Respect life

The ongoing case of Alfie Evans and the efforts of his parents and a few activists is quite an alarming indication of the stance of the law, the medical practice and the society as a whole.

I thought the motto of medical profession was to 'improve the quality of life', not 'ensure death'.  And if one cannot improve the quality of life, one ought to be put down.  Going by that dictum, most people even the healthy ones, should be put to sleep once and for all.  Furthermore, the standard of a society is measured by the way it looks after the marginalized, especially the weak and the disabled.  If measured by that standard, the UK would not rank high in this and related episodes.

Following the logic of the hospital and the judges, even George Young a four year old who has dementia and is expected to soon lose sight and other vital organs, should be left to die, without any further medical intervention - not even food and water!

On the one hand there is the whole celebration of the birth of a new prince, and the royals paying homage to the dead at the Anzac ceremony, and on the other a concerted effort to end one life.  Seriously, the dead are revered and the living murdered?  Wonder if the law would prevent a royal family from taking their child to another country for treatment, even if that treatment is no guarantee of better health? So if Alfie can be taken home, he can well be taken to Italy - go for a family vacation, if that be!

In Alfie's case, the doctors had initially claimed that Alfie would not survive long without the ventilator. But he has outlived their prediction and made it on his own since three days.  So there is a possibility - a very wild one - that science has got it wrong.  Yet it need not be a defeat of science.  There is nothing called good science or bad science.   The fact that science has not yet found the cure does not mean that there isn't one.  Furthermore, some remedies used today were experiments some time ago. Only when they've been proved beneficial have they become 'life-saving' today.  So even if one gives into the logic of the hospital and the judges, that Alfie's condition cannot be improved, one can at least try unexperimented modes of treatment with the sole intention of improving his health.  It is not as if healthy people are cheated into being experimented on - which is ethically wrong.  But here is a case where every possible means of available treatment has failed, so why not?

In most such cases where there is no visible sign of agency, human life is considered not worth continuing.  Actually it speaks not so much about the sick person but of those healthy and those taking decisions on behalf of the sick.  In passing judgement about the worthiness or non-worthiness of their continued existence, we are passing judgement on our own ethical and moral standard.

How can taking someone's life be for the betterment of one's life? 

Post-truth and trust

For quite sometime now, this notion of post-truth has been in circulation.  Ever since Donald Trump took up the presidency of the US, it has gained all the more prominence.  Perhaps that's the only rational explanation one can offer to the otherwise seemingly bizarre and totally 'wrong' things one encounters or sees others hold as right. 

The age old debate between science and religion, as to which of them is right is now no more the central argument.  Why so?  Has it been resolved? Or is it that the issue is no more relevant?  Or is there is a sort of tiredness to keep getting at one another's throat that there is now a declared 'peace'? 

Perhaps the way science has reviewed itself over the past few decades has something to do with it.  Something religion is still shy of doing or at least some feeble attempts are being made in some parts.  In 1970 W. V. Quine and J. S. Ullian in their book The Web of Belief made a strange argument:  that scientific statements are truths not because of their fidelity to external facts but due to their internal coherence and persuasiveness they share with other narratives and statements.  Our beliefs face the test of experience not as each individual compartmentalized fact but as a web or layered body.  Moreover our interaction of individual experience is only with the margins of our belief, not the core of what we hold as true.  So whenever there is something that contradicts or challenges our belief, we are prompted to restore consistency.  But in choosing what to revise or change, we are not guided by facts alone.  The central challenge is not fidelity to external facts but semblance of the entire web.  And in this process, we might end either changing one of the marginal beliefs or even the core of the web.  What plays a crucial role in this whole process is the authority we choose to trust. 

If this principle is right, then it does explain how one can have two seemingly and 'apparent' contradictory beliefs which for one person are totally opposite and for another perfectly compatible.  It is just that they both choose a different authority source.  What then of the external fact? Does that no more have a say in what holds as true or false?  It does but again, what guarantee that what you see is right?  After all, for centuries science believed in geo-centrism.  Technology experts could think of mega data storage only in terms of cabinet files and godowns. 

Well, if that is the case of observable external facts, what about non-material unperceivable realities of life?  Of values and principles?  Though the complications are multiplied, the basic argument of Quine and Ullian about a 'web of belief' still holds true. 

To be scientific: validate or invalidate?

I was under the impression that something to be scientific a hypothesis needs to be proved or disproved.

