Category: General

What?

There are points in the day which, really, beggar belief. When I was asked “Did you know you are in a Auckland University of Technology textbook, as an example?” I had to say “No, no I did not know I was in a Auckland University of Technology textbook, as an example.”

Allan Lee and Greg Treadwell’s “Newspaper Editing and Design: A Guide to Production Journalism” features five pages devoted to putting my mug, and my colleague the inflatable Dalek Khan, into a variety of different positions on the printed page.

I’m not sure what to think of this; faint surprise, mild amusement…

‘Tis odd. I am now a textbook example of a conspiracy theory theorist.

05/18/2010

Chapter 5 (or 6 or 7) – The Inference to the Existence of a Conspiracy

The final chapter of my thesis, which is number 7 (in the file directory), number 6 (according to the PDF) or number 5 (as my supervisors would have it) is my third peg, so to speak, in why I think we have a prima facie case for our suspicion of conspiracy theories; they are typically examples of Inferences to Any Old Explanation (which you might know better as “Just So” stories, ala Mr. Kipling ((And his marvellous cakes.)) ).

Originally I was going to base this chapter on large chunks of Peter Lipton’s book on the Inference to the Best Explanation (which, funnily enough, is called “Inference to the Best Explanation” and was published in 2004 (the second edition) by Routledge), and not just because he specifically mentions (and then glosses over) conspiracy theories on page 60.

“Perhaps some conspiracy theories provide examples of this. By showing that many apparently unrelated events flow from a single source and many apparent coincidences are really related, such a theory may have considerable explanatory power. If only it were true, it would provide a very good explanation. That is, it is lovely. At the same time, such an explanation may be very unlikely, accepted only by those whose ability to weigh evidence has been compromised by paranoia.”

Lipton runs a contrast between the loveliness of explanations (just how powerful they are as explanatory hypotheses, essentially) and the likeliness of such explanations (i.e. just how probable is the explanatory hypothesis); he thinks ((Well, thought; Peter Lipton is dead.)) that conspiracy theories were good explanations only in the lovely sense as they were unlikely.

Lipton doesn’t come back to conspiracy theories, which is useful for me, because, in some important respects, it rather gives away the kind of analysis I have in kind for chapter 5/6/7.

As I wrote, my original intention was to develop Lipton’s view with specific respect to conspiracy theories, but that is no longer the case. Instead, I am developing the Inference to Any Old Explanation analysis that Dr. Jonathan McKeown-Green and I worked up for our Critical Thinking course (PHIL105 to the fans) at Auckland. The Lipton material is useful in talking about when the inferential practices of epistemic agents can be said to `go right’ but my analysis is really about when such practices `go wrong.’ It is much easier to work up a bespoke philosophy/epistemology than it is to try and make the work of someone else fit your particular analysis (ask me about my MA thesis for detailed reasons as to how that doesn’t necessarily work out for the best).

Still, I should point out that whilst I was writing this post I realised that there was a particular part of Lipton’s analysis of IBE (as the cool kids these days call “Inference to the Best Explanation”) which I could use to fill this particular hashed out section of the chapter (the “%” marks are playing the role of hashes in my LaTeX documents):

%However, we should also be aware that there is a kind of tradeoff between the probability of an hypothesis and the extent to which said hypothesis suggests the explanans.

%[This is the stuff that motivates Bayesianism. We might need to say a bit about it somewhere to help set up this discussion of the Inference to Any Old Explanation.] – Will need my Goldman…

I’m no Bayes scholar; I know how the theory works and the difference between prior and posterior probabilities (which it is important never to confuse), but the specific details… Well, I’d need to spend quite some time with a primer and a notepad to get myself sufficiently up to speed on Brother Bayes and his mathematical theorems. However, Lipton has a gloss on Bayes, since Bayesianism is often trotted forth as a contender for a theory of the Inference to the Best Explanation, and so I might use the Lipton gloss (which I’ve partially written up) after all.

Which goes to show that this new “thesis-centric” blog ethos is already delivering. Huzzah.

Next time: What it is I am actually trying to say in chapter 5/6/7.

05/16/2010

The Future: My Role In It

I really haven’t been giving this blog the attention it requires for it to be something people will want to regularly read, digest and generally say “I like this; you should read it to.” My intention was to use the blog to chronicle my thesis writing as well as providing me with a place to place all my notes, in case of emergency. I’ve stopped doing the former and the latter… well, I found a more effective way of ensuring my thesis and related notes survive the required three fatal hard-drive crashes (or all of Auckland going up in an unexpected volcanic eruption).

Now, normally starting a post in this manner strongly suggests, to the reader, that the next paragraph will start something like:

“So, this is why I’ve decided to close the blog down.”

The author might then say:

“Of course, I do this with regret…”

or:

“In other news, I’m joining my brothers and sisters on their astral voyage the comet we call ‘The Fathervessel.'”

but this would be too predictable.

No. I’m in the endgame of the thesis and, really, I should be doing an awful lot of work over the coming months and it would be quite helpful for me, both during the process and after the event, to have a record of what I did when, how I did what, why I did how and… well, what parts of the process my future therapist will want to know about.

So, future updates will hopefully not be all about the snark but rather the work.

