Confession

If Socrates was right that ”the unexamined life is not worth living” it is evident that we must examine not only others but perhaps even more importantly ourselves. The other day I discovered yet again that I don’t always have an open mind. I overheard a conversation between two students after a seminar. During the seminar we had briefly discussed the meaning of a certain word in Nietzsche’s work. In German there are more words for “explanation” than in Swedish and one of the words has a meaning more like “illumination” perhaps with a hint of “self-evident”.

Translations between languages are always difficult and a reason to really learn different languages and understanding the meaning of the words, not merely a translation of the words, is that it will let you understand how your own vocabulary limits your possibility to think, and of course to expand those limits with new concepts. But I digress.

I am an imperfect human. I over heard this conversation and I at once formed my opinion that this person was not thinking in an intelligent way, that he was a buffoon, a philosophical buffoon but all the same a buffoon. Of course my reasons for thinking this can be found in what he said. But no matter what he said I had not sufficient evidence to jump to that conclusion.

Before I explain what I found so silly in this overheard conversation I have to confess that my opinion of this person is still negative although I know that I didn’t hear enough to be in a position to form a well founded belief. First impressions last.

The person who did most of the talking was writing a master thesis in sociology. He was glad that he had found a new idea of what an explanation is. He wanted to get away from the “theoretical explanations” that he found in sociology and have something more like “revelation”.

I hope that what he wanted was a way to describe how people use the word “explanation”. It is perhaps not always the case that what is given as an explanation in everyday life really explain things.

Of course I do not know what he meant with “theoretical explanation” but in my mind I formed the idea that he wanted to avoid analytical explanations, explanations that divide things into little pieces, explanations that limits the mind from seeing the big picture, so that he could just understand how it is. Indeed I got the impression that he wanted to steer away from old time ideas about explanations that limits the free and open mind of the researcher in sociology.

I am afraid that he will only find conviction, and conviction is a poor substitute for explanation. The important point of an explanation is that it explains things. It gives others the possibility to follow the analytical train of thoughts that lead to an understanding of how something works. A conviction, an understanding that is only based on revelation can never be anything else but personal. A personal explanation as well as a personal language is dead. Explanations are theoretical and analytical because they have to communicate something.

What good is philosophy?

In Sweden the university studies are starting for the term. Here in Upppsala one can see many new faces, students new to the city and the university. Last week there was an introduction to philosophy in the main university building. One professor spoke about the use of philosophy she quoted a passage from a source that elude my memory at the moment.

The quote began to say that if you want to be a barrister, economist, or a MD you probably do not have much use of philosophy. This is not a new idea, since the earliest days of philosophy the thinkers have been accused of being useless in all ways practical. In the end though we were told that if you study philosophy you will at least be able to spot when other people speak BS. (If this is in accordance with the old proverb “it takes a thief to catch a thief” I leave unsaid.)

If it is a fact or not, that philosophers learn to detect BS, is an interesting question. Is it true and is it enough. Even if you might be better at detecting inflated claims and dishonest reasoning with others as a philosopher, there is one very necessary thing missing. Do you as a philosopher learn to detect when you are talking BS to yourself?

The question about if it is true that philosophers are good at detecting BS probably needs some careful studying. I would think that after learning how to analyse arguments and looking at all kinds of fallacies philosophers might be better at realising when someone violates the rules of deduction or infer too much from a statement. On the other hand a philosopher without the proper premises are as lost as anyone else.

If the BS a philosopher is offered do not go against his or hers all ready formed ideas about how the world works, and if the construction of the arguments agree with the laws of logic, a philosopher is as likely as anyone else to fall for BS.

Unless of course it is the kind of philosopher that likes to throw everything they got at even their most cherished ideas. Fortunately that seems to be just the kind of people that becomes philosophers.

Everyday Epistemology

Epistemology is in philosophy the study of how we know things, often contrasted with ontology, the study of what is. There are many strange ideas about how to attain certain knowledge and some more realistic ideas about how to attain provisional knowledge. (The kind of knowledge that might be replaced by better knowledge in the future and leading to the question if the replaced knowledge really was knowledge to begin with.)

Everyday epistemology is something slightly different. Learning how to evaluate truth-claims is all very good but it is just impossible for one human being to build her entire world-view on tested claims. Each and every one of us, no matter how sceptical we want to be, accept things unchallenged out of necessity. With everyday epistemology I try to take a look at the limits of the examined life from a different perspective than what is traditionally done in philosophy.

