David Ortiz has finally broken his silence on the NY Times leak that he was on the list of 2003 players who tested positive for “banned substances” (presumeably steroids.) His defense was, basically, “I didn’t do anything wrong except to take some unknown supplements.” This, of course, has made front page of every paper in Boston because we love our Papi, and the sports shows will be analyzing it for months to come. But here are my own reactions:

1. How stupid would it be to stuff “over the counter supplements” into your body when you know that you’re going to be tested? What sort of moron would have that much hubris. Ortiz is defintely not a dumb, muscelbound jock and it’s hard to see him doing this.
2. Somehow this explanation doesn’t pass the sniff test. The steroid tests are now very good, and the rate of false positives is really low. All things considered, it’s more likely that he’s lying than that the results were in error.
3. But having said that, the testing was not done to clear or convict any individual player, but to get a statistical sample of doping across the sport. So maybe the tests weren’t handled as carefully as they usually are, especially if the analysts were under pressure to get a lot of tests done quickly.
4. MLB and the player’s union should just release the damn list, with apropriate caveats about what you can and can’t infer from it. You know it will leak out eventually, so just get it out of the way so we can get on with our lives.
5. The player’s union representative is a slimy little weasel.
6. And the Sox are desperate to forgive Ortiz, turn a blind eye, and get back to blowing the season.

And finally:

Hey Papi! Stop talking and start hitting!

I’ve been reading The Mathematical Experience, by Davis and Hersh, and I’ve become intrigued by the argument between the constructivist mathematicians and the Platonists. Briefly, the Platonists believe that Mathematics exists “out there” somewhere, and that the mathematician’s job is to discover more of it, as a miner discovers a new lode of ore. But the costructivists believe that Mathematics is a purely human thing, and that mathematicians actually create it as they go. Now, I’m no mathematician, but it seems to me that there’s a possible (if improbable) third possibility, and thereby hangs my tale…

The story takes place in the near future - maybe ten years from whenever you’re reading this. Advances in superconducting magnets and transmission lines, and new discoveries in the behavior of Bose-Einstein condensates in strong magnetic fields have taken quantum computers from the realm of impossible to insanely expensive.

A very large, very rich Internet company (one is supposed to see the evil aspect of Google) has decided to calculate the value of pi without an upper limit, and to search in all that infinity of digits for some non-random sequence: the so-called “message from God” that has become trite in science fiction. In a series of interviews, the CEO pontificates about the blessings that they will bring to science and mathematics - but of course they will retain rights to anything discoverd. There’s some discussion of pop theology, and the mechanics of how they will do the calculation and verify the results, but it’s clear that they are doing this out of arrogance - “because we can” - and as a major publicity coup.

So the experiment starts, and all goes very well. There’s some handwaving and hocus-pocus about entangled positrons and spontaneous resonance, and massively parallel algorithms, and how that uses the non-deterministic nature of quantum processes to calculate millions of digits per cycle - a cycle being about 24 hours. There’s also some explication of how they actually read out the digits once they’ve been calculated: the key phrase is “using a modulated microwave pulse to collapse the waveform and carry away the information before it is quantum erased.”

Within weeks they have shattered all previous records for calculating pi - a million digits, then a billion, and still going strong with no end in sight. As a matter of fact, the process is actually accellerating, because they have more history to analyze and they use that to fine tune the algorithms and the equipment. They are finding some interesting runs of primes and absenses, and some auto-correllated runs of digits, but nothing that couldn’t be attributed to chance. In other word, still no message from God, but they’re still quite hopeful. But this is all a diversion, because the plot has nothing to do with any message.

But about 6 months into the process, strange things start happening. The first indication is that the equipment can’t reliably collapse the waveform: they hit the condensate with the microwave pulse, but no digits emerge, or only a few, or just random noise. They can’t find anything wrong with the equipment, but a stronger microwave pulse gets them past that barrier for a while.

After 9 months, things have hit a crisis. It now takes them two weeks to extract the digits that used to take 24 hours. Even their strongest microwave pulses can’t collapse the waveform, and increasing the power would raise the temperature of the condensate above the superconducting region and erase all the information stored in it. When the hardware and software engineers, and the mathematicians on the project have all expended their best efforts to resolve the problem, the evil empire turns to the expert in transcendental number: a physicist from Hungary (name unknown, maybe Szilárd, maybe a descendant of the great physicist Leo Szilárd).

