Hey!
How's it going?
So, just as I start thinking that maybe a 100,000 word thesis is something that I might just be able to produce, the delightful people put in charge of us postgrads have decided to plant seeds of panic in our minds pertaining to life post PhD. They then took the time to water these seeds and heap on a ton of fertiliser.
Apparently the attainment of a job in academia requires actual superpowers and we should all give up hope now. Well thats just wonderful! But its ok, I'll be a doctor, everyone wants to employ doctors, right?
No. No they don't. Whilst my academic experience will almost definitely not be sufficient to get me a job doing what I love in academia, it will certainly be enough to earn the scorn of non-academic professionals everywhere! I am spending 3 years of my life (probably more) making myself unemployable!!
Why am I doing this? Why does anyone do this?! And why, PLEASE GOD TELL ME WHY does the university think that we all want to be sent off to a dilapidated hotel, 10 minutes walk away from the university, for a half day of lectures and group exercises (GROUP EXERCISES!!!!!!!!) all clearly aimed at conveying to us that we have made a huge mistake!
It is a tough task avoiding irony when giving an hour long talk on using time effectively, and I can say with confidence that our speaker was not at all successful in this endeavor.
Yours resentfully
L
XXX
Sunday, 8 December 2013
Saturday, 2 November 2013
Beginning again!
Long time no see!
Life has been somewhat hectic since we last chatted. I have submitted my masters dissertation (whose results should be out later this month!!) and I have started my life as a philosophy PhD student in Aberdeen!
Its only been a couple of weeks and this PhD business is already making me crazy. I thought I yearned for the company of fellow philosophers until such company became inescapable and now I look back wistfully at the days when I would be the only one in a room to know what 'ontological' means. Now I cringe as I have to seek clarification of the meaning of terms like 'Linguistic Ersatzism'. Its not that I ever felt like the biggest finish in any of the ponds I have previously inhabited, it's just that when you're studying for an MSc in Science,Media and Public Policy, its easy to feel like you might be the fish with the most philosophical training.
PhD life can be tough, and sometimes lonely. I think I have more contact with other academics than a lot of research students in the arts, but even so. There's nobody here to care about the struggle it is to read up on the epistemology of testimony before my next supervision meeting and still manage to find a shop within walking distance that sells parsnips. And so old friend, I have decided that you shall be my outlet for expressing woe at these day to day crises. I shall endeavor to speak with you quite frequently and in so doing I hope to add some stability to the delicate mental balancing act which I am currently performing.
Talk soon.
L
xxx
Life has been somewhat hectic since we last chatted. I have submitted my masters dissertation (whose results should be out later this month!!) and I have started my life as a philosophy PhD student in Aberdeen!
Its only been a couple of weeks and this PhD business is already making me crazy. I thought I yearned for the company of fellow philosophers until such company became inescapable and now I look back wistfully at the days when I would be the only one in a room to know what 'ontological' means. Now I cringe as I have to seek clarification of the meaning of terms like 'Linguistic Ersatzism'. Its not that I ever felt like the biggest finish in any of the ponds I have previously inhabited, it's just that when you're studying for an MSc in Science,Media and Public Policy, its easy to feel like you might be the fish with the most philosophical training.
PhD life can be tough, and sometimes lonely. I think I have more contact with other academics than a lot of research students in the arts, but even so. There's nobody here to care about the struggle it is to read up on the epistemology of testimony before my next supervision meeting and still manage to find a shop within walking distance that sells parsnips. And so old friend, I have decided that you shall be my outlet for expressing woe at these day to day crises. I shall endeavor to speak with you quite frequently and in so doing I hope to add some stability to the delicate mental balancing act which I am currently performing.
Talk soon.
L
xxx
Sunday, 23 June 2013
It's Dissertation Time!!
Hello there!
Welcome to dissertation time! Its actually technically been dissertation time for quite a while but somehow dissertation time thus far has been concurrent with lots of other times with far more fun titles and so the dissertation took something of a back seat.... Alright maybe that's a little too optimistic a metaphor, perhaps it would be better to say that I threw it in a sack and stuffed it into the car boot and then turned the radio up really loud so I couldn't hear it struggling and thrashing around back there. Next week though I am gonna let it out and do something productive to it! Well I hope to anyway, I'm not gonna place any bets on how well that's gonna go.
Next week also happens to be my last week living in the midlands! I would be mournful and nostalgic but anybody who has visited Coventry would recognize such feelings as being misplaced. I'm pretty well practiced at packing up my life at this point but this time around I'm going to have to work extra hard on efficiency so as to be able to take everything up to Scotland in October. I don't think that there is anybody who loves me enough to drive me and all of my belongings from London to Aberdeen so I'll be having all sorts of fun solving logistical puzzles come the Autumn.