In many discussions about epistemology the focus is how to find the truth about one thing or in one situation. In the real world we piece together billions and billions of impressions and data to form a picture of how the world is. Even if we had a perfect method of how to find the truth of each piece of data we would not have time to implement the method for each and every bit. When you want to study how a person knows how the world is, how her picture of reality is attained, it is a fact that mostly the knowledge, or information is perhaps a better word, is uncritically accepted.
(I use the word ‘information’ about bits and pieces of data without concern about if it is true or false, or even if it makes any sense.)

But very few accept everything they hear or see. At certain times people are more likely to test the claims that they encounter at other times they simply dismiss it. When people try to test new information we reach the field of classical epistemology, we ask ourselves if it is true and how can we find out if it is true. But before this we have the question of what makes people want to test new information and also when they should question not only new but old information.
The urge to test new information will arise then the information contradicts earlier ideas considered to be knowledge and it cannot be simply dismissed. The urge should arise than the information becomes, or is, an important part of ones world-view.

Factoids (mainly in Swedish) are interesting; they are small pieces of information that are not true, or at least unsubstantiated, but they are well known to be true or at least well know. Everyone knows Galileo’s famous utterance at the end of his trial because it is a good story. It is regarded as a true fact although it is not. For biographers of Galileo the story is important so they go through the trouble of checking the sources and find that they have to remove that piece of information from their knowledge of the world. Few people have that kind of a special interest in Galileo and the story will likely not contradict their world-view and thus simply becomes accepted as a small part of what they know. Factoids are not a perfect example of how information that is not confrontational and unimportant is easily accepted, because factoids are interesting and entertaining enough to be spread unlike much other information. Still they tell us that much of what a person know is uncertain because everyday we accepted information uncritically.

So the first “law” of everyday epistemology, the study of how people attain knowledge about the world in real life, is that everything is accepted as true.
The second “law” is that if new information contradicts what is all ready considered true there are three ways to handle the new information, testing the truth claim, dismissing the information without testing, or have a world-view that allow for contradictions.
It is out of necessity that we do not always test all the claims; it is out of necessity that we readily accept or dismiss information that agree or disagree with what we think we know. What is in my opinion a problem is that many appear to think that what is done out of necessity is also sufficient. Even when a set of believes have a prominent place in a persons world-view they think that accepting or dismissing information without testing is enough.

Perhaps the study of how people in fact form their world-view is more psychology and sociology than philosophy. I still think it is of huge importance to understand this part of epistemology if one wants people to live an examined life in the real world. Socrates said “the unexamined life is not worth living”.

Magic Balls

There is no such thing as magic, and if something sounds to good to be true it probably is. Strangely enough this blog entry is in a way connected to the previous one because it is about scams.

A few days ago a Swedish newspaper (In Swedish) mentioned a test of environmental safe ways to wash your clothes made by a Norwegian consumer rights organization. Among the tested products was a “magic ball” that contained some ceramic beads that was claimed to have some remarkable properties.

In the test the magic ball had no effect above washing the clothes in plain water. A similar product had been sold in a chain of stores in Sweden (Design torget) and the newspaper contacted that chain to get a comment. The product had sold very well and they had no complaints, they had actually sold out; but now they were not going to take in any more until they had them tested by an independent third party.

I saw the product in the stores before they were sold out and reading the description on the back about how it was supposed to work it was obvious that it did not. At least if it was working it was not working in the way that was described.

If you sell something to people that does not work that is to scam them, isn’t it?

I assume that the stores are not as cynical that they are selling something that they know does not work. And I am sure that people are not as stupid that they buy things that they know does not work. The problem is that people do not always know enough to understand what works and what does not.

So whos responsibility is it to make sure that people are not scammed? Is it a matter of caveat emptor so that if you buy something that does not work it is your own fault? Or is it the person that sells a product that is responsible to make sure that it works? Could it be the manufacturer that should know their products enough to be sure it works?

There is no easy answer because even if it is not legally the buyer’s responsibility there will always be con men out there and people selling dreams so it is necessary to be aware.

And if you sell something that does not work but is not aware of the fact are you when perpetrating a scam? I guess that depend on if you were supposed to understand that it did not work.

