What’s a book you most want to read again for the first time?:

Oh, that’s a tough one. I’d probably want to pick something that changed my head in some significant way, which biases the field in favour of things I read earlier in my life–the structures in my head are getting pretty ossified now, so it sadly takes a lot more for a book to change the structure these days. Many of those books, of course, didn’t have their full effect on the first read, at the time, but reading them for the first time now would likely be a very different experience.

With that in mind, I’m going to have to go with Gene Wolfe’s Book Of The New Sun¹, which was a tremendously fun read the first time I read it, but which I think I would get a lot more out of reading for the first time now than I did when I actually read it for the first time.

Runners up: Mindplayers, Valis, Darker Than Amber, The Conquest Of Happiness

What was one of your favourite childhood books?:

This would depend, of course, on what age we’re talking about.

In the single-digit-age I think my favourite was probably A Wrinkle In Time. This was actually something I was assigned to read in school in Grade 3–well, technically in a kind of enrichment program I was in then–and I loved it. I still do, you know. I am barely holding back from reading it to my daughter, because I want her to be able to read it to herself the first time.

Runners-up: By my early teens I had already discovered John D. MacDonald and would have cited him as a favourite, but I suspect that the individual books I actually talked the most about were Jhereg, When The Sacred Ginmill Closes, Ora:cle, and The Last Coin.

What’s a book that you were assigned in school that you were expecting to be bad, but that turned out to be really good?:

I could have said the above, I guess, except at the time I didn’t really expect anything from it.

I actually had this experience a lot of time in school. I think the most dramatic case was actually The Great Gatsby, which I not only expected to be bad, but actually thought was terrible for most of the time I was reading it. It was only in the last section of the book that things clicked into place for me, and I realized that I had been utterly wrong in my reactions to what I had been reading up to that point.

Runners up: Teahouse Of The Autumn Moon, Slaughterhouse 5, Walden

What’s your “guilty pleasure” read?:

I’m not going to admit to my actual most guilty pleasure reading–I would lose all my litcred immediately. Instead I’ll admit to number two: the works of Brian Lumley, particularly his Cthulhu mythos stuff and the “Necroscope” books. I have a disturbingly wide stretch of shelf full of his stuff, and have even splashed out for a fancy edition of the first Necroscope book.

I’m not defending this–I’ve enjoyed reading them all.

Runners up: All those really slim Barnum/Hellquad Ron Goulart space-pulp books, the thrillers of John Sandford

What’s a book you feel you should read, but haven’t yet?:

Right now the one I’m feeling the most peer pressure to read is probably The Windup Girl (which is on the shelf waiting), but since internal pressure is more important to me, I’m going to go with Hespira by Matthew Hughes, since I’ve loved all his previous books and I can’t figure out why I haven’t got around to reading this one yet.

1. Yeah, it’s kind of cheating to pick a series

All of that, and the other Russell-bits there, are quite interesting to me.

Almost equally interesting, but both more immediately amusing, and more soul-destroying in the long term, are the comments on the various videos. Youtube comments are infamous as being among the worst repositories of drivel on the net, but some of these are choice even by that standard. The ones on the Cronkite report, for example, seem to contain within them the very antithesis of the rationality and clear thought that Russell argued for.

I may be doing some more Youtube searches to see what other unexpected goodies I can turn up, but I think I’m going to ignore those comments.

1. I actually went on to read the transcript of the full debate from which this was extracted.

(I wonder if I have the only 5-year old in town who can identify Bertrand Russell when she sees him in a YouTube clip.)

The remainder of this post is for the gentleman who, when challenged by me today asked me with a straight face “You don’t need proof that 1+1=2, do you?”

For those of you who don’t speak formal logic, you may translate this reply as “Actually, I do. And you want to believe that if I won’t take 1+1=2 on faith, then I’m certainly not going to give any credence to whatever crap you happen to think is ‘self-evident’ without at least a whiff of rational evidence.”

That’s the video for the World Party song Is It Like Today?.

The reason it’s here: it’s explicitly inspired by, and intended to be a precis of, Bertrand Russell‘s History of Western Philosophy.

Lyrics after the jump:

Is It Like Today? – World Party
Many years ago he
Looked out through a glassless window
All that he could see was Babylon
Beautiful green fields and dreams
And learn to measure the stars
But there was a worry in his heart

He said,
How could it come to this?
I’m really worried about living
How could it come to this?
Yeah, I really want to know about this
Is it like today?

