Email to Dr. Blackburn, Philosopher, Cambridge Univ., London, Eng


Thank you for inviting me. It is undoubtedly presumptuous of me to approach you with my deliberations but age has its privileges. Age, in the sense that I have been thinking about human intelligence, or lack thereof, for many years and do not exclude myself from that affliction. I do have a doctorate in optometry and have had a keen interest in the study of perception. Also I have endeavored to find some cogent explanation of how one "thinks". Philosophers and neurophysiologists seem to, after great expositions, admit they really don't have a clue.

An article in the Sunday NYTimes, January 28th by Peter Edidin, mentioned your removal to Cambridge (congratulations, some hefty people have preceded you, like B.Russell, and L. Wittgenstein)
In it he also stated you had a web site and encouraged visitors to begin a "meaningful interaction". Thus my presumtuousness.

After watching a PBS documentary on "The Search For Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence" and hearing those enthusiastic folks speak of how, "there just has to be life out there and it might be trying to communicate with us", I felt compelled to write down my own feelings about the matter.

This project (SETI) embodies several concepts and assumptions. Mankind - to our knowledge - is the one life form that "thinks".
By mankind's definition of that term. Just what "thinking" is has received much attention from diverse disciplines.
Rene' Descartes, in his writings, has stated- "Cogito ergo sum" which we accept to mean - " I think, therefore I am". He doesn't state. or claim to know, what "thinking" is - it is simply something he does. From this he concludes that, because he can do it, and does do it, he exists.

I don't feel it is especially important to decide if Descartes' reasoning is valid. I'll defer to you philosophers on such matters. What does concern me is the part that language plays, that is, do the conventions and limitations of language constitute a contamination of reason?

Individual language styles themselves become more controversial than what is being discussed. Since thinking and reasoning are inextricably bound up in language is it possible to get off that merry-go-round? Mathematics appears to be the highest form of objective reasoning. ( Use of the word "highest" injects the relativistic aspect language imposes!) Through the evolution of mathematics theoretical physicists have broadened concepualiztion in both the macro and micro dimensions. We now have a greater notion of the universe and have ten dimensions and strings to ponder.

The above is taken as evidence that mankind, the thinkers, is something marvelous. All this thinking is equated with intelligence. Again language poses a problem. use of terms such as "intelligence" and "reasoning" are not as objective as a "square" or a "circle", both of the latter being definable in precise fashion. All of the above is leading to my premise that mankind, a different kind of life form to be sure, is still only one kind of life form. The evidence that humanity has been and is abusing itself and its environment, which includes all other forms of life, is undeniable and increasingly overwhelming. Wouldn't that, by definition, be unintelligent?

Thus the word intelligence purports to define a quality mankind lays claim to but which it assiduously avoids manifesting.
One of Rodenberry's better lines is- "Beam me up Scotty, there is no intelligent life down here!" In the face of mankinds dysfunctionality it is the height of arrogance for us to presume that elsewhere, life as we know it, has taken all the same wrong turns that we have, to arrive at a state of condition roughly analogous to our own and is at all interested in us.

More likely the rationale' that has led to a program such as SETI is an unconscious desire to either escape from our misused faculties or hopefully find a higher source of intelligence to save us from ourselves.

If indeed the Big Bang is the explanation of the origen of our presently perceived universe and we are merely manifestations of reconstituted star dust what, and here language fails, do we represent? Are we a neural construct with a central processing unit that dreams up perception. Is the body a manifestation of the mind or vice versa? Does the "mind"-'body" connection exist or do we need a new paradigm?

One of the vexing aspects of the "intelligence" argument has to do with the misapplication of it. As with the present world food supply: In spite of the abundance of food people are starving because of maldistribution. So too, intelligence applied to technological achievements, is not used to solve social problems in the same degree. Maybe because human nature is so rotten men turn to philosophy. Can you come up with some answers?

Thank you if you have bothered to read this,
DonB

May 16, 2008

Republican National Committee

Attention: Tim Morgan and other officials

I am in receipt of your solicitation for the 2008 election campaign. You ask: “have you given up?” “Have I abandoned the Republican Party”? The answer is: I disavow the control of the Republican Party by the ideological neoconservatives. In that sense the party has left me.

