( Freedom and Necessity )

Notes on 'Human Freedom and the Self', by Roderick M. Chisholm, from Free Will

-

So, i recently got my Honours course assignments, which I'm really happy with. I emailed all the profs asking if I could get some idea of the reading lists ahead of time, and now that they've all gotten back to me, it's time to get to work. Yay! So, for the next couple days, it's time to prepare for Free Will and Moral Responsibility...

( Argh livejournal formatting fail )

Hm. I just opened this up and it had Electronics notes saved. Yeah, deleting that. Screw you electronics!

I passed. I really thought I wouldn't, but I did - I even managed to get a C. I have all my grades back now. For the year overall, two Cs and three Bs. Not nearly as good as I'd like, but pretty decent, and I'd have done a lot better if I'd only taken subjects I knew I'd be good at - the two Cs are from Programming and Electronics. So that's nice. I also got my schedule for next year, and I got all my first choices! It's amazing. I'll be taking Ancient Aesthetics, Ancient Ethics, Free Will and Moral Responsibility, Applied Ethics, Themes in Epistemology, and The Nature of Value. I'm also going to take at least one 20 credit religion class, probably two. I'm thinking of maybe Religion 1A, which covers Christianity, Judaism and Islam. (I took Religion 1B last semester, it was a good course.) Or maybe Christian Ethics: Sources, although that will probably take a lot of Bible-reading. I kind of wish I had taken Christian Ethics: Topics when they offered it last year, although I'm sure I probably would have killed my blood pressure with it. I could do God in Philosophy, but I'm already sort of concentrating on that stuff myself. Dunno. We'll see! I'll probably take an extra course each semester, even though I only need to take 20 extra credits, just because they're interesting and I can. Also it means I'm getting better value for my money, since they don't charge me more for extra courses.

I've got options. It's awesome.

Right now I'm sitting in the lounge, listening to Elvis Costello. Someone is having a barbecue, and the smell is wafting in through the window. I'm wearing some really nice socks I knit recently. I was at Jon's last night and had some excellent sex. Life just doesn't get much better. Wait no...

..okay, I'm back, and I have a bottle of Irn Bru. Now life just doesn't get any better.

We only live in this instant - Japanese got Jesus robots!, says Elvis.

I haven't been able to find a job this summer, but I've stopped caring really. I have more than enough saved to pay my rent, and I've been able to pay bills and buy food and such with babysitting money. I even bought myself a sewing machine as a reward for passing Electronics. It's excellent. I'm mending all my clothes, and my tokidoki backpack, and making a waistcoat. Sandy gave me all his old jeans, which fit me really well other than the fact that they're guy-jeans and don't do good things for my butt. So I'll be wearing lots of denim skirts this autumn.

Okay, I'm going to go do something else now.

I am in one of the numerous little computer labs in the main library. Sitting across from me, there's a woman who is creeping me out. From her face, I would say she's maybe 18. I mean, I would say she were younger, even, but she's here, so. Maybe 17. Her hands, though, are the hands of a 40 year old woman. You know - kind of wrinkled, skin looks a bit thinner somehow, the veins stand out more, the knuckles are ever so slightly swollen. It's really, really weird.

Aaaanyway.

The weather is pretty bleak right now. It was snowing a ton yesterday and the day before, and actually sticking, which is highly unusual for Edinburgh AFAIK. Right now I'm looking out the window and it's gone back to good Scottish gray - gray sky, bit of wind, bit of mist, makes everything look gray. Probably still kind of wet out. I like this weather, as long as it doesn't start actually raining or get any colder. Isn't it supposed to be spring soon?

Going down to do this birthday thing in Lincolnshire for the weekend. I'm going to be missing my tutorial on Friday, and I tried to email the tutor but it bounced back. Grr. Well, I'll just show up in two weeks with all the extra work, I guess. At least I'm not presenting. I'm not entirely sure what the plan is - I know we're down there all weekend, and we seem to be going to a really nice restaurant on Friday evening. Which is nice. I always feel kind of awkward when other people are paying for me to be there, though. And the presents! I'm being absorbed.

Before then, I have two essays to write - they're both due Monday. I think I could get away with just having a draft of each of them and then polishing them up on the drive down or whatever, but yes, still stressful. I have one of them mostly done, on McTaggart's paradox. Running into serious issues with the word limit. The other one I've not even done the reading for yet, which makes me nervous. Electronics I'm really behind in, having screwed up a lot in the first two lab sessions (not entirely my fault) and missed this week's because I was working on the essay. And there's a flat inspection on Friday, so I need to falsify our smoke detector testing records (we know it works anyway - twopointoh set it off when he was cooking) and clean my room. which is going to be a monumental task. I've been so busy I haven't been paying any attention to it, can hardly even walk in there.

