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Time to Spread Some Hope

Posted March 8, 2007 By Dave Thomer

I’ve been sitting here at my desk watching a swirl of bad news affecting other people – stuff in the news, stuff that friends are going through – and it made me think a little more about how damned lucky I am. I have a freaking amazing life and I really gotta remember to be grateful for it every second of the day. And I gotta do what I can to spread a little bit of the joy around.

So I just wanted to take a moment here to note that the International Rescue Committee‘s website has a list of its various efforts to help refugees and other victims of violence and disaster. I’d encourage you to go check it out and see if it’s work you’d be willing to support with a small contribution.

While I’m at it, let me take another moment and mention that the Christopher Reeve Foundation has changed its name to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. I’ll say upfront that I support the Foundation in part because of my admiration for Christopher Reeve, and if that makes me a little bit shallow or blinded by celebrity, so be it. But I think the way that Reeve faced his life after his accident is a truly inspriational story – and it’s a story that probably wouldn’t have happened as it did without the support and efforts of Dana Reeve. So I think this is a worthy tribute.

Filed in So Now What?

Can’t Win for Losing

Posted March 7, 2007 By Dave Thomer

This ought to sum up the life of a Philadelphia sports fan. It’s a paragraph from the AP’s coverage of the 76ers’ win over the Seattle Sonics:

Once a leading candidate to earn the most pingpong balls in the draft lottery, the Sixers instead are talking about the playoffs. The postseason is still a long shot, for sure, but thinking about it beats another dreary end to the season — only don’t tell that to Sixers fans who want their team to lose and get that No. 1 pick.

The AP is not making this up. My physical therapist has season tickets to the Sixers, and so I asked him if he thought that the team had improved since trading Allen Iverson. He said something to the effect of: “Yeah, and I’m not happy about it. I’m seeing defense, I’m seeing unselfish play, I’m seeing good decisions . . . and it’s ticking me off!”

I’ll be honest, I understand the logic. Sometimes you gotta tear things down to the ground and rebuild from the foundation if the goal is to get to the top, and small improvements can just fool you into thinking you’re better than you are. But still, it’s funny to hear people complaining about a team that doesn’t even have the decency to lose properly.

Filed in Special Order Speeches

No Newsprint Withdrawal Here

Posted March 6, 2007 By Dave Thomer

Fading to Black is a blog that covers the ongoing decline of the newspaper industry in North America and the possible consequences of that decline for journalism. It’s an interesting read, and has the added benefit for me of being a window into how Canada is dealing with these issues. The blog highlighted my earlier post about ending my subscription to the Inquirer. I appreciate the link, and as I set out to return the favor, it occurs to me that I really do not miss the paper. I do check out philly.com almost every day – that’s how I spotted the article about brain scans I highlighted yesterday – but I don’t find myself spending much time there, and I certainly haven’t seen an avalanche of solid news stories that would make me want to pick the paper up again. Indeed, it seems a big focus for the Inquirer has been getting more commentators for its Sunday section, and like I said before, that’s exactly the wrong direction to go in if you want to get me to pony up again.

Filed in Culture and Media

Decisions in a Flash of Light

Posted March 5, 2007 By Dave Thomer

Following up somewhat on yesterday’s post, here’s an article from today’s Inquirer about brain research in Germany, where scientists are conducting research to see if they can use brain scans to determine a person’s intention to perform a mathematical operation.

In one study, participants were told to decide whether to add or subtract two numbers a few seconds before the numbers were flashed on a screen. In the interim, a computer captured images of their brain waves to predict the subject’s decision – with one pattern suggesting addition, and another subtraction.

What’s not fully clear from this article – and I’m going to see if I can track down more details – is whether or not the patterns were noticeable before the subjects consciously made their decision. It sounds like they did, but I’m not 100 percent sure. If so, it would seem to be an indication that what feels to us in our inner thoughts like we’re “making a decision” is just our phenomenal consciousness getting something of a status report about what our entire organism has already set out to do.

In turn, there’s a potentially important semantic discussion about whether the brain pattern in question is an explanation for the decision, or if it is the decision. (Although even in the latter case, one would presume that there is an explanation for the particular brain pattern in the relationship between the nervous sytem and the environment. That is, I presume all this until the neuroscience experts show up to take me to school.)

