Some miscellaneous updates

I don’t have a terrible amount of time, but thought I would take a few minutes to give everyone some updates on past postings.

1. I have previously posted about how difficult doing philosophy can be. Well, I believe that to be true more than ever. I am currently working on what will probably turn out to be the most difficult paper of my philosophical career. Who would’ve thought it’d take more time to write a 6-7 paper than other papers that were 15-20 pages? In sum, Kant is not a good writer and almost impossible to figure out.
2. In regards to a post a couple weeks back about the ban of incandescent bulbs, I just thought it was interesting to note that there are a few countries that have taken the same step. Which countries? Cuba and Venezuela. Yes, that’s right. Fidel Castro and his buddy Hugo Chavez have banned incandescent bulbs. While I don’t think the California ban would be implemented the same way (government ordered teens went into people’s homes and removed the bulbs themselves… I don’t see a bunch of people ransacking SoCal homes to take out the incandescent bulbs), I do think our continuous progress toward socialism is a bad thing. I don’t want to commit the genetic fallacy here, but it is interesting that our public policy is starting to look more and more like certain socialist countries. (Well, maybe it’s not the genetic fallacy if we’re talking about socialism. I can just argue against that outright.)
3. My wife is an amazing person. Most of you already know that, but I just thought I’d take the time to say it myself for those that don’t know. She has so much on her plate and yet continues to be supportive of me and my goals. I’m often impressed.

That’s all for now, my paper is due on Friday and hope to give some more substantive updates once that’s over.

Sooner Sports

Well, I think the transition is finally over. Last week I found myself rooting for the OU Sooners over the OSU Cowboys in round two of this year’s Bedlam series. Many of you know that I grew up an OSU fan and have always rooted for them to win. This was especially true in basketball because they were almost always pretty good (at least) in basketball. Football was always an up and down thing. They’d be good for a few years and then bad for a few. So I never got too attached to their football program, but still always rooted for them to be OU each year. Their basketball program, on the other hand, I was much more attached to.About a year and half ago I started a Ph.D. program at OU and found myself rooting for them more and more. I decided that I had no real reason for rooting for OSU but had plenty of reasons to root for OU. Growing up I pretty much liked to annoy my older brother so I started pulling for OSU. It eventually stuck. Now that I’m getting paid by OU to get my doctoral degree and live a mile from campus, it’s hard not to root for them. The first year was difficult to root for OU against OSU in football, but the national implications of the game made it a bit easier to do so. I couldn’t bring myself to root against OSU in basketball though, but that all changed this year. I started watching the OU/OSU game and just found myself cheering when OU would hit a shot or make a defensive stand. It was amazing. I really don’t know what happened. I guess it’s just that Sooner Magic wearing of on me.I know many of you Cowboy fans are greatly disappointed in me. Well, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I didn’t really intend to start rooting for the Sooners, it just started happening. Maybe this is an example showing that our beliefs are not under our direct voluntary control.Go Sooners!

Narcissistic tendencies

For some reason I lay in bed last night thinking about the title of this blog. “MY life, MY thoughts, MY work”. It appears I’m pretty wrapped up in myself. If you just looked to see the title and noticed it doesn’t say that, well you’re too late. I changed it. Sure, the new title conveys the same message, but it doesn’t sound so self-centered.You know what else I was thinking about in bed last night? Curling. Yes that’s right, curling–the game that most Americans didn’t know existed until tuning in the Winter Olympics some late night. Have I ever participated in this game? No. Have I ever watched an actual match? No. Have I seen anything over and above clips on an Olympics recap show? No. So what exactly was I thinking about last night? Well, here’s where the narcissistic tendency comes back into play. I was laying in bed thinking about how I would approach each delivery of the stone and how my approach would probably be superior to other approaches. I figured the key to doing well in this game I’ve never played would be to have sweeping brooms with 3 different levels of ‘grip’. The person furthest from the stone would have the broom with the most bite and then the next player would have one intermediate in bite, and the person closes would have a broom that leaves the ice the smoothest. It’s kind of like sanding something. Start with the lowest grit (most bite) and then move up in grit (and down in bite). What’s so surprising to me is that I don’t even know if you can do that. To tell the truth, I don’t even know if you have 3 sweepers or not. For some reason I thought I had the key to the game. Why did I think that’s the best way to go? I have no idea but I have a feeling it’s because I thought of it.What can I do about these narcissistic tendencies? I’m not sure, but if past experience is any indication, I’m sure I’ll think of the correct thing to do pretty quickly.

