You go to your GP for a routine check-up and following the usual indignities of blood tests, urine samples and rubber-gloved probings she advises that you go for a few 'extra tests' with a specialist.
Although you agree, you are a little nervous about the tests. "Why did my GP recommend extra tests?" you ask a friend over lunch some time later. She shrugs. "Probably nothing to worry about. They've got to justify all that expensive equipment."
Some weeks later you attend a military-style clinic made largely of concrete on the outskirts of town. You forget what tests you had as there are so many, but what you cannot forget is the MRI scan, mainly because of the claustrophobia induced by lying in what feels like a coffin for 40 minutes listening to deconstructed Dubstep. Although he is in attendance, you never get to meet the specialist, just a range of distracted functionaries in ill-fitting lab coats who usher you from one room to another.
Thirteen days later you receive a letter requesting that you return to the clinic to obtain your results in person.
After some time waiting in a bare-walled waiting room which makes you think of something George Orwell might have imagined. You are taken down a flickering corridor to an office which shares the same Orwellian anti-decor.
The specialist smiles as you walk into the consulting room and greets you, but doesn't shake your hand. "Thank you for coming" he says and walks over to a large computer screen affixed to the wall, displaying what is presumably the visual result of all those hums, buzzes and beeps made by the scanner.
"Do you see those structures?" The specialist points to two areas on the screen with an almost artistic flourish. You peer at the image, it is not particularly easy to make anything out clearly but you comply: "yes, I suppose so". "Well those structures have been created by a parasite." Your mouth suddenly becomes very dry which you hear in the hoarse way you repeat his word: "Structures?" How can such an innocuous word induce such fear? Like the word 'lump'; so friendly almost comical when used in everyday contexts: "would you like one lump or two?"; yet sounding so terrifyingly terminal when used in a medical context: "I'm afraid we've found a lump".
He waves his hand over more blurred shapes. "These structures, these tubes and these masses here, have been created in your body, indeed out of your body by the parasite."
"Why?" you ask, you need to sit down but feel compelled to scrutinise the shapes as instructed which are now coalescing into something more solid, more tangiable than before.
"Well, like every parasite, it needs a comfortable home where it can live and..."
His voice trails off.
"And what?" You ask.
"Go about its business, I suppose. Whatever that might entail."
"And, of course, so it can make good its exit." He continues. "A parasite is one of life's drifters; to stay in the same place for too long means certain death. It needs to always move on, in one form or another."
"You see to any parasite its host, which in this case is unfortunately you, is merely temporary accommodation, somewhere stay until it, or at least its offspring, are ready to move on, to pastures new, as it were. And this." He again points again to one of the tubular 'structures' "represents its exit strategy."
The thought that you might just be temporary accommodation, something to be used up and left behind, makes you feel sick.
"Is there anything you can do?" You ask. You're shaking, but you don't notice this.
"What do you mean?" His reply irritates you despite everything. "What do you think I mean?" You think to yourself. But in the last few minutes you've metamorphosed from agent to patient and feel impotent; at the mercy of the medical profession as represented by all-this-too-jovial harbinger of your own personal doom. This is a time for pleading rather than confrontation.
"Well, can you remove it?"
"Remove it?" He pauses. "Well, we could remove the parts I've just pointed out. But unfortunately the infestation is -- to a greater or lesser extent -- total. If we were to remove all of the parasite's handiwork, there would be precious little of you left."
---
And he's right. All of us have parts of our bodies that, to a greater or lesser extent, have nothing to do with our own personal interests (whatever that means). The clearest examples are our sexual or secondary sexual organs: penises, vaginas, ovaries and associated plumbing. And of course breasts. The specialist might have compounded the nightmare by saying (to women) that they have to feed the devil's child as well -- and that they will do so willingly (again, to a greater or lesser extent).
The alien parasite is not alien at all. It, or rather they, were here on earth before us, they are called genes. And to call them parasites makes no more sense than it would for a car to grumble about its parasitic driver.
I used the phrase 'our interests' and it is worth reflecting on what these might be. In our minds let us draw a Venn diagram of all relevant interests. We draw first the interests of the genes as a circle. Then we draw 'our interests'. Many of these overlap. For example, both our genes and us want to survive and reproduce. But given that genes have been responsible for our psychological make up (to a greater or lesser...) are we really justified in snatching that out of their hands and making a claim for it? There are certainly motivations that we might have that seem directly at odds with theirs. For example, if we decide not to have children, become celibate, sterilise ourselves or decide to kill ourselves (or our children), then that surely is evidence of us speaking up for ourselves? Of saying "damn you, I'm doing this for me!"
