The old man lived for many years in the world of toil and struggle. He was a salesman, a student, a bookseller, a writer (Hah!), then, in his latter years, a teacher.
He has had some good experiences, some not so good; some trials, few tribulations, his life made up of the typical mix of accident and effort which makes up any life.
But as he grew older and, perhaps, wiser, he understood about himself that some ‘habits’ persisted, some ways of seeing the world became engrained, some traits could be marked as describing his own passage through life.
He loved to learn; to acquire new knowledge and understanding. Over time, this became a pursuit of Truth, which led him to a degree in Philosophy, and back out again. It is one of the characteristics of his being in the cave, he thinks.
He also had an almost pathological desire to try new things, to find new experiences. In this modern age, this manifested itself as a tendency to collect hobbies, or pastimes. Name it, and he probably tried it, within the physical constraints of his being: from chess to fly-fishing, rock climbing to managing concerts. At the back of the cave is the detritus of many, many of these ‘games’; he also loved to collect the ‘kit’.
Though the challenges of stimulating the mind were strongly represented, so were the physical challenges; sports and outdoor activities. Having been a smallish child, he was often overlooked for the ‘main’ teams, but this never diminished his enthusiasm. Though he never stood out as exceptionally gifted in any one sport, others were frequently surprised by his competence, which tended to be just beyond the average, without ever marking him as ‘talented’.
By the time he came to the cave, his body showed the manifestations of his physical activities; broad shoulders, deep chest, strong legs, flexible joints, but also the marks of damage; a limp from a knee injury, a less-than-straight nose, the odd small scar; nothing extreme, but points of interest.
If there was anything which made the old man unusual, it was his capacity to accept others as they were, with as little judgement as is possible; to allow others to be themselves. He had also become quite good at awakening others to their potential, to helping them see the possibilities of their own lives. He had learned to communicate quite well, and blew hot and cold as a writer. And it was whilst he was researching for a book idea that he started to study climate science and, in particular, prediction and projection of possible futures. Eventually, the pursuit of this new knowledge came to overtake its genesis; it became an end in itself.
One strange chance in his life has allowed the old man to meet and talk with a large number of ‘famous’ people, talents and athletes, musicians, writers and actors. He is very naughty about name-dropping; it probably makes him feel more significant.
The old man wants to learn the way of being which is described by Levinas, a being which lives in a spirit of equity, justice and love. It isn’t always easy.
The blog was, originally, going to be about pursuing the meaning of existence; early entries are mainly on this subject. But more people read the entries about the climate than the ones about philosophy, so its nature has changed over time. Like the old man himself, though, it will surely change again.
Know that you are always loved.
11 comments
Comments feed for this article
March 26, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Aaron Lewis
Good!
One of your best!
March 26, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Tony
And your point is?
March 27, 2008 at 12:12 am
fergusbrown
Not all ‘evidence’ is equal.
The decision to do nothing is probably not justifiable.
And you didn’t get?
March 27, 2008 at 9:27 am
Tony
Your piece seems to say in a convoluted way that there is indisputable evidence of AGW and we should do something about it. It took about three readings to realise that I hadn’t missed something of some significance in your piece. The flaw in your argument is that the evidence is not indisputable. Lolly melt is a little too simplistic to use in your argument. That same lolly would remain a full and healthy lolly if you held it in your hand somewhere in the Antarctic.
March 27, 2008 at 12:42 pm
fergusbrown
It isn’t really very convoluted, Tony. The point is, you can dispute all sorts of bits of evidence until the cattle return from their holidays, and you can, should you choose, play around with a number of existing bits of information and thereby demonstrate that some of them are less reliable in themselves than a perfectionist might want.
But the only reason you would want to do so is if you wished to convince yourself and or others that AGW is still worth disputing. And whatever you did, would count for little in relation to the weight and complexity of evidence from a number of disciplines which in and of themselves, and collectively, point to one inescapable conclusion (albeit one which is a complex and interesting one).
The lolly is irrelevant. It’s the capacity for self-delusion which pertains.
Regards,
March 27, 2008 at 12:47 pm
fergusbrown
Google Scholar: ‘…evidence of recent warming climate…’
80,900 hits.
http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=evidence+of+recent+warming+climate&hl=en&lr=&btnG=Search
QED
March 27, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Tony
I see where you’re coming from now. In essence, if all the important people in the world including those who hold office, those who run multi-national conglomerates, famous people generally, pop stars, z-list celebs, religious zealots, tree huggers of all political persuasions God the list is endless, scientists, media tycoons and those who serve them, internet bloggers etc. etc. if all these people say something is true then it really must be???????
You are kidding me right?
This is lazy thinking.
I ask you apply your thesis to Germany in the 1930’s, or China during the culteral revolution or Russia under Stalin or Pol pot or………………………
March 27, 2008 at 6:36 pm
fergusbrown
You appear to believe that I have called upon the authority of celebrity or fashion as support for AGW. I am not sure how many of these people you refer to are cited on Google Scholar; some, no doubt. They are not the source of my convictions, though perhaps you are simply imagining in others what you yourself have been guilty of.