Just a few updates & some thoughts

We are officially getting a dog! We’re going to call him Aquinas (it’s been Orlando which is just a little soft for me) and he’s currently 8 months old. If everything goes as planned he’ll come home with us next weekend. Oh yeah, in case you’re wondering, he’s a Cardigan Welsh Corgi. Another exciting thing is that this week I had my advisory conference.

This is a meeting with what will likely be my dissertation committee (there could be one two members that get changed out, but that’s not very common) about my future courses and the scheduling of my general exam. It looks like this Spring I’ll take the last exam of my educational career. If that goes well and I pass the exam, I’ll be considered ABD (All But Dissertation). From there I’ll have 2 to 3 years of funding to write my dissertation and teach one class per semester. It’s still kind of weird to think that I’m this close to finishing the program. Wow.

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Have you ever wondered what happened to common, run-of-the-mill decency towards one another? I’m shocked at people that just don’t give a damn about anyone else. Think about it… Go to the grocery store parking lot and there are stray carts left all over the place, 20 ft from the cart return. How long do you think it’d take to walk that cart over? 20 seconds? 30? Drive through a construction zone and everyone thinks they have to drive in the soon-to-be-closed lane all the way until the cones force them over. Don’t they understand that if everyone just merged over as they had time that everyone would get through it faster? No, of course not because they’re to concerned that those 5 other people are going to get through the zone faster. When was the last time you’ve gone out to eat dinner and didn’t see someone (at your table or otherwise) interrupt a dinner to answer a phone call?Just an ounce of common decency would drastically change any of these situations. I’m almost certain that the cause of the lack of decency is an increase in self-centeredness. In this culture it’s terribly easy for us all to become more and more self-absorbed and forget that the world doesn’t revolve around us. Throughout the next couple of days, ask yourself how you may have allowed the me-centered culture to change your attitude toward others in a negative way.
Grace and peace,

A new house and other miscellany

1) My wife, Tina Marie, and I closed on a house this morning. We’re pretty excited about it and can’t wait to start moving into to it. The whole process has been so smooth and stress-free, it’s amazing. I can’t believe I’m old enough to buy a house and finally in a place to afford one (that last part is mostly due to my sugar-momma [who is not yet a momma!], remember grad students don’t get paid much). I bought a really nice 2 wheel dolly from Home Depot today; the beginning to my new tool collection!Here’s one pic of the house from the realtor website we found it on. Once we take our own I’ll post some more.2) Game 1 of the NBA Finals is tonight. I’m in shock that the Mavs made it. I’ve been wanting this for so long I can’t believe it’s happening. I really don’t like Shaq, Gary Payton, or Pat Riley and love Mark Cuban, Dirk-the-German-wonder, and Avery Johnson so I’m sure you know who I’m pulling for. I really hope the refs don’t decide the series either way. The NBA is very susceptible to having games ruined by ticky-tack fouls (or fouls only going one way). I’m hoping for another good series with no external influences.3) I submitted my general exam reading list today and promptly realized that I left out Leibniz’s contribution to the problem of evil debate. That’s a big mistake that I’m sure I’ll hear about from my committee. Oh well.4) I started painting this huge house in OKC this week and it’s going to be a killer. Its a 2 1/2 story wood paneled house that has like 45 foot gables. Me and a good friend from the philosophy program are painting it together. This week we worked 7 to 5 and will probably keep that schedule most of the summer so we can actually finish it. I’ll post a pic of it when I can.Well, that’s about it for now.

