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still quoting
Nothing new, just a quote from LRB, 17-Dec issue, Michael Wood on Frank Kermode (p.10: link for subscribers), talking about William Empson, talking about Pascal’s Wager (my emphasis) which I liked and wanted to share:
Empson of course spent much of his later life attacking the very idea of salvation as long as it had a Christian tinge, but he had his interest in nobler magic too, and his idea of honour, eloquently drawn out by Kermode, is a matter of moral style rather than mere morality. Empson despised Pascal’s famous wager (we might as well bet on the existence of God since we shall win if there is a God and lose nothing if there isn’t) because he thought it made one who accepted it ‘the slave of any person, professing any doctrine, who has the impudence to tell him a sufficiently extravagant lie … Clearly, if you have reduced morality to keeping the taboos imposed by an infinite malignity, you can have no sense of honour or of the public good.’ This is stirring stuff, and the public good is a surprising note. Kermode says: ‘It does warm the heart to hear [Pascal’s] line of argument dismissed as simply dishonourable.’
Mobile downside?
I just witnessed one of the downsides to mobile phones (is ‘downside’ a downside to the Americanisation of our language?). Our postman just delivered the mail. I could hear him coming from up the street as he was talking on his mobile all the way here and all the way on. I remember (oh dear, it is one of those posts) when the post arrived and you had a quick chat to the postman before he moved on (and it was all men in those days). I used to chat to the two previous postwomen who did our route (latter was born in Adelaide before being removed to this country while still a baby) but there was obviously no chance of talking to the guy who turned up today.
So, I guess the mobile phone has made it easier for us to chat to our friends and family — that is, people we know — but more difficult to strike up conversations with strangers.
Back to the drawing board
Ever since I completed the MA in Philosophy at the Open University, I’ve thought about doing a PhD. One of the subjects I’d had in mind recently was free will and determinism: the thesis being, as I’ve laid out here, that they are not only compatible but essentially interdependent. I’ve been thinking about this subject and making notes for a few months. I then came across an article on Philosophy Compass, Recent Work on Free Will and Moral Responsibility. This pointed me to the book by Robert Kane, A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will. There I discovered, not only that my great and original thinking had been done before, but that this had been said as long ago as Hume and Mill and as recently as Dennett.
This, of course, points up the problem of doing an MA without the preceding undergraduate work. I shall finish the book before attempting to think of any further problems in free will that I might attempt!
And, I still have the idea of what might a robot mind look like: I’m almost afraid of looking into that subject now 
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Politeness
I was sat on the train to London this morning, laptop out and doing some work. A woman got on at Leicester and sat opposite me – diagonally opposite fortunately, so I was still able to keep my legs stretched out. She seemed pleasant, didn’t acknowledge me but sat down, got her own laptop and papers out and started looking over some printed figures. She had nice features, looked like someone used to telling others what to do but also looked like someone who was able to smile and laugh with others. The ??? woman came along shortly after the train left Leicester (what do they call the people who check your tickets on trains now? I’m sure they aren’t conductors and ticket collector doesn’t sound right any more either.). Woman opposite got out her travel pass (so obviously a regular journey for her) and held it open ready. But she continued reading her notes right up until the train woman had reached her, checked her ticket and passed. At no time did she acknowledge or look at the other woman. Was her work so important that five seconds taken out to smile at someone would bring down her company? I don’t think so. Manners, people. A little politeness costs nothing but makes others’ jobs a lot more pleasant.
