Given my dental background, I was interested to read yesterday that footballers in the English premier league have noticeably bad teeth, this despite the loving care that team support staff lavish on the rest of their expensively acquired bodies. Despite the fact that they do visit the dentist; not the kind of people that don't see their dentist from one decade to the next.
What is it about footballers that does in their teeth? Some obscure reaction to the head being hit with a ball too many times? What about Australian rules football or US rules? Do they have the same problem? Clearly a fascinating field for ploughing by the sports scientists.
PS: I was one of that kind of people for around two decades. Got off reasonably lightly, considering.
Thursday, 5 November 2015
Tuesday, 3 November 2015
Free will 2
Interestingly, the record starts off in Latin and then switches to reasonably legible English. Perhaps that was the custom of the time.
Free will 1
For me, the net result of reading this book has been a great simplification. A reduction of the free will question to a social and legal rather than a scientific or philosophical question – though, to be fair, that is not where Balaguer, a Californian philosopher by trade, leaves the matter. I might add that Balaguer, despite not being a man of faith himself, shows great respect for those who are, and for their beliefs; a greater courtesy than I would have shown, but perhaps an echo of the need to talk to the large Bible constituency if you want to get on in the US.
But to start at the beginning, it is clear that lots of what we do is managed subconsciously and cannot usefully be said to be a matter for free will at all.
It is also reasonably clear that lots of what we do is more or less forced upon us. In practice, I used to have to get up and go to work in the morning; there is, perhaps, free will here of a sort, but rather a poor sort.
Then, if something is not forced on us, is not determined, there is the possibility of chance. So suppose that something that I did could be shown to be a random event rather than one determined by me, by anyone or anything else. Random in the way, for example, that an electron might jump into this or that state, or not – or that some group of neurons might fire, or not. A bit implausible perhaps, but just suppose, for the sake of the argument – and what we would have, once again, is rather a poor sort of free will. And the fact that I might freely decide to use the toss of a coin to decide on some or other course of action does not disturb this poverty.
In an effort cut through all this, Balaguer then deploys the useful notion of a torn decision; a time when we have a number of options for action, actions between which we cannot decide as all of them seem to be equally valid. But somehow, we come up with a decision, a sort of decision which Balaguer calls torn because we are torn, consciously torn, between the various options. He suggests, I think quite reasonably, that if there is to be free will, then this is where it has to be. Furthermore, such decisions are not going to crop up that often; most of the time we are, and we need to be, on autopilot. Life is far too short to be taking conscious decisions the whole time, a notoriously slow and unreliable process.
There is much discussion about the aggregate determinism or not of neural processes (along the lines of statistical mechanics) and about whether we can detect what we think are free will decisions, torn decisions, in those neural processes rather before the event. That is to say that what we like to think of as free will is just a trick of the brain to make us feel good about ourselves. There are famous experiments which argue for this view and it is one to which I, for one, continue to subscribe. But ask google about a chap called Benjamin Libet to see for yourself. A virtual Nobel Laureate.
All of which leaves us without a very clear idea of what free will might amount to. But it seems that an ancient Scot, a chap called David Hume, perhaps best known for his magisterial history of England, came up with the answer hundreds of years ago. His succinct summing up was something like ‘if you get to do what you want to do, then you are exercising free will’. So in 1708, the Scots exercised free will by joining up with the English.
A summing up which sweeps away as irrelevant how you came to want to do whatever it was. All that tricky scientific and philosophical stuff. What is important is that you do want to do it and whether you do in fact do it. We can be quite confident that pretty much all of us want to do things and that sometimes we get to do them. And while we vary in how much free will we need, most of us will get cross quite quickly if we are not able to exercise free will reasonably often, say 5 or 10 times a day. Most of us need a bit of space in which to do our own thing.
