A Rant and a Blog

This is some of the entertainment I have been dealing with this last semester of school:

So, two weeks ago over the course of two emails I coordinated a date and time for myself to meet with three professors for my comprehensive exam.  The Administration decides they want to help me by telling me not to contact the professors until after spring break and that they will bring them together to come up with a schedule.  I email them and say that it seems odd to wait two weeks to do what I have already done, which is to schedule a time.  I never get a response to the email.   

Two weeks later... I hear from the admin telling me that one of the professors would not be able to be on my committee because of scheduling issues.  This was the chair of the committee, a professor I have had four classes with, and for whom I have spent the last two months studying for.  They tell me to find another professor, which means I would have to relearn another semester worth of material in the three weeks I have until my comprehensive exam.  

 I call the admin and ask how it is possible that there is no time for everyone to meet in the two week time span that is available for exams.  I tell them that prior to spring break I had come up with a time and date for us all to meet.  The admin decides to present that time and date to the professors.   

After I spend a week calling on a daily basis to find out their answers she tells me that the committee chair is available but a different professor isn't.  I emailed the "unavailable" professor to double-check and to see if there was any way that he could make it.  He tells me that Monday  would work and he was confused because he thought it was to be scheduled on Tuesday.   

So, they are all able to meet on the time and date that I came up with three weeks ago.  I get an email from the admin today saying I still needed a third professor but that the exam was scheduled for Tuesday the 18th.  And behold the problem.  Apparently the admin is unaware that the 18th is a Monday.  The sad part is this isn't an isolated incident by any means.   Just prior to this I had to deal with them trying to tell me that I was short three hours to graduate.  But at least it looks like this three week long fiasco is coming to an end.  


On a brighter note, yesterday on Hwy 21   on my way to school I passed a car that was going very slow.  Suddenly there are flashing lights behind me.  It was an unmarked police car that I passed  and now they were pulling me over.  He didn't pull me over for speeding, it was for passing over a solid yellow line.  There were no cars oncoming and it was down a large slope but apparently it was a construction zone.  The officer was actually very nice.  He didn't even give me a written warning.  He told me that it would have cost me over $700 and not to do it again.  I got very lucky.

Exploring my theory of Epistemology

1.  Knowledge is acquired information.  Information is neutral in nature, which is when it is outside of human awareness.  When information interacts with conscious awareness it can be distorted into false knowledge or may be interpreted as accurate knowledge.

2.  For average humans knowledge is acquired in three basic ways.

A.  Knowledge can be acquired through conscious experience such as learning, reasoning, and through the five physical senses.

B.  Knowledge can be acquired through sub-conscious experience such as bodily signals, brain chemistry, and DNA that brings instinct.

C.  Knowledge can be acquired through super-conscious experience such as insight, precognition, and sensing non-locally. 

                Category A and B are most evident through fields like psychology and biology.  Category C will perhaps be more contentious.  Traditionally category C has come from more anecdotal evidence such as mystical experiences that cannot be observed externally.  However, I would argue that quantum physics is bringing more evidence for the possibility of things like remote-viewing, which involve non-local interactions of consciousness.  Research is here http://www2.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/quantum-brain.html

3.  There is always the possibility that existence is illusory in which case nothing would be certain.  However, there is also the possibility that existence is not an illusion in which case there is the possibility of certainty.  If we assume existence is an illusion then there is no point in continuing to debate.  So, for the sake of argument let us assume that existence is a real thing.

                If existence is real then let us assume that knowledge is real.  If knowledge is real then it may be known.  If it is knowable then it is in the very least possible to be known with certainty by accident.  Certainty by accident is illustrated through the consecutive consequences of  the existence of knowledge.  For example, if knowledge exists then it must either be finite or infinite in nature.  Because human knowledge seems to be limited I am forced to guess as to whether a finite amount of information exists or whether an infinite amount of information exists.  I will choose to believe that an infinite amount of information exists and therefore I may have reached certainty of knowledge by accident.  Or I may be wrong.  The only way to prove or disprove this would require knowing everything. 

                However, more basic knowledge can be obtained with certainty.  As long as reference is made to an enclosed system then there can be certainty.  This can include man-made systems or natural systems.  Math is an example of a man-made system.  It can be said with certainty that two plus two is four because all variables have been predefined in a comprehensive enclosed system.  Language is another example.  In the English language we can have certainty that words have particular spelling. 

                Natural systems work the same way as long as their parameters are defined.  For example, we can know with certainty that Atoms are composed of protons, electrons, and neutrons (except hydrogen).  The problem with natural systems is that they are often thought to be fully known but are not in actuality.  It was not until 1968 that protons and neutrons were discovered to be composed of Quarks.  While it did not change the certainty that Atoms were made of protons and neutrons, it did prove wrong the certainty that they were elementary particles.

