Surface Detail

I finished this mammoth space opera by Iain M. Banks recently. The scope and utter craziness of his writing completely boggles the mind. Set in a galactic spanning mass of a variety of civiliisations (civs) and dealing with them and classifying them almost such that a civilisation features as a character in the novel or like organisms in ecosystems. The strongest and dominant civ is 'The Culture' with the highest level of technology (civ's are measured like versions of software, where the Culture has the highest rating) .... interestingly and unusually for sf technology is a benign force and the Culture is as close to a utopia as anything I've read. A peace loving anarchic mess, mostly led and controlled by Minds which are AI units that have far surpassed humans in their intelligence and thus managed to help create a society which is good for humans, ironically.... To further complicate things the beings in Banks' world inhabit both the 'Real' and they also inhabit a sort of virtual reality where you can, for example, upload all your biological and psychological info and then be downloaded to a new body - in this way the people of the Culture are immortal, until they get bored and choose to be sublimated. As a matter of fact entire civs also get bored and choose to sublimate....

A book about utopia would be boring without some nastiness so this book, like most of Banks work includes very evil and nasty characters and civs. The central debate in Surface Detail concerns the way in which a number of civs have used technology to make their particular systems of religion 'real' by creating virtual heavens and ... hells to reward and punish behaviour deemed acceptable by the relevant powers that be, technology here taking a turn for the worse, unlike what happened in the Culture, but in this case under the less than wise guidance of 'biologicals'. A galaxy wide debate, and then a war, concerning the justification of running hells is fought and concluded in the book.

One moving part of the plot is a story of two lover activists Prin and Chay of the Pavuleans (a species which has two trunks) on a planet who choose to be sent to hell to verify its existence so that it can be dealt with by the courts of their own civ. This goes horribly wrong and Chay (the female) gets left behind in hell and we follow her progress there....  interestingly her surname ends in -daughter (as in Icelandic), and another book by Banks has a character who is Jesusdottir ... wonder how he came by that!

The main character  Y'breq is raped and murdered by her owner, Veppers (who is a kind of ultra massively evil Gordon Gekko) .... but she, due a coincidence and through highly advanced Culture tech, 'survives' and returns with her system set on revenge.... Her interaction with the Culture and its ships and the creation of the ship characters, well interesting to say the least. 

A truly challenging read intellectually, but also emotionally moving with battle scenes, love stories, ascetism, weird and wonderful ship names, like, Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly and  Falling Outside the normal moral constraints and Noone knows what the dead think.... simply amazing stuff. 

Fantasy, new media and Björk

It seems clear that Iceland has not contributed significantly to fantasy literature or sf. We do have some pretty awesome writers, and actually Halldór Laxness who was mostly a sort of 'high brow' literary author wrote a couple of short stories, plays and at least one novel that contain strong elements of fantasy and surrealism.... currently the strongest writers seem to be writing crime stories - while this situation may be changing and possibly changing fast. Interestingly among the most successful musicians in Iceland there is a very strong fantastic tendency .... Sigurrós and then .... Björk of course.... Björk's most recent project seems to me to be a landamark - sadly I missed the concert but Biophilia seems to break new ground in the relationship between art, musicology and science and combines a great vision for how to approach music art creativity and the world .... with a restless curiosity as the introduction presented by David Attenborough has it.... Even if the content isn't fantasy or sf the weird and wonderful approach of Björk and Snibbe as he talks about it at TEDX London is deeply inspiring and magical and gives me a feeling similar to the one a remember when I went to a cinema downtown Reykjavík many many many years ago to see the Empire strike back....

In my short time as a Twitter I notice that the way people are doing art and communicating  their findings and creations selling them and offering others to participate I feel that we are in the midst of something interesting and powerful and I'm thrilled to be a witness and participant ....

poem: verbs & ads

wonder weirdly
encourage silly
develop curious
wander wisely

#whyIwrite: born to blog

... saw this as a question going around on Twitter, and thought about it. It ties in with my last blog here - but for me (most of my life) it's rather, why don't I write? And why don't people generally write more. I've been finding that my blogs don't get read, but this really doesn't bother me that much. I write as an extension to my thinking, to throw stuff into the world and get feedback... or potentially ... well, you know, since reading is kind of necessary for ... feedback... you know. So a blog is like sharing your thoughts with the world. I've also tried like, diaries and 'private' writing, but to be honest I don't really get that stuff. I'm an extremely extroverted writer so ..... I guess I was born to blog.

