First Cause thinking as a lack of imagination

I doubt anyone would argue with the idea that the fact we can't imagine how something could be true doesn't make it false.  I can't imagine how the resurrection of Jesus could be true, but lots of people apparently can, so I would not use that argument.  So also when I was three I couldn't imagine that people could live on the other side of the world (the "antipode").  Now that I live there I still sometimes think about falling off.

There are at least two reasons why something we can't imagine how it could be true, could, in spite of our notions, still be true anyway.  These are lack of imagination and ignorance, usually together.

Thus, "I can't imagine how a monkey could become a man."  Well, of course monkeys can't become men (nor can song-and-dance Orangs), but we know what is meant by the expression.  People who say that almost always have a religious motive, not a rational motive, but ignoring that, the problem is ignorance of biology (huge ignorance) and lack of imagination, in this example almost certainly forced, willful, failure to use imagination.

My favorite is that the universe could not have caused itself therefore God must have caused it.  Besides the obvious response that if everything must have a cause, then what caused God -- readily enough answered by asserting that God is the one thing that does not need a cause.  Well, then, why not the universe not needing a cause either?

The real problem is inability to see that causation is an illusion brought on by the statistical fact that the random events, the things that happen without a cause, happen at the quantum level and smaller, and by the time it reaches us the law of large numbers makes the odds against something happening "uncaused" so small as to be out of the question.

Think about our saying one thing "caused" another.  Event A happens and then event B happens.  Is there a real connection between them or is it just in our heads?  We all know that often we misidentify "causes" and that it is some third thing causing A and B, or maybe it is just a statistical fluke.  Still, there is a reality that some things do seem to cause others, although if we study them closely we find we can break down each event into sub-causes and sub-sub-causes, smaller and smaller, so at root it is statistical -- just that the odds are so small that we will never see an exception.

If there were true causation, then there would be magic.  What would be the connection between two causally linked events other than magic.  As it is we can apply physics or some other science to break down the causations or we can study many occurrences to come to a statistical confirmation, but we don't really think one object reaches out with invisible hands in some way to make another happen, do we?

That is not to say that it could not be God active at the quantum level deciding each event rather than randomness, but then all God would be is a random number generator.  This is the problem with Aquinas and all those who so readily and eagerly follow him.  Even though he broke the idea down into unnecessary pieces, I guess to make the argument seem stronger, all it is is a statement that God had to be the first cause or the first mover or whatever because I lack the knowledge and imagination necessary to see otherwise.

China, Vietnam, and some Islands

You asked for my views of the Vietnam-China argument over some islands in the S. China Sea (usually referred to as the "East Sea" here in Vietnam).

The Chinese position is of course arbitrary, illegal (at least contrary to International conventions) and outrageous.  I think so far it has also been unbelievably stupid.

This is one case where I would assess that the population here in Vietnam is ahead of the party and government.  There always has been some anti-Chinese feeling here, but for the most part Vietnam owes much of its civilization to China and the people know it.  Also of course there are close ties between the two Communist Parties -- ties that are in peril.

The Chinese stupidity comes from alienating a friendly state overwhelmingly likely to align itself with China in almost any conceivable world event, and one with practically the same form of government and economy.  The Chinese seem to have an attitude that goes beyond arrogance in just assuming the Vietnamese in the end will Kowtow.

The thing is the Vietnamese authorities would I think almost certainly stand down if China pushes hard.  China is far more powerful and the Vietnamese government is not so stupid to risk everything over some islands and whatever economic benefit they might bring.  Instead I would expect them to negotiate and try to get a piece of the action. 

The Vietnamese have no real hope in such a situation of American assistance, at least while someone like Obama is President (consider his behavior elsewhere) and I think the odds are very great that American help in a clash with China would be of little use and for ideological reasons would probably be declined anyway.

The thing is much of the population does not see things that way, and nationalistic feelings in Vietnam have been strengthened by China's high-handedness.  This could be destabilizing in Vietnam if the government is seen as too much controlled from Beijing.  The Parties in both countries have to realize this. 

Vietnam is a successful, prosperous, popular one-party state, perhaps the only example of such except for China itself.  It just doesn't make sense to me that China would imperil this.

Thailand's rice

I read a good piece today on the web site "Diplomat" about Thailand's mess with rice and the mountain of it they obtained by trying to help the poor, which it seems in Thailand mainly means rice growers.  At least they are most of the voters.

