John Butler Trio: Ocean

And another.

John Buttler Trio: Funky Tonight

Damn I like this guy, he makes it seem just so easy to play that song!

Exams

I just got my results for my mid-term test for PHI220: Body & Mind and, to my delight, I received 100%. The test was simple and consisted of five questions in multiple choice and short answer which I'll post below with my answers.

Q.1.

Epiphenomenalism is the thesis that:

A) Mental properties are causally inert
B) We don't have privileged access to our own mental states
C) Mental states are neither material nor immaterial
D) It is a category mistake to think that 'the mind' refers to a substance
E) All mental states are phenomenal states

Q.2.

J.J.C. Smart advances the identity theory, according to which sensations are brain processes, as:

A) an a priori claim whose truth can be established by an analysis of mental concepts
B) a claim that we can see must be true even if we have no idea how it can be true
C) a claim that must be true because its denial-dualism-is unintelligible
D) an empirical speculation that has little chance of being true
E) a plausible empirical claim

Q.3.

Explain why Putnam discusses the mental life of other animals-such as the octopus-in arguing against the claim that mental states are brain states.

Putnam argues that the brain-state theorist, to make good his claims, needs to specify a physical-chemical state so that any organism is in pain, necessarily and sufficiently, if it possess a brain of a suitable physical-chemical composition and its brain is actually in that physical-chemical state. This is not limited to just mammalian brains but any organism that has the potential to experience pain which, while sufficiently including mammals, also includes reptiles and molluscs (octopus), for example, as well. Putnam uses this example to illustrate the ambitiousness of the brain-state hypothesis claiming that the brain-state theorist does not just claim that pain is a brain state but that all psychological states are brain states. Putnam claims that if we can find a single psychological state that can be applied to both a mammal and an octopus, for example, and that the physical-chemical correlate is different between the two then brain-state theory collapses. Putnam thinks that this is 'overwhelmingly probable'.

Q.4.

Explain in a few sentences how the functionalist account of mental states differs from the behaviorist account of mental states.

Ned Block describes Functionalism as 'a new incarnation of behaviorism' because while there are many similarities between Functionalism and Behaviorism there is a difference in their ascription of mental states. For Behaviorism to be met a mental state consists of a disposition to act in certain ways relative to a certain set of input-output relationships, however Functionalism goes further. Functionalism also requires that internal (mental) processes will have a causal relationship with other internal (mental) processes and, at the same time, have a causal relationship with external input-output relationships. Functionalism therefore claims that mental states may be seen as causal 'objects' while Behaviorism only sees sensory inputs, or external causes (input-output relationships), as causally significant.

Q.5.

Block uses the example of the homunculi-headed robots to argue that functionalism is wrong because it:

A) is too liberal in its ascription of mental states
B) has no plausible account of mental causation
C) reduces to behaviorism
D) cannot give a plausible account of privileged access
E) is consistent with dualism

The Ethics of Microsoft

Ethics and Microsoft in the same sentence seems almost oxymoronical no matter what Bill Gates does with his own money. But that's all about to change courtesy of the Mexican Government. That's right, the Mexican Government, that too sounds almost oxymoronical. But thanks to Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderon, the ethical situation of both Microsoft and Mexico are looking up.

In a bid to reduce the terrible crime situation in Mexico the Government is offering a weapons buy-back scheme. Instead of cash, however, the Government is offering Microsoft XBox's in exchange for weapons. The Government is also considering exchanging complete PC's for the more powerful larger weapons, no doubt running one of Microsoft's notorious operating systems.

But will this scheme actually reduce crime? In countries such as the USA, Brittan, and of course Australia it is often argued that video game use actually increases the rates of crime. Those first person shooter (FPS) games have a horrible reputation for promoting violence. You can commit acts in some of those games that many would never conceive of in reality.

It remains to be seen whether this new XBox exchange scheme will reduce any violence within Mexico; maybe it will get even worse! Let's hope that the introduction of violent video games into a society that could not afford to purchase them, in large numbers, previously does not fuel the already raging crime fire.