Maybe.
Then there is another even more (using this line of thinking) curious circle in our Venn diagram which represents the interests of others. Many people do things for other people. Our children, of course (but that is just an extension of our genes's interests) but also, in some cultures, our parents, leaders, friends, romantic partners and so on and so forth. True autonomy is difficult to find, it may even be an illusion.
To the ancients we were, gods excepted, masters of the universe positioned at its centre with everything being there for us. Now, we aren't even the centres of our own bodies. I would say that even our psychology rebels against us, if that didn't raise the word 'us' up to a position as exalted as dirt.
It is time to grow up.
Monday, October 01, 2018
Monday, November 13, 2017
Learning something from my younger self
It's a strange experience reading these posts. I still love A Short Story about Parasites and still feel hurt that no one else seems to like it anything like as much as I do. Some of the other stuff is enjoyable too. There are two that really intrigue me though. The final two posts about freewill. I recall them both very well. For some reason (I was probably about to do a lecture on it) freewill was very much on my mind. Since I read Daniel Dennett's works on it (Elbow Room, Consciousness Explained and -- most recently -- Freedom Evolves) it was something that, as I now say, exercised me.
I was staying over at my ex-wife's house, she was away and I was looking after the kids, sleeping on the sofa downstairs (I might even have said settee at the time). The night was incredibly windy and leaves and all kinds of other matter were striking the patio doors, and the trees were waving as if they were the source of the wind. I couldn't sleep to I went to my laptop and wrote the first one. Sometime later (I can't remember how long, maybe the next day -- check out the timestamp) I wrote the second, which tried to embody the ideas in a work of fiction reminiscent of It's a Wonderful Life. The whole experience of writing these two posts is entirely encapsulated by the phrase 'my reach exceeded my grasp' which is to say (and it is a lovely expression that haunts me) that there was something that I felt, but couldn't quite express. Somewhere on here there is an unreleased follow-up to "The Greatest Gift" which remains unpublished because it made no sense. I woke up on that windy night with the burning passion of somehow who had seen God, sat down wrote and it vanished as the mist.
In the first post I refer to Laplace's Demon and the paradox of freewill and determinism. This was lifted straight from a common philosophical trope that neither determinism or indeterminism produces freewill. And there is literally no third option, by definition (although our understandings of both are probably quite primitive). Reading it back now I think I know where I was going.
The point is that maybe Laplace's demon could have predicted that you saved the drowning child, but that you should not think that diminishes your actions as a moral agent because, although the demon could have predicted it (sorry for all the italics here) it couldn't have caused you to do this. The demon, by definition, has to be outside the system otherwise it is subject to the same constraints that you are. So you really had to be there and really had to do what you did otherwise the child would have drowned. To skirt around an Orwellian quotation, just because you can predict the future, doesn't mean that you can control the future. The very opposite, in fact, in a deterministic universe.
I was staying over at my ex-wife's house, she was away and I was looking after the kids, sleeping on the sofa downstairs (I might even have said settee at the time). The night was incredibly windy and leaves and all kinds of other matter were striking the patio doors, and the trees were waving as if they were the source of the wind. I couldn't sleep to I went to my laptop and wrote the first one. Sometime later (I can't remember how long, maybe the next day -- check out the timestamp) I wrote the second, which tried to embody the ideas in a work of fiction reminiscent of It's a Wonderful Life. The whole experience of writing these two posts is entirely encapsulated by the phrase 'my reach exceeded my grasp' which is to say (and it is a lovely expression that haunts me) that there was something that I felt, but couldn't quite express. Somewhere on here there is an unreleased follow-up to "The Greatest Gift" which remains unpublished because it made no sense. I woke up on that windy night with the burning passion of somehow who had seen God, sat down wrote and it vanished as the mist.
In the first post I refer to Laplace's Demon and the paradox of freewill and determinism. This was lifted straight from a common philosophical trope that neither determinism or indeterminism produces freewill. And there is literally no third option, by definition (although our understandings of both are probably quite primitive). Reading it back now I think I know where I was going.