Everyday we accept a lot of information uncritically. And if what we hear does not go against anything we know even if it is just because we do not understand it, we do not react. It is possible to sell a non-working product without consciously trying to scam your customers. Of course if you make a lot of money from selling something you may choose to disregard your doubt in a product and just not put in the effort to find out if it works or not.

If buyers and sellers had excuses surely the manufacturers cannot get off as easily. If some one is to know if a product works or not it must be the people that invented it and makes it. And yes, they should know. There are those that perpetrate scams creating products that they know does not work, you can make a lot of money with cheap labour, good public relations, and without scientific testing. But that is true even if you do not want to scam people and really believe in your idea. The problem is of course that being convinced that your product works is no guarantee and no substitute to scientific testing.

I do not know the makers of the magic ball, it might be that they are good willing and simply does not know how to test their product or they can be not so good willing scammers. None the less even the manufacturer may not be guilty of purposefully committing a fraud when a non-working product is sold.

The last blog entry was about how people are scammed, this one was about how people may lose money on products without anyone trying to scam anyone. Knowledge is the way to avoid both.

The Real Hustle

This is not news for people in the UK. Objective productions, the company that has produced Derren Brown’s TV shows and TV specials, have a wonderful series about how to con people. Although I should perhaps say that it is about how to avoid being conned but knowledge is a double edged sword. Dishonest people watch TV as everyone else so it is not impossible that some of them learn some new tricks.

One of the differences between a magician and a cheat is the same as the difference between an educated person and an expert. The magician knows many more moves than the cheat but the cheat has perfected his. The audience tend to be less forgiving to a mediocre cheat than to a mediocre magician.

But even if some scoundrels learn a few more tricks I think the overall effect of the series is positive. First, con artist are specialized so they will only try a few if any of the scams. Second, to do a scam requires effort and practice; to see through the same scam and avoid being fooled you only need knowledge. So I see no reason why they could not show The Real Hustle in Sweden, though I hope they show the original British version.

The series is on its sixth season in Britain and the British version is the better one in my opinion. I do not understand why Americans always need their own version; proper English isn’t that hard to understand.

The three people staring in the show are Alex Conran, Jessica-Jane Clement, and Paul Wilson an excellent magician who's lecture I attended at the world championship of magic in Stockholm 2006.

They are really good at explaining how the different scams work because there are a lot of different layers in working a con. There are the practical details of the scam and the psychology that draws the victim into the fantasy world. Appealing to emotions work quite well, especially greed. It is also great fun to watch the show and the reaction of the people that are conned.

Anyone with an interest in how con artists operate can search youtube for some practical psychology at work (and some physics as well). Unfortunately the very best youtube channel was shut down, I guess that someone did not want these shows available for free. But some places to start looking are here, though they might be shut down soon so hurry:

ScamOnTv
Realhustledotcom
Scamplot’s

I think it is possible to learn a lot more from the series than only the mechanics of the plots and the specific psychological hooks that are used. In essence a good con artist let the mark fool himself. To avoid fooling oneself is perhaps something of the most difficult there is, it requires knowledge about the world and how we think and to apply it to oneself.

I guess that when a show is written (by Paul Wilson and Alex Conran incidentally) this is not what they think about; there is a clear educational angle to the series but focused more on consumer awareness than science and philosophy.

I should say something about the American version as well but I let someone else do it.

Objective Productions/Crook Productions’ new show, The Real Hustle, features a pickpocket/security consultant, a magician, and an actress hustling innocent passersby on television. Apollo Robbins, who made national news when he picked the pockets of Secret Service agents while performing for former president Jimmy Carter, heads up the team. New York City magician Ryan Oakes supplies the sleight-of-hand expertise, while Dani Marco is the actress onboard. Her credits include Law&Order The Sopranos, and most recently the Chris Rock movie, I Think I Love my Wife.

Magic Magazine, No 5, vol 17, January 2008, p.27

Caveat emptor

That the buyer should beware is something most people know. Even in countries where you have a lot of consumer rights it is not always enough to protect the public from unethical people but that is not what this post is about. In this post buyer and seller as well as all innocent bystanders are assumed to act ethical, in the normal sense of the word.

When writing about this I regret that I do not know anything about economics because I find this an interesting and important aspect of how business is conducted and I am sure it has been studied. Probably there are a number of dissertations and papers on this that I have not read. But then again I am only a stupid uneducated scientist and magician not an economist.

