The Art of Rationality

From the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"  by Robert M. Pirsig, the Bantam New Age edition October 1981.

Chapter 14, page 146 has:

"Peace of mind isn't at all superficial, … It's the whole thing.  That which produces it is good maintenance; that which disturbs it is poor maintenance.  What we call workability of the machine is just an objectification of this peace of mind. The ultimate test's always your own serenity.  If you don't have this when you start and maintain it while you're working you're likely  to build your personal problems right into the machine itself."

On page 148 he continues with:

"Actually this idea isn't so strange, … Sometime look at a novice workman or a bad workman and compare his expression with that of a craftsman whose work you know is excellent and you'll see the difference.  The craftsman isn't ever following a single line of instruction.  He's making decisions as he goes along. For that reason he'll be absorbed and attentive to what he's doing even though he doesn't deliberately contrive this.  His motions and the machine are in a kind of harmony.  He isn't following any set of written instructions because the nature of the material at hand determines his thoughts and motions, which simultaneously change the nature of the material at hand.  The material and his thoughts are changing together in a progression of changes until his mind's at rest at the same time the material's right."

Quotes are from the Bantam New Age edition of October 1981.

This edition has a new introduction by the author that says:

"The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called 'yourself.' "

"The study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself.  Working on a motorcycle, working well, caring, is to become part of the process, to achieve an inner peace of mind.  The motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon."

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Commentary - See also Ayn Rand Lexicon on "Happiness."  (Keep in mind that technology is the process of giving physical form to our values.)

The Difference of Man & the Difference It Makes

Notes about consciousness as discussed by Mortimer J. Adler in his book "The Difference of Man & the Difference It Makes" 

I read this book backwards, starting with the last chapter and going back as needed to fill the gaps in my understanding of his arguments.

The bottom line is that the difference of man is conceptual consciousness.

The question is whether or not this is a difference in kind or a difference in degree.  He discusses the implications of various answers to this. Most of these ideas have been described in various science fiction stories going back to the story of the golem in Jewish folklore.

Adler distinguishes between perceptual consciousness and conceptual consciousness.  We share perceptual consciousness with animals but conceptual consciousness is what allows us to carry on the conversations that are expected of humans.  The ability to work with concepts and talk about it to others.  To ask questions and research for the answers.  To declare the truth of our thinking.

Adler expects that when the answer is discovered it will be found to be a difference in kind that cannot be duplicated by any computational machine.  Think Turing test and associated discussions.  

Notes about Darwin from Adler's book, chapter 5, "Why Darwin Answered the Question as He Did."

Viewing all life as a part of a continuous line of gradual evolution means that we can only differ in degree, not in kind from other living things.

Theoretical consistency influenced Darwin's answer, man's difference is in kind.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Notes:

He uses the words "intentional stance" in place of consciousness or soul.  The idea is credited to Daniel Dennett.  The survival value of this concept is that it speeds calculation of expected behavior of other beings.

Consistent with philosophers, e.g. M. J. Adler, Dawkins acknowledges the origin of consciousness as a (one of three) major unexplained gaps in evolution.  The other two major gaps are the start of life, and the origin of eukaryotic cells (our kind of cells with a nucleus and mitochondria).

He spends is book refuting the "personal" god that listens and intercedes by our prayers. (People that believe in an impersonal god are basically atheists.  Adler elaborates further on this idea.)

This book is easy reading if you have read others by him.  In my case I read "The Selfish Gene" about 6 years ago. 

Notes to copy files from phone to MacBook Air

These instructions at the link below are a good outline with the notes I have below;

https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/2840804

The key steps from this link are quoted below:

Your computer must be running Mac OS X 10.5 and up. Your Android device must be running Android 3.0 and up.

Move files by USB

1. Download and install Android File Transfer on your computer.
2. Open Android File Transfer. (The next time that you connect your device, it opens automatically.)
3. Unlock your Android device.
4. With a USB cable, connect your device to your computer.
5. On your device, tap the "USB for..." notification.
6. Select Transfer files.
7. An Android File Transfer window will open on your computer. Use it to drag files.
8. When you're done, unplug the USB cable.

Fred's Notes:

The moment the USB cable is connected a notification shows at the bottom of the drop down notification list on the phone's "desktop."

This notification will default report USB being used for charging. 