          

Another Way to View Democracy

                Quote by F.A. Hayek.  In a democracy where action is "dependent on a majority's being able to agree; it will often be necessary that the will of a small minority be imposed upon the people, because this minority will be the largest group able to agree among themselves on the question at issue."  This is a great point that illustrates how a democracy really works.  If there are one hundred people each with different opinions on what should be done and suddenly two of them come to an agreement then the majority would be those two because they are the largest number of people that have a common agreement.  It is often assumed that a majority means 51% or more but this is only true if there are only two side to an issue.  When there are one hundred sides to an issue then the majority can easily be two people out of a hundred.

                This phenomenon of democracy is readily seen in many elections.  Take for example the 2000 presidential election.  From popular vote Bush had 47.9% and Gore had 48.4%.  While it is the case that neither the Republican nor Democrat party had a majority of votes in terms of Republicans to non-Republicans or Democrats to non-Democrats, there was none the less a majority in terms of more than two choices.  One need only to divide their competition in order to change the outcome of any vote.  Two can win against any number of individuals as long as all those individuals remain divided.  This is what democracy truly is.  The rule of the few who agree over the many who disagree. 

On Politics - 2010

                The older I get the more elections I see.  With each election I become more and more aware of the fundamental flaws in our political system.  People often equate democracy with majority rule.  There is a problem with this equation and there are problems with majority rule.  The problem with the equation is that democracy is actually supposed to be a system that reflects the will of the people.  The problem with majority rule is that it does not reflect the will of the people. 

                Take for example the Republican and Democratic parties.  Neither party actually makes up a majority.  There are more non-republicans than republicans and there are more non-democrats than democrats.  When either party is running the country it is not the majorities rule, it is in fact the rule of the largest minority.  What is also true is that the majority is actually not being represented at all because of the way the party is composed. 

                Let me digress for a moment and consider what a political party is.  A political party is a collection of differing interest groups that do not conflict with each other.  For example the Republican party is composed of pro-life interests, pro-gun interests, and pro-business interests just to name a few.  While there are some people that can fully agree with all of the policies of the Republican party it is more so the case that people who vote republican are either single issue voters or simply agree more with them than they do with the Democrats. 

                What this means is that even the options we are presented with are problematic.  This is why most people don't vote because they don't feel like any party really represents their interests.  So, it is the case that most of the time a majority of people actually do not even vote.  The will of the majority of people is not even being expressed in the first place.  And the will of the rest of the people who is not a majority is being called the majority when it itself isn't even a majority of the minority.

                What we ultimately end up with is a minority of a minority that runs the country.  The vast number of people are either not represented at all or are not having any say in what goes on.  The will of the people is far from expressed and it is no majority rule. 

                A further problem with the "majority rule" as it is called goes back to how people vote.  If people are voting for single issues or only a handful of issues then the result turns out to be what may properly be described as a train wreck.  Let's say for example there are only two options to chose from, which is democrat or republican.  If a person votes on a single issue and ignores all the rest then it will play out like this:  John Doe votes republican because he is pro-life.  There happens to be a lot of pro-lifers so the republican gets elected.  John Doe gets what he wants as far as that interest is concerned but he has essentially invited in the mafia to take care of his business.  The Republican party does not stop at pro-life issues, they go on to progress all the other interest groups that compose the party.  This may become quite problematic for John Doe.  Say for example the Republican party is also composed of a group interested in international interventionism.  This interest ends up leading to a war in which countless lives are lost.  It seems to me that war is not something that a pro-life person would really want. 

                There is something missing from this picture.  There is no real compromise.  These interest groups get together and the only compromise is that they will aid each other in getting what each other wants.  Real compromise involves altering what two parties want in order to reach a middle ground.  The interests that make up the party in power get what they want while the other party gets nothing.  The next election comes and we see a full reversal.  The result is a perpetual game of tug-o-war where some people only get what they want for a little while and then get the opposite later on. 

                This form of democracy may properly be called the rule of ignorance and amnesia.  People vote without any consideration of history and without any consideration for the full implications of what they are voting for.  Don't get me wrong.  I love America and democracy.  That is why I am so passionate about this.  Democracy itself is not the problem.  The problem is in how distorted it has become.  A serious change is needed.  We cannot simply lump interests together, call it a political party, and hope that everything works out.  If the majority of people are not being represented than this is not a democracy. 

                The issue is not with non-voters, the issue is with the options.  Unless the options exist for people to chose from then people cannot be expected to vote for the lesser of two evils.  The parties need to be torn asunder and exposed for what they really are, interest groups masked as a unified party.