The point is that maybe Laplace's demon could have predicted that you saved the drowning child, but that you should not think that diminishes your actions as a moral agent because, although the demon could have predicted it (sorry for all the italics here) it couldn't have caused you to do this. The demon, by definition, has to be outside the system otherwise it is subject to the same constraints that you are. So you really had to be there and really had to do what you did otherwise the child would have drowned. To skirt around an Orwellian quotation, just because you can predict the future, doesn't mean that you can control the future. The very opposite, in fact, in a deterministic universe.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The Greatest Gift
"You OK?"
The voice had genuine concern, whatever that meant. She tried to answer but the attempt induced a fit of coughing: the remnants of the river she had inhaled barking and spluttering from her mouth. Gradually the coughing subsided.
"Yeah, I think so."
There was a long pause, then he spoke again. Tentatively.
"If I might say, that seemed deliberate."
"What did?"
"Well I was watching and that definitely wasn't a fall. You jumped right in there."
She looked at her rescuer. Hair plastered to his face. Clothes shining wet in the moonlight.
"No it wasn't. An accident, I mean. My intention was to kill myself."
"Well I'd say it was a good job that I was here. But you might not think so."
Her attempt to reply was drowned in more coughing.
"I mean, you might ask what right I have to prevent someone from carrying out an action that they clearly intended. An act that, one might say, was of their own free will."
She looked at him sharply. Did he know? But his face was impassive and gave no indication of any deeper knowledge of her predicament.
"Fuck that." She replied. A dry cough serving to underscore the final word.
"You think I have that right?"
"No. I don't think anyone has any rights at all. Or at least if they do, it doesn't make any difference. The "that" I was fucking was free will. It was free will -- or rather the absence of it -- that led me here in the first place. That drove me to try to take my own life."
His subsequent exhalation metamorphosed into a laugh. This annoyed her. There was something stage-managed about it, almost commedia dell'arte. A laugh invoked by the recognition of something that an unseen audience had yet to find out. The exaggerated thigh-slapping laugh an English Literature teacher does in front of his pupils on hearing a Shakespearean joke. Seemingly recognising her irritation he spoke ahead of her retort.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh. It would be odd enough to say that you were compelled to do something because of free will. It seems even odder to say that you were compelled to do something because of the absence of free will. Or, thinking about it further, maybe the absence of free will just leaves one perpetually compelled. For if there is no freedom, what else remains but compulsion?"
"I wonder." She said. "Whether it is traditional for people to have this kind of conversation when one of them saves the other from drowning. It could be the case, I suppose, I guess such conversations are rarely recorded for posterity."
He laughed again, this time more naturally.
"I imagine closeness to death seldom inspires immediate philosophising. A friend of mine was involved in a near-fatal car accident and he told me that far from his life flashing before his eyes all he could think about was whether he had put the bins out."
It was her turn to laugh, but he continued.
"Philosophy is seldom best done when ones mind is doused in adrenaline -- if I may be so bold and mix ontologies in such a way -- a cup of tea and an armchair, yes, drowning, definitely not."
She looked at him more closely now. He'd scooped his sodden hair back off his face. It was an everyday kind of face, a face that does the job of presenting its owner to the world without presumption, a face that makes no specific claims about the person beneath. By the two pink depressions on either side of the bridge of his nose he had also lost his glasses.
"Well you're certainly managing to sound like a philosopher, bins or no bins."
"I dabble. Although I would hate to call myself 'a philosopher'. It is a bit like calling oneself a poet or a comedian no sooner has the word passed your lips than its 'ooh give me a rhyming couplet then, crack me a joke, explain Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence'. And of course, in such situations one's mind quite dries up. Although, I guess that might be useful right now."
He blew a drip of water theatrically off his nose.
This time they both laughed.
She shivered which brought her mind back to the reason why she was here.
"Strange that of all the people who would rescue me it should be a philosopher. Or at least someone who dabbles, or should that be paddles?"
The expected laugh did not come. She turned to face him, for the first time there was an intense, almost grim, look upon his face. He was staring right at her.
"Miss Bailey, I'm afraid I'm here to rescue you twice."
TBC
The voice had genuine concern, whatever that meant. She tried to answer but the attempt induced a fit of coughing: the remnants of the river she had inhaled barking and spluttering from her mouth. Gradually the coughing subsided.
"Yeah, I think so."
There was a long pause, then he spoke again. Tentatively.