If you catch the notice fast enough it provides an option to select "use USB to copy files". Check this option.  If you miss the timing, unplug the USB, plug it in again and tap the notice as soon as it appears.

I tried the copy pictures option but it didn't work for me, ?, strange.

Then Open Android File Transfer application.  (If it is already open, close and reopen. Use the menu "Go|Open Folder" or Command-down arrow to find the photos on the phone. The photos may be in a top level folder path named 

"DCIM\Camera."

Open a Finder window and drag and drop the phone's Camera folder to target location on the Mac.  (/Users/fred/Downloads/Android_transfers/Amanda's_Phone)

Once the files are on the Mac they maybe either viewed or imported into Photos application.

Note the MacBook Air is very "cloud centric."  My most reliable way to store files on the Mac without them automatically transferring to the cloud is to use the Downloads folder.

I found that the MacBook Air keeps a cache of all my user files, such as perl programs, in a special cache so that they are available to me in the absence of connection to the Web.  I didn't know this, so the first time I went off line I had them all backed up to a thumb drive.  Pretty slick, but surprising.

Fred

Virtue

Three basic virtues are courage, temperance, and justice.

1. Courage is getting results.
2. Temperance is balancing our results
3. Justice is treating others according to their virtue.

Courage is dealing with the world.

Temperance is dealing with myself.

Justice is dealing with others.

We all earn our way in the world.

The baby starts with a smile, then learns to take care of it's self, then learns to get results outside the family by cultivating it's own virtue.

The three basic virtues may be restate in many ways, depending upon context and audience.

• Courage is taking action to mitigate threats and enhance opportunities, i.e. make a profit.
• Temperance is balancing our portfolios.
• Justice is negotiating with people and honoring our agreements.

    or 

• Courage is finding out and doing the right thing.
• Temperance is avoiding overindulgence in the wrong things.
• Justice is paying people what they have earned, a smile, an apple, or money.

The virtues are built on a foundation of reason, productivity, and pride in our virtue.

Earned Value Measurement!

Earned value measurement, EVM!

I just learned about this in the past year. It is a magnificent concept. If only I had known about it decades ago.

Management Administration tools such as EVM are to daily activities as algebra is to arithmetic! One equation represents endless calculations.

I never realized the conceptual power of business administration.  And my father had an MBA. He taught business administration.  I wish that I had paid more attention to his work, instead of my fascination with technology and procedural excellence.

How do I know if I am "losing it?"

Over the past year I have finally narrowed down a description of what it means to know that I am losing my faculties.  Span of focus.

First of all, my mother suffered from a slow attach of dementia that started at about age 55 and grew steadily worse until she died at age 77.  The first symptom  for many years was loss of memory, especially memory of what is happening now.

Worried about the potential of the same affliction hitting me, I decided to shift my work activities into the world of IT when I was about 45.  The theory was that if I am working among many young folks at tasks that require attention to detail and good memory, then the people around me would alert me to the fact that I was losing it a long time before I became conscious of this.  I also recalled working for managers in the past that seemed to have totally "lost it" but a good subordinate, like me, covered for them sufficiently that they could maintain their reputation. I did not want to become one of those clueless managers!

Time went by. I passed 55, 57, and at age 60 I decided that OK, I think I may not be a victim of what ever it was that got my mother at age 55.

So now what do I do?

Since I have become fairly skillful, at least in my current context, of providing IT solutions for my employers, and it is a lot of fun, then why not keep going at the same activities?

I have continued to monitor my own consciousness and I have learned to gain some insight, so I believe, into the consciousness of the folks I work with.  What makes me different from them?  My current theory is that my span of mental focus, conscious awareness is greater, hence I can maintain context and see implications that I need to lead other folks through step by step.  Eventually I came to  see that my own mental field of vision can be limited by fatigue, boredom, or sickness (alcohol) and that even though I feel great and competent, I can tell by memory that my span of focus, span of attention is less that it has been at many times in the past.  Hence I am not as smart as I think I am.

The lesson, tentatively, is that span of focus, defines the progression of dementia in my own experience. My guess is that it is the same in others.  If my mind worked at the level of some of the people I know with who have similar experience and training in writing software I would consider myself to be demented.

The sad thing is they don't know. And I fear I won't know when it hits me!
"I see Iterators, but they don't know they are Iterators!"
(ref: "6th Sense" movie for those too young to get it.)

Is this post too harsh?