Then there came a day
It moved out across the Mediterranean
Came to western isles and the Greek young men
And with their silver beards they laughed
At the unknown of the universe
They could sit and guess God’s name

But they said,
How could it come to this?
We’re really worried about living
How could it come to this
Yeah, we really want to know about this
Is it like today?

Then there followed days of Kings, Empires and revolution
Blood just looks the same when you open the veins
But sometimes it was faith, power or reason as the cornerstone
But the furrowed brow has never left his face

He said,
How could it come to this?
We’ve living in a landslide
How could it come to this?
Yeah, we really want to know about this
Is it like today?

Then there came a day
Man packed up flew off from the planet
He went to the moon, to the moon
Now he’s out in space
Hey, fixing all the problems
He comes face to face with God

He says,
How could it come to this?
I’m really worried about my creation
How did it comes to this?
You’re really killing me, you know

It isn’t just today
Is it like today?
Is it like today?
Bang!

Many years ago he
Looked out through a glassless window
Didn’t understand which what he saw

Last night my mother sent me one of those horrible “email forwards”. She’s the only person with my email address who actually passes these hideous things on to me, knock on wood.

This one was one of those tedious things that abuse casuistry to snark at people who put reason above faith–you know the type, the ones that mistake use of the scientific paradigm for “belief” in something. This particular example uses iron logic to go from the fact that cold is just the absence of heat to the undeniable existence of God.

I have tried on many occasions to explain the concept of falsifiability and the notion that science doesn’t tell us how the universe works–that it is actually is a system for finding continuously more useful models, which is something entirely different–to my mother, and I don’t think it has penetrated at all.

So this time I’m trying something different.

I’m going to reply with a note about Russell‘s teapot.

Back in 1952 our man Bertrand was commissioned to write a piece for Illustrated magazine. What he wrote was something entitled “Is There a God?“. It was never published by the magazine, but that didn’t stop it from being circulated. You can read the piece online now. You should, just for his concise summary of some of the standard arguments.

The piece of this essay that has made it into common parlance among certain philosophers (hell, it has a wikipedia entry of its own) however is the bit where Russell illustrates the essential ludicrousness of the unfalsifiable claims of religion with the celestial teapot:

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

Of course I’ll use slightly less formal language, but maybe the orbiting teapot will be enough to drive home the point. I kind of doubt it, though.

(I note for the record that there is actually an amusing webcomic entitled Russell’s Teapot. My favourite is probably the fear of death one.)

I am learning much about growing old. Thirty-five years ago I was lately married, childless, very happy, and beginning to taste the joys of success. Family appeared to me as an external power hampering to freedom: the world, to me, was a world of individual adventure. I wanted to think my own thoughts, find my own friends. … I felt strong enough to stand alone. … Now, I realize, [this is just due to my vitality and youth.]

Time, they say, makes a man mellow. I do not believe it. Time makes a man afraid, and fear makes him conciliatory, and being conciliatory he endeavours to appear to others what they will think mellow. And with fear comes the need of affection, of some human warmth to keep away the chill of the cold universe. When I speak of fear, I do not mean merely or mainly personal fear: the fear of death or decrepitude or penury. … I am thinking of a more metaphysical fear. I am thinking of a fear that enters the soul through experience of the major evils to which life is subject: the treachery of friends, the death of those whom we love, the discovery of the cruelty that lurks in average human nature.

During the thirty-five years since my last Christmas on the Atlantic, experience of these major evils has changed the character of my unconscious attitude to life. To stand alone may still be possible as a moral effort, but is no longer pleasant as an adventure. I want the companionship of my children, the warmth of the family fire-side, the support of historic continuity, and the membership of a great nation. These are ordinary human joys, which most middle-aged persons enjoy at Christmas. There is nothing about them to distinguish the philosopher from other men; on the contrary, their very ordinariness makes them the more effective in mitigating the sense of sombre solitude.

And so Christmas at sea, which was once a pleasant adventure, has become painful. It seems to symbolize the loneliness of the man who chooses to stand alone, using his own judgment rather than the judgment of the herd. A mood of melancholy is, in these circumstances, inevitable, and should not be shirked.

If the quote stopped there, I think it would mildly comfort me, but also scare the hell out of me.

But, it continues…

But there is something also to be said on the other side. Domestic joys, like all the softer pleasures, may sap the will and destroy courage. The indoor warmth of the traditional Christmas is good, but so is the South wind, and the sun rising out of the sea, and the freedom of the watery horizon. The beauty of these things is undiminished by human folly and wickedness, and remains to give strength to the faltering idealism of middle age.

The visual of the older man, after 35 warm Christmases as a family man, still capable of, and excited to, take to the sea and look into the South wind again is even more comforting to me.