"If I might say, that seemed deliberate."
"What did?"
"Well I was watching and that definitely wasn't a fall. You jumped right in there."
She looked at her rescuer. Hair plastered to his face. Clothes shining wet in the moonlight.
"No it wasn't. An accident, I mean. My intention was to kill myself."
"Well I'd say it was a good job that I was here. But you might not think so."
Her attempt to reply was drowned in more coughing.
"I mean, you might ask what right I have to prevent someone from carrying out an action that they clearly intended. An act that, one might say, was of their own free will."
She looked at him sharply. Did he know? But his face was impassive and gave no indication of any deeper knowledge of her predicament.
"Fuck that." She replied. A dry cough serving to underscore the final word.
"You think I have that right?"
"No. I don't think anyone has any rights at all. Or at least if they do, it doesn't make any difference. The "that" I was fucking was free will. It was free will -- or rather the absence of it -- that led me here in the first place. That drove me to try to take my own life."
His subsequent exhalation metamorphosed into a laugh. This annoyed her. There was something stage-managed about it, almost commedia dell'arte. A laugh invoked by the recognition of something that an unseen audience had yet to find out. The exaggerated thigh-slapping laugh an English Literature teacher does in front of his pupils on hearing a Shakespearean joke. Seemingly recognising her irritation he spoke ahead of her retort.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh. It would be odd enough to say that you were compelled to do something because of free will. It seems even odder to say that you were compelled to do something because of the absence of free will. Or, thinking about it further, maybe the absence of free will just leaves one perpetually compelled. For if there is no freedom, what else remains but compulsion?"
"I wonder." She said. "Whether it is traditional for people to have this kind of conversation when one of them saves the other from drowning. It could be the case, I suppose, I guess such conversations are rarely recorded for posterity."
He laughed again, this time more naturally.
"I imagine closeness to death seldom inspires immediate philosophising. A friend of mine was involved in a near-fatal car accident and he told me that far from his life flashing before his eyes all he could think about was whether he had put the bins out."
It was her turn to laugh, but he continued.
"Philosophy is seldom best done when ones mind is doused in adrenaline -- if I may be so bold and mix ontologies in such a way -- a cup of tea and an armchair, yes, drowning, definitely not."
She looked at him more closely now. He'd scooped his sodden hair back off his face. It was an everyday kind of face, a face that does the job of presenting its owner to the world without presumption, a face that makes no specific claims about the person beneath. By the two pink depressions on either side of the bridge of his nose he had also lost his glasses.
"Well you're certainly managing to sound like a philosopher, bins or no bins."
"I dabble. Although I would hate to call myself 'a philosopher'. It is a bit like calling oneself a poet or a comedian no sooner has the word passed your lips than its 'ooh give me a rhyming couplet then, crack me a joke, explain Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence'. And of course, in such situations one's mind quite dries up. Although, I guess that might be useful right now."
He blew a drip of water theatrically off his nose.
This time they both laughed.
She shivered which brought her mind back to the reason why she was here.
"Strange that of all the people who would rescue me it should be a philosopher. Or at least someone who dabbles, or should that be paddles?"
The expected laugh did not come. She turned to face him, for the first time there was an intense, almost grim, look upon his face. He was staring right at her.
"Miss Bailey, I'm afraid I'm here to rescue you twice."
TBC
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Free Will: A comfort blanket for the distressed
Free will is a huge pain in the arse for those who think about it and particularly for me. Here is the central paradox.
If we live in a deterministic universe then free will is impossible, if we live in an indeterministic universe then free will is impossible.
Here's why.
A deterministic universe means that so long as you know the particular starting conditions of the universe AND you know all the laws of physics then you can predict all future events (this is an 'in principle' argument, as you might have realised). So a sufficiently intelligent and knowledgeable individual could predict knowing the conditions after the Big Bang all future events, including the formation of the solar system, the evolution of life and -- because our minds are just made of stuff -- your response to this sentence (the French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace imagined a daemon that could do this).
This means that all your actions could have been predicted billions of years ago. There is exactly one possible future (as Dennett puts it), so no free will.
On the other hand if the universe is indeterministic then this means that there is an element of randomness. Sometimes a particle goes this way, sometimes that way. Which means that your decisions might also contain and element of randomness -- a coin flip. The reason why you decided to read this post might have just been the result of some random event inside your head. Your actions are -- at least partly 'determined' by indeterminate randomness. Again, doesn't feel like free will to me.