As an example I will take public transport and how you decide what payment system to use. I guess that it is a good idea to have someone that have studied economics to compare different systems, how much the system will cost initially, how many that will avoid paying for the public transport by bypassing the system, the maintenance cost, personnel cost etc. There are probably many more variables that will be important. And I am no expert when it comes to public transportation or economics, but I do think I know a thing or two about people.

I have some ideas about what can influence the choice so that it is perhaps not the least expensive and most manageable system that is chosen. I think this was the case when they decided in Stockholm what system to use.

Having been to Vienna and having lived in Prague I consider their payment systems to be among the best I have experienced. And I also think that I know why it would never make it in a competition with for example the system they have in Paris.

There are no expensive machines in the Viennese system or the one in Prague and that is why they are less likely to be chosen by someone that has to invest a lot of money in a new payment system.

I do not know how much personnel the system in Paris requires compared to the systems in Vienna or Prague. The cities are not of the same size and not all the people that work within the public transport system are concerned with the payment system. But I do know that the system they have in Paris and Stockholm is less practical from a user perspective. In Prague or Vienna if you have your ticket you can get on and of trams and busses, in and out of the subway without taking the ticket out of your pocket and without any gates or detectors.

The reason why I think that a system like the one in Vienna or Prague is less likely to be chosen when someone is deciding on a new payment system is that no one is selling the system. There is no large investment in machines and thus there is no company spending money on selling the system. Sure there are som machines that you can buy tickets from set up in the subway stations but that is it.

The people selected to try to find a new payment system do not have to be taking bribes for the influence from the big companies to be a factor. Persuasion is a very important tool to make people do something. Companies with large budgets have more money to try to persuade people to buy their products. The simple system has no one that speaks up for it and I think that will make a huge difference. People do not always care so much about the hard facts, the comparison of how much the system will cost initially, how many that will avoid paying for the public transport by bypassing the system, the maintenance cost, personnel cost etc. People care about what other people tell them, and if there is no one that speaks up for the better system it will probably not be chosen.

It would be very interesting to learn if this hypothesis of mine have been tested and what the result was.

Making an impression

I guess that as from today I have an official web page. I have had a Swedish version up for some time but now the first version of the full web page is up. I have heard that a web page is a little bit like a house, it is a never ending project. The people I know that owns a house at least confirm the part about a house always being in need of something. So this is a first version of my presence on the Internet and I realise that much improvement can be done. The page is fairly simple, although at this point I am at least prepared to focus on other projects for a while.

Who knows what the next version of the page will look like. www.rasmark.com

Arguments regarding intelligence gathering

Although most of the people in the world are unaware of what the Swedish government are up to I happen to live in Sweden so I take an interest. The quick background story is that the government want all Internet providers to connect their networks to FRA’s computers. The acronym FRA stands for “Försvarets Radio Anstalt”, which translates as something like “The Defence’s Radio Department”. Strangely enough this is a civilian and not a military authority.

Traditionally FRA has been listening to radio communication of military importance but with more and more communication going through cables instead of through the air they are trying to find other tasks to justify their existence.

In line with many other nations that introduced legislation that could be seen as an infringement of personal integrity after 9/11 the Swedish government legislated to “filter” all communication across the nations border. (As I understand it the new law actually says ALL communication and is not specifically about electronic communication.)

Since a lot of domestic communication is likely to pass over the boarders en route to its destination and thus becoming international communication this law leads to a large portion of all the communication being monitored by the government, but that is not the point here.

In the debate one argument for connecting all networks to the governments computers is that it will enable the nation to keep an eye on Russia (in Swedish). Much of the international Russian traffic goes through cables that cross Swedish borders. Recent events confirm that it is a good idea to keep an eye on Russia. But is that what the politicians are really interested in?

It is obvious that a lot of money must be invested in new technology and FRA also wants to increase the number of employees. The exact numbers are not important, numbers can be confusing, ‘a lot’ suffice.

One very important way to get information about another country is to have an efficient embassy in that country, that is one of the reasons countries have embassies.

You would think that if information about Russia really is important than the Swedish embassy in Russia would be able to sustain a qualified staff. Unfortunately this seems not to be the case. Apparently the Swedish embassy in Moscow cannot pay competitive wages for local staff (in Swedish). In comparison with the money the government want to spend on eavesdropping on the Russians this is clearly not a question of a lot of money.