And this, to a large extent is a social and legal question. I should be free, within sensible and practical bounds, to do my own thing. I should be allowed to choose what colour ice cream I want when I make it to the front of the queue in the interval at the theatre. But I am not free to break the law and if I do, it may be necessary to take me out of circulation for a while, for the protection of others – and perhaps myself. Possibly also for punishment if the judgement is that there was malice aforethought – such malice being enough for the lawyers and, I think, the priests – whether or not it amounts to free will for the psychologists.
I close with the thought that some of these last can specialise in helping people to have wants that they can decently exercise their free wills on.
PS: for a different view there is always wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will. A rather longer exposition of the matter than I offer here.
Monday, 2 November 2015
Good spirits
Given in the Myers Studio rather than the Playhouse proper for some reason, a smallish space which they managed to fill on this Saturday afternoon, mainly with pensioners like ourselves but with a sprinkling of people of working age. Rather a jolly atmosphere, rather village hall, the down side being the very hard seats. I shall take a cushion if we ever grace the place again.
Set and costumes spot on. Ladies all good, leading gent. not so good. He had the right sort of languid presence, but he could not do the lines. Sometimes they came out in a tired monotone and he missed nearly all the one liners. Perhaps they need a professional, with a better sense of pace and timing. But we did get the sense that Elvira, done up as a plumpish, pretty blonde, had great fun bounding around in her nightie and plenty of make-up. Maid, medium and wife all good too.
I was quite surprised at the amount of prompting that was needed, perhaps made more conspicuous by the prompter sitting with us, albeit far right.
Out to take dinner at the nearby ASK, a dinner which was well served by a cheerful crew, all from east of Lyon, say spread out on a line from Wroclaw to Trincomalee. The young man who mostly served us was as keen as mustard, working twelve hours a day, seven days a week against his forthcoming marriage in the spring. In the meantime he did gym four days a week, Remembering my own gap year, I warned him of the dangers of glandular fever, in my case brought on by a couple of months of such a working regime. Along the way he said that the Epsom ASK was doing very well and he knew all about its turnover & the way that the turnover was sensitive to events in the world outside. One suspected that he might get on in the world.
All in all a very jolly meal at a very reasonable price. Good décor and atmosphere, busy without being crowded. Not so many small children as to irritate rather than amuse.
A place which was once a NatWest bank and after that 'The Old Bank', a place we sometimes used to use on Friday evenings, before moving on to eat elsewhere. They used to have loud music later on and the drill was that when it was time for us old-uns to go, they used to turn the music up. Worked every time. A place from which I could, on one occasion, have abstracted Morley's three volume biography of Gladstone, parked on a dark shelf somewhere at the back, but didn't. I think I subsequently borrowed the work from what used to be the fine library at the Treasury, shortly before it (the library that is) was auctioned off. The olden days when lots of big businesses had good libraries with professional librarians.
From where I associate to the fine but ancient library at the Royal Astronomical Society, in Burlington House. What on earth can you do with such places, now that the world has moved on? Should such famed societies flog off their heritage for filthy lucre?
Reference 1: http://www.torchtheatre.co.uk.
The full Freud
I already own volume X, so that would have to be set against the purchase. But Hogarth are a very discrete lot and there is no price to be seen, despite my still having the dust jacket. My guess is that it cost me around £20 around twenty years ago.
I may well be right about Freud's way of getting at things - that is to say with words and without the aid of a lot of expensive electrical equipment and statisticians - coming back into vogue some time soon (see reference 1), but in the meantime it would be interesting to know how strong the market for such stuff is. For myself, twenty years ago I might have been tempted - but not now.
Ebay have lots of individual volumes, mostly not this edition, going for around £15 a go and you could probably make up a more or less full set if you don't mind mixing. Not the same as a proper collected, standard edition though.
They also offer a CD of the whole lot for $4.97. This I will investigate - a much more sensible price for what it unlikely to be more than dipping.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/the-freudians-fight-back.html.
Lieder time
Opted for sandwich at home on this occasion, put off Cavendish Square by both the rain and the dark. As it happened, when we got there, it was a mild evening, not raining and the bench we sometimes use, just outside the perimeter on the northwest corner of the square, was vacant.