Many people get depressed by this, but you really shouldn't. The source of most people's depression is the feeling that what they do 'doesn't matter'. "If everything is determined" they say "then it doesn't matter what I do." Or "This means that I have no control over anything".
Both of these positions are, I believe, false. The problem is that bloody word 'I' (or 'me' in some cases).
If you are talking about some kind of ghostly 'I' (or 'me') that is somehow outside the physical world then this is true, but if you think of 'I' as meaning 'The set of biological/cognitive processes that constitute what I am as a human' then you very much do matter and you DO have a choice. Take the decision to save a drowning child (I assume you would do this because I assume you are nice people). You might say that that is not a free decision because someone (Laplace's Daemon) could have predicted your choice a billions years ago. But the fact is that YOU with all you particular genetic quirks and life experience had to be exactly how you are in order to make that choice. That simple decision is a the result of a cascade of neuronal/cognitive processes drawing on information from inside (your emotional response -- sympathy, empathy) and outside (that the rescue is possible, for example).
In Frank Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life' the protagonist gets to see the world as it would be if he had never lived. He sees misery and corruption, a dead brother that he was never around to save, an 'old maid' that he was never able to marry, etc., etc. The central message is that he mattered, he made a difference because the world would have been different had he not been born.
It is the same with free will. You genuinely did make that decision to save that drowning child, to join that gym to give up smoking. No one or thing make that decision for you. If the universe were deterministic that decision could -- in principle -- have been predicted but you were the one that chose to do it.
The reason for the confusion and nihilism is that people ask the wrong question they ask 'do I have free will', To this I think the answer is no. Free will is not something that you 'have' like a cocktail shaker or a cocker spaniel. Having something means that you can do something with it. If you want to preserve the term 'free will' then think of it as something that you are.
As a coda I must address a final point of nihilism which is when people respond to the above by saying 'OK OK I get all that but it still means that it is impossible to change the future'. WTF does that even mean? Of course you can't change the future because it hasn't happened yet and once it has happened it's the past (and you can't change that either!)
If we live in a deterministic universe then free will is impossible, if we live in an indeterministic universe then free will is impossible.
Here's why.
A deterministic universe means that so long as you know the particular starting conditions of the universe AND you know all the laws of physics then you can predict all future events (this is an 'in principle' argument, as you might have realised). So a sufficiently intelligent and knowledgeable individual could predict knowing the conditions after the Big Bang all future events, including the formation of the solar system, the evolution of life and -- because our minds are just made of stuff -- your response to this sentence (the French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace imagined a daemon that could do this).
This means that all your actions could have been predicted billions of years ago. There is exactly one possible future (as Dennett puts it), so no free will.
On the other hand if the universe is indeterministic then this means that there is an element of randomness. Sometimes a particle goes this way, sometimes that way. Which means that your decisions might also contain and element of randomness -- a coin flip. The reason why you decided to read this post might have just been the result of some random event inside your head. Your actions are -- at least partly 'determined' by indeterminate randomness. Again, doesn't feel like free will to me.
Many people get depressed by this, but you really shouldn't. The source of most people's depression is the feeling that what they do 'doesn't matter'. "If everything is determined" they say "then it doesn't matter what I do." Or "This means that I have no control over anything".
Both of these positions are, I believe, false. The problem is that bloody word 'I' (or 'me' in some cases).
If you are talking about some kind of ghostly 'I' (or 'me') that is somehow outside the physical world then this is true, but if you think of 'I' as meaning 'The set of biological/cognitive processes that constitute what I am as a human' then you very much do matter and you DO have a choice. Take the decision to save a drowning child (I assume you would do this because I assume you are nice people). You might say that that is not a free decision because someone (Laplace's Daemon) could have predicted your choice a billions years ago. But the fact is that YOU with all you particular genetic quirks and life experience had to be exactly how you are in order to make that choice. That simple decision is a the result of a cascade of neuronal/cognitive processes drawing on information from inside (your emotional response -- sympathy, empathy) and outside (that the rescue is possible, for example).
In Frank Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life' the protagonist gets to see the world as it would be if he had never lived. He sees misery and corruption, a dead brother that he was never around to save, an 'old maid' that he was never able to marry, etc., etc. The central message is that he mattered, he made a difference because the world would have been different had he not been born.