Australia's Dental Health

A short while ago my partner Jodie wrote to numerous ministers in our Governments, Local, State, and Federal, about the lack of dental care in this country. Over the next few weeks I hope to post the replies, if she's so lucky as to actually get any, that the ministers give. Stay tuned.

New Layout...Again

I've changed my layout again. I know, I know, but this time I think I can make some changes that I'm happy with.

MQPhil Group Philosophy Blog

I really enjoy reading the many and fantastic group philosophy blogs on the net and now there is another one that you should all check out. MQPhil is a group philosophy blog by undergraduates from Macquarie University Australia. Looks like there will be some interesting entries soon.

<--LINK-->

Pandit Anindo Chatterjee: Tabla Solo

I just had to post this as it is amazing.

National Inter-Faith Festival

The National Inter-Faith Festival was held this weekend. It was well represented by many different religious and faith groups and had some great music. Tenzin Chogyal from Tibet is always great and there was also this great Iranian group performing with five or so Dafs; just amazing.

The first day, Saturday, began with an Arati in which I provided the tabla accompaniment. The Arati was performed for Gaura-Nitai, Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda, and was filmed by representatives of all the national media. After the Arati we performed Bhajans for about another hour. I say we as I (sorry) have forgotten the woman's name who was singing and playing the harmonium. Anyhow the bhajans were well received except by a particular Catholic priest who prayed for us the whole time. It seems he was a bit freaked out by the Buddhists too.

On the second day, Sunday, we also performed a fire yajna (sacrafice) for shanti (peace). The second day also saw a few forums too. I attended a couple of the forums and I would have to say that, at the least, I was a little disappointed. I expected the forums to be of a higher standard and I was hoping to learn something new. I was particularly upset with how the representatives of Islam were treated in the forums. While a common question for the Christian representative, for example, would focus on love most of the questions fielded to the Islamic representative were phrased in a way that the representative would need to be defensive. For example most people only asked questions of the Islamic representative relating to the treatment of women. This was sad to see particularly at a National Inter-Faith Festival.

I would have to say that the festival needed better advertising and also better facilities so every religious/faith group could have the opportunity to engage publicly with their philosophy. It would seem that even at the National Inter-Faith Festival there is a hierarchy of religions. Such a pity seen as on the Sunday for half the day more than half the marques weren't even being used. These could have been used, as on the Saturday, by the different groups in ways they saw fit. Also, if you took your kids along then you would have discovered that there was nothing to keep them occupied. There are only so many religious forums and musical performances that children are willing to sit through.

My main criticism though is the disregard the organisers showed towards the practices of the different religious and faith groups. The example I'll give is of the Arati and fire yajna that we performed. By we I am referring to ISKCON here. We were told that were we to participate we needed to perform a ceremony. This may seem fine however a ceremony is not a necessary condition of religion and Arati and Yajna are not the main focus of ISKCON. The organisers should not assume that every religion or faith has ceremonies that are able to be publicly displayed, especially in only 20 minutes, and they should be willing to accept the practices of the religious and faith groups that they invite. Don't ask people to perform ceremonies and other actions just for public display when they are not part of the mainstream, often practiced 'methods of worship' of the particular religion or faith. Religion does not deserve to be essentialised in this way, or any other way for that matter, and especially not at a National Inter-Faith Festival. I heard one of the organisers complaining that the community at the festival were essentialising Islam but the way the festival was organised essentialised the religious and faith groups as it was.

The food was great but of course I'd say that. Krishna prasadam is always the most popular food at any festival. I'm not sure if the rabbit stew at the Gypsy stall had much success though.

Overall though I had a good time at the festival, even if my expectations weren't met, and I am looking forward to participating again next year.

Diu

I love this picture.

India

I was scanning some photos today to add to a forum for a Buddhism subject I'm doing this semester and I stumbled across a couple of pictures I really love. Maybe you won't like them as much as I do but they really sum up the locations that the pictures were taken in.

The first picture is a couple of chai cups that we'd just drained while waiting on the train at Mathura station. The cups are made of clay and are unfired. At the end of every day, or perhaps more than once per day if it is busy, the cups are all smashed into a pile, wet, and molded into new cups again. Such an efficient practice.