Szilárd is undoubtedly brilliant, but temperamental and hard to work with. He is a mystic in both the mathematical and religious sense. He is politely shunned in the academic community because his colleagues can no longer understand his publications, and he violently rejects all the Church teachings about infinity and nature of the Divine. (We learn that he was raised to be given to a monastic order and was disowned when he refused to join. His rebellion against the Church is so strong that we suspect he desperately wants to believe.)

Szilárd directs the physicists into new experiments, and they discover that the waveform will not collapse for a very simple reason: there is no information there - no digits of pi to read out. After some more mumbo-jumbo and handwaving, we learn that the value of pi is not fixed to infinite precision in the structure of the universe. Instead, the value evolves as more and more precise measurements of reality demand finer and finer resolution of pi - essentially, the universe is making it up as it goes. Since this new experiment is intended only to measure pi to infinite precision, the universe has run out of digits of pi, and can’t produce them fast enough to keep up with the quantum computer. So the computer can only produce data as fast as the universe can supply it, and that rate is gradually slowing down.

When Szilárd learns this, he goes through some sort of religious epiphany and is able to lay aside some of his resentment of God and the Church and emerges a happier, better integrated man. Contrast this with the CEO of the evil empire, who siezes on this as a publicity coup even larger than he had planned: “Our computer is even faster than God’s!” Of course, nothing good can come from this hubris, and his downfall is even now cooking in the supercooled magnetic particle traps. The CEO directs that even more condensate cells be added to the computer, because he wants to slow the universe’s production of pi down to almost zero. This seems to be succeeding - it now requires a month or more to calculate a cycle of digits, and the rate is slowing toward zero. Szilárd makes a token protestation, but secretly desires the justice that he sees coming.

Now, even stranger things start to happen. Letters and packages to the computing center are sometimes returned, “No such address.” Email messages often bounce as though the recipient didn’t exist. Old tapes of data, interview, and records turn up mysteriously blank. And finally, as the rate of production approaches zero, the computing center starts to flicker in and out of existence. This doesn’t mean in blinks like a bad special effect, or that there is a grey mist, or anyhing like that - it means that for a few milliseconds the computer has never existed. Szilard explains to the CEO that, since pi is a component of reality, they are effectively erasing reality in the region of the experimental cells. (There needs to be some handwaving about alternate universes, conservation of reality, or something.)

And finally, some physical threshold is crossed and the computer center and everything in it ceases to exist - meaning that all event leading up to its creation are erased out of the quantum history of the universe, back to the point when the computer was activated. Of course, this leaves the evil empire and its CEO in a bad situation - having to explain to the stockholders why they spent billions of dollars on a failed publicity stunt and a building full of useless gear. But somewhere in Hungary a little physicist goes to confession for the first time in decades and emerges smiling.

Fade to black.

The programmers I know who have been in this business for any length of time have a strong trait of craftsmanship: they genuinely care that they produce software of high quality, lasting worth, and beauty. I think that this is a necessary quality for this business, because there’s not enough job satisfaction to sustain you unless you can take pride and pleasure in the artifacts you make. Certainly I’ve got a strong compulsion to produce beautiful code, even if I have to spend my own time bringing it up to my own standards. I argue that this isn’t an optional quality - programmers who lack this drive and get by with software that merely meets specification soon get a reputation for carelessness and are driven out of competition by those who are compelled to put in the extra effort required to build truly great software.

But the craftsmen of the trade are in a dilemma. On the one hand, employers value them when there is new software to be built, because they know that the software will be of the best quality. But on the other hand, there isn’t much place for the craftsman’s aesthetic once the software is written, debugged, and released. When the shouting is over, the software goes into “maintenance and enhancement,” and success is judged by different criteria: keeping the software stable and adding new features in the most efficient way. Usually, these new constraints introduce a new set of compromises that frustrate the craftsman who - still - wants to produce a thing of beauty and a joy forever. So, it’s not unusual for the craftsmen to silently slip away from the project shortly after it has shipped and after it is turned over to the “sustaining engineering” crew.

Is there a solution to this dilemma? Is there a way of keeping the craftsmen engaged through the life of the product? I’ve been searching for a solution for most of my career, because I hate having to leave behind something that I’ve spent so much time and energy on. But I’m not sure that there is a feasible solution, because the goals of the employer are so much at odds with the craftsman’s goals. The employer wants, above all, to make money on the product - and this requires stability in the code base and rapid reaction to customer demands; and the craftsman wants - still - to practise his craft unrestrained. As I say, competing value sets lead to no solution.