However, it appears that according to Karl Popper's criterion of falsifiability, the capacity to disprove is what makes something scientific.  The idea is that if you go out looking for confirmation of a theory or hypothesis, he said, you are almost certain to discover it. By contrast, good theories or hypotheses are those that allow you to search for contrary evidence. It is possible to conceive of an observation that would conflict with one’s expectations. The capacity to be disproved is what makes a theory scientific.

[Came across this insight reading the following article on Aeon: Is linguistics a science?]

But I guess, any process that involves a systematic and immersed study, either to validate or invalidate, could be termed scientific.  Haven't read much about the falsifiability criterion but seems self-defeating, in a sense.  On the one hand, it keeps at bay the danger of 'assumption', of making something so fundamental and basic that it cannot be challenged.  While from another perspective, if challenged and proved wrong, then is no more valid.

Whatever it be, if in the ultimate analysis, the whole endeavour makes me a better person, willing to see the world in a better light, then that's it!  

Fruit or vegetable?

Yesterday we had an interesting lecture about the validity of 'truth-statements'.  The discussion was about which norm to follow.  Since we were speaking of pragmatists the notion of supra-material or metaphysical was out.  But even in normal affairs there was this dilemma of science or social?  The example that Huw Price quotes in his book Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism (ch. 2) is that of tomato.  Now scientifically it is a fruit, but in ordinary usage it is used as a vegetable.  So the question, how do we treat it?  Go by science or by social usage?

What if someone sent me a gift: a basket of fruits ... tomatoes? Would I be wrong in feeling odd? Or is the person who sent me in the wrong?  What if I ask someone to get me some fruit to eat, and he gets me aubergines (English term for 'brinjal')? Would he be wrong? Would I be wrong in thinking he's gone nuts?

Or should we treat both, the scientific and the social understanding to be right? That'd mean that a tomato is both a fruit and a vegetable?  

Murphy's law

At table this afternoon we were talking about the various possibilities of things going 'wrong' with children and computers.  Someone spoke of 'Murphy's law.  I thought he was talking about some physicist but no.  The law he said is this

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong!

So the whole idea was to have the system being created or constructed having taken into consideration all that can go wrong and thereby eliminating those possibilities.

More about the law itself, here.

Another example:
The printer will jam the moment you leave the room assured that all is right!  

Social sins

A very comprehensive quote (by Gandhiji) summing up our modern attitudes:

Torn between...

Two subjects or disciplines that really have had a sway on Philosophy - Western philosophy - right since the beginning are science and art.  While the ancient Greek pioneers were all scientists and mathematicians, the later breed were artists.  On the one hand there is this innate desire to systematize philosophy as a well organised structure, as science is (all black and white, logical, clear cut, definite, understandable...).  People like Descartes, Kant and Heidegger have done their bit quite heroically.

On the other hand there is the attempt to liberate philosophy and make it creative and free... like art or poetry.  Wherein rules are not the most important but the content of what is said.  Not everything needs to be clear-cut or well within grasp. Not necessary that there are set standards to which anything and everything must abide by.  Artists, mystics, poets, have in their own way shown the path.

Now which of these two paths is the way forward? Thinking otherwise, why should philosophy be like science or art at all?

Farms hands vs gadgets!

Here at the Provincial house, Hyderabad the confreres have installed a biometric unit for the staff of the house to register their time of arrival and departure from the house for their daily work.  Every morning and evening, invariably there is always a sort of anxiety among the staff as I have seen it in the past three days.  For the office staff there isn't much of a problem. The put in their finger exactly and the machine instantly recognises the print.  It is the farm hands who really have to slog it out with the machine.  A couple of them still seem new to using it and secondly, but most importantly, their hands are so callous that the machine seems not to identify the person!

So much for machines making life easier for us! 

K-PAX, an amusing movie

A couple of days ago, Fr Rinoy and I stayed up late to watch a very strange but interesting movie, K-PAX. I somehow liked it, though I really cannot spell out for what reasons. One reason that I am aware of is because of Kevin Spacey and his good acting skills. Another reason I continued watching the movie was the skill with which the movie depicts ideas. It is easy to emote, to act emotions or feelings but how does one convey ideas? This movie manages to convey intense and deep thoughts using simple acting skills and dialogues. The conclusion too is quite different... neither a pure cinematic bluff nor a clear scientific truth...?

However besides these there is something else that gripped me about the movie... I'm yet to lay hands on that reason. Meanwhile here's a trailer of the same...