If an argument is to carry any weight it is difficult to use it to defend a big change at a high cost while a small cost to the same goal is simply overlooked. That might make people wonder how much weight the argument really carries.

Strictly speaking this is not a logical fallacy, just because an argument is used to support one thing that you want to do does not imply that something you do not want to do has to be done because the same argument support that as well.

Although it is not a logical fallacy it will weaken the convincing power of the argument when it seems to only be important when it supports something that you want.

A rose by any other name…

Shakespeare was of course right and yet so wrong. The fragrances a flower emits are the same no matter what name we have for that flower. Our mere naming of a plant does not affect its molecules. But our perception of the smell of anything is determined to some degree by our expectations. And the names of things do lead us to expect certain things.

I am sure that there is no need for examples of how the wrong name for a project, a product, or a person have led to missed opportunities. Though I would have liked to back up the previous statement with a reference to some carefully researched paper, some papers are sure to exist.

The reason for this entry regarding names is that people have asked me about the name of my company. Unlike many other artists I have not, apparently, used simply my own name. It might be a mistake since I, as all other performance artists, am selling my self as the product, thus there might be an advantage to have the product name and the company name being the same.

My unscientific opinion is that lecturers and educators unlike performance artists quite often use their company names to sell their product, at least if they are not themselves famous. I guess that although many on the lecture circuit are simply selling a performance under the disguise of motivation or education they like to give the impression of being serious.

Some day I will let the world know my opinion of people that sell BS as information, education, or training. For now I limit myself to the observation that no matter if they believe their own BS or not they rob people of a lot of money.

Still I like to be perceived as serious lecturer myself some day, when I am sure that I am not peddling BS. Hence I created a company with a name different, but not unconnected, from my own.

Here is the explanation to the company’s name, PJOR Entermation.

As can be seen it consists of two parts, the last part is a made up word, my contribution to the English language. Everybody has heard of ‘infotainment’ a melange of ‘information’ and ‘entertainment’, which is a synonym for “pointless-distraction-under-the-cloak-of-importance”. I guess that my opinion on infotainment is quite clear.

My melange of the two words, (enter-tainment and info-rmation) is supposed to convey an idea similar to “important information delivered in an entertaining fashion”.

The first part of the company name can be read out as ‘pure’, and in deed it should be with all the positive connotations the word ‘pure’ carries. The spelling is explained by the proud Swedish tradition of putting your initials in the company’s name (think IKEA). Unlike Ingvar Kamprad I do not confuse the point with the names of the places I am from. PJOR simply stands for Per Johan Olov Råsmark.

A friend pointed out a very good example of the importance of names and how inconsistent we humans are. We all know how calories should be avoided and energy is something good. A drink that has a lot of energy is a good drink and a bagel with a lot of calories is a bad bagel. It might not be necessary to have studied both physics and semantics to notice that they are two names for the same thing, but it helps. The SI unit for measuring energy is Joule but calorie is traditionally used in measuring the energy content of food. The lovely energy rich drink by the other name of “lots of calories” does not smell as sweet.

Hiatus

It is true that new publications often have a few hiatuses but it still does not look good when a new blog is not updated for an entire month; some people may even stop reading it regularly.

Although it is in the middle of the summer it is not a case of the beautiful weather distracting me from writing. Not saying that there have not been a few very beautiful days.

Neither is it the case that I have been travelling, for the first time in five years I missed the Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas. If it had been possible I would have been there with some of the best and most interesting people in the world.

I have been working on new material. I had a performance on the 23^rd this month and did an entire show with my own material, that is my own effects not only my own presentations. The new effects that had their world premier were Intuition, Synchronicity, and Silver Touch. Then I performed some older routines like Starter 1A, Daybreak, and My Rune – Your Rune as well. I also threw in some examples of the power of suggestion. In all a fairly good sized show I would say myself, although I still don’t have any dancers, the drawback with doing mentalism instead of stage illusions.

Developing new material takes a lot of time, coming up with the ideas in actually the easy part in my mind. And to be honest this performance was very much a test run of the material and I have ideas for a few changes.