So it seems that I have some pretty big things on my to-do list, let the procrastination begin...
Love
L
xxx
Welcome to dissertation time! Its actually technically been dissertation time for quite a while but somehow dissertation time thus far has been concurrent with lots of other times with far more fun titles and so the dissertation took something of a back seat.... Alright maybe that's a little too optimistic a metaphor, perhaps it would be better to say that I threw it in a sack and stuffed it into the car boot and then turned the radio up really loud so I couldn't hear it struggling and thrashing around back there. Next week though I am gonna let it out and do something productive to it! Well I hope to anyway, I'm not gonna place any bets on how well that's gonna go.
Next week also happens to be my last week living in the midlands! I would be mournful and nostalgic but anybody who has visited Coventry would recognize such feelings as being misplaced. I'm pretty well practiced at packing up my life at this point but this time around I'm going to have to work extra hard on efficiency so as to be able to take everything up to Scotland in October. I don't think that there is anybody who loves me enough to drive me and all of my belongings from London to Aberdeen so I'll be having all sorts of fun solving logistical puzzles come the Autumn.
So it seems that I have some pretty big things on my to-do list, let the procrastination begin...
Love
L
xxx
Monday, 20 May 2013
Abortion! My frustration with current debate.
Hello
I apologize if I appear to be indulging in controversy for controversy's sake, the reason that i felt the need to post on this topic is so as to create an outlet for the intense frustration I have been feeling when viewing material which attempts to engage with the abortion debate. I do not approach this topic as a lover of fetuses or as a lover of reproductive freedom but as a lover of precise and well conducted argument. Precise and well conducted argument is not something which I was faced with when i cast my eye over this topic and its media presence and, given the huge importance of decisions pertaining to abortion, I felt justified in feeling incredibly angered by this.
The very names 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' signify immediately the way in which these two opposing groups talk past each other and in doing so fail to properly engage with indisputably important issues. I cannot help but picture a diner at a restaurant who, on complaining about a large fly in his soup, is met with a lengthy lecture on the impeccable quality of the accompanying bread and butter. These are not two sides of one argument, but instead two sides of two different arguments, neither of which readily offer any solution to the other.
If resolution to this conflict is ever to be achieved then the first step must be to agree upon the morally relevant questions! Now, I am a self confessed moral skeptic. I don't believe in right and wrong in any normatively powerful sense, but I acknowledge that most others do not share my views. I wont go on here about the flimsy nature of ethics as a whole but will instead try to stick within the confines of a world where 'right' and 'wrong' are meaningful concepts. This could prove tricky but I'm gonna give it a go so bear with me.
Here are the most fundamental morally relevant questions of this debate as I see it
1. What is an embryo?
A lot of pro-life literature talks about the taking of innocent human life and the slaughter of babies whilst pro-choice arguments tend to employ terms like zygote. The employment of the term 'zygote' is demonstrably accurate and is also entirely neutral on the issue of the moral status of the object in question, although the clinical sounding nature of this word can lead to its being employed a a subtle implication that the object is non-living. 'Baby', on the other hand is an incredibly emotionally loaded term which contains within it the assumption that the object is living. The use of such terms in this context is often highly emotive and potentially distressing.
To my knowledge there are at this point in time NO UNIVERSALLY AGREED UPON NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS FOR HUMAN LIFE and no conclusion about the living status of an embryo can be reasonably made until such conditions have been established. The question of when life begins has yet to be satisfactorily answered by anybody on either side of the debate.
I apologize if I appear to be indulging in controversy for controversy's sake, the reason that i felt the need to post on this topic is so as to create an outlet for the intense frustration I have been feeling when viewing material which attempts to engage with the abortion debate. I do not approach this topic as a lover of fetuses or as a lover of reproductive freedom but as a lover of precise and well conducted argument. Precise and well conducted argument is not something which I was faced with when i cast my eye over this topic and its media presence and, given the huge importance of decisions pertaining to abortion, I felt justified in feeling incredibly angered by this.
The very names 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' signify immediately the way in which these two opposing groups talk past each other and in doing so fail to properly engage with indisputably important issues. I cannot help but picture a diner at a restaurant who, on complaining about a large fly in his soup, is met with a lengthy lecture on the impeccable quality of the accompanying bread and butter. These are not two sides of one argument, but instead two sides of two different arguments, neither of which readily offer any solution to the other.
