On Time and on Counting - The Missing Link

The monthly podcast of The Missing Link had a bump in its schedule on account of the holiday, but it is back. As usual with two essays. One by host Elizabeth Green Musselman (EGM) and the other by a guest. EGM has been inviting listeners to offer their essays and here we have the first to take on the challenge. Listener Scott Lough talks to us about time. This is the first installment, the second part will come in a consecutive issue of the Missing Link.

Time is hard to understand. Difficult to hook into or get a grip on. Biologically we are in sync with the daily and the lunar cycle, but hardly the yearly. And when we somehow try to fathom at least that, what we could not imagine is time flowing backwards. However, physics allow that. What physics and even astronomy also allow is: the end of time. Also hardly fathomable.

Green Musselman offers an essay about quantities. (A follow-up on the previous program) Our modern culture puts heavy emphasis - EGM explains our quantifications with our economical nature. The homo economicus is a quantifier. Is the homo sapiens, necessarily a homo economicus and thus always counting. EGM takes us to the pastoral cultures of Africa, where economy works entirely differently, or, pot otherwise, culture that is not commercial at all. What is an amazing find is that the African peoples are not counting. The Europeans who arrived in South Africa in the 18th and 19th century found to their astonishment that the Xhosa, Zulu and Botswana did not count. They herded sizable amounts of cattle, but they couldn't tell how many of them they had. Alternately, they were able to tell in an instant, even of a herd hundreds strong, whether individual animals were mssing. They had a way of knowing the individuals, without knowing the numbers.

More Missing Link:
Strength in Numbers,
Constant Companions,
From Berlin,
History of Science.

More Elizabeth Green Musselman:
Environmental History in South Africa (Exploring Environmental History Podcast).

The Economist in New Hampshire

Christopher Hitchens pondered on the American caucus in KQED forum (I blogged about this yesterday). He argued as follows: the system in Iowa works such that there is a tendency towards the extreme. That is how Huckabee could win there. For New Hampshire he predicted a more moderate result, implying what nobody expected: Hillary Clinton would win for the Democrats.

The Economist's blog and podcast Democracy in America put a podcast this morning in the feed where the New Hampshire independet voters were interviewed. No indication for a win in any direction. Maybe it was clear that Huckabee was not going to be a factor, but that was to be expected. The Republican leaning voter was in doubt between McCain and Ron Paul. The one to vote for a Democrat was undecided between Obama and Clinton. I detected a slight preference for Clinton, I must say.

I wonder why The Economist didn't wait yet another couple of hours with that podcast. What news agent would deliver before the dead line? Who'd be interested in the cast now? However, between you and me, the interviews were fascinating and possibly representative for more Americans - this is not necessarily about New Hampshire alone. I'd say, listen anyway.

More from the Economist and about the 2008 elections:
A biography for Barack Obama and one for Hillary Clinton,
The Economist podcast,
Bush - Clinton - Bush - Clinton (UC Podcast),
Religiousness of American Presidents (UC Podcast).

Philosophy Bites on Wittgenstein

I love philosophy and at the same time, very frequently, when I read or hear philosophers or about them, I seriously lose track. When I wrote my masters and finished a good deal of the work, my mentor threw a book at me about the effect of Wittgensteinian thought on sociology. See if I could incorporate that in my thesis, to top it off. I couldn't. Wittgenstein had me baffled and I obtained my masters without him.

So Wittgenstein has become the symbol of where I feel I need philosophy, but fail to wrap my mind around it. Hence, with a mixed sense of urgency and intimidation, I set out to listen to the latest Philosophy Bites podcast. Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds speak with Barry Smith about Wittgenstein.

Early Wittgenstein is briefly discussed. Already Wittgenstein is heavily interested in language, but still uses what is named a picture theory of language; our language in one way or another tries to picture our world. This is the approach that investigates how we can improve the accuracy of language in order to picture the world more effectively. Wittgenstein takes it to logic: how logic will allow us to analyze the arguments (essentially the pictures of the world) and thus find the limits of what could be. What is logically incorrect cannot be. What is correct could - though need not be.