The great thing with doing an entire show instead of only one or two effects is that it gave me a possibility to tie the routines together with a single theme. I got inspired watching Neil Tobin perform in the Excalibur Nightclub in Chicago. His Ghost story theme worked very well and the effects became a part of a story. Ghost stories do not suite my presentational style so I changed that, and since I only did my own effects there was no overlap there so it would probably be difficult to see where my inspiration came from without knowing it. Actually even knowing were the inspiration came from it is impossible to see it.

My theme for the show was “valfrihet” a fairly good translation as a title of a show would be “free will” although “freedom of choice” might be a more literal translation. The theme was the choices we make, how we make them and our illusions about our reasons to make certain choices. It might be presumptuous to believe that it had some educational value besides being an entertaining show but I strive to make people think. Preferably they should not think about the small illusions I perform but the great mysteries of the universe and the big illusions we live in.

A few days later on the 26^th I performed at the summer dinner at Västgöta nation. A larger audience but a shorter show. I only mention it as a part of my excuse that I have not updated this blog sooner.

Amazingly I had enough time to write a sermon for the service on Sunday morning the 27^th. Although I should perhaps not say how much time that was; because some actually seemed to appreciate what I said and they might as well rest in the belief that a lot of work went into writing the sermon.

All of this sounds, at least to me, like some really good excuses though I hope everyone who read this understand that you only got my word that any of it is true.

Lost Integrity

It has happened again. It appears as if it is an eternal struggle and a lingering question, what kind of scientific rigour should you aspect from a university. Although, or perhaps because, Uppsala University is my Alma Mater I have to voice my concern. It happened May 22^nd and it was the defence of a doctoral thesis named The Eucharist as Orikonso at the faculty of theology.

The thesis is only one example of a fundamental problem at many universities and since I have not read it myself I will not linger in critiquing the thesis. Anyone can read the abstract of the thesis, it gives some idea of what aim the author had with his work. First the thesis and latter the defence is described by one knowledgeable source as:
“The author does not hide in his book that his ambition from the outset has been a normative one, not a scientific one.”
“When the author is ranking religions and cultures no secular values, norms or characteristics seem to be used but only private evaluations and declarations.”
At the defence of the thesis:
“In front of the faculty opponent he frankly declared that he as a Christian theologian is in his full right to formulate a Christian theology as a doctoral thesis. This is what he had done, he said. He seemed to be very satisfied with himself.”
It is certainly not the first time that someone uses a doctoral thesis to push his or her own ideas and it will not be the last.

A conviction is a dangerous thing because it can have a person looking for all the things that support the conviction and disregard anything that contradict it. This behaviour appears to have no correlation to the intelligence of the individual. In Uppsala the person that discovered the lymphatic system and who started the botanical research continued by Linnaeus was the same man who wrote a book “proving” that Sweden was the ancient Atlantis. His name was Olof Rudbeck and he was living in a time when the understanding of the scientific method was not common knowledge. (Not that the scientific method is common knowledge today.)

There will always be people with strong convictions that want the seal of approval from universities. It can be for strange theories where the facts do not agree with the preferred conclusion, violating the scientific method, or it can be for ideas and interpretations of a purely subjective nature, outside the scope of the scientific method.
These two types of conviction can be compared to claiming that chocolate ice-cream always contain pineapple and that chocolate is the best flavour of ice-cream; clearly none deserve any kind of endorsement from a university.
Still universities in Sweden and without any doubt throughout the world, give passing degrees to people that do not meet the requirements. Why?

A great number of other examples from Swedish universities can be found in the book Högskolans lågvattenmärken (in Swedish). And talking to friends still at university I know that teachers are now told to make sure that every student pass certain classes. This is of course recommendable if it implied making sure that the students all learn the curriculum unfortunately that is not the case.

Without doing the necessary research I can think of three different reasons why unscientific thesis are accepted and students that have not learned the curriculum are given a passing degree.

It is a fear of conflict. Every student consider it their right to get a passing degree and it is easier to give it to them than to have them making a fuss about it. (People that feel unjustly treated can make a real big fuss about it.)

It is an economic matter. Since a department receives money for each student they pass (meant to be an incentive for high quality education) in financially strained times money is more important than quality.

It is a question of epistemology. The universities are filled with people that have a relativistic view of knowledge where each opinion is of equal value.

Of these three the last one is the least likely because if the professors and researchers believed in that kind of relativism they would not complain. But perhaps more people will come to have this relativistic opinion even at the universities.