Class in 15 minutes, I should get going. I forget what the topic is, which is bad. Something ancient. Um. Oh, Aristotle's physics. Crap, I have a tutorial on it tomorrow as well. *sigh*

Note to self: don't forget -
-thank you cards to grandparents and aunt dorothy
-call opera and laserquest
-catch up on lab work
-stop by advice place and careers center

Fnar.

shitshitshitshit d'you ever feel like perhaps there are too many coincidences and maybe you should be a bit more superstitious? like if a friend pokes you and says "I've decided you're pregnant" the condom's going to break next time you get laid?

Anyway.

Got me exam results back, not ecstatic but not too unhappy. I got a 55 in Programming, which is a C. (And I was learning C! Lookit, another coincidence.) I think I could have done better but seeing as the night before the exam I was sure I was going to fail, it's not too terrible. Got Bs in both of my philosophy exams - 62 in 2A, 67 in 2B. I'm pretty happy with that, as the highest grade anyone got was 75 and 76, respectively. I placed pretty well. So yay.

Classes this semester are killer though. I'm taking four - continuing the two philosophy classes, and then also taking Electronics 1 and Religion 1B. This ends up being about 9 hours a day of necessary work for classes, plus an hour or so traveling on top of my normal travel time because Religion is in New College, Philosophy is in George Square, and Electronics is in KB. ARGH. Didn't realize that when I signed up. So, trying to get all my work done and run a society and keep participating in other societies and give the boy some attention and still manage to get some sleep... I've actually managed to work it pretty well so far through extreme use of caffeine and having Wednesdays off since Alan's still in NZ. Main bad effect I've noticed so far: huge increase in typos.

But essay season is coming up so we'll see how that goes. I need to go find birthday presents for Jon's sister and dad (meep) this weekend but I also have two essays to write - hm...

I should be typing up my tutorial sheet right now. Okay. Bai.

Also someone poke me if I haven't posted a ton of notes up here in a couple days.

*nudge*....*nudge*....*nudge*....alright alright

So. Um. Went on vacation with Mom over the holidays. We went to Rome for about a week and were there for christmas, and then Greece for a few days, including new years. Saw all sorts of stuff - the colosseum, the roman forum, the spanish steps, the vatican, lots of museums, the sistine chapel, pompeii, the acropolis, the athenian agora, this really cool ancient theater which is acoustically perfect and no one can figure out why, the oracle of delphi... I was mildly worried about being in Athens because of the riots (thanks jj_maccrimmon for making me paranoid :P) but it was fine. We walked around for pretty much a whole day shopping and looking at the agora, and had no problems. We saw a couple of small demonstrations and lots of really well done, angry street art, but that was about it. And it was great shopping! (I'll post pictures of the art once I get it uploaded.) The rest of the time we spent in Greece was on a bus tour, which we'd never done before. It was pretty good though. Our tour guide was a trip. I spent a decent amount of time arguing philosophy and politics with him. ("Plato was not subversive! I mean hello? Republic?...morality/justice is only acheivable through absolute loyalty to the state..." "Ah, but have you read it in the original Greek?")

I think my favorite part was Pompeii. It's pretty amazing. Really well preserved, you could imagine people living there. (I even recognized Alexander the Great in a mosaic on the floor of one of the houses, which made me feel smart. Or maybe I've just been hanging out with Caitlin too much.) The acoustically perfect theater was also rather cool. I was glad to get home by the end of it though, ten days in close quarters and tight schedules with my mother gets to be a little bit much. Only other bad part was that I had my period while I was there and it made me really ill, like it hasn't since high school... but I guess you're not really a traveler until you've puked on the public transportation in a country where you don't speak the language, right?...right. (It worries me how many life experiences I define by throwing up in odd circumstances.)

Now I'm hanging out in Edinburgh, waiting for classes to start. I'm taking four classes this semester - normal is three - so I'm probably going to be rather stressed out... it'll be okay though. Also Jon is back in town, so, y'know. Win. What else... I made two new year's resolutions: cook more, and don't skip lectures even if they're at 9 AM and I was partying the night before and I know the lecturer sucks. I've already started cooking more. (Last night I made pasta with vegetables, tonight I'm using the leftovers to make ziti.) We'll see how the not skipping lectures thing goes. I'm still waiting for exam results from last semester, although that's not really surprising, at least for my philosophy classes. I really wish they'd get to it and put up programming though, as I'm kind of worried about how that one turned out.