Blogging

Now I've been quiet for a while here, I read this one and was inspired to open up again... Seven reasons why teachers should blog  and decided to get going. My blogging has been complicated by the fact that I started another blog www.menntamannsi.blogspot.com where I blog in Icelandic and intend to stick mostly to educational matters.

Well, another post on deschooling by Mr. Wheeler who seems to be a very interesting blogger. I recently also watched this fascinating talk by Astra Taylor on the same topic. Now I'm a teacher in a very traditional school and my career has been quite far from these radical ideas. Nevertheless I feel pulled towards them.... and it occurred to me today as I listened to talks at the University of Icelands Centennial Symposium , Kofi Annan and Carol Carmichael in their appeal to universities to prepare youth for future leadership; for an ethical turn in attitudes and a commitment to sustainability, that perhaps a dose of deschooling is exactly what we need. To find a new focus and to foster passionate commitments we need to relax the formalism of education, and most importantly in the secondary schools and higher education. Richard Rorty defined a university as a place where you could find a book on any subject and someone to discuss it with.

I spend a lot of time in a very traditional setting in classrooms, but I also teach distance education and I've slowly been expanding my practice there to try new things. Now I've started blogging (more than before anyway) and I have a highly anarchic Facebook group for all my students and so I'm possibly opening up new venues for learning and curiosity.... I don't honestly know... but if Wheeler's on the right track then so am I....

The Great Gatsby

Just finished re-reading Gatsby and getting ready for classes.... I am interested in a few points. Naturally the philosophical components interest me. I especially noticed how Kant is mentioned, and how Gatsby was driven by a 'Platonic conception' of himself. I need to probe the Kantian connection further, as Fitzgerald refers to an anecdote on Kant that I don't recognize.
I liked this book, I found very moving and sad and I love the final line. I worry that my students may find it a bit difficult, but we'll see. Having said that, it is interesting to see how American literature seems to see the American experience as unique and like it is somehow a metaphysical reality of its own. I was really annoyed by the notion expressed towards the end that the Dutch who saw America for the first time somehow were the last humans to face something magnificent raw and wonderful - I think we still do everyday, and of course America was not by any means raw or new - magnificent and wonderful thought it was and remains so.
Another weird element is a hint of anti-Semitism, and the extreme oddness of Wolfshiem's company being called 'the Swastika....' ... and now I sail on.

Whales

na

I have for many years been against whaling. This debate has been going on for a long time and it seems to me that it draws out many interesting aspects of how public opinion is formed, internationally and nationally. Icelanders generally are very pro-whaling and claim to base their opinion on firm science, accusing foreign environmentalists of being sentimental in their attitudes, and hypocritical seeing how the consumption of meat and industrial agriculture are very strong in the West where most of the opposition to whaling comes from. The 'science' in question is that
a) the whales are not endangered
b) the whales are 'eating all the fish'
When probed on their sources most people sort of cave in, but do not change their minds. Of course, the main reason for our (general) pro-whaling stance, just as the main reason for anti-whaling (in all fairness) is sentimental. The sentiment in question is nationalism, an idea that 'we shall not be bullied into not killing whales'. When I suggest that the general picture painted in the Icelandic media might not be entirely fair I'm considered to be borderline insane (by my colleagues and students). Recently Paul Manger was flown in to Iceland to convince us that whales are basically dumb, the Icelandic assumption would be that hence killing them is ok. This sentimental attachment to killing large animals is very understandable, but in a way it is also ironic because whaling is not an old Icelandic tradition. Foreign whalers were stationed in Iceland in the past, but whaling only became an Icelandic industry in the twentieth century.

My opposition to whaling is, just as most of my fellow Icelanders' support for it, based on a feeling. Fistly, I guess, it is because I am very wary of any practice that stirs this kind of nationalistic fervor anywhere. Secondly I see the ban on whaling as a symbolic triumph for environmentalism. Even if the science is not conclusive, and we could kill X whales without risking their extinction, I believe that respecting this ban is a step in the direction of increased environmental awareness, and this is badly needed in Iceland as it is everywhere. Thirdly, and this is my least sentimental reason, I am confident that abiding by the ban on whaling makes much more economic sense than carrying on with hunting them. Tourism is an important industry for us, and Iceland is very attractive to tourists who would typically want to go whale watching and abhor the killing of whales. Iceland should, in my opinion, try to move in the direction of the sustainable and the green, not in the direction of blood drenched whaling stations and large scale polluting industries.... but then again, I'm just a sentimental old softy. Mind you, sentimental softies are preferable to the hard kind of sentimentalist... (again, in my humble opinion)

(yeah, and by the way, this 'eating all the fish' argument is completely bogus, the question of the risk of extinction is much more open)

Drumming

I love drumming. I was (am?) the drummer of Uncle Moss, but I've hardly touched a drum kit outside of the context of the band. Last year I tried out being in a drum ring with Karl Ágúst Úlfsson and I found this to be a very rewarding experience. I even bought a djembe, which I rarely play .... so now I need to figure out a way to drum, philosophize and fantasize .... and it's there.....