This seems to be the problem with populist politicians in elective multi-party democracies.  Such people carry out irresponsible policies in order to gain electoral support, figuring I guess they or a later government will deal with the consequences, or (probably more likely), in their ideological framework that tends to blind them to reality, letting their hopes for doing good distort their thinking.

It's hard from my distance to tell if the Thaksins' were corrupt and profiting from all this, as is alleged, or just politicians buying votes, or truly wanting, out of what one must say seems to be unbelievable economic stupidity, to help poor farmers.

It would appear, at a minimum, that they were fast bankrupting the country, and, true to Thai tradition, the military intervened, overthrowing a duly elected government, at least by U.S. standards, ignoring what I see as vote buying and a corrupt electorate who must know such schemes are not sustainable but vote for them anyway out of self interest.  It's to my mind hard to defend the claim such a corrupt electorate is entitled to democracy.

That is of course one of the problems with multi-party democracies -- people don't vote for the best but for either their prejudices or their selfish interest, and, of course, people are good at convincing themselves that what is in their interest is in the interest of the country.

An American in Vietnam

It's been almost fifteen years now since I first visited Vietnam, then for just a month, but since I've been stretching out the visits and now I spend most of my time here; to the extent that if my partner would hear of it I would love to sell our property in the States and only go there for visits.  He is probably right though that we are better off keeping the American link.

I have many times tried to figure out what it was about Vietnam and I guess still is that attracted me.  Part of it is of course I see the States as decaying, but that can be attributed to my own decay and probably the US has a good deal of steam left.  Still the infrastructure and culture and especially the politics of the States seem be be getting more and more "dysfunctional" (I put the word in ticks because I realize what a cliche the word has become).

One thing for sure: living in the states is a hassle.  Living overseas doesn't really help much as I still have to fill out US tax forms and maintain credit cards and US bank accounts and a drivers' license and insurance of all sorts and on and on, but I do escape most of it as my partner handles things more and more and Vietnam is a cash society, so the only real hassles are getting money here, getting steadily easier, and keeping a valid visa (a real pain in the neck).

I think, contrary to all American opinion, that Vietnam is a much freer country than the States.  All the rules in the States one has to observe, all no doubt enacted for good reasons but that persist because of vested interests, such as those about schools and about pharmaceuticals and about employing people and about simple things like who can give you a haircut and a shave -- yea -- I'm able to afford a barber's shave here -- are just either not here or not enforced (not being a lawyer I'm not quite sure).

Of course the country isn't "free" in the form that it is a one party state, but having been here and seeing first hand the implications in terms of reasonably effective governance without a self-appointed political class, I begin to see advantages.  Voter participation rates in the States tell a tale -- people there don't think the right to vote means anything anyway for a variety of reasons, including corruption, bought elections, and the fact that close elections seem to come out in favor of the party controlling the voting bureaucracy.  But that is a subject for another post -- this one is about why I live here.

One thing I noticed right away is the absence of guns and the relative safety in even the biggest cities this and a no-nonsense law enforcement and judicial system seem to provide.  Oh there is crime, and there is prostitution, and common sense is called for, but it doesn't thrust itself on you as in other places.  There is also poverty; after all Vietnam is a developing country and the culture and structure of poverty in a society take generations to mitigate, but in the time I've been observing the progress, especially in the countryside, has been palpable.  The long and short of it is I feel much safer here.

I set out to talk about why I like Vietnam, not politics, so I will get to it.  It's mainly the people, but also the land and the cuisine and a whole list of intangibles.  It is tropical and I don't like cold.  OK that is easy enough, but there are lots of tropical countries.  It comes down to the friendliness of the inhabitants.  Only Scandinavia and the Netherlands are friendlier, and in many countries I've visited I've experienced serious unpleasantness.  I suppose there are those here who don't like foreigners either, as that is part of a "bigot" personality trait that I suppose is present in a minority everywhere, but here I think maybe they tend to just avoid you, end of story.

Vietnam doesn't have the "rules" either like not showing your feet or not looking at someone or not smiling or talking to a stranger or not touching someone you are talking to or not hugging a good friend.  There is something of a code for what to wear for business, and one can be pretentious in one's clothes if one likes, but being Western I am forgiven all that and can dress simply the way I like, which means knee-shorts and pull-on and comfortable slip-on shoes.

Did I mention smiling?  In Vietnam it is the thing to do.  Smiling is not as in some countries seen as a sign of untrustworthiness.  It is seen as a sign of friendliness and the Vietnamese are friendly.  If I get up on the wrong side of bed, everyone in the household notices and asks if something is wrong, to the point that I cannot indulge myself in being miserable but have to cheer up.