By 1929 he returns to England and sets out to radically alter this approach. No matter how inaccurate our language is, we seem to do well with it. What is more, we cannot start thinking, unless we have language, hence language is not the instrument to picture the world, but rather what ties us to it. This makes it very difficult to catch the essence of language. Here is where we are not even half way the podcast and I am in my third run of listening to it. Very fascinating and catching, but unbelievably hard to really deeply dig into.

More Philosophy Bites:
Friendship,
Egalitarianism,
Skepticism ,
Thought experiments (and Avicenna).

How to optimally record a Skype conversation

Podcast listeners like myself will witness many podcasters struggle with audio that represents a conversation conducted over the phone. As far as content is concerned, these sections give some of the greatest input, but the audio quality can seriously ruin the product. At the same time I know of several podcasts (for example The Word Nerds and the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe) that manage tremendously well. Most podcasters use Skype, but among those, quality still varies.

Recently I came across the below presentation from on the Conversations Network, that seems to offer a very complete and effective guide to make the recording succeed as best as it can. So here is the show...

| View | Upload your own

For more info and discussion, visit The Conversations Network’s forums.

Faith based diplomacy - SOF

From a Western perspective, keeping religion and state separated seems like the healthiest paradigm. Not only do we have bloody memories, of religion inspiring wars among ourselves. The contentious nature of religion, especially with regard to our relationship with Islam of late, seems to indicate how right the separation is. Consequently, diplomatic speech must be ripped of religious content, so it seems.

Speaking of Faith reran a program with Douglas Johnston of the ICRD (International Center for Religion and Diplomacy) who turns this centerpiece of what he calls 'realpolitik' on its head and reveals a very successful diplomatic practice with religion involved. His work has brought him to Pakistan, Sudan and Iran and he relates some remarkable and inspiring stories of achievement. In Pakistan he is involved in reforming the religious schools. In the Sudan he was part of interfaith reconciliation talks and in Iran in a similar program tying all the faith representatives in communicating with each other. He explains the rationale in pretty straightforward and practical terms.

He finds that outside the western world, since religion represents the highest standard of people, adopting a religious tone and incorporating religion into diplomacy is an act of ultimate reverence. It is much less perceived as double talk and rife with hidden agendas than businesslike speech that is cleansed of the holy. In addition, he makes an effort to understand his opponent's religion and make references to his tradition and thus pays ultimate respect and manages to reach out very effectively.

More Speaking of Faith:
Rachel Naomi Remen,
Rumi,
New Evangelicals,
V. V. Raman,
Reinold Niebuhr.

Christopher Hitchens - KQED Forum

Open Culture's post about KQED forum podcast in which Christopher Hitchens was interviewed, brought me to listen to it as well. I had not met KQED before and though I had heard of Hitchens, I had never read him or listened to him. It won't have to happen again. (KQED forum feed)

I may roughly agree with Hitchens on a couple of major points, but the style and eventual stand puts me off. As far as the interview is concerned, be warned also about a not so ideal voice: his diction could improve. It makes for rather tiring listening.

The program consists of roughly two parts. The first in which Hitchens gives his view on the Bhutto assassination (must be Al-Qaeda) and on the war in Iraq (can't retreat now, that would be worse) and the US caucus system (shame for democracy to put such heavy importance on such a small occurrence). In the next section he gets to answer listeners' question who are put through to the show. These questions move his focus to the atheism subject of his. This is where he finds praise with Open Culture:

For Hitchens, if there existed a God who answered prayers and intervened in human affairs, “we would be living under an unalterable celestial dictatorship that could read our thoughts while we were asleep and convict us of thought crime and pursue us after we after are dead, and in the name of which priesthoods and other oligarchies and hierarchies would be set up to enforce God’s law.” Essentially, we’d be living in a supernatural Orwellian world.

Personally, I am not so impressed by this.