In all things balance, right?

That’s a portrait of Bertrand Russell, taken by the relatively famous quebecois photographer and portrait specialist, Gabriel Desmarais (who usually went by just “Gaby“). The portrait was taken at Russell’s place in Wales (“Plas Penrhyn”) in 1961, which would probably mean Russell is 89 in the photo.

It is one of a series of photomontages Gaby prepared with portraits of great men, Nobel Prize winners, scientists, philosophers…and a handwritten text by them on their thoughts on Mankind’s Future. (Just to get the idea, you can also see Robert Oppenheimer and Linus Pauling).

I’ve recently arranged to purchase the copy of this print from Desmarais’ personal collection from his estate. It’s the latest piece of photographic “Russellania” in my collection, along with the giant poster, and the Karsh photograph. I’ve had it framed like so:

The text on the photo is very similar to the end of “The Road to Peace”, and I’ve typed it out here (although I admit I needed some help deciphering Russell’s handwriting–he was 89, and the medium is not a great one) for your edification.

There can be no victor in a war using the H-bomb. We can all live together or all die together. If those of us who realize this devote ourselves to the task, we can make the world realize it. Almost all prefer life to death, and if the issue is clearly presented to them, will choose the methods which are necessary for preserving life. This is a strenuous hope; for it demands the expenditure of an immense energy in persuading, with the realization that time is short, and the temptation to hysteria which comes from contemplating the possible abyss. But although the hope is arduous, it should be vivid. It should inspire the lives, first perhaps of comparatively few, but gradually of increasing numbers, until with a great shout of joy men come together to celebrate the end of organized killing and the inauguration of a happier era than any that has hitherto fallen to the lot of man.

—Bertrand Russell

I notice that Ken Blackwell also has a print of this in the Russell Archives over at Mac, along with at least one of the other Russell portraits Gaby did. Apparently he has some evidence that the first thing Russell said to Gaby when he arrived was “You’d better have a Scotch“–it would have been a pretty terrible drive to get there in the weather that day.

The Gaby estate has two other Russell portraits (from the same session) that I’d love to get my hands on, but at an asking price of $200 each I don’t see it happening soon. They look like this:

At this point I’m also interested in Gaby’s work generally. Some of the information I found about him on the web is pretty cool. Check these out:

“A portrait is a mirror that thinks, with Gaby the mirror is not satisfied to think and reflect: it speaks” –Jean Cocteau (1955)

“There is a rare quality in your work that we seldom find in still photography” –Cecil B De Mille (1957)

”You have reached a new high in camera technique” –George Sidney (1957)

“In the art of photography Gaby surely stands out among the world’s most sensitive practitioners” –Clifton Fadiman (1963)

I’m seriously tempted to order up a copy of the book collecting some of his portrait work, even though the text is in French. (I’m sure I could muddle through.) You can see several portrait examples at that link. Here are two others: Sammy Davis, Jr. and Oscar Peterson.

You can see some of the prints the estate is selling here.

(It’s not him doing the reading–his voice, which I may share with you later–was not nearly as appealing as this reader’s.)

The essays are:

• What I Believe: This is the big one–Russell outlines what he believes. This is a lengthy, and entertaining, build-up to “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge”, without needing to abandon reason, or invent God.
• Why I Am Not A Christian: This essay does what it says on the tin. You can read a text copy online as well.
• A Free Man’s Worship: A piece Russell wrote when he was young, that he came over time to somewhat dislike for it’s literary overindulgences. He also came to reject the Platonic ideals that Young Russell espouses in there¹. There’s some pretty poetic , if florid, bits in the piece, though. You can also read this one in text form online.

It occurs to me, reading the conclusion of that last one, that Russell’s early idea of a what a free man can believe lines up pretty much identically with what Lovecraft uses as the basis for the existential horror underlying his work. Both men look at a stark, uncaring universe, that doesn’t give a shit about them, and respond in very different ways. Lovecraft sees this as a fundamentally horrific idea, where as Russell sees a kind of glory in the fact that this leaves you free to build what you can in the face of this absolute universal apathy. Here’s that ending:

Brief and powerless is Man’s life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man, condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power.

Or, if you want to download the essays for later listening:

• What I Believe 78:18 73.5 Mb
• Why I Am Not A Christian 37:29 35Mb
• A Free Man’s Worship 25:21 24Mb

1. Changing your mind when you learn new facts, or come to new conclusions while considering something is a sign of intelligence. Sticking to an original idea in the face of every new fact or line of reasoning is… well, Bush-like.