Oh! Also! I am currently using my new computer, which I finally built! It runs really well and makes me oh so happy. I have already filled up more space on it than I had on my old laptop, heh. (Akago = 750 gb, Aiko = 80 gb.) When I first built it I was using an old CTX monitor that was in the flat when we got here and a really grungy keyboard Oscar lent me, but now Jon's hooked me up with a nice keyboard and his old monitor (which is pretty decent.) Now I just need to get some speakers. And paint the case! I got a beige one since I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go steampunky or more traditional gamery. I'm pretty fond of this design, though. so that's probably what I'm going to do.

And now I am off to meet some friends for tea! Wonderful!

So, today I got up early and kicked butt on my Philosophy 2A exam. I ought to be studying for my Philosophy 2B one now - it's on Thursday - but I'm taking it easy for the evening. I was going to just take a couple hours break and then get back to studying, but I dunno, I'm feeling kind of down. I got mildly annoyed at someone for a reason which was not entirely crazy, and was promptly called a bitch, which just kind of made me realize how sick I am of people generally. It seems like everyone is having stupid middle school drama and then whining to me about it. I usually don't have a problem with people whining to me, except for when they are ALL doing it, the people on all sides of the issue. That just leads to more drama, which I do not need during exams. Ugh. And people seem to have very little respect for me lately. Sandy doesn't seem to understand that just because I am rather open about sex and am not completely adverse to him as a person doesn't mean it's okay to grope me. 2.0 is tending to take the few things I say are not okay to joke about and get the entire society laughing about them right in front of me. Squishy is a particular bastard lately and has been treating me rather like an idiot. And then there's the usual "I am an American philosophy student who believes in some concept of the divine and hangs out with british scientists who worship the technological singularity" thing.

I also find Vix insulting my character somewhat difficult to swallow. But there you go.

It's probably just that I miss Jon. I sometimes think he's the only sane person I know. Sane in the good ways, I mean. Or maybe it's just that I started up the pill again a little bit ago and my hormones are out of whack.

And in a few weeks I am sure I will read this and say to myself "and I was complaining about them acting like middle schoolers? Grow up, Gwen."

I am not a bitch. *sighs*

At film night last night:

2.0: "We should have more black people in sciffy. Gwen, get us more black people."
Me: "I'd love to, but there's no black people in Scotland. It's still weird for me, everyone's white..."
Andrew: "There are some black people here..."
Me: "What, like, three?"
2.0: "We need more black people. Ooh, get us gay black people! D'you get gay... black... people? hm..."
Me: "I love how you realized how racist that was halfway through saying it."

Ah, sciffy. So much love. Seriously though, it's still weird. I guess I kind of got used to hanging out in balck neighborhoods, when I was in new york.

So, yes, philosophy exam tomorrow. My review sheet:

( Philosophy of Mind )

( Phaedo )

( Descartes )

Up today: notes on Plato's Phaedo, which was actually really sad. It's the discussion Socrates had just before he was put to death. I kind of thought after all the Plato I'd read this semester I would be going DIE SOCRATES DIE by this point, but no, it was rather moving. Also, my essay on Epicureanism, which, again, I got a B on. In fact, I got the EXACT same mark on both of my essays this semester. Oh well - at least I'm consistent, hey? I love Epicurus, he kicks some serious ass.

I realized last night while I was typing up Kant that over the course of this semester I've taken about 400 pages of notes. By hand. How has my hand not fallen off, I wonder? I guess you don't really realize, when you're doing the work. But now I have two 160-page notebooks, one completely full, almost everything double-sided. Craziness. I feel accomplished.


( Phaedo )

( Epicurus Essay )

These are somewhat incomplete, mostly because I hate reading both Descartes and Kant. And I also don't like Descartes generally because he tends to go "God exists because I say so, and therefore anything else I think is true must be, because God wouldn't let me be wrong". Which is silly. Kant I tend to agree with, though. But, I got the important parts and now know enough to have those views, so. It's all good.

( Descartes )


( Markie's Response )


( Kant )

This took a week of my life which I will never get back.

I don't like philosophy of mind very much, it's too much like science. But, now I know it really well, which is good Or at least I know this part. And qualia.

