thomas: Yeah, that seems compelling, but maybe the photographs could be fakes. Or maybe NASA actually landed a mechanical lunar rover on the moon that has two wheels on each side with boots in place of tyre treads, and it was set to "walk" around a bit. Voila! Footprints.

Simon: Aww, come on, that's just stupid.

Thomas: Stupid, yes. But possible, right?

Simon: No way. They have soil and rocks that they brought back from the moon that are not found anywhere on earth.

Thomas: Well, you’ve set up an interesting paradox: these rocks not found anywhere on earth are currently on the earth; they're found in NASA labs and museums. How can we be sure they are not elsewhere too? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And besides, have you seen these rocks? Are you a geologist? Can you confirm that they absolutely cannot be of this earth?

Simon: No the experts have made this judgment. I trust the experts.

Thomas: Sure, I trust experts too. But I also know that it is sometimes wise to ask for a second opinion. Experts do not always get it right. Indeed, they often disagree: it's almost certain that for any expert opinion, you will be able to find another expert who has a different view.

Simon: Oh this is silly. The theory that the moon landings are a hoax is simply impossible.

 

Thomas: I'm not asking you to admit that there were no moon landings, or no humans walked on the moon, or even that they are a hoax. I'm asking you whether you might be wrong about man walking on the moon?

Simon: While I acknowledge the points you are making, let me respond with the 17th century idiom that your words 'doth butter no parsnips with me'. In the modern vernacular, I ain't buying it.

Thomas: Let me respond to your parsnips quote with another bizarre one from the same century called Cromwell's rule: 'I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken?'  

 

Simon: What?

 

Thomas: Cromwell's rule says that anyone who is 100% adamant about their view is in trouble for two reasons: (a) they might be wrong and (b) they are blind to this possibility.

 

Simon: Ah, OK, I think I’m beginning to understand. You’re trying to crack me open to the idea that a hoax about the moon landings is possible. So let me respond using the words of an Aussie character Jasper Jones: 'Course it's possible. I don't reckon it's likely but'. And yes, I see that I can’t make the claim that the hoax is absolutely impossible.

 

Thomas: Yes, exactly. It's a small step, but with enormous implications.

 

Simon: But you have to make a giant leap to get over a problem that remains. Your view presents an absurdity, namely that the impossible is not possible at all! 😂 

 

---

Course it's possible. I don't reckon it's likely but.
 -- words spoken by Jasper Jones in Jasper Jones, Craig Silvey

 

Induction is the glory of Science, and the scandal of Philosophy

   -- C.D. Broad, Commemorative Address at The Bacon Tercentenary, (1926)

Words are but wind that do from men proceed;

None but Chamelions on bare Air can feed;

Great men large hopeful promises may utter;

But words did never Fish or Parsnips butter

   -- John Taylor, Epigrammes (1651)

 

I never made a mistake in my life.

I thought I did once,

but I was wrong.

  -- attributed to Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts

Excuse, pardon, or forgive others ?

What does it take for me to excuse, pardon, or forgive others?

 

Well, it depends!

 

Beer Spills

 

If someone is pushing past me in a pub on their way to the bar or to the toilet, that person may say to me as they bump into me, "excuse me" or "pardon me."

 

S/he, the bumper, is asking to be excused or pardoned for a minor infraction, namely endangering or even manifesting a beer spill. 

 

While it is technically a question (will you excuse/pardon me?), it is typically offered more as a declarative statement in which the bumper expects me to excuse or pardon him or her. 

 

In fact, I might even be considered rather rude if I did not excuse or pardon someone who made me spill my beer, especially after s/he asked to be excused/pardoned.

 

Sometimes, if I'm minding my own business drinking a beer, and someone bumps into me without saying anything and spills my beer, I might get irritated enough to bump back by saying "excuse me?" or "pardon me?" In this context, my words are offered as a gentle, ironic rebuff. The double irony is that my words mark some disinclination to excuse or pardon the bumper.