Filed in Philosophy

Anything Can Happen?

Posted March 4, 2007 By Dave Thomer

I’ve been giving some thought to explanations lately. As a teacher and as the parent of a five-year-old, I spend a lot of time explaining things, and I’ve been wondering a bit about what makes a good explanation. I’m talking here about explaining why things happen the way they do – explaining what the heck Descartes means in contemporary English is a whole other ball of wax. And it strikes me that if we’re trying to give a full explanation of why Event A occurs, what we’re trying to do is identify a set of conditions X, Y and Z. And if the explanation is a full one, then whenever you have conditions X, Y, and Z, you are assured that you also have Event A. (I’m fudging the distinction between what philosophers call necessary and sufficient conditions here. I’ll try and get back to that.) If you can have conditions X, Y and Z but not have Event A, then there’s something that’s missing from your explanation. (For example, if I say “The explanation for that water boiling is that it reached 212 degrees Fahrenheit,” and then we go into high altitude and discover that 212-degree water doesn’t boil, we have to add somethign to our explanation about atmospheric pressure and sea level.) Now, maybe there’s a condition W that we hadn’t identified, and maybe there’s a pure random element such that you can’t ever give a full explanation. But in terms of defining a good explanation, it seems like this is what we’re going for.

And something that has struck me a number of times over the years is that if we think that there’s an explanation for things, then we’re essentially saying that there’s a mechanism driving events, that specific conditions dictate certain outcomes. Now, maybe we human beings won’t ever discover the explanations and the mechanisms. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. So if the world is explainable, doesn’t that suggest that the world is what is, and that it can’t be changed? That whatever efforts we might make to change or not change the world are, in fact, already part of the mechanism? (“I’m sorry my paper is late, Dr. Thomer. A pterodactyl took a wrong turn millions of years ago, so I overslept.”)

Not that a world that can’t be explained is a whole lot more reassuring. I mean, the reason we want explanations is so that we can feel like we have some control over our lives – if I do X, I will get Y. To the extent that the world is random, I can’t have any control over it.

When I think about things like this, I get the sense that I’m sticking myself into a binary, either-or box, and like a good pragmatist I should try and find the shade of gray somewhere in between. But I’ll be damned if I have a clear idea of what that shade is, sometimes.

Filed in Philosophy

Let’s Put on a Town Hall Meeting!

Posted March 3, 2007 By Dave Thomer

One of my assignments in my education courses this semester was to evaluate several WebQuests – basically, online lesson modules that have some kind of interactive research component for the students. One of my chosen subjects was this module, where students conduct research in order to be able to hold a town meeting debate for a presidential election. This module is set during the 2000 election, but I think the general idea might be useful to anyone who wants to incorporate some work from the current election cycle into a high schoo lcurriculum. (Watch, my teacher friends will be here in am inute to tell me what a bad idea this is.)

And for kicks, here’s what I had to say about the module for my evaluation:

The assignment encourages students to do research, look at problems from different ideological perspectives, take stances on issues, and express those stances in a democratic forum. Setting the assignment during the 2000 election was a good decision when the assignment was written, since it connects students to events outside the classroom in an immediate way. If I were to use this assignment with students today, though, I believe I would direct students to research the positions of the two major parties, rather than two candidates. This would allow the assignment to be used during non-presidential election years, and students would have more freedom to design the candidate they portray. A student who feels that, for example, George W. Bush was not enough of a financial conservative, or that Al Gore did not do enough to address the condition of the working poor, could create a presidential candidate that fits his or her vision of the party platform. This has the added benefit of being less exclusionary to female and minority students. I also wonder if the students asking the questions should be asked to do more to try and role-play the positions they take – perhaps the three questioners should have a small deliberative session where they discuss how well they feel the candidates responded to their issues.

Filed in Special Order Speeches

Grains of Truth

Posted March 2, 2007 By Dave Thomer

So we went grocery shopping at Whole Foods tonight. And things were going quite well until we got to the cereal aisle, and I discovered that this store had discontinued both of my favorite varieties of granola, Back to Nature’s Apple Cinnamon and Apple Strawberry. I made an exaggerated gesture of sadness at this development, which was a mistake, because Alex saw me get sad, and then she got sad. But it looks like the problem is at least somewhat solved – Amazon carries the Apple Cinnamon. And Back to Nature itself sells the Apple Strawberry on its website.