The likes of Tom DeLay and Imhoff do not represent my ideas of how to govern our nation. The fact is I was a John McCain advocate in the year 2000. The dirty trick of Karl Rove in South Carolina was abhorrent. John McCain would not have led us into Iraq in the hubristic manner that Bush misleadingly did.

The Bush administration’s penchant for cronyism has caused great harm to the party. Brown in Katrina, the ineptitude of Bremer in Iraq, the Darth Vader image of Cheney: Our undiplomatic foreign policy has been disastrous for the country and the party.

John McCain,and any other Republican candidate in the November election, is at a huge disadvantage due to the negative feeling nationwide for the past seven and one half year’s misadventures.

Republicans will have to wait for the Democrats to screw up royally before they will get another chance.

Regretfully,

This piece was submitted and printed in the local paper.

Dear Editor, I propose this piece as a “My View” item or a letter. Thank you.

Looking for a renaissance

After seven and a half years of the “dark ages” it is with hope and trepidation that the incoming administration can bring a new awakening to our national psyche.

Actually I’m very sanguine that our country is capable of overcoming, in due time, the difficulties imposed by the eight years of Bush’s Imperial rule.

Rather than rehash and recite the missteps and mismanagement of the current incumbency I look forward to improved foreign relations, a sane energy policy, environmental responsibility, and technological advancement.

In the area of health care I’d like to see a single-payer system that lessons, to a large degree, the present administrative overburden. “Health-care plans” that have shareholders and high paid administrators and CEOs are not giving the “health” aspect of care that is needed. The exorbitant premiums could be reduced significantly.

The American Heritage group’s claim that governmental programs will “dictate” onerous conditions for consumers is ridiculous. There are no private insurance plans of any kind that aren’t engineered to deny as many claims as possible. In the insurance industry it is called “loss control”. Insured individuals are constantly fighting to have claims recognized. Insurance companies constantly use loopholes to deny claims.

Health-care at his roots is a product. The product has a cost basis. Care providers must be paid for their services, facilities, hospitals and clinics, have costs that must be met. All of these categories must be looked at critically to reduce exorbitant charges currently going into excessive profits.

Controlling administrative costs is of greatest importance. The most efficient system is a single-payer type. Obviously this is a governmental agency. Horrors! What a tax burden! Hold on, what is really happening is exchanging a profit oriented system for one much less expensive. The myth of competitiveness in the marketplace has long been discredited by the collusion among private concerns to maximize profits. The so-called “free enterprise system” would be great if it were truly free. Unfortunately it is controlled and manipulated by politically connected entities that prevent the competitive forces from freely functioning.
All aspects of our economy, be it banking, finance, insurance, farming, medicine, pharmaceuticals, etc. are protected by high paid lobbyists whose job it is to see that legislation is written that works to the best interests of their clients. Who represents the consumer? Our legislators? They promise to fight for us against special interests. What happens is they no sooner get elected than they seek funds from those special interests in order to get themselves reelected? The consumer’s interests are given lip service but the regulations favor the big spenders.

The ballot box only functions every few years. “Throwing the bums out” doesn’t prevent a new set of bums from taking their place; but mostly the old bums retain their jobs in spite of their poor performance.

A good influence of the current recession and world mess is that has grabbed the attention of more people. People respond most strongly when their pocketbooks are threatened. Now is a good time to call our legislators to account and demand pledges of responsibility.

But in reality the entire health-care system should be drastically reengineered. There are too many exotic specialties and not enough general practitioners. Physician’s Assistants, (PAs), could be more universally employed. With relatively little augmentation the Medicare system could be adjusted to cover everyone. The tax burden for such a change would be a fraction of the cost of the present system. The reduction of paper work alone would be a boon to providers.

Due to the retirement of the baby boomers having begun it is long past time to remove the cap on Social Security taxes. The top of the S.S tax scale excludes those dollars beyond $90,000. In this era of astronomical incomes for several categories of employees it is imperative that those high earners pay their full share of the Social Security tax. It is not a TAX INCREASE – it is equalization. This alone would likely alleviate the shortfall that is projected in the next few decades.

With the demise of the current administration perhaps the criterion of what is good policy will be less influenced by ideology and more by reason and practicality.
The prospect of ongoing expenditures associated with the Iraq debacle is staggering. Our own infrastructure has been sadly neglected because of the diversion of funds to war expenses. Hopefully China will not run out of funds for us to borrow.