In this beer-spilling sense, excusing and pardoning and even forgiving someone are synonymous. To excuse or pardon someone who causes a beer spill is little more than a politesse. And a rebuke by the bumpee with an "excuse me?" or "pardon me?" is a reminder to the perhaps thoughtless bumper of the need for this politesse.

 

Big Spills

 

But how about the situations in life where the bump is something rather more substantial than a beer spill? Maybe an oil spill with economic, financial and ecological consequences. Or a physical assault perhaps resulting in a literal blood spill. Or maybe something more emotional as in a metaphorical breaking of the heart and copious tears are spilled.

Do prayers get results ?

 Two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness.

One of the guys is religious, the other's an atheist.

The two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer.

The atheist in a fleeting moment of vulnerability says "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from camp in that terrible blizzard and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing and it was 50 below and so I tried it. I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh God if there is a god I'm lost in this blizzard and I'm gonna die if you don't help me now.'"

In the bar the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled: "Well then you must believe now" he says "after all here you are alive."

The atheist just rolls his eyes: "No man, all that happened was a couple of Inuit happened to come wandering by and they showed me the way back to camp."

(From David Foster Wallace, Commencement Speech, Kenyon College, 2005, https://youtu.be/OsAd4HGJS4o?t=161)

QUESTIONS 

Does the atheist's experience in the blizzard prove that prayers are answered or not?

How can the same experience mean totally different things to the atheist and the believer?  

Is it possible that belief, meaning & interpretation actually precede the evidence?

History - true or false or irrelevant ?

A brand new school opens freshly painted doors to welcome its first students to their first classes.

An enthusiastic history teacher, Anna Chronism, arrives to face her first students in her first class ever.

She considers that she is not simply teaching history, but helping to make history.

She arrives to find three young women sitting in a row, all have their heads bowed down, each is reading a book.

She is surprised to observe that the covers of the three books are exactly the same.

"Morning everyone," says the teacher. "Enjoying your book?"

"Yes Ma'am" the three say in unison as they look up.

She gasps. The three girls are dressed quite differently and yet appear to be physically identical. One has baggy cargo shorts, loose top and tattoos on her arm, another has a pleated skirt, a fitted black T-shirt, loose blouse over it, and prominent crucifix showing at her neck, and the third is dressed in long pants and a jacket with a belt at the waist. Despite the variation in what they are wearing, the three girls appear to be physically identical: same eyes, same nose, same hair, same height, same build.

As she seeks to calm herself, Anna asks the three girls what book they are reading.

The girl with the tattoos responds: "I dunno!"

Anna asks her for her name. She responds: "People call me Mysteryy. That’s with an extra ‘y’ at the end."

Nodding, Anna asks, "So Mysteryy, aren't you interested in the book, its name, its author?"

"Yes, yes, I am interested in the book, it is a great book, I'm really enjoying it. But I judge a book by the contents, not by the cover, not by the title, not by the author."

The wearer of the crucifix raises her hand offering her explanation, "Excuse me Miss, it is a book called Silas Marner by George Eliot."

And what's your name" she asks?

"I'm called Faith."

She turns to the third one wearing a jacket, and remarks: "You appear to be reading the same book. What do you think of it?"

"Well, not exactly the same book, because we each have our own copy. But yes it appears to be the same book that Mysteryy and Faith are reading. Its proper title is Silas Marner: the weaver of Ravelhoe, and the author's name was Mary Anne Evans, but she published under the name George Eliot."

The teacher is impressed. The other two young women are not.

"And your name?"

"I’m Verity."

"And all three of you are from the one family?" Anna asks.

The girls laugh out loud.

"Not likely" says Faith responding to the confusion showing in the teacher's eyes.

"Forgive me my presumption. But you all look very similar. Perhaps if you each tell me a little about your history. Who wants to start?"

Mysteryy says: "Well, my history is unknown. I was a foundling left on the doorstep of a kindly couple. There was no information left with me, I don't know where I was born, I don't know when I was born, I don't know my parents. And I don't know much beyond the names of the couple that raised me for the first five years as they then died in a car accident. I was then transferred to another couple who have looked after me for the last ten years. So I don't know my early life, but it doesn't seem that important to know it. I'm here and I'm happy. That's what counts, right?"