The second is of some Mani Stones along the street that runs alongside the Dalai Lama's temple complex in Upper Dharamsala. I like this picture for a number of reasons. To begin with it reminds me of my childhood growing up down the road from a Tibetan Buddhist monastery and seeing similar stones; even making them myself. I also like this picture because it reminds me of the..energy I suppose, of the Tibetan community in Upper Dharamsala. The colours, the brick work, the writing. I also love the wild vines growing over the wall.

My house is an Improvised Farm!!!

I've had so many animals in my house this weekend. I came home on Friday night to a 1.5 - 2.0 meter Diamond Python (that's a snake for you New Zealanders) in my dining room. I removed the snake into my front yard near a tree in the hope that it would find some safety there. Really quite a beautiful snake and Wiki (click here) have a pretty good article on them if you care to find out more, including a pretty gruesome picture too.

On the Saturday morning we all woke up to a pretty bad smell coming from the kitchen. I searched everywhere and couldn't find a thing. I even took apart the oven to see if there was anything dead in there. There wasn't. What I did find though was a cute little gecko (Wiki article) in the kitchen sink. We have quite a few geckos as they eat all the cockroaches (Wiki article) and what the geckos don't get the huntsman spiders do (Wiki article). Other than the geckos we have quite a lot of skinks (Wiki article) who eat all the other insects.

After a little nap I decided to really pull apart the kitchen to find the bad smell. I pulled out the fridge so I could get under the cupboard and that's where the smell was coming from. I found a dead rat. We have quite a few rats and mice here as we live in a country area and there are a lot of farms around me. THIS is where I live. My house is directly above the blue squiggly line.

Well I went outside to my guest house to find some sort of tool that I could reach under my cupboard to get the dead rat out. While looking for the tool I stumbled across a baby bush turkey (Wiki article). Well I found the tool, actually a mop, and went back inside to get the rat out. I removed the rat and put it in the back garden and now, to my delight, the bad smell has gone.

I wonder what animal I'll stumble across before I go to bed?

Re: That Magical (Ethical) Bullet

I've put in a new entry for the philosophy blog war on my Simon's Space: Philosophy and Religion blog called That Magical (Ethical) Bullet. Please, if you have a second or two, vote for my entry.

My Uni Papers

Many of you leave this site for my Uni papers site, over 20 of you per day actually. Well be sure to check it out again as I've upgraded the site today. It is much more user friendly now. I'm yet to add the Google analytics code for it yet so I won't know how many of you are going there for a while and do be aware that the new search function is only working on the home page at the moment. I hope to have this fixed over the next couple of weeks. If any of you find any more bugs be sure to give me a yell.

Trillian Behind USC's Proxy.....Not

For a while I've been trying to get around the proxy server at USC so I can use the Trillian IM client. Originally I thought that the web admins used port blocking as it took me ages to get my pop email client working (not working anymore though 'cause USC have recently upgraded to wireless networking behind a VPN and I can't seem to get POP working with this setup...yet). I've tried and scanned thousands of ports but even with the open ones I can't get Trillian to connect for more that 5-10 seconds.

I've now concluded that USC scans for IM session headers and blocks them. This is why I think that I can connect for up to 10 seconds before being disconnected. I've no idea how to get around a system that scans for session headers locally. I can connect remotely to my home PC and use Trillian that way but that kind of defeats the purpose. If anyone has any idea then feel free to let me know. I'll post the proxy configuration script here too.

USC Proxy Configuration Script -->

function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
{
if (isPlainHostName(host) ||
dnsDomainIs(host, ".usc.edu.au") ||
dnsDomainIs(host, ".lnq.net.au") ||
dnsDomainIs(host, ".bne099u.server-web.com"))
return "DIRECT";
else
if (isInNet(host, "141.28.216.132","255.255.255.255"))
return "PROXY usclinux2.usc.edu.au:8080";
else
return "PROXY uscproxy1.usc.edu.au:8080";
}