It is the same with free will. You genuinely did make that decision to save that drowning child, to join that gym to give up smoking. No one or thing make that decision for you. If the universe were deterministic that decision could -- in principle -- have been predicted but you were the one that chose to do it.
The reason for the confusion and nihilism is that people ask the wrong question they ask 'do I have free will', To this I think the answer is no. Free will is not something that you 'have' like a cocktail shaker or a cocker spaniel. Having something means that you can do something with it. If you want to preserve the term 'free will' then think of it as something that you are.
As a coda I must address a final point of nihilism which is when people respond to the above by saying 'OK OK I get all that but it still means that it is impossible to change the future'. WTF does that even mean? Of course you can't change the future because it hasn't happened yet and once it has happened it's the past (and you can't change that either!)
Monday, December 19, 2011
What Gok Wan can teach us about Higher Education
Higher Education Institutions up and down the country are asking themselves how to deal with student expectations in the forthcoming New Dawn of increased tuition fees. In my institution we have responded by increasing the number of contact hours by starting earlier in the term and finishing later.
The belief seems to be that students will demand more teaching for their money.
But is this right?
It is sometimes said that no-one wants a drill, they want a hole. Similarly students don't want teaching they want knowledge, skills and, ultimately, a qualification; teaching is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Being on the receiving end of teaching -- despite our best efforts -- doesn't always top of students' list of Things That Constitute a Fun-Packed Day. When my colleagues express surprise that students don't turn up for additional teaching I suggest they might find an answer if they replace the word "teaching" with "all over body waxing" or "rectal examination" which are also not ends in themselves.
Like all over body waxing, cosmetic surgery and dieting teaching is a necessary evil to achieve the end of positive change and it is this that we "sell". The creepy Dr. Christian Jessen presenter of Supersize versus Superskinny and the frankly bizarre Gok Wan presenter of I Like Fat Ladies know that people will endure all manner of humiliations and agonies if they can present them with a positive"before" and "after" picture at the end of the programme.
Before and after pictures are difficult in HE, not least because of Red Queen effect "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place". Students just manage to acquire one set of skills/knowledge and we shift the assessment goal posts assessment in order us to ensure they have developed the next set. Although this is standard practice, it is hard to think of a more demotivating system: all that time, all that effort to go nowhere.
If we are to justify our extortionate fees to students and their parents we need to make it clearer that we are agents of positive change and we need to provide concrete evidence of this. Don't stress over the contact hours, look what you've become.
The belief seems to be that students will demand more teaching for their money.
But is this right?
It is sometimes said that no-one wants a drill, they want a hole. Similarly students don't want teaching they want knowledge, skills and, ultimately, a qualification; teaching is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Being on the receiving end of teaching -- despite our best efforts -- doesn't always top of students' list of Things That Constitute a Fun-Packed Day. When my colleagues express surprise that students don't turn up for additional teaching I suggest they might find an answer if they replace the word "teaching" with "all over body waxing" or "rectal examination" which are also not ends in themselves.
Like all over body waxing, cosmetic surgery and dieting teaching is a necessary evil to achieve the end of positive change and it is this that we "sell". The creepy Dr. Christian Jessen presenter of Supersize versus Superskinny and the frankly bizarre Gok Wan presenter of I Like Fat Ladies know that people will endure all manner of humiliations and agonies if they can present them with a positive"before" and "after" picture at the end of the programme.
Before and after pictures are difficult in HE, not least because of Red Queen effect "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place". Students just manage to acquire one set of skills/knowledge and we shift the assessment goal posts assessment in order us to ensure they have developed the next set. Although this is standard practice, it is hard to think of a more demotivating system: all that time, all that effort to go nowhere.
If we are to justify our extortionate fees to students and their parents we need to make it clearer that we are agents of positive change and we need to provide concrete evidence of this. Don't stress over the contact hours, look what you've become.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
A short story about parasites
"Parasite?"
"Yes professor, but it is a fascinating one."
"Qua-Kon Kin, our research project was specifically aimed at understanding human reproduction and you bring me here to tell me that you've discovered a parasite."
"We're still working on reproduction, our bacteriologists have discovered that, like us, Earth bacteria divide by a process of binary fission, some larger creatures also, but so far we've not managed to observe the process of division in humans. It is all very curious."