If resolution to this conflict is ever to be achieved then the first step must be to agree upon the morally relevant questions! Now, I am a self confessed moral skeptic. I don't believe in right and wrong in any normatively powerful sense, but I acknowledge that most others do not share my views. I wont go on here about the flimsy nature of ethics as a whole but will instead try to stick within the confines of a world where 'right' and 'wrong' are meaningful concepts. This could prove tricky but I'm gonna give it a go so bear with me.
Here are the most fundamental morally relevant questions of this debate as I see it
1. What is an embryo?
A lot of pro-life literature talks about the taking of innocent human life and the slaughter of babies whilst pro-choice arguments tend to employ terms like zygote. The employment of the term 'zygote' is demonstrably accurate and is also entirely neutral on the issue of the moral status of the object in question, although the clinical sounding nature of this word can lead to its being employed a a subtle implication that the object is non-living. 'Baby', on the other hand is an incredibly emotionally loaded term which contains within it the assumption that the object is living. The use of such terms in this context is often highly emotive and potentially distressing.
To my knowledge there are at this point in time NO UNIVERSALLY AGREED UPON NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS FOR HUMAN LIFE and no conclusion about the living status of an embryo can be reasonably made until such conditions have been established. The question of when life begins has yet to be satisfactorily answered by anybody on either side of the debate.
- Forcing an individual to make enormous personal sacrifices for a dead piece of tissue seems like something that could be considered wrong. Even if this tissue had the potential to gain the status of a living human, it would still initially only have the status of a zygote and these are frequently and naturally destroyed without any mourning occurring.
- Killing a living human in the name of reproductive freedom, feminism or potential personal benefit seems like another action which has the potential to be considered morally reprehensible.
These are the two potential outcomes of incorrect beliefs about the status of embryos which I identify as having the potential to be considered morally dubious. As we currently have no informed method of forming beliefs about the status of embryos, and we need laws to govern abortion now, I believe the question that needs to be asked is that of which of these is the lesser evil.
2. Is forcing an individual to make enormous personal sacrifices for a dead piece of tissue always wrong?
Frankly I cannot imagine a circumstance in which this deprivation of personal freedom would not be considered wrong. To add an emotive element here I could relate stories of the terrible lives lead by many unprepared mothers and their children but I cannot see why this should be necessary. If there are factors I have failed to consider in my abrupt answer to this question I would of course be willing to consider them.
3. Is the destruction of human life always wrong?
This, I believe, is the crux of the matter and this is the point that the abortion debate needs to reach if it is to become constructive. the pro-life position on this question is quite clear, though the question of its validity remains important and an answer has by no means been settled upon. Any attempt to assert that an embryo definitely is a living human can most likely be dismissed unless an extremely good set of evidence is presented, but i'm sure that potential killing is something that these activists can become equally aggravated about. If the pro-choice group wish to engage with their opponents they need to acknowledge that they do not know whether or not abortion destroys human life and need to decide whether or not they are comfortable with the prospect of this occurring. If they are, they need to tackle head on the issue of why the destruction of human life in instances of abortion is acceptable.
I personally believe that exceedingly strong arguments exist to support the position that the destruction of human life is not intrinsically wrong and not wrong in all circumstances. These are not arguments which I will state here, now but they are arguments which I would beg the pro-choice movement to engage with. I might also suggest a name change.
The answers of others to the questions I have proposed may well be different from my own, but it is of greater concern to me that a well reasoned debate can be had than that one or other side should triumph. There is so much potential for constructive discussion once everyone reaches a point where they are asking and answering the same questions.
I'm sorry to go on so, but I really do care about reason.
L
xxx
Friday, 17 May 2013
Busy making plans.
Hey!
I have been in my pajamas all day :) you would think that that would mean that i had done nothing productive but, astonishingly, this is not the case! I have planned out huge swathes of my summer all from the cozy comfort of my bed.
I'm in one of those optimistic, list-making moods today and the world had better watch out! (at some point in the future...)
My happiness is assured so long as i can find enough things to write on my list that the writing of them occupies all of my time and leaves no time for me to complete those pesky tasks which require me to leave my bedroom.
Wouldn't it be fantastic if there were such a thing as an exertion loan which one could take out... I could reap the benefits of my future exertion now and concentrate all of the tediousness and effort necessitated into one day. I could have some food in my cupboard now but go out to buy it on a warm sunny day when I am appropriately attired for a trip to Sainsburys, I could begin reading all the useful library books now which I intend to go and collect when I have the patience to wait for the bus to campus. But alas, I can see no way that such a bargain could be struck and so my productivity is capped by the stubborn and rigid structure of causality.
May the tasks on your list always be imminently tick-able!
L
xxx
I have been in my pajamas all day :) you would think that that would mean that i had done nothing productive but, astonishingly, this is not the case! I have planned out huge swathes of my summer all from the cozy comfort of my bed.
