Here's another (I'll get to some thoughts of my own soon, I hope; I need to take care of a project first):

Quoting G.K. Chesterton in "Orthodoxy:"

As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of today) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. . . . The Christian . . . puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health.

A very cool quote I found while looking through the Orthodoxy Today archives, here:

Quoting Malcolm Muggeridge:

Previous civilizations have been overthrown from without by the invasion of barbarian hordes; ours has dreamed up its own dissolution in the minds of our intellectual elites. Not Bolshevism, which Stalin liquidated along with the old Bolsheviks, not Nazism, which perished with Hitler in his Berlin bunker; not fascism, which was left hanging upside down from a lamppost, along with Mussolini and his mistress---none of these history will record, was responsible for bringing down the darkness on our civilization, but liberalism. A solvent rather than a precipitate, a sedative rather than a stimulant, a slough rather than a precipice; blurring the edges of truth, the definition of virtue, the shape of beauty; a cracked bell, a mist, a death wish.

I was quite busy at work today, so big posts will have to wait till tomorrow (or possibly this evening, if I'm not doing anything else).

I was at The Edge of England's Sword yesterday and saw an interesting link I forgot to post. The Orthodox Christian Church is invading cyberspace; we've got a website I've never seen before, with plenty of articles on social and theological issues, as well as a blog. It's called Orthodoxy Today.

Congratulations to the New Jersey Devils for defeating the Anaheim Mighty Ducks 3-0 in the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals last night. They played a wonderful game all around. I know most people will blame this on the Ducks' long break (they were off for eleven days, waiting for the Devils to finish off their series against the Ottawa Senators, who I despise for knocking my Islanders out in the first round), but the comments of Gary Thorne while he was calling last night's game were worth thinking about: in response to Jean-Sebastian Giguere's proclivity to give up way too many rebounds as he seemed to have no idea where the puck was after it hit him, Thorne offered that Giguere looked a little bigger than usual, that perhaps he was wearing more padding and therefore couldn't feel the puck as well as he normally could.

Kudos also to NJ's Jeff Friesen for a terrific game, and a terrific playoff run so far (in the Ottawa series he tied the great New York Islander Mike Bossy for most game-winning goals in a series, with three).

Alright, back to the Matrix for a bit. First off, my favorite Oligarch has a very interesting bit of exegesis on the Oracle and the nature of the will, having seen the movie a second time (the metaphor is quite good, by the way). I'm not sure if I totally agree with O.O. about the Oracle, as I have a feeling that her comments on choice and understanding are a reflection of the layered effect of reality, the Matrices built upon Matrices.

As for his comments on my posts about the movie, point taken that his thoughts were still forming and incomplete. Also, I guess I didn't make my original disagreement with him clear. I really liked where the movie ended (craving more, while still satisfied by a good movie), I think the Matrix is still in existence (in fact, I think there are several layers to it), and I don't think the Architect was lying to Neo (I'm of the opinion that Neo's freedom allowed him to break free of the dichotomy the Architect posed, that he can save Zion and Trinity at once). But I wrote about all this earlier, so I won't get into it too deeply again.

Here's a very interesting take on the relationship between men and machines in the Matrix, drawing on a bit of Asimov (the link's from Zorak, and the part I'm referring to is in the middle of the piece).

By the way, I've played and completed the video game Enter the Matrix for the Playstation 2. There were a lot of interesting scenes one doesn't find in the movie (the Brothers Wachowski wrote 2 hours of extra footage for the game). No crumbs thrown out to help us make sense of the movie, though, as I recall. a new actress played the part of the Oracle, though (the original actress apparently died during the filming of the final part of the trilogy, which will be released in November); when asked why she looks different, the Oracle said she had a new shell program written up, or something like that. I was having too much fun playing the game and didn't quite listen too attentively.

Back to work (having to be at the office at nine every morning is brutal; there wasn't a day during this past academic year when I woke up earlier than 10). Perhaps I'll return lunchtime.

I was in New Haven on Sunday and Monday for the commencement of Yale's class of 2003. Many hearty congratulations to my graduating friends. With luck I'll be joining your ranks next May, though I'm in no rush. There are still some matters I need to tend to.

Another article along the lines of my last post.

My boss will, on any given day, utter the phrase "God bless America" at least a dozen times, especially when he bumps into a recent immigrant or someone in a relatively low income bracket.

Here are some interesting statistics comparing the United States to other nations with respect to various economic indicators. Those who complain about the ever-growing chasm between the rich and poor in these United States, as well as those who've heard the complaints, should pay close attention. I've heard the praises of places like Sweden sung time and time again, but Americans enjoy more and easier access to things like food, plumbing, and other essentials than do people in countries that are supposedly better off. God bless America indeed, one of the few places where freedom does ring, even if faintly at times.

Impressive.

It's quite humbling to see a thirteen-year-old accomplish more in his short life than most people who've lived a lifetime do.