Still, the craftsman can’t (or shouldn’t) complain - the joy of creation is (or should be) reward enough, and having to move on to the next green field is the price we pay for getting to create beautiful things.

About a month ago, I started attending a Bible study group that meets on Wednesday afternoons in an unused conference room in Lincoln Laboratory. I’m not sure what I was expecting exactly, but I was certainly looking forward to some discussion of that insightful, confounding, and complex book that is the Christian Bible.

I mean no disrespect to other participants in the group when I say that it doesn’t live up to my hopes in even the smallest degree. They’re all smart, energetic people who clearly care deeply about the Bible as he revealed word of God. I’m the last person in the world to throw rocks at them or their beliefs.

But my approach to the Bible is conditioned by my Physicist’s brain: any and every part is open to inspection, examimation, comparison, and interpretation. I don’t expect that I’ll always agree with others, but I do expect to be able to talk with them on a deep level about what we’re reading. Unfortunately, the rest of the folks in the group don’t seem to share my approach: they seem to take the passage on face value and to ask fairly simple questions about its meaning. Here’s an example from my last week: Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, verse 12 [abbreviated]:

^“1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ²Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

⁴In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
⁶because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”

⁷Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? ⁸If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. ⁹Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! ¹⁰Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. ¹¹No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it…”

I arrived at the meeting burning with some important questions. Chief among them was: “From time to time, I had to ‘discipline’ my son when he was growing up, but the discipline was always related to and proportional to the transgression. What, then, can we say to the cancer patient dying by inches: ‘Be glad, because God sent this agony and death to discipline you.’? How can we answer her question, ‘What have I ever done to deserve this, and how is death a discipline?’”

Unfortunately, the questions to be considered were published along with the verse to study, and were on the level of, “Who were the ‘witnesses’ Paul talks about in verse 1?” When I tried (respectfully) to introduce my own question which (I think) challenges Paul on a deeper level, it wasn’t received very kindly. As I remember, the answer was approximately, “Not all suffering is discipline - some is punishment, some is testing, and some we’re not meant to understand - now let’s move on.”

The most charitable interpretation I can make of this event is that the discussion leader had just thirty minutes to get through his list of questions, and we could have spent several hours on mine. If so, that’s fine - but I would rather have been put off honestly.

But if people didn’t want to discuss my topic because it didn’t fit their own conceptions, then I just don’t get this attitude - it seems to me that challenging questions are the most valuable of all, because taking them seriously and answering them deepens faith in ways that coping with shallow questions never can.

And I remain convinced that every verse of the Bible, or the Holy Q’ran, or the Baghavad Gita, or the sayings of the Buddha, or the revelations of the angel Moroni, or the words of L. Ron Hubbard (especially the last) should be open to challenge, comparison, and debate. If our holy texts can’t stand up to honest challenge, how can we put our faith in them?

Some of you know about the Internet Oracle, and the rest of you should go read about the Oracle before proceeding.

I recently had one of my supplications to the Oracle, and its answer, selected for the “Best of” series. Here it is:

— 1434-04 109dd 4.0 —————————————————-
Selected-By: Tim Chew <twchew@mindspring.com>

The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

Oh brilliant and quirky Oracle, smarter than the Professor, more
commanding than the Skipper, and richer than the Howells, please settle
once and for all the second most important question of all:

Ginger or MaryAnn?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Or?

Given the high levelof competition, I’m feeling particularly smug. I don’t know who provided the answer to this supplication, but you’re a fuckin’ genius. Instant immortality with a three character answer. Of course, I did set you up with the world’s best straight line.

Those of you who don’t understand the question - go on home, your mother’s calling.

Reader, I’m about to step way outside my area of expertise and delve into Western and Buddhist concepts of “nothingness,” so please forgive me any naivete - or better still, straighten me out. But it’s my blog and I’ll make a fool of myself if I want to.

I’ve been working my way through The Universe in a Single Atom, by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. This is a wholly remarkable book, but not at all like his other books of self-revelation. You’ll need a background in basic physics and biology and the history of science to make any progress, but it’s well worth it. His Holiness has a first-class mind, and a truly wonderful interpreter.