Whatever the reason, when the scientific rigour is abolished the university has lost its integrity and if the university loose the idea about the scientific method it has lost its soul. It was supposed to be about searching for the truth and not about pushing opinions.

A close encounter

Although I am very interested in the phenomenon that is called New Age I have unfortunately not met that many people who can be said to have this belief, or type of believes. New Age is not new nor one belief; it is a goody bag of ideas some of great antiquity and others from today although they might claim to be from tomorrow. Recently though I had a close encounter with some very nice New Age people.

New Age is old news so I will not talk much about it. Confronted with some of the teachings the questions that are raised can be both scientific and theological. I overheard statements about energy lines, alternative medicine, and the god within oneself when I eavesdropped on the blonde angel-like guru. I would not have mind to learn more about her message and her theology than the few minutes I had together with her allowed.

What I will write about is my own experience of meeting the enthusiastic people that organised what they termed a lecture and a course though I would rather label it a religious service.

I am no enemy of religion unlike some sceptics and rational thinkers. Indeed I am religious myself in case someone like to know. It is interesting to think about religion and not just dismiss it because it has no foundation in science. Even if there are no gods people have religious convictions, feelings, and traditions, that is a fact.

The people I met really felt their religion; that was the impression I got. They wanted to feel the energy, the peace of mind, the oneness with the universe. The focus was very much on feeling perhaps to the deterioration of reflective thought. This flight from asking questions is not unique to New Age but if one is to accept everything it is perhaps a prerequisite that not too many questions are asked.

Without contradicting myself I have to say that a lot of questions were asked and the “guru” Anette Carlström answered them all. But they were practical questions and not critical questions. No one seemed concerned with the critical questions about truth or epistemology and if there was any discussion about the consequences of the theological message I did not hear it.

Not asking critical questions is not being stupid. The people I met were all very pleasant to be around and I do not get along well with stupid people. They were all very good people, open and friendly, I am grateful I had the opportunity to meet them.

Sceptics are sometimes unnecessarily condescending toward New Age believers. We are all living on the same planet (at least most of the time) and we try to live our lives the best we can. If we are open and ask questions we might understand each other better.
That goes for more traditionally religious people as well, just remember that understanding someone is not the same as agreeing with them.

How did I meet these people? They had rented space in the church I belong to and it was my turn to act as a host that day.

My first blog entry

I do not care that former vice president Al Gore thinks that blogging is a way to save democracy in a world where reason is assaulted. The majority of the blogs I have seen have been inane comments to known events so it is with some hesitation I have begun mine contribution to the information overflow on the Internet.

The only justification for a blog in my opinion is to either present well considered comments to known events or present new information before the major media corporations get hold of the news. If one is really lucky one might be able to do both but to do neither is a waste of bandwidth.

To stumble over a spectacular news story is perhaps not that easy so one may excuse people that write blogs from failing to do so on a regular basis. But having the belief that one’s own opinion on any topic is of vital importance to the entire world is something many bloggers can be blamed for.

It would serve any serious blogger well to chose a topic for his or hers comments since few of us can have well founded opinions in all matters of public interest although everyone has an opinion.
This will be the topic of this blog: Well founded opinions and believes, and of course not so well founded opinions, gut reactions, silliness, and the manipulation of people, the question of how do we know what we know and are we sure about that?

So in one sense I cheat, I have been know to do that from time to time, this blog can discuss a great variety of different topics under the disguise of focusing on the arguments presented without contributing with any factual knowledge.

I do have factual knowledge of a few things but my expertise is limited and all to often I do not have a good source for where my knowledge comes from. This is true for most people but we rarely see it as a problem but it can become a problem.
When two believes stand against each other it is vital that we know how to determine what proposition is correct. Or if it is merely a matter of subjective opinion where both believes are equally valid we need to be able to determine if this is so.
Unfortunately neither is self evident. Leibniz had the idea that with a perfect language and knowledge of logic it would be possible to sit down and calculate the answer to a question instead of endless debating but where is the fun in that.

Hopefully the readers will find some of the comments I make well considered since I am unlikely to present any revolutionizing news. People have been thinking and debating since before antiquity and there is a wealth of material to comment upon and loads of warning examples. (Although the examples from before recorded history are scarce.)

This blog will not stop the assault on reason but if it can be a contribution in the battle I am content.