Elric the Eternal Champion

I have just finished the almost seven hundred pages chronicling the adventures of Elric, the creation of Michael Moorcock. Two things attracted me to Moorcock; well more actually; primarily the fact that China Mieville is a fan and has described Moorcock as 'such a generous writer' (not quite sure what he means by that...  secondly that Moorcock is a self-proclaimed anarchist - like Ursula le Guin... and these two things having multiplied by themselves his extremely negative commentary on Tolkien (having a very ambivalent relationship with that guy myself!).... And the tale of Elric is indeed nothing like Tolkien in any way. However, I also find it very different from Miévilles work and also le Guin's... In a way I found this to be shallower, it hmead more a feel of a Role Playing Game - Elric, always melancholy and brooding (this becomes almost comical in places), gets into a spot of trouble, calls on Arioch from the realm of chaos and, what do you know, he's home free. There is one tale, the one where Elric enters the dream realm of a sleeping girl which is really powerful.... The whole idea of the struggle of law and chaos and the idea of the the Multiverse is wonderful.... Also maybe my yearning for consistency and plot reveals as more of a Tolkienite than I might care to recognize; probably the rather messy multitude of books and confusing lines hither and thither make him more medieval and postmodern at the same time than many other writers.... yeah, and one more thing I absoloutely love is his involvement with various rock bands. Fittingly his home on the Web is very messy and confusing.... (and what a cool URL too... )

Fantasy 1

I love fantasy and SF literature, especially literature, but also films and graphic novels. To me the works of le Guin, Banks, Miéville, Stephenson, Moorcock.... I find that fantasy is the best vehicle for researching consciousness, language, ethics and politics. I love the quote from Miéville that he's only in it for the monsters, which is a lie of course. Oddly it seems that Tolkien and Harry Potter are the only fantasies beknownst to a large number of readers, and even more oddly it seems that while many people accept Tolkien and Rowling as cool, all other fantasy is dismissed as silly, childish and superficial. Of course, in many ways the case is that while Tolkien is amazing in many ways, he is a stuffy old reactionary Catholic, and Harry Potter, well.... more on that later.

Thinkers and practitoners

Watched this great Ted talk and was deeply inspired.... I just love the way this guy uses philosophy in a practical way .... I fall firmly into the Dionysian category as he presents it there. His thoughts on how our obsession with perfect forms are dangerous for the environment tie very well in with Taleb's thoughts on our tendency for platonicity and its dangers. I personally find that a lot of what makes for problems in my professional life stems from this problem (in others) ....

Values for teachers 1 - spontaneity

Well, now school is about to start and (as often) I'm thinking about teaching, schools, education.... I've been a teacher for, god help me, thirteen years now - mostly teaching English, though my main subject is philosophy. I am currently (supposed to be) working on my master's thesis (I've been working on the degree over the last few years) and part of that will be an exploration of teachers' values and identities.

I find that education is too organized and lacks spontaneity. I think tests and demands for programs and concern with credit points, timetables and, well, mostly it's the endless testing, and obsession with putting students in boxes, and being 'accountable' is slowly smothering the human spirit.

Operating within this world, and hoping to provide some relief and possibly incremental change, I have tried to introduce spontaneity and serendipity into my classroom and work. I don't prepare (not very much), I don't stick to my plans, I listen to my students, and I rarely use dictionaries. I try to simplify instructions, open up minds and try as hard as I can to get to know my students (I have a large number of students and I'm bad at names so this is a real challenge for me).

As per preparation and dictionaries: I consider my years in university (in the past and present) to be preparation. I would rather spend my time reading weird fantasy novels and quirky philosophers than looking up all possible meanings of the words in a text that is to be dealt with on a given day.