But I’ve been struggling with Chapter 3, “Emptiness, Relativity, and Quantum Physics.” Oddly enough, I’m having little trouble with the concepts of relativity and quantum physics, but I find it very, very difficult to think about “emptiness” in the Buddhist tradition. Here’s the paragraph that I’m wrestling with:

One of the most important philosophical insights in Buddhism comes from what is known as the theory of emptiness. At its heart is a deep recognition that there is a fundamental disparity betwen the way we perceive the world, including our own existence in it, and the way things actually are. In our day-to-day experience we tend to relate to the world and to ourselves as if these entities possess self-enclosed, definable, discrete, and enduring reality….

According to the theory of emptiness, any belief in an objective reality grounded in the assumption of intrinsic, independent existence is untenable. All things and events, whether material, mental, or even abstract concepts like time, are devoid of objective, independent existence. To possess such independent, intrinsic existence would imply that things and events are somehow complete unto themselves and are therefore entirely self-contained…

Effectively, the notion of intrinsic, independent existence is incompatible with causation. This is because causation implies contingency and dependence, while anything that posesses independent existence would be immutable and self-enclosed. Everything is composed of dependently related events, of continuously interacting phenomena with no fixed, immutable essence, which are themselves in constantly changing dynamic relations. Things and events are “empty” in that they do not possess any immutable essence, intrinsic reality, or absoute “being” that affords independence this fundamental truth of “the way things really are” is described in the Buddhist writings as “emptiness” or shunyata in Sanskrit.

Okay, let me see if I can boil this down. I read it as, “Everything is contingent on other things for its existence. If an atom had no other atoms to bounce off of, or fields to react to, we would have no way of knowing that the atom existed. And if we have no way of telling whether the atom exists, then we aren’t justified in claiming its existence.” This is all very familiar to physicists - in order to “see” something, we have to bounce a photon or an electron or something off of it, and in the absense of observation, the thing is in an indeterminate state of being and non-being.

But now I’m straying into the realm of quantum interactions, and that’s notoriously tricky ground for philosophical arguments. Instead, let’s compare this with another of my favorite traditions: taken from the book of Ecclesiastes:

1	The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2	Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
3	What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?
4	One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
5	The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
6	The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
7	All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
8	All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
9	The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
10	Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
11	There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

A difficult passage in a difficult book - but things become a little clearer when we realize that one the the Hebrew heh’bel, usually translated “vanity,” can also be translated “emptiness,” or even “uselessness.” One of the themes of this passage is the transience of physical things - they are continually created, transformed, and destroyed - and their contingent existence. The rivers do not exist independently of the sea, and no generation exists independent of the next. And ultimately, everything passes on and is absorbed into something else - nothing is permanent and there is no fixed point in the universe.

And both of these quotations raise the question,

How can a man persist in his life and labor, knowing that everything is illusory, and even his best efforts are futile in the face of eternal change and disolution?

I don’t have an answer, but it’s a damned good question…

In times of tribulation, I often find myself turning to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, (121-180 CE). Marcus (or Antoninus, as he often called himself) was a bright spot in an otherwise dismal string of emperors who abused the Roman state after the murder of Augustus. He was intelligent, mostly honest, and genuinely concerned with the welfare of the Roman state and people. Unfortunately, he also permitted some of the most vicious of the pogroms of the early Christians, but he seems to have done this in the spirit of subduing a political movement masquerading as a religion - a little like today’s situation with Falon Gong in China.

But he was also raised in the Roman Stoic tradition, and practiced that throughout his life. Roman society had set its stamp on Stoicism, and it was quite different from the philosophy of its Greek origins. The earlier Greek version had sought answers to universal questions like the nature of the universe, and Man’s position in it; but the Roman version focused almost completely on the thought that the Universe (Marcus uses the term logos) has its own origin and purpose, and men are simply swept along in its wake. So, according to the Roman Stoics, there is nothing to be gained by railing against ill fortune or rejoicing in good luck, because everything that happens to you is just part of the logos. Gregory Hays, in the introduction to his translation, says, “Marcus does not offer us a way of achieving happiness, but only a means of resisting pain.” This probably worked well for a sensitive, intelligent emperor who lived through trying times in the midst of a corrupt court.

So much for background. I really wanted to write about one of my favorite passages. In my copy, the page is dogeared and the book falls open to it without much prompting:

“You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver for the engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money, or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.”

If you’ve ever been completely involved in what you’re doing - so deeply immersed that the rest of the world vanishes and there is only you and the work - they you’ll know what Marcus is talking about. My own reading of this passage is that there is something that I’m supposed to be doing, some profession or activity that fits me as well as I fit it, and that I could, if I wanted, find it and immerse myself.