"Curious? Of course it's curious that's how we managed to secure the funding; if it wasn't curious there'd be no point in doing the research in the first place. Listen, we have only one more year of funding and I, for one, do not think that the research council will be pleased if after three years our final report says that 'its curious'. Nor will they be overly impressed if all we can stump up is another bloody tapeworm. What is it about you and tapeworms anyway?"
"This isn't a tapeworm, professor, this is far bigger and its life cycle is ... well interesting."
"Curious? Of course it's curious that's how we managed to secure the funding; if it wasn't curious there'd be no point in doing the research in the first place. Listen, we have only one more year of funding and I, for one, do not think that the research council will be pleased if after three years our final report says that 'its curious'. Nor will they be overly impressed if all we can stump up is another bloody tapeworm. What is it about you and tapeworms anyway?"
"This isn't a tapeworm, professor, this is far bigger and its life cycle is ... well interesting."
"Oh very well Qua-Kon, tell me about your parasite then"
"Well you know the one we discovered on a previous expedition, the one that takes control of the brain of an ant, driving it up a blade of grass so that it gets eaten by a sheep?"
"The brain worm, yes I remember."
"Well we've found one that does something similar in humans."
"I wasn't aware that sheep ate humans, I thought it was the other way round."
"No I meant that it seizes control of human's brains."
"Go on."
"Well like many other parasites it starts of as a tiny cyst-like structure and then grows to quite some size. It uses a kind of anchor that it fixes to the abdominal cavity. And here's the clever bit, the anchor taps directly into the host’s blood supply. It steals food and oxygen straight from them."
"Clever, very clever. So it doesn't need to have any way of digesting the food itself?"
"Precisely professor, the host does all the donkey work in finding food and digesting it. The parasite just steals it. The ultimate ready meal, I suppose. Anyway it quite quickly reaches quite a size."
"Precisely professor, the host does all the donkey work in finding food and digesting it. The parasite just steals it. The ultimate ready meal, I suppose. Anyway it quite quickly reaches quite a size."
"How big?"
"Three, maybe four kilograms."
"Noticeable then?"
"Very. By the end the sufferer’s body is distended so much that they find it difficult to walk easily."
"Noticeable then?"
"Very. By the end the sufferer’s body is distended so much that they find it difficult to walk easily."
"And then what?"
"Well then it ... how can I put this ... leaves the host's body. Do you remember that film our anthropology department picked up being broadcast from Earth? The one about the alien?"
"I do indeed. Another piece of offensive human propaganda, if I recall correctly, depicting anything that is from another planet as evil, crude and predatory. What of it?"
"Well professor, the parasite leaves the body in a similar way."
"Oh my..."
"Exactly, it rips itself out. A process that involves blood, gore and lots and lots of screaming. Sometimes it can take hours. Some of our scientists have had to have counselling as a result of the trauma. Compared to this, tapeworms are a walk in the park."
"But Qua-Kon we know that parasites are creatures of stealth. They operate by subverting their host's biological processes and using them to their own ends, so conspicuous a parasite would surely get killed as soon as it emerged."
"Yes."
"And it if were killed it would be unable to divide..."
"Precisely so."
"So if it can't reproduce how does such a parasite continue to survive? This is against every biological law. I'll never be able to publish this. I'll be a laughing stock! We'll all be a laughing stock!"
"Ah but that's the really, really clever part. It doesn't get killed."
"How so?"
"Well as I said earlier, it takes control of the hosts mental processes. Look you'd imagine, would you not, that if a great, blood-spattered parasite tore its way of your abdomen you'd look around for the nearest coal shovel and batter the life out it if."
"Certainly, I would."
"But they don't. They wrap it in a blanket and cuddle it.”
"Cuddle...?"
"But Qua-Kon we know that parasites are creatures of stealth. They operate by subverting their host's biological processes and using them to their own ends, so conspicuous a parasite would surely get killed as soon as it emerged."
"Yes."
"And it if were killed it would be unable to divide..."
"Precisely so."
"So if it can't reproduce how does such a parasite continue to survive? This is against every biological law. I'll never be able to publish this. I'll be a laughing stock! We'll all be a laughing stock!"
"Ah but that's the really, really clever part. It doesn't get killed."
"How so?"
"Well as I said earlier, it takes control of the hosts mental processes. Look you'd imagine, would you not, that if a great, blood-spattered parasite tore its way of your abdomen you'd look around for the nearest coal shovel and batter the life out it if."