An excerpt from Taki's latest column for the Spectator, always a pleasure to read (the emphasis is mine):

As some of you may know, American football is supposed to make one dumb. Players bump heads, and the harder one bumps one’s head, the more money one makes. The only player on the field who does not block or tackle — unless there’s an emergency — is the quarterback. He’s the one who leans over the centre, is given the ball by the man who is on all fours (there have been very few Greek quarterbacks for obvious reasons), and who then proceeds general-like to direct the play.

For the past few months I've been mulling over an intuition I have, that consciousness implies free will, that in fact the two are inextricably linked. I've never spelled this out before now:

I've always liked Nietzsche's construction of determinism. There is no lightning bolt, there is naught but flash. In a deterministic framework there is no individual. There is no lightning bolt. There is no me, there is no you. There is nothing but actions dictated by previous actions, a never ending chain of cause and effect (that is, of course, another huge problem with determinism; most people admit that infinity does not exist, which if we wish to continue asserting a chain of causality would necessitate a prime mover; it's bizarre to attribute the divine/mystical property of prime mover-ship to base matter, and for good reason have people for centuries attributed this characteristic to God or Nous or something along those lines). The "individual" is totally replaceable. Were another sack of molecules to share the same configuration with me, that other sack of molecules would be me, just as much as I am me. I am, after all, nothing but the sum of my past physical experiences, a domino defined by the chain that fell into me. The precice domino that fills that slot is irrelevant.

There is nothing unique about the individual, nor is there anything necessary about him. Because of the possibility that two "individuals" could exist simultaneously in a determinist framework, the concept of the individual is contradictory to the concept of determinism. Individuals need not exist in a deterministic world. The lightning will flash just as well if there is no bolt. As Nietzsche colorfully put it, such talk of individualism is just a pipe dream, an idealistic construction rooted in language and nothing more.

Consciousness is one of the cornerstones of true individualism (and I speak not of radical individualism or anything along those lines, but rather the robust conception of men existing in and of themselves, each with a uniqueness and consequential worth that is indicative of his status as a human being). Consciousness is the supreme affirmation of me-ness, of the recognition of oneself in the world as a discrete and irreplaceable entity in the world. Consciousness is a prerequisite for choice. With freedom of will comes the necessity for actors, and an actor cannot act if he is not first aware of himself.

Despite having heard plenty of defenses of determinisms of all types, I have yet to hear a cogent denial of consciousness.

This is the only way I can think of to salvage the otherwise doomed Cartesian project.

Not a great article, but an interesting idea nonetheless. I first started mulling over the issue of reform and punishment after a class I took on the birth of Modern Britain. Perhaps I'll blog about it soon.

All this paranoia over "the elite" makes me smile. If only people knew where the real conspiracy lies (a conspiracy of the good, mind you).

To briefly continue the last post I wrote (I'm at work, but pretty much done for the day):

The conversation Neo has with the Architect is quite intriguing. The Architect gives Neo two choices: he can either choose the door on his right and save Zion by picking a select handful of survivors (in his efforts to save the whole, though, Neo must suffer the fact that Trinity will die) or he can save Trinity and subsequently allow for the utter destruction of the entire human race (Neo, that anomaly in the Matrix, will cause the program to crash, which will shock those still plugged into the Matrix so much that they will die). Neo chooses to save his love, Trinity (it's a bit Orwellian, an idea that comes across in his essays, not so much his novels: unlike past anomalies, Neo has the ability to love the individual), despite the fact that the Architect clearly states that, despite the option Neo picks, Trinity will die. In fact, Trinity does not die; Neo saves her, defying the Architect's prediction.

What does that say about the state of the Matrix, and of the future of Zion? The building wherein the Matrix was housed, so to speak, blew up after Neo made his choice. I don't think that means the Matrix ended; in fact, it would probably be a bad thing for the Matrix to suddenly and shockingly implode around its inhabitants. My guess is that it is still functional. The Architect was wrong about Trinity's fate, after all. He was wrong about Neo's powers, and I can't wait to see how that all turns out in the third and final installment.

That leads me to suspect he was wrong about Zion's fate as well. Neo tapped into new powers at the end of Reloaded as he seems to be coming to terms with what I suspect is a second Matrix layered within the one we all knew about already.

Anyway, I tire of this issue. I'll move on to something else.

So classes are finally over with, and I’m hard at work at my new summer job. Yesterday, I started working at a fledgling mortgage bank. I’m putting together a business plan as well as a company policy, among other thing. Despite the fact that I’ve never done anything like this, ever, I’m surprisingly good at this work. I’ve already completed a draft of the new company policy which is making its way to the President and VP. Damn I’m smooth.

I feel the need to blog a bit about The Matrix Reloaded (by the way, the Old Oligarch has an interesting take on the movie, though I think it’s ultimately wrong and incomplete). I’ve seen it twice by now (once in New Haven with Gene and some other friends, and once with my younger cousin), and was stunned by how good it was. I liked it better than the first one, actually, its only flaw being unconvincing CGI (the characters looked, for lack of a better way to put it, clay-ish in the computer generated scenes). The philosophical depth of the new movie was quite compelling and engaging, not to mention confusing—hence the need to watch it twice.