Some might call me lazy, others something else, that's just the matter of the way things works.

le Guin

To my mind clearly one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. The left hand of Darkness and The Disposessed are great novels and studies of human nature. In TlD she explores questions of gender and identity by imagining a planet where androgynous humans live. These humans take turns being pregnant and mate when they are 'in Kemmer' - and then one of them becomes male and the other female. This happens once a month, the rest of the time they don't think about sex... The politics of the planet are complex, but there have never been any wars. Interestingly its published in the same year as Christianity under the Glacier by Halldór Laxness - and its style, political and philosophical outlook is oddly similar, possibly more on that later.  The Disposessed is a fascinating study of anarchism (le Guin is an anarchist) and it posits two worlds, where one of them is a kind of an anarchist 'utopia'. The message is that, of course, utopia is not utopia, and that the revolution is a constant state of mind. Two points captured my attentions. The first is the question whether anarchism doesn't inevitably mean that we become our own oppressors, and whether the revolutionary isn't better of with the queen in the palace to fight her, instead of having her inside your own head (in the firm of a kind of kantian ethic) .... another point is her exploration of love and sexual loyalty and fidelty as a self chosen form of discipline that is the grounding for all other love and loyalty, to yourself the world etc. This idea is also explored in The left hand of Darkness. I haven't talked about her fantasies, which are also good, and she is a very charismatic and fascinating person all around. She is a very soft sf author, there are few battles in her work, she focuses on social and psychological issues and does so in a very powerful and interesting way.

Taleb

Visiting with my good friends Guðný and Hersir in Akureyri this spring I started reading Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - a guy I'd been intrigued by but never gotten around to reading. I borrowed the book (G&H being extremely generous and generally nice human beings), finished it and am now more than half way through The Black Swan (borrowed from the library). Taleb, like Feyerabend is a kind of swashbuckling, arrogant and funny writer - with a deep sense of human frailty. They diverge seriously in their estimation of Popper - Feyerabend loathes him while he is one of the few thinkers Taleb really likes. I sometimes wonder if Taleb has actually read PKF - maybe he is part of his 'anti-library' (the books you've read are less important than those you haven't). Taleb's central concern is to oppose our race's tendency to platonify - to take our theories and ideas, and nowadays they are dressed up in math, and imagine that they represent reality and can help us predict. Taleb shows us very clearly they do neither. Economics pretending to be like physics is the bane of modern finance. Of course it's a bit more complex than this (I'll get back after finishing the book) - but the central message is one of down to earth skepticism - suspend judgement and don't believe long term predictions in any field - they will in every case be wrong. Look out for Black Swans - but don't waste time trying to figure out in what guise they will come - they are unknown unknowns.

Hampson

When I was writing 'Philosophy for you' (Icelandic: Heimspeki fyrir þig) with Róbert Jack, and working on the chapter on faith I was introduced to the work of Daphne Hampson. She is a truly amazing thinker, and a bit of a rebel. She started her career as a theologian operating within the Church of England fighting for the right of women to be ordained. Disillusioned by this struggle and probing Christianity further she came to the conclusion that Christianity is neither 'ethical nor true'. Nevertheless she is a theist and terms herself a 'post-christian'. She posits 'that which we call god' as a reality created in the interaction of humans. It is important to note that for her 'god' is real in this sense, it is not some subjectivist or pragmatist concoction.
Drawing on feminism, progressive theologians, continental philosophy and virtue ethics she is an engaging and fascinating writer. She came to speak in Iceland a while back - ironically I was giving a talk at another conference at the same time (ironic because I almost never give talks).
I hope she'll return one day.
A speech by Hampson, containing a lot of her important ideas.

Feyerabend

A philosopher who has stayed with me since my teens - I borrowed my uncle's copy of Against Method (I haven't returned it, and I've bought a newer version - making the borrowing a theft?) when I was ca. 17 ... I didn't read it then; and still haven't read all of it; but somehow it is a defining work for me .... I recently read the last three chapters which affected me profoundly. His best work (in my opinion, the only one that counts here) is Three Dialogues on Knowledge; a very deep and entertaining piece. His vision is one that is profoundly informed by a deep respect for human attempts at understanding and living in the world, and contempt for any system of thought that announces itself as the only valid one - and in his time, and ours, the system claiming such a place is Western rationality and Science.
In the Dialogues he says that when you address Being (as a mystic; scientist; artist.... whatever) Being answers. A beautiful idea.
When I was looking for the picture of PKF I came across the Paul K. Feyerabend foundation  and this made me happy.

Snufkin

Snufkin is one of my great heroes, and mostly because of the scene in one of the books where he and the Moomintroll come to a place controlled by an unusually stuffy Hemul. The Hemul has posted signs all over proclaiming all kinds of bans. 'No Smoking'; 'No Singing'; 'No walking on the Grass' - and Snufkin proceeds to break up and throw away all the signs.