Meme Engine "coffee"
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Some of my birthday gifts from the family!
Snap-Circuits: I’d looked at this kids’ electronics kit about a hundred times at various toy stores, and I would always say “we should really get this for Gavin sometime”, probably adding in about how much I would have liked to have one when I was little.
My insightful wife Joanne realized that I probably wanted to play with this myself just as much as I wanted to get it for our son. So I got it for my birthday, a complete surprise that I must say totally made my day! (And besides being fun, I’m hoping this toy will fill in some actual gaps in my knowledge - kids toys and books are actually an incredible education resource adults overlook).
Coffee and Beans - I got some flavoured beans, which I’m always glad to get, and a travel mug (it only looks like a paper cup) to use in the car. As you can see in the second photo, the travel mug was filled with jelly beans.
Well done family, well done!
![Is This Boulder Free?
I’ve been thinking about free will lately. People have been “content to agonize” over free will for such a long time because there is a lot of tension in the idea. On the one hand, the idea of free will doesn’t seem to stand up to close examination. Every good philosopher I know either rejects it outright, or changes the definition before accepting it. On the other hand, we can’t help referring to free will in real life. We mean something by it, and it’s tied up with our notion of responsibility.
So here I am still thinking about it!
I think it’s true that there’s some overlap or confusion between the notions of Free, and Unimpeded, and this is what got me thinking about the Boulder…
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Caused, but Unimpeded
Cause, or Influence is also tied up with our notion of what is free. The boulder in the picture above is certainly caused/influenced by the little man pushing it. When it eventually rolls down the slope/off the cliff, we can say that the man caused it to do that.
However, it’s also unimpeded. A brick wall in front of the boulder would be an impediment… it would not be free to roll off the cliff.
I think this situation applies to physical freedom quite often, and what we mean when we describe things as “free to do X”. In common parlance, one can’t deny the truth of “I’m free to drink coffee in the morning”. I’m not saying there’s no cause when I drink coffee. I likely have a mild caffeine addiction. I’ve watched a zillion commercials of people going “sip… ah!” Some collection of things causes me to drink coffee on a particular day.
When we say “I’m free to drink coffee”, I think what we really mean is that I’m unimpeded. Coffee isn’t illegal, or unavailable. No crazy person is watching me and keeping me out of Starbucks. I’m free to drink it.
But Wait, What Makes an “Impediment”?
The brick wall or the crazy person are obviously impediments (to the boulder, and to my drinking coffee respectively). But it gets more complicated. For instance, is my mild caffeine addiction an impediment to my freedom NOT to drink coffee?
Or how about this… the boulder may be free to roll off the cliff, but is the little man an impediment to the boulder rolling right, back down the hill? Is gravity an impediment to the boulder floating straight upward?
It seems like impediments and causes can be mixed up with one another. That makes it problematic to say that physically free things can have causes, but no impediments.
Have What You Like… As Long As It’s Coffee!
So the boulder is free to roll off the cliff, but not back down the hill, and not to float up into the air… it’s free to do exactly one thing.
Given my past conditioning and current mood, I’m free to drink some coffee. My tastes impede me from drinking tea or grapefruit juice, and my addiction impedes me from skipping the beverage all together. I’m free to choose, as long as I choose coffee.
Is this what we mean by freedom? If we can only say “free to do X” for one specific X in any given situation, this seems to violate the spirit of the word “free”. In fact, we might define freedom in general as the state of being free to do more than one thing!
I think this might be how some philosophers have been led to secrecy being important to freedom. In reality, we may have only one choice, but with so many causal factors being secret, we’re ignorant of which “one thing” it is that we’re free to do! Is this a good substitute for what we usually mean by freedom?
To be continued…](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9xhlosrgq1rugavko1_400.png)
Is This Boulder Free?
I’ve been thinking about free will lately. People have been “content to agonize” over free will for such a long time because there is a lot of tension in the idea. On the one hand, the idea of free will doesn’t seem to stand up to close examination. Every good philosopher I know either rejects it outright, or changes the definition before accepting it. On the other hand, we can’t help referring to free will in real life. We mean something by it, and it’s tied up with our notion of responsibility.
So here I am still thinking about it!
I think it’s true that there’s some overlap or confusion between the notions of Free, and Unimpeded, and this is what got me thinking about the Boulder…
Terry O'Reilly
"Happy Homemaker (exerpts)"
The Age of Persuasion from CBC Radio
This “classic” add for Folgers coffee will leave you shaking your head in disbelief, but as Terry O’Reilly explains, the pressures it applies to women are not gone today, only changed.
The clip runs 2.5 minutes, taken from “The Happy Homemaker” episode of The Age of Persuasion (AOP). The full episodes can be downloaded here. For those who haven’t heard it, the opening credits for AOP are included, because they’re hilarious.
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