I'm in one of those optimistic, list-making moods today and the world had better watch out! (at some point in the future...)
My happiness is assured so long as i can find enough things to write on my list that the writing of them occupies all of my time and leaves no time for me to complete those pesky tasks which require me to leave my bedroom.
Wouldn't it be fantastic if there were such a thing as an exertion loan which one could take out... I could reap the benefits of my future exertion now and concentrate all of the tediousness and effort necessitated into one day. I could have some food in my cupboard now but go out to buy it on a warm sunny day when I am appropriately attired for a trip to Sainsburys, I could begin reading all the useful library books now which I intend to go and collect when I have the patience to wait for the bus to campus. But alas, I can see no way that such a bargain could be struck and so my productivity is capped by the stubborn and rigid structure of causality.
May the tasks on your list always be imminently tick-able!
L
xxx
Saturday, 27 April 2013
PhD Success!!
Dear University of Aberdeen
THANK YOU SO MUCH! for my funded place doing a PhD in interdisciplinary studies in epistemology!
I AM SO EXCITED!!! somewhat nervous about moving all the way up to Scotland but it looks like a lovely part of the world so I can spend lots of time exploring!
Look at me with a life plan and a brand new set of Cath Kidston document wallets, somebody could almost mistake me for a grownup!
Now be gone headache! there is no place for you in my jubilant musings!
Love
L
xxx
THANK YOU SO MUCH! for my funded place doing a PhD in interdisciplinary studies in epistemology!
I AM SO EXCITED!!! somewhat nervous about moving all the way up to Scotland but it looks like a lovely part of the world so I can spend lots of time exploring!
Look at me with a life plan and a brand new set of Cath Kidston document wallets, somebody could almost mistake me for a grownup!
Now be gone headache! there is no place for you in my jubilant musings!
Love
L
xxx
Saturday, 13 April 2013
Sunny Singapore! and my less than promising breeding prospects...
Hey!
I'm in Singapore and it is lovely! Its warm and clean and green! And the food!! Oh my the food!! I need to stop thinking about it before I start to salivate all over my keyboard but just know that Hor Fun is well worth the embarrassment I feel on pronouncing it!
So anyways today I went across the border to Malaysia. Circumstances prohibited me from doing any real exploring but I did enjoy a leisurely afternoon by the pool, which was nice. When I had reached my chlorine tolerance limit I decided I might as well try to get something productive done and whiled away a few hours reading 'Current Issues in Teleology'. I was pleasantly surprised by how engaging and relevant to my study area some of the essays were, especially those which touched upon Darwinism, however this feeling of cheeriness has now dissipated substantially as I am currently feeling the full effects of my having been so absorbed in my reading. Whilst a good book may allow one to shut out the world from ones thoughts it certainly does not enable the body to be so effectively insulated and I have developed a sore awareness of just how ill prepared my pasty body was for the persistent rays of the midday Malaysian sun... ouch :(
The mildly ironic result of today is that, in turning my attention natural selection, I have turned myself into one of the most unattractive creatures that has ever had the nerve to present itself. I am currently an exemplar case of a creature which is in no way effectively adapted to its environment and the chances of anybody seeing reproductive potential in my red and wincing form is hanging somewhere around the zero mark.
I hope that your day leaves you substantially less singed!
L
xxx
I'm in Singapore and it is lovely! Its warm and clean and green! And the food!! Oh my the food!! I need to stop thinking about it before I start to salivate all over my keyboard but just know that Hor Fun is well worth the embarrassment I feel on pronouncing it!
So anyways today I went across the border to Malaysia. Circumstances prohibited me from doing any real exploring but I did enjoy a leisurely afternoon by the pool, which was nice. When I had reached my chlorine tolerance limit I decided I might as well try to get something productive done and whiled away a few hours reading 'Current Issues in Teleology'. I was pleasantly surprised by how engaging and relevant to my study area some of the essays were, especially those which touched upon Darwinism, however this feeling of cheeriness has now dissipated substantially as I am currently feeling the full effects of my having been so absorbed in my reading. Whilst a good book may allow one to shut out the world from ones thoughts it certainly does not enable the body to be so effectively insulated and I have developed a sore awareness of just how ill prepared my pasty body was for the persistent rays of the midday Malaysian sun... ouch :(
The mildly ironic result of today is that, in turning my attention natural selection, I have turned myself into one of the most unattractive creatures that has ever had the nerve to present itself. I am currently an exemplar case of a creature which is in no way effectively adapted to its environment and the chances of anybody seeing reproductive potential in my red and wincing form is hanging somewhere around the zero mark.
I hope that your day leaves you substantially less singed!
L
xxx
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