Be forewarned, I write for those that have seen the movie, or those who don’t care to have it spoiled (that latter should be ashamed of themselves, and should go see the movie early and often).

A major theme of the movie is choice. The Oracle, since the first movie, has been a character central to that theme, insofar as there are inherent questions about her predictive ability and what that means for human freedom. In Reloaded she tells Neo that men are free; they approach her in order to understand why they have made the decisions they have already made. That is a very weird take on freedom. Though still located in individual men, according to the Oracle, it is not located in the present, or even in the Matrix. When Neo dreams of what appears to be Trinity’s death as he lays in bed in the real world—the Oracle identifies this as the power to see outside of time, the Sight—he is witnessing choices that he has already made, but choices that he has not yet acted out in the Matrix. The Matrix is taking on an even more detached quality, as it seems it is somehow more removed from reality than we first believed.

Of course, the Merovingian flatly contradicts the Oracle and, as I’ll discuss momentarily, the Architect. The Merovingian claims that there is not freedom, only an illusion of freedom. The powerful in exerting force over the weak give them the illusion of choice. Existence, he claims, is nothing but a never-ending chain of causes and effects. He is a vicious man, though, who cannot see farther than this twisted view of reality; he never anticipates Persephone’s betrayal. Oddly, when Persephone does confront him about his vicious ways, he says something to the effect of “this is all just a game.” Keep that in mind.

As for the Architect, he sheds new light on the Oracle. If he is the Father of the Matrix, then she is the Mother. She was originally created to be a program to delve into the human psyche, and she ended up finding a way to balance the Architect’s flawed equations: with a contradiction. To control human beings and keep them confined to the Matrix they needed to be free, or at least to have a subconscious feeling that they were free. The Architect admits that Neo is in the sixth instantiation of the Matrix, that his equations keep turning out unbalanced. The Architect agreed with Neo’s simple statement as to the Architect’s problem: “The problem is choice.” Human free will prevents the Architect from creating a Matrix perfect enough to last perpetually. It is not a Gnostic issue as some maintain; it is not chaos theory or some other lack of information on the Architect’s part. The Oracle solved this problem by recognizing it and accepting it. Of course, to solve the question of control through allowing for the issue of freedom will lead to a collapse of the solution eventually, as the Architect admits. That singularity is Neo.

So where does this all lead us? It leads to the conclusion that, in fact, there is a second Matrix. Take Neo’s amazing power to stop the sentinels even after he is outside of the Matrix (notice the parallel to the end of the first movie, where Neo can suddenly stop bullets as he becomes aware of the Matrix around him). Take Agent Smith’s ability to download himself into one of the men of Zion. Fit that with the idea that freedom and exists exist somewhere outside of the Matrix, seemingly outside of the “real world” too. Reality, at least as far as the men of Zion understand it, is anything but.

The clincher is the Architect’s statement about Zion’s future. He says that millions of sentinels are boring straight down to the subterranean city, and that it has been destroyed five times before. Once for each previous instantiation of the Matrix that has failed. But if Zion has been destroyed before, how does it stand now? Though decaying it is a well put-together city that shows no signs of a previous sack. For Zion to actually have been destroyed (five times no less) and still stand would suggests that it was destroyed in yet another level, and therefore exists in another level, of computer generated reality.

Smith is a very interesting character, too, one I don’t fully understand yet. If any character in the movie isn’t free, it seems like he’s the guy. When Neo destroyed him at the end of the first movie, Smith was apparently unplugged from the rest of the agents. As he says, he still hears and understands the commands he received, but he feels compelled to disobey them.

He also speaks at length about purpose. There are a couple of ways the movie seems to take this word, and its not well fleshed out. At times purpose seems like fate or determinism. At other times it seems like telos, the responsibility characters in the Matrix are trying to uphold. Smith seeks to remove purpose from Neo after it was removed from him at the end of the first movie. When Smith corners Neo and begins to take away the latter’s purpose, Neo says it felt like dying in the hallway at the end of the first movie. That death set Neo free from the rules of the Matrix, gave him perception and control over himself and his surroundings. The death Smith offers is a perversion of that, which causes one to loose oneself and become a slave to Smith’s will, or lack thereof. It’s a very Mannichean, yin-yang, necessary coexistence of good and evil idea. Somehow, in destroying Smith, Neo imprinted a bit of himself on the now former agent, which became a perverted version of the strength and freedom that Neo enjoys.

Gotta go. Lunch is over.

Wow. 'Nough said.

Greetings to he who Google searched for "Gordian Knot plug." I don't think I want to know what that is.

Greetings to he who Google searched for "Phrygians + numbers."

My opportunities to blog have been few in number lately, what with the end-of-the-term-crunch and all.