Marcus speaks of “loving yourself enough.” This is a remarkable remark for a man as duty-bound as Marcus - almost every passage of the Meditations consists of admonishing himself to self control, abstinence, and adherence to his duty, even when he would rather not. Most of the time, I try to live with the self control that Marcus teaches, but now I wonder if I overdo it. If Marcus can reprove himself for self abnegation, maybe there’s room in life to love oneself, and start searching for “your nature, and what it demands of you.”

I wonder where to start…

For all of my readers who don’t hail from New England, I should explain that we have a local holiday treasured only second to Christmas and the Red Sox opening day. It’s called “Patriots’ Day”, and is traditionally celebrated on April 19th, the anniversary of the Battle at Old North Bridge, the first recorded engagement of the Revolutionary War.

We provincial Massachusans celebrate it as the glorious triumph of the small but scrappy Minutemen against the Hessian mercenaries of King George, but bear with my while I indulge in some revisionist history. The Battle at Old North Bridge was anything but glorious, and not even a victory. It was a sorry, squalid affair that could have been averted at several points. Let me tell it from the British point of view.

British intelligence confirmed that the colonists had been importing and stockpiling powder, shot, and arms; and the commander in Boston decided to mount a campaign of surprise inspections to find and destroy these arms caches. So around 750 British troops (neither Hessian nor mercenary) set off on the 18-mile road march from Boston to Concord.

As they approached the town of Lexington, they were tired, hungry, hot, and footsore. On the farther outskirts of Lexington some local militia with muskets lined the road and started shouting abuse at the redcoats (”lobsters” as the were known locally). Major John Pitcairn followed standard British army discipline, and formed his men into a firing line, further aggravating the locals. Someone’s gun went off, there was a general exchange of fire, and men of both sides lay on the ground.

At this point, either Pitcairn lost control of his men or ordered them to sack Lexington in reprisal. (In the 18th century, the rather casual Rules of War sanctioned the plunder of a town if it resisted occupation). In any case, the British went on a short-lived rampage in Lexington center, burning one building and plundering several homes. By the time Pitcairn could get them under control, word of the “Lexington Massacre” had been exaggerated, and spread far and wide.

The British continued, and had to pass the Concord River via the North Bridge on the way to Concord center. Following army procedure, Pitcairn left a rear-guard to protect the bridge to ensure his retreat route. It was this small squad that confronted 400 angry Minutemen at less than a football field’s distance. The British retreated over the bridge and removed several planks to stop the Minutmen’s advance.

Meanwhile, the main British force had reached Concord center and discovered and burned several gun carriages. (In fact, arms and power had been stored in Concord, but were moved earlier in the day). The Minutemen saw the smoke and assumed that the British were burning the town as a reprisal - a reprise of the Lexington Massacre - and began to advance on the British. When the forces were within pistol shot (around 100 feet) someone’s gun went off, and that started a skirmish of several volley that left all the British officers, most of the British troops, and several Minutmen dead or wounded. At this point, the Minutemen declined to follow up their advantage and retreated up Punkatasset Hill to Barret’s Farm.

Now the nightmare began in earnest for the British troops. The main body returned to the squad at the North Bridge, gathered the wounded, and began the return march to Boston. But the Minutemen had dispersed to line the stone walls and trees on either side of the road and began picking off the redcoats, starting with the officers. Some of the redcoats broke and ran, but the rest maintained army discipline, threw out flankers, and continued the long march back to Boston.

So, from the British point of view,

• they were on a legitimate counter-insurgency mission,
• they encountered armed, hostile terrorists, and were fired upon,
• at every point, they followed British army procedure, and remained a disciplined, professional force.
• the brief sack of Lexington was (by the 18th century Rules of War) justified,
• at North Bridge, a vastly superior force of terrorists slaughtered a squad of their comrades,
• the terrorists violated the Rules of War (of the 18th century) by aiming at the officers and refusing open combat.
• the British retreated under fire in good military order, and succeeded in reaching their base.

See, it’s not so straightforward when you reframe the day’s events from the British point of view. If it’s still not clear enough, try replacing “British troops” with “GI’s” and “Minutemen” with “Viet Cong” and see how you feel about the recital.

Patriot’s Day is something to learn from, but not to celebrate.