You also appear to imagine that, if many people find something credible, then they must therefore be credulous. But these are not the people whose credibility is in question. To imagine that an idea which is popularly understood to be true is false by virtue of its popularity is peculiar; perhaps even an example of lazy thinking.
And then there’s the Godwinism. Gracious.
It doesn’t make any difference whether my, or your own, opinion is unique or universal. What matters is whether it is right.
Do you wish to provide evidence that AGW is ‘wrong’?
Do you wish to propose the statement that the evidence in support of the conclusion that AGW has, is, and will continue to happen, is insufficient?
Do you wish, then, to suggest an explanation for the apparent changes taking place in the world, the environment and the atmosphere, which explains at least a proportion of them satisfactorily?
Please feel free to dispute, but please also try to use reason rather than sloppy rhetoric.
Regards,
March 27, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Tony
Nope. What I was merely showing you was that ideas such as AGW are just another trend in fashionable thinking which divides and subdivides itself trickling down to the from “great thinkers” to the lower orders and gains widespread acceptability to the extent that any question or idea which might find itself at odds with the accepted theory is treated with contempt. Shout something loud enough for long enough and virtually anything will be believed and taken as gospel. You may choose to see that as another example of Godwinism but that’s your choice.
You have obviously swallowed the AGW belief hook, line and sinker and I suspect anything I say will change your view on the subject not one iota. The cult of global warming is steeped so strongly that whatever reasons I might put forward will fall on stony ground. So I won’t bother to mention the recent Manhattan declaration nor the fact that temperatures worldwide have actually flatlined over the past ten years. This is true for both sea and atmosphere measurements. No hang on get it from the (many) horses mouth. Here’s a few links. These guys can do the job so much better than me.
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/
http://www.climateaudit.org/
http://www.junkscience.com/
http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/
There are more on the net than you can shake a stick at but these fellas should do nicely for now.
P.S. I do actually enjoy reading your blog.
March 27, 2008 at 11:06 pm
fergusbrown
I am glad that you enjoy the blog, but also that you are willing to engage in dialogue.
You are correct in suggesting that there exist ideas which become fashionable for a time, and then less so, and so forth. Some of these ideas originate in ‘great’ (or perhaps we might say ‘deep’
thinking/thinkers.
I suspect that you also have a valid point in suggesting that some of these fashionable ideas are, ultimately, of less substance than they at first appeared, and their demise is thus unlamented and, to some extent, inevitable.
You also have a point when you say that some people are willing to accept the truth of an assertion simply because it is repeated frequently. Isn’t this something like what Marketing people do?
Groupthink is an interesting concept, as is collective consensus. Likewise, contrariness for its own sake is a well-known phenomenon.
But you are stretching the limit of good manners somewhat by implying that I have been brainwashed/deluded/fooled into swallowing some line or other; this is simply insulting my intelligence and placing your own as superior by inference. If you wish to demonstrate a superior intellect, I am impressed by reason and sense; try that.
The ‘cult’ thing is just the familiar old subversion-by-implication nonsense and isn’t really worth comment.
What does the ‘Manhattan declaration’ say? Why does it matter: what is the source of its supposed significance?
Why do you mention the temperature over the past ten years? Are you cognisant of the context of climatological observation and analysis? And, while we’re on the subject, how do those ten years rank over the past century? Any of them in the ‘below average’ area? Any of them outside the top fifteen warmest years on record?
You are also correct that there are a lot of people who peddle the same old same old on the internet. The blogs you refer to are all busted flushes these days; nobody is really listening to these fools any more.
You are at least plausibly wrong in asserting that nothing you could say would influence my opinions or understanding. I change my mind all the time. Sometimes, reason has something to do with it. Give me a good reason to believe that those 81,000-odd papers are misguided. Give me a good reason to believe that the hard work I put in to understanding the many thousands of pages of text and data, science and so forth, was ultimately futile, as I clearly missed some critical point, in common with all those scientists whose work I read, and therefore came to the evidently false conclusion that it is reasonable to assert that AGW is happening.
P.S. I suspect you are wrong about the Milloys and McIntyre being more competent than you. There is little evidence to supoport this belief, either. Rely on your own intelligence and reasoning skills and tell me where I have gone wrong…
Regards,
March 27, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Aaron Lewis
Tony,
Global warming is like gravity; it works, whether you understand it, and believe in it, or not.
I thought a “lolly” was a very good analogy. If I give you a 60 g lolly on a warm day, Can you calculate, on the basis of physics and engineering, just how long you have to eat it , before it falls to the ground? No! The best you can do is make an estimate based on a history of lolly dropping. Nor, can you calculate rates for ice sheets sliding into the briny. Except that with ice sheets, we do not have a history of ice sheet sliding (under current conditions of climate forcing) with which to make an estimate. Thus, the ice sheets could move with a rapidity as disconcerting as the rapidity of a lolly falling into the dirt. The driving force is the same – gravity.