Good seats, row G, just right of centre. Flowers good and with a red theme. The left hand couple in front were of the fidgeting variety, the right hand couple were keen, looked as if they knew their lieder, without needing to to on about it, and with the lady being very smartly turned out. Whereas a couple of ladies behind us were very full of concerts they had been to.
This concert was slightly unusual for us in that it was a selection, rather than a well known cycle. A selection of settings of poems by Schiller, Hölty, Mayrhofer and others. But it was very good, despite our not knowing any of it, and none the worse for a lot of it not having virtuoso accompaniment, by which I mean that it may well have been difficult to play well, but did not involve a lot of show-off music. Three encores, with the third and last encore being very well chosen. Unfortunately I cannot now recover the name.
There were a couple of short appearances of a page turner. I would have thought that it would be quite tricky to come onto the stage in the middle of a concert, to turn a couple of pages and then go out again. Perhaps sitting there doing nothing for the whole concert would be worse. But, whatever the case, she seemed to manage OK.
On the way home, I resumed fussing about the words, having now decided that the words do matter, particularly when they are respectable poetry on their own account. While the songs were good when knowing very little of what they were about and more or less nothing of the individual words, one must be missing a lot. At a live performance of this sort, one wants to be looking at the performers and so cannot be looking at a parallel text (in this case) at the same time, and a quick scan before the off does no more than give one the general idea. Whereas at home, following the text is mostly gain, there being nothing live to look at, the spinning disc not having great appeal. But the 'mostly gain' because following the text does both add and subtract. One gets the magic of the poem and its setting, but one loses something of the music on the way. Too much going on perhaps.
I don't think the answer lies in screens around the edge of the stage. I think the only answer must be to be rich and to listen to songs live, in one's own home, taking one's time and getting to know each poem before it is sung. With the option of having a song more than once. Which is not going to work in a concert hall where there has to be a set batting order, laid down in print, and enough of it to make the whole thing seem worth while. Maybe small works like lieder were intended for small settings and the translation to a big setting is always going to be tricky.
Pausing this post, I thought to try references 2 and 3 again, to find that they have returned to full headphone power, not having heard that particular song for a few months, possibly not since as long ago as May - see reference 4 for some of the story. (I think there is more, but cannot presently put my finger on it). Notwithstanding, it would be interesting to hear it live, now that I know the song fairly well - but, sadly, a search of the Wigmore Hall, while it turns up a recording does not turn up a performance. Maybe they have not opened their future programme up to the google crawlers.
All that said, a very good concert. We might have been missing much of what was there, but there was still plenty left to enjoy.
PS: we had another demonstration here of the way that BH and I seem to remember different things. She was fairly sure that we had heard Prégardien before whereas I, although vaguely aware of the name, had no idea. Less than six months ago too.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/winterreise.html.
Reference 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O405pK6BuUc.
Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auf_dem_Wasser_zu_singen.
Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/to-clandon-or-not-to-clandon.html.
Sunday, 1 November 2015
Winterbooter
Stock average, but I failed to buy anything other than a demi-rye from the Polish baker.No charge for the blue plastic, so that particular regulation has not percolated through to car booters yet.
Came across the burnt out scooter illustrated left on the way out. Hard to tell how recent the fire was, but I would have thought within the last few days. Not clear how it came to be there at all, given that the arena is usually secured at night - or at least I assume that it is, being fully equipped with lockable gates. And the travellers operating the various fairs & such like check the hedges for holes, being rather down on other people who do not pay their way. Telephone reacted rather oddly to the light, coming up with a variety of shades & tones, none of them much like real life.
But the mist had turned the spiders' webs from lo-vis to hi-vis along the path at the back, leading to Hook Road. Particularly in the gorse bushes - perhaps because their spikes keep the predators off. All different shapes and sizes, some with spider in the middle and up to about a foot across, leading to inconsequential pondering about how the flipping of a few genes results in quite different web designs.
Last item on the way back being a young lady, this being about noon, coming back from an All Souls event, complete with some parts of her costume. Perhaps fifteen or so.
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