Does ET exist?

ET, standing, of course, for "extraterrestrial advanced technological civilization" from the movie, is all the talk today.  I add the words "advanced" and so on to be sure we are talking about something important, not just a few microbes or even bunches of whales cavorting on an ocean planet.  Not that these things would not be important, but pale in comparison to a technological society.

Of course I don't suppose whales couldn't evolve technology.  That they did not for quite a long time swimming around here on the earth is evidence, and thinking about it makes the difficulties clear enough, but anything is still possible -- well, maybe not.

I am pretty much persuaded, if not convinced, that ET must be excruciatingly rare, if not completely absent, at least from our galaxy and maybe from the entire universe we have direct knowledge of.

That is at best a heterodox opinion, although not an uncommon one among religious types, but among non-religious people like me.  The religious types have their unique creation to deal with and it is easier to deny, deny, deny  (although to be sure many of them jump through various hoops to get around it).

We now know enough to project that planetary systems, and even solar-system type planetary systems with at least one earth-like planet, are numerous -- by numerous here I mean really mind-graspingly large numbers.

I think, though it's likely that a Jupiter-Saturn sort of pair like the one we have is needed to bring stability to the orbits (early on, it seems they did a dance that kept both of them out of the inner system where in most systems a giant migrates inward and destroys any budding earths).

It also seems that an earth-moon "almost" double planet ("almost" because the center of gravity remains under the surface of the earth) is rare, but needed for the inclination stability over billions of years that would be needed for evolution.  Theories as to the origin of the moon have settled on some sort of early collision with another planet sized body, and not just any collision, but one involving relative masses and orbits in a limited and therefore unlikely range.

Then there is the problem of the system, after this violent beginning, being left alone for several billion years for life to evolve.  There are any number of things that, while individually unlikely, can serve to sterilize or almost sterilize a planet, and over several billion years each of them should happen several times. 

The assumption is often made that given the right conditions the rise of life is almost a certainty, based on the statistical sample of one we have that it happened quickly after the earth settled down.  Not so fast.  We don't know the likelihood of there being the right conditions for the origin of life.  Just the right temperature and mass may well be nowhere near enough.

One would think that with huge oceans in a reducing atmosphere for several million years, with energy sources and no big disasters, molecules that take from the environment to make at least rough copies of themselves would happen, and once started natural selection would step in to make the process better and better until you had living things.  But you need several million or so years, a reducing atmosphere, lots and lots of water and of course a variety of other elements.  While the presence of some of these may be taken as given, the combination may not.  And of course, there is the unresolved problem of protecting these increasingly complex molecules in your soup from all sorts of solar radiation.  An example is that the planet would need a strong magnetic field from day one, something that is by no means a given.

Then there are several major events in the evolution of life that may be one-off affairs with almost no chance of happening, including but not limited to the appearance of multi-cellular ("complex") living organisms.  That this event seems to have been long delayed tells us either that it is unlikely or that necessary precursors are unlikely.  That once it happened, it appears to have happened many times almost at once speaks more to the latter, but it's hard to say, since only one of those many occurrences of the appearance of complex life actually persisted.  It may be that it is not so easy to get it right.

Millions of years, then were spent, first with pre-mammalian-reptilian forms, then with reptiles and mammals, and then with just mammals, all evolving around in circles, punctuated by occasional mass extinctions, until the appearance out of the blue of apes and hominids and mankind.  Again long delays while nothing really takes place except evolution of new flavors of the same things indicates that the appearance of intelligence is not so automatic nor so predictable.

Nor, if we look at the history of our species, does the appearance of technology seem so predictable.  I think slavery and the domestication of animals prevent technology for awhile, and there seems no real reason to rid a society of slaves except accidents of history.  That slavery had disappeared in Europe before elsewhere and that Europe is where technology got started tells a tale.

Finally, there is the "where are they" problem, not easily pushed aside.  It may be that the technologies self-destruct, or maybe (a more optimistic thought) they find ways to exit physical existence into computers or other dimensions or whatever and find things much better there.  Or maybe some equivalent of bird flu eventually appears and spreads so fast and is so deadly that that is that.

There exists another set of issues not often addressed in this topic, the nature of our intelligence and how likely that might be.  AI machines have been promised now for quite a while, but haven't appeared.  The fact is not just our intelligence, but even our sentience (our experience of existence and of senses and emotions and so on) is not understood.  Not only is it not understood, no one has any idea how to approach it.  How can we make predictions as to whether it is likely to appear elsewhere when we don't even know what it is?