( Dretske pt I )
( Dretske pt II )

( Fodor )


And just for good measure, my essay on the subject. (Which is pretty crap, but they only gave me 1000 words to work in! I got a B.)

( Essay )

Edit: hmmm, doesn't seem to like having a picture in the cut. odd.

semester two course possibilities:
http://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/08-09/course.php?code=U02842
http://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/08-09/course.php?code=U02515
http://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/08-09/course.php?code=U03808
http://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/08-09/course.php?code=U02652
http://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/08-09/course.php?code=U03911
http://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/08-09/course.php?code=DV0056

So, haven't put up a normal entry-ish entry here lately... been too distracted with philosophy.

Which... I'm having an interesting but kind of depressing experience with philosophy this year. I think I'm learning a lot, more than I was last year although I've developed a nasty habit of skipping my 9 AM lectures. But as I learn more and get more enthusiastic about it, I tend to talk about it more, and what with most of my friends being into math or science, it seems to me that I'm taking a lot of flak for being a philosopher. The immediate response if I mention how cool something I'm studying is "bah, philosophy, useless". And I'm starting to agree, which is depressing. It seems increasingly like there's not a lot that can be done in our world by philosophy that wouldn't be better done by science, if it's worth doing at all. I'm reading articles by prominent contemporary philosophers and seeing them propose desperate, nearly-theological theories of mind to try and defend the human condition from the increasing hordes of biologists who would like to say that everything about us has a physical explanation. And I agree with the scientists. I find myself very close to becoming a physicalist, which makes me sad, and also makes me wonder about my religious beliefs. I don't know. Modern philosophy seems to have lost the romance of the ancients, and is chasing some sort of quixotic ideal.

Despite that stuff is good, generally. I mean, I'm kind of stressed out - I have a presentation to do tomorrow, a paper due on the 10th, a practical due on the 14th, and another paper due on the 17th. But i do enjoy the stuff I have to do the work for, so I'll live. On the 12th, Dad will have been gone for 3 years. And Jon is visiting from the 11th to the 16th. It'll be good, though, despite stressfulness. I miss him, badly. Current stress actually has a lot to do with trying to get some of the work done before he shows up. Also I am kind of dreading the election tonight - it's just scary, I suppose, the possibility that we might have another Republican. also it's kind of... no one here seems to be particularly worried about it, although they're paying a lot of attention to it. It's a party, for the Brits, but it's a rather major and worrying thing for me. Not least because if we get a Republican again it will pretty much guarantee that I eventually become a British citizen. People are going to Teviot to watch it on the big screen and party. I think I will stay here and watch the updates come in over the internet, with a bottle of champagne for if Obama wins and a bottle of whisky in case he doesn't.  I really wish Jon were here.

Sent in my vote a while ago. I wonder if it'll even get counted...

Gigantor is on Friday, which should be cool. I've not been to it before, and it's a good opportunity to get all gothed up, although as a sciffy-running type of person I'll be at the door collecting monies for a lot of it. Which is okay. Also have games on wednesday, saturday and sunday, and sciffy on thursday. Ahhhh busybusybusy.

Been doing a lot of crafts and stuff. Knitting and sewing, embroidery, lots of fabricy type things. Things for costumes and my room, mostly. My room is pretty teeny for all the stuff it's got in it, and the desk keeps one of the closet doors from opening and the curtains from closing, so I made some curtains that are short enough to go over the desk. Just finished some armwarmers that'll go with my steampunky garb and maelstrom costume, and are warm generally. have socks and a skirt in the works. Want to do some embroidery on my new pillowcases, but have to get a duvet cover first, since I want them to match once I'm done with them... and need to make a cushion for my chair, which is awesome but made from hard wood. And I've got bits to put together for a nice steamy ray gun, when I have time.... in any case crafting is keeping me sane.

At the beginning of this year I had said I was going to keep a list of everything I'd read, but I've been slacking in that department, so I think it's time for an update. In not much of an order:

-Fab: the coming revolution on your desktop - from personal computers to personal fabrication, by Neil Gershenfeld
-The Atrocity Archives, by Charles Stross
-Empire of Ivory, by Naomi Novik
-The Tooth Fairy: A Novel, by Graham Joyce
-Plato's Republic
-Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
-Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami
-The War of the Worlds, by HG Wells
-Clockwork Heart, by Dru Pagliasotti
-The Good Fairies of New York, by Martin Millar
-The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
-Accelerando, by Charles Stross
-The Wasp Factory, by Iain Banks

That's barely over a book a month, and most of it has been concentrated in the first couple weeks of the summer or this last month... sad. Although I haven't been counting most of the philosophy books I've read. Still, I resolve to add a half-dozen at least to that list by year's end.