"Certainly, I would."
"But they don't. They wrap it in a blanket and cuddle it.”
"Cuddle...?"
"Yes cuddle it professor. And they smile at it. And touch it gently. They even allow it to feed itself by apparently chewing on parts of their upper abdomen. You see what I mean when I say it subverts their mental processes?"
"This is all too much Qua-Kon."
"I've not even got my pants off yet, if you pardon the expression, professor. So great are its powers of manipulation that it continues to parasitise the host, or I should say hosts -- you know how these earthling tend to inexplicably hang around in pairs? Well it parasitises them for years."
"Years?"
"Years, professor. The hosts spend many thousands of their earth pounds providing the parasite with all it needs -- food, drink, even small artefacts that the parasite seems to derive some sort of pleasure from. Although we currently have no conception of what biological purpose these artefacts play in the parasite's life cycle."
"From what you say, Qua-Kon, this sounds more like a symbiotic relationship. Mind control or not, no rational organism would surely devote so much time and effort satisfying the desires of such a parasite. There must be something that the parasite -- or symbiont as I would prefer to think of it -- gives back to the host. I simply refuse to believe that such a degree of psychological manipulation is possible."
"I know professor. The thought had occurred to us too. But our scientists report that the parasite provides nothing to the hosts. Not only that, but if the hosts aren't supplying enough food, or enough drink, or enough of these apparently functionless artifacts the parasite makes these noises."
"Noises? What kind of noises?"
"Oh horrible, blood-curdling noises. Screams the like of which you've never heard. They also throw themselves on the floor flailing their limbs so much that we initially thought it was experiencing some kind of seizure."
"And then what?"
"Oh the hosts are soon off getting food, or drink or artefacts which seems to placate the parasite temporarily. I tell you professor some of our scientists have themselves taken to obtaining a selection of small artefacts just in case the hosts fail to stump up the goods. That's how nerve-janglingly awful the whole thing is."
"And for how many years does this last?"
"We're not exactly sure, but we get the feeling it may well last for the host's lifetime."
"A lifetime! Hell's teeth I thought that those parasitic wasps we discovered were bad, but this is immeasurably worse. How do they believe their god could permit such a thing?"
"This is all too much Qua-Kon."
"I've not even got my pants off yet, if you pardon the expression, professor. So great are its powers of manipulation that it continues to parasitise the host, or I should say hosts -- you know how these earthling tend to inexplicably hang around in pairs? Well it parasitises them for years."
"Years?"
"Years, professor. The hosts spend many thousands of their earth pounds providing the parasite with all it needs -- food, drink, even small artefacts that the parasite seems to derive some sort of pleasure from. Although we currently have no conception of what biological purpose these artefacts play in the parasite's life cycle."
"From what you say, Qua-Kon, this sounds more like a symbiotic relationship. Mind control or not, no rational organism would surely devote so much time and effort satisfying the desires of such a parasite. There must be something that the parasite -- or symbiont as I would prefer to think of it -- gives back to the host. I simply refuse to believe that such a degree of psychological manipulation is possible."
"I know professor. The thought had occurred to us too. But our scientists report that the parasite provides nothing to the hosts. Not only that, but if the hosts aren't supplying enough food, or enough drink, or enough of these apparently functionless artifacts the parasite makes these noises."
"Noises? What kind of noises?"
"Oh horrible, blood-curdling noises. Screams the like of which you've never heard. They also throw themselves on the floor flailing their limbs so much that we initially thought it was experiencing some kind of seizure."
"And then what?"
"Oh the hosts are soon off getting food, or drink or artefacts which seems to placate the parasite temporarily. I tell you professor some of our scientists have themselves taken to obtaining a selection of small artefacts just in case the hosts fail to stump up the goods. That's how nerve-janglingly awful the whole thing is."
"And for how many years does this last?"
"We're not exactly sure, but we get the feeling it may well last for the host's lifetime."
"A lifetime! Hell's teeth I thought that those parasitic wasps we discovered were bad, but this is immeasurably worse. How do they believe their god could permit such a thing?"
"According to our religious studies experts their god seems to actively encourage it. In some cases even banning devices that could prevent the infestation, and prohibiting surgery that could remove the parasite before it emerges."
"And humans believe that their god loves them? Tsh!"
"They are a very peculiar species."
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