"Well yes, I'm glad to have you here today, and yes, I guess that is what counts," admits Anna.

Mysteryy nods and smiles.

Faith follows: "Well, I know my history perfectly. My parents tell me that I was conceived through the grace of God on the day of St Peter and St Paul which is June 29, and I was born nine months later on 1 April 2006 which was a Saturday. This was a sign of God's blessing because it would have been awkward if Mum had laboured on Sunday. God has commanded that we must not labour on the Sabbath in recognition of His act of creation, and His resting on the seventh day."

Verity, flicking her long blond hair with a hand, and offers her own thoughts: "Actually, Saturday is the Sabbath. Sunday is the first day of the week."

The teacher delicately intervenes, "Yes, there are a variety of views. It’s Verity, right? What’s your story?"

"I was given up for adoption by my mother who was a drug addict, and she died of an overdose shortly after my birth. My father was incarcerated before my birth, and died in prison without ever seeing me. I was one of three identical girls, but we were separated at birth and I ended up with a couple of lawyers, Marie & David. She’s now a judge, he’s a retired lawyer and they’ve looked after me all my life. So that's my history."

----------------------------------

QUESTIONS

Which of the three girls is happier? Why?

How important is history?

Is it important for history to be true?

Will false history serve just as well as ‘true’ history?

Is it better to have a history, even false, than none at all?

 

ENDNOTE

The celebrated case of the ‘three identical strangers’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Identical_Strangers) provides a factual - even historical - basis for this thought-story. These identical triplets separated at birth are pictured at the right.

 

The image at the top of this post shows the Levesque triplets: https://levesquetriplets.com/  

Practical uncertainty - believe less, be less certain

Entrance to Centre Court, Wimbledon

Believe less.

Be less certain.

Or rather, 

believe this one certainty:

there is always more to learn.

Learn well from your mistakes.

Your wins are nothing.

Self-aggrandizement from wins,

is a card-house

founded on luck.

Your losses are learning opportunities,

personal pain is the powerful teacher.

Lose that opportunity,

you lose everything!

Ask questions,

and pay attention.

Nurture conversations, dialogues, discussions, and even debates,

but aim for discovery rather than destination,

pursue exploration rather than exposition.

Better to question
than to answer.

No news is good

The Caribbean Sea is justifiably famous for its well over 7000 idyllic islands. 

They are the very definition of paradise - no shoes, no phones, no devices, no news, no interruptions.

 

In paradise, you are free to lie in a hammock under a coconut tree or swim in the aquamarine sea.

In short, nothing to distract you from being with yourself.

 

But paradise ain't perfect. And imagine how paradise could be spoiled if the imperfections were revealed...

Philosophy is a sandbox: get in & play !

Virtually everyone is aware of the trolley problem in philosophy: a run-away trolley/streetcar/tram is going to kill four people, but you're standing by a switch and you have the capacity to redirect the tram to another track where it will kill one person - do you pull the switch? 

The 'trolley problem' is a staple of philosophy - and it is an example of staple method used in philosophy - the thought experiment.

Or put another way, 'what if' questioning. Or to put a fancy term on it: hypotheticals.

Philosophy then, is a sandbox. It is a place for grownups to play with ideas, concepts, hypotheticals, thought-experiments (e.g., in software development). 

A psychokinetic paradox?

Professor Cecily P Science is confident that people can know the outcomes of future random events, a so-called 'psi' effect.

The study of 'psi' or the power of mind over matter, of consciousness over the physical world, has been explored at length in psychology, often within a sub-field known as para-psychology. One of most famous labs studying psi is PEAR: Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research.

Cecily is keen to run an experiment to show that people can predict outcomes of coin tosses at a rate better than chance.

She explains her hypothesis to a graduate student, Laizee Bumm, and asks him to conduct the study for her. However, Laizee is a research assistant with other priorities. He does what she asks, but makes up the data to save himself time.

He generates random data for 100 people guessing a thousand coin tosses each. The results from the random-number generator "show" that 50% of the guesses (of the fake respondents) are right, and 50% are wrong.