Clockwork Heart was good fun, by the way, as was Something Wicked This Way Comes. Accelerando was cool in that it's one of the only things I've seen that's cast the post-singularity world as dystopian. Good Fairies of New York did not live up to my expectations at all, don't bother with it.

I seem to have started collecting creation myths, because they tend to be awesome. Just came across what Epicurus believed:

"...he believed that when the mud became warm, first there grew wombs of some kind or another which clung to the earth by roots, and these sent forth infants and then provided a natural supply of milky fluid for them, under the guidance of nature. When these infants had been brought up in this manner and reached maturity, they then propagated the human race."

From De Die Natali, by Censorinus

Creeeepy.

( The Intentional Strategy )    

so, generally these things are kinda silly. this one is too, really, but i am all about ghost stories. disclaimer, on the offchance that someone from my family actually reads this: I was a kid when this happened and was only ever told about it once or twice, so feel free to correct any mistakes. Or not, and let me keep believing it was this awesome.

So... when I was twelve-ish, my uncle mike's family moved to my town for about a year. They were living in a little white house at the end of a street that was sort of crowded for the area, but had its own yard and everything. It was my uncle, his wife, and their two daughters living there - my cousin mateya was a junior or senior in high school, and marica is four years younger than me. (I think? they've almost always lived pretty far from me, so i don't know them too well.) 

Anyway, they all liked princeton pretty well, but they started experiencing some weird stuff in the house. I remember my uncle mentioned candles and an old person - I forget if he said a man or a woman - and they heard footsteps running up and down the stairs and hall, a couple pairs of little kid footsteps. I think that was the part that really freaked out my aunt, because she kept thinking Marica was out of bed, going out to tell her off, and then finding no one there. i seem to remember that marica actually heard little girls laughing along with the footsteps.

I didn't hear about any of this until uncle mike came over one night and told my mom all about it over a drink in the kitchen. Apparently it'd all come to a head just before he came over. He had been alone in the house, just him and the cat (Loverboy) hanging out in the kitchen. It was evening, in the middle of the summer, and pretty warm. There was a door out on to the back porch from the kitchen, and since it was so nice out uncle mike had the door open, with just the screen door closed. Loverboy was sleeping by it, and Uncle Mike was sitting at the table. You could tell from the wind and the smell of the air that there was a storm blowing up, but he figured he had a little while and would close the door in a few minutes. All of a sudden the wind got a lot stronger, and then even more suddenly died away completely. Loverboy jumped up, hissing at the door, all of his fur on end and his back arched, like in cartoons. and then he started actually backing away from the door, still hissing like mad. Uncle mike couldn't see what the problem was, and thought the cat had gone nuts, until it was about level with him. He felt a chill all through him, and he was suddenly shaking and the hair on the back of his neck was standing up. All of a sudden the wind started again, really strong, and uncle mike couldn't make himself move - and then the wind got so strong that it threw the screen door open with a bang, and both the cat and my uncle ran the hell out in the opposite direction.

Uncle Mike came over to our house, and they found Loverboy hiding out upstairs. The cat wouldn't ever go into the kitchen again, but none of the rest of them had any problems there. We looked into the history of the house a bit, and talk about hauntings... it turns out that the original owner was Svetlana Alliluyeva, who was Joseph Stalin's daughter.

Okay gwen, time to Get Shit Done. (tm)

-type up remaining epicurus notes
-go to programming lecture
-do programming tutorial questions
-go to philosophy 2A
-go to programming tutorial
-go to library and read Dennet article needed for 2A essay
-eat soup
-read Henderson article needed for 2A essay
-watch an episode of BSG and knit
-type up Dennet and Henderson notes
-sleep

EDIT: ha, even my horoscope thinks I need to get to work. Not that I put any faith in this crap, but it is amusing.

"If there's anything you've been putting off dealing with, now is the time to get going. Important people ought to be looking very favorably on you today. And if you've been having any sort of problems lately, you really ought to be able to make a few fresh starts right now."

i have discovered that I am a complete Epicurus fangirl. So much love for this guy. It's a shame there isn't more of his work available.

Edit: added notes on Fragments and the Polemic of Plutarch

( The Extant Letters )

( Fragments of Known Works )

( Polemic of Plutarch )