Some days, ya gotta love the internet.

Filed in Life in Practice

Virtual Office Hours

Posted March 1, 2007 By Dave Thomer

It’s been a crazy week – midterm wek for my students, which means I’ve been putting review material together and getting tests ready. Way back in the 90s, when I had to walk five miles to class in the snow uphill both ways, this was the time that students would flood professors’ office hours to try and figure out that which confounded them. This week, only one student has stopped by office to ask a question. (Since I don’t have an office at one of the schools where I teach, this is probably a good thing.) Instead, every night I’ve been answering e-mails and holding instant messenger sessions with students who want to go over material.

Now, especially since I’m an adjunct, this is a great help for my students and for me. I spend a lot of the working day running around from one campus to another, so I don’t have as much time as I’d like to make sure that I can be avilable to students at the different times that their schedules allow. (If you have a class during the window I’m able to schedule office hours at a particular campus, you’re pretty much out of luck.) But this way, I’m actually available at the time when, let’s be honest, many students are actually realizing “Holy crap, I don’t get this and the test is tomorrow!”

It really is amazing how much technology has changed education in just ten years. When I started writing this post, I tried to remember if any of my professors had e-mail, and I don’t believe they did. Most of the campuses I teach at have built new classroom space over the years that include built-in audio-video systems with DVD players, PCs, and high-resolution projectors – a far cry from the VCRs-on-a-cart of days gone by. And I love all the new toys, don’t get me wrong – I get a kick out of showing scenes from Monty Python on a big screen and calling it work. The one thing that it does make me wonder about is, the more technology we build into the educational experience, the more expensive education becomes. And given the issues we have in this country with education affordability, that does give me some pause.

Filed in Education

Seven Particles Will Collide

Posted February 28, 2007 By Dave Thomer

I admit, I had lost track of the state of supercollider research. (Don’t we all, from time to time?) So I was happy to spot this article from Reuters about the progress in Europe towards getting the next generation of collider online by the end of the year. A 2000-ton magnet was lowered into a giant cavern, and if you have a 2000 ton magnet, where else would you put it?

Seriously, I’m happy to see this research get moving. I remember when I read Michio Kaku’s Hyperspace, which talked about strong theory, additional dimensions, and parallel universes, and Kaku mentioned that at the time he wrote the book, there was no way to test the theory – that would have to wait for better technology and better math. Well, maybe progress has been made:

“We think this project is going to uncover things we cannot dream of at the moment,” said Professor Jos Engelen, Chief Scientific Officer of CERN, the 26-nation European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Some of his colleagues say the experiment, smashing particles together at high speed in a Large Hadron Collider (LHC), may bring new knowledge such as the possible existence of multiple dimensions beyond the four of traditional physics — width, length, height and time.

Others speak, if cautiously, of venturing into realms long regarded as those of speculative science fiction — multiple universes, parallel worlds, black holes in space linking different levels of existence.

Very cool.

Filed in Special Order Speeches

New Category

Posted February 27, 2007 By Dave Thomer

I’ve added an education category to the site. Given how much time I’m spending on the topic, I figure it’s about time. There will continue to be some crossover with philosophy, but this section will be more about the nuts and bolts of teaching.

I did a brief “microlesson” presentation in one of my education classes tonight – about 30 minutes on Descartes and the hyperbolic doubt thought experiment. Just as I got rolling my time ran out. One of the other students felt like I had left the class on a cliffhanger – setting up the experiment, but not having time to actually talk about Descartes’ findings. Leave ’em wanting more, I suppose.

But it got me to thinking about something that’s been occupying my thoughts a lot lately – there seems to be a real tension between the Deweyan approach I say that I want to take, and the way I actually teach. I try to initiate class discussion a lot, and I think I’m reasonably successful there. (Although I can get better.) But in order to to try and give the students a shot at understanding some of the admittedly cryptic texts we read, I spend a lot of time doing lecture and boardwork. I’m starting to wonder if I should try and be less text-centered, to push the students to develop their own approaches. But that might mean giving up on exposing them to some really thought-provoking material. I dunno. I’m still muddling through this.

Filed in Education
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