Or lack thereof. At the moment I’m in a bit of a bind; one of the courses I am teaching this semester has proven to be a lot more work than anticipated, what with the class size being incredibly small and the course being designed for a student population several magnitudes larger in number. I’m rewiring lectures and rethinking the very structure of the course, session by session, and I’m not finding all that much time to devote to my thesis writing. Things will improve in a few weeks, but for the moment, work on the ‘Inferences’ chapter goes slowly (and not entirely ‘surely’).

I’ll talk about that in the next post.

05/13/2010

Mission Critical Goo

I’ve been very quiet recently, you are right. In part it’s because I’ve been (and still am) ill, and when I’m ill I like to hide away from the world and have as little contact with the outside as is humanly possible. Ask my flatmates; I haven’t really been seen for weeks.

I’m also just a tad overworked at the moment, which is mostly not my fault; a course which should have been a lazy Sunday afternoon drive has turned out to be the equivalent or renationalising the railway network.

Still, let it not be said that I haven’t been thinking of you all.

Although, I really haven’t.

Now, I could tell you tales of internet dating, recovered friendships and how you can still buy several days worth of pseudoephedrine from the chemist, but you want conspiracy theories, don’t you?

The UK: almost everyone thinks that the Tories won’t really allow the Lib Dems to succeed in getting a fully proportional voting system up and running (and most people Labour will do its darndest to scupper that plan as well); is it a conspiracy? No; as Stephen Fry has pointed out, it’s just self-preservation at work and not some dastardly plan.

The US Supreme Court nomination: Given that the far-right in America continues to paint Obama as the socialist par excellence the nomination of a far-right candidate for the Supreme Court should have mollified his critics, but it hasn’t. They think he’s up to something, that it’s all part of some grandiose plan to introduce decency and decadence to the USA. Frankly, I think it shows just how far to the right the “Left” in America really is.

Mining in the New Zealand Conservation Estate: Well, everyone thought that the Great Barrier option was a smokescreen and the Coromandel an odd choice for a place to wreck environmental devastation, but I don’t think National are merely in it for the money and the glory. It seems that Gerry Brownlee (and most of the Cabinet) have great issue working out who an appropriately qualified expert is in a field relevant to the discussion at hand. That isn’t a malign trait; just a truly regrettable one; frankly, the New Zealand public have themselves to blame. They voted this lot in just because they were bored with the previous administration.

That’s all well and good, Matthew, you must surely be thinking; we all know you’re a socialist but what about the conspiring? Surely you must have something more than vindication verbiage?

Not tonight I don’t. I’ve been watching, in my sickly state, an awful lot of “Newsradio” and I’m channeling Dave, who, when told by Joe that the USA is harbouring evidence of extraterrestrial activity, says:

“Wait a minute, Joe. If what you’re saying is true, then… I still don’t care.”

I will care tomorrow (or Thursday, whichever day sees me rise triumphantly from my sickbed), but today… Well, conspiracy theories belong to the kooks and will trouble me not.

05/11/2010

It’s started

As I suspected, conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski. Here’s a nice (but vague) summary article. I mean, look at the passenger manifest (he says, quoting Wikipedia.)

In addition to KaczyÅ„ski, on board were the military joint chiefs of staff (army, air force, navy), the central bank governor, a deputy foreign minister, head army chaplain, head of the National Security Office, deputy parliament speaker, Olympic Committee head, head civil rights commissioner and at least two presidential aides and widely known national lawmakers (including core members of the Law and Justice party), the Polish foreign ministry said. Kaczynski’s wife, Maria, also died.

This is, as they might say, to be expected; it only takes a few people to search for “polish president conspiracy theory” before the internet cries “There must be an issue; let’s investigate and subsequently invent something together!” Frankly, I’m surprised that there aren’t more wacky theories already; Lech Kaczynski’s identical twin brother JarosÅ‚aw seems like the perfect candidate for a conspiracy theory to wrest back control of the Polish state (as I’m just a conspiracy theory theorist I’ll leave it to the actual conspiracy theorists to figure out how that one works).

04/12/2010

Workshop rewrite

Well, with the promise of monies and fame, I have begun a rewrite of the Singapore paper for its inclusion in a book based upon the workshop.

We’re been told that if our papers come in before the 30th of this month in an acceptable (read: publishable) form, then we will get an honorarium ((That’s ‘monies for publication’ for you plebs.)).

Financial reward is not particularly common for paper publication; we are meant to be in the game not for wealth but to reward our fellow human beings. Still, money in this case is a good way to get people to rewrite their papers post the conference/workshop. Everyone intends to do a polish on a paper post its airing and yet very few people actually do it in anything like a speedy fashion. Promising the participant a fiscal reward… Well, that does inspire one to do a little work here and now.

My rewrite focuses on distinguishing rumours from gossip; I think there’s a lot of muddied thinking on the distinction and from a conversation with one of the attendees/organisers I think I need to explain quite explicitly why the philosophical distinction (from Tony Coady) is the way to go forward on the issue. I realise that I’ll be going against some of the Sociological and Social Psychological literature on the topic, but sometimes that is what a philosopher has to do.

We have to earn our mantle of arrogance somehow, you know.

I’m hoping to get the draft rewrite done by the end of next week; if anyone wants to volunteer to have a look over it for the purposes of seeing whether it makes sense to a non-philosopher, comment here. The book is aimed at the strategic communications crowd and it would be handy to see whether the paper, without me being there to explain it, makes sense to those outside me field.

Also, I think I’ve had too much coffee today…

04/08/2010