I’m just starting to read Book 10 of The Laws by Plato, in which he defends (1) the existence of the gods, (2) their beneficence toward Man, and (3) the correctness of the Athenian laws mandating belief in (1) and (2). Before I get to my argument with Plato, I have to report one great quote. The Athenian Stranger (Socrates?) is talking to a youthful atheist:

“Neither you alone nor your friends are the first to have held this opinion about the gods, rather that people who have this disease - many or few - are always appearing. And I, who have come across many of them, can tell you this: no one embraced from youth this opinion about the gods - that they don’t exist - and continued into old age, steadfast in this way of thinking.”

But that’s not what I wanted to write about today - I wanted to write about the essential unfairness of the Socratic method of debate. In theory, the Socratic method arrives at the truth through a question and answer dialog that leads one of the parties to see the error of his views and to embrace the obviously correct views of the questioner. That’s the theory, at any rate.

In fact, the Socratic method is a sort of academic bullying, when a stronger debater dominates a weaker, and bludgeons him into submission through tricks and hidden assumptions. As I read The Laws, I keep wanting to say, “Wait a minute, the Athenian Stranger hasn’t proved anything - he’s just diverted everyone’s attention into the argument he wants them to take, the only one that leads to his conclusion. If I had been there I’d have been all over him, bringing back to earlier assumptions and generally fighting back.”

At one point, the Athenian Stranger says, in essence, “The argument I’m about to make is pretty complicated, and I’m not sure that you two are up to it, so why don’t I take both parts - questioner and answerer for a while.” Under that dubious scheme, he proves that Soul precedes either Nature or the Arts, because the nature of Soul is that it can move other things, and the nature of the other two is that they are moved. Well, this is just the primum mobile argument of Thomas Aquinas tarted up a little, and it’s not hard to refute: the existence and the nature of the Soul are just assumptions on the Stranger’s part, and are open to challenge. If you deny those assumptions, then the whole argument falls apart completely - and Plato does but assert the primacy of the Soul as if everyone believed it.

So I’m becoming disenchanted with the Socratic method of debate as a way of finding the Truth. Does it make an effective teaching technique? Possibly, if your goal as a teacher is to lead your students to a way of thinking without overtly lecturing them into it. But if you’re trying collectively to discover the truth, then it’s not the right way to go about it.

When I was a youngster, the boys in the neighborhood used to play “GIs and Japs,” and we killed imaginary Japanese soldiers by the thousands. As it happened, my father had fought against the Imperial Japanese Army in the Phillipines, and had served in the occupation of Japan; and had formed a great respect for the Japanese as warriors and as a people. He let me know gently but firmly that I had stepped over a line, and that this game was now outlawed.

So we changed the game to “GI’s and Nazis,” until another father, who had fought in the Ardennes Forest and seen the ruins of Berlin, put a stop to the game for similar reasons.

Then we changed it to “Cops and Robbers,” which was never banned, but wasn’t much fun, because the “robbers” weren’t real enough. So these sorts of war games died out, and we move on to other imaginary games, and I’m pleased that we did.

Today, I am embarassed about all of this, and can only plead that I was young and didn’t know any better, though I should have. (I’m pleased to say that we never played “Cowboys and Indians,” or I would still be expiating my guilt.) But it finally dawned on me that there is no such thing as “the bad guys:” people whom we could kill without feeling guilt - an important lesson for a kid.

And now, as an adult, I watch the film and television industries scrambling to keep alive the same sorts of propaganda. It was okay to portray the sinister Russians during the Cold War, but that fell apart when we found out how the Russian people were suffering during the last throes of the Soviet Union. Then, Hollywood turned to fanatic Arabs for their stock bad guys, and we’re encouraged to cheer as Jack Bauer tortures and kills them to foil their twisted (and improbable) plots. But as we learn more about the people of North Africa and the MidEast, it is pretty hard to cast them in the role of villains - they’re having a hard enough time surviving to be a real menace. It should finally be clear that:

There is no such thing as “the bad guys.”

Every time that we try to imagine a villain that we can hate without guilt, we learn more about them as a people, and find that they are more like us than not. What they want most is to feed and clothe their families, to see their kids grow up well, and to make an honest living. When you think about our similarities, it’s ridiculous to think of them as “the axis of evil.”

So, reader, learn the lesson that I did from my father - fight back against the propaganda that turns our brothers and sisters into the enemy, and develop the reflex of asking, “Who is this person that we’re supposed to fight, and how are we alike?”

Who knows - we might have to go back to “Cops and Robbers.”