In actual fact though, the results from the random-number generator happen to show that people correctly guess 501 out of 1000 coin tosses.

This result it should be noted, happens to be in line with previously reported studies of the psi effect: 'The effects that the volunteers accomplish are very small, but amazing. The operators are roughly altering one bit in 1,000,' explains Michael Ibison, a British mathematical physicist who has come to work for a year at PEAR after stints at Siemens, IBM, and Agfa. 'That means if you had a coin toss, psychokinesis could affect one of those coin tosses if you tossed a thousand times.'  Van Bakel 1994, Wired

QUESTIONS

Do the final results of this study by Cecily and Laizee provide evidence of a psychokinetic effect? 

Why? Why not?

If Laizee's data are fabricated using a random number generator, doesn't this mean the observed results were the outcomes of random events?

If Cecily's expectations were supported, doesn't this mean that she has proved her point that people can know the outcomes of future events? Didn't she got the result she expected?

What is truth?

1. The Truth is... a riddle

What is something that humans seek, and don't know it when they see it?

The answer is the truth!

(C.f. Jacobellis v Ohio 1964 in which the judge declined to define hard-core pornography, but famously said "I know it when I see it".)

2. The Truth is... not known

 

The conundrum of seeking truth but not knowing it when we see it is embedded in the idea of knowledge as justified true belief. 

It is said that we know something to be true if 

    (a) we believe it to be true, 

    (b) we have justification for our belief, and 

    (c) it is true.

We can build towards knowledge 

with beliefs and justifications, 

but we fail unless it's true.

And how do we "know" if it's true? 

 

Whether something is true is... unknown. 

Frustrating! 

Do you believe in God(s): Yes, No, or Other?

"Do you believe in God (however you choose to define that entity or those entities)?" 

A dichotomous version of this question would allow only "Yes" or "No" as responses. 

 

But doesn't this create a false dichotomy?

In particular, if I respond "No", someone might respond, "Ah, so you are an atheist, you believe there is no god".  

But that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm merely saying that I do not hold a belief in God. That is not the same as saying I hold a belief that there are no gods.

There is some ambiguity in the original version of the question "Do you believe in a god?"

One version is "Do you hold (or have) a belief in God?" To which I can legitimately respond, "Yes" or "No".

The other version is: "Does God exist?" To which a more nuanced response may be justified.

Democracy: a declining faith ?

Democracy - a declining faith

While we deify the concept of democracy, it appears to have lost much of its shine. The magic of democracy has diminished as a number of numbers show.

The declining faith in democracy is illustrated in the marked reductions in voter turnout observed over the last 50 years in Australia and elsewhere in the world. Political scientist Simon Tormey in a 2016 lecture at Parliament House reports that while voter turnout varies from vote to vote, the general tendency is that we are becoming "reluctant voters".

Degrees of desire

The three degrees of desire:

• I'd like to be rich
• I want love
• I need air

The three degrees for dealing with desire:

• gratitude: I am grateful for the riches I have received
• detachment: I accept the love that is offered
• nirvana (not needing): one day, I will stop grasping for air

Puzzling views on life

Two inconsistent views about life

1. My life is nothing and supremely unimportant

2. My life is a great and glorious event

In short, life is nothing and nothing is great!

-------------------------------------------

So, paradox, doublethink, conundrum, or something else?


Paradox: a logical contradictory statement: 'this statement is false'

Doublethink: "Holding contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them": "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength" 1984, George Orwell

Conundrum: a riddle whose answer is or involves a pun or unexpected twist: "People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day." Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne

My mistake

Life is long

... if you are lucky.

Making mistakes is inevitable,

learning is not!

Mistakes are made for lack of reflection*, but

learning is achieved only on reflection.

A daily practice:

Today, I made a mistake. I was wrong. I erred. 

What were the mistakes I made today?

What - if anything - could I do to avoid making such mistakes again?

---------

* My mistake... only some mistakes result from lack of reflection! To repeat, 'making mistakes is inevitable'