Sweet relief, for now

Well, I finished my PhD qualifying exams this morning. The first one on the history of modern philosophy was yesterday and went well. I answered the three questions that I was really hoping were going to be on the exam:

1. What is the charge of circularity against Descartes in the Meditations and how could one defend Descartes against this charge?
2. Explain the view of creation as held by Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. Be sure to include Descartes’ discussion of the creation of eternal truths, Leibniz’s divine calculus, and Spionza’s necessitarianism.
3. What is Locke’s view on the primary/secondary quality distinction? How does he argue for this distinction? How does Berkeley critique Locke’s view? Does Berkeley misunderstand Locke?

This morning I took the exam on metaphysics and epistemology and, again, the questions I wanted to be on the test most were there:

1. What is the ontological argument for the existence of God and what are the objections to it? How does it stand up to those objections?
2. What is (are) the main problem(s) of free will? What is a compatibilist response to the problem(s)? How does compatibilism stand up to objections raised against it?
3. What is Gettier’s objection to the traditional account of knowledge? What are the possible responses to that problem? How do the responses fair to objections?

I feel really good knowing that I answered everything that I wanted to and don’t think I forgot anything that was crucial to the arguments. My only concern is that in preparing my notes and outlines, I may have overlooked or forgotten something important and because of that, it didn’t end up on the exam. I don’t think that is a real plausible scenario, but it is plausible at least.So, I leave with another request. Please continue to pray for favor among the 5 professors that will be grading the exam. I need to get a ‘high pass’ to continue in the program. I’ll keep you updated.Grace and peace,

Ph.D. Qualifying Exam

Well it’s that time of year… I’m among about 8 other graduate students that are trying to spend their time studying for the upcoming M.A. general exam/ Ph.D. qualifying exam. This Thursday at 10:00 I’ll be taking a 2 hour test on the history of modern philosophy and then Friday at 10:00 I’ll take the metaphysics and epistemology exam. This is quite frightening because if I don’t get a “high pass”, I don’t get to stay in the program.Fortunately, I have past exams to look through to see what type of questions are usually asked and, in some cases, what the chances are of certain questions being on the exam. This second part is a tremendous help. It’s not too fun to think that you have to know enough to write for about 40 minutes each on 6 questions when there are about 40-50 questions to study. My study guide is somewhere between 45-55 pages long, and that’s with eliminating many of the questions that have been asked in the past. Here is a list of the questions I feel like I need to knock out of the ballpark the following questions/subjects:

1. Anselm’s Ontological Argument
2. A compatibilist response to the free will/determinism debate with a critique of that response
3. The functionalist account of the mind/body problem with critique
4. A response to Gettier’s critique of knowledge consisting of ‘justified true belief’
5. An argument for epistemological skepticism with critique
6. Descartes’ main purposes in writing his Meditations
7. The charge of circularity against Descartes and a defense of him
8. Leibniz’s law of the ‘Indiscernibility of Identicals’ and what its supposed to support
9. Spinoza’s position on the mind/body problem noting his doctrine of explanatory isolationism
10. Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz on God’s creation of the world
11. The discussion around Locke and Berkeley’s conception of primary and secondary qualities
12. Berkeley’s idealism with critique, noting how he thinks he avoids skepticism
13. Hume’s view on causation and/or induction

Some of these are almost gauranteed to be on the exam, whereas others just might be. Of these 13 questions, I’ll answer 6; 3 on Thursday and 3 on Friday. I’m hoping that I’ll have time to at least briefly study for about 6 others just in case I get totally screwed and most of these 13 are on the test. I figure if I can really blow them away with my answers on 2 out of the 3, then it may not be so bad if I don’t do as well on that final test. My prayer is that the questions on the exam will include most if not all of these questions. That way I can really just pick the ones I feel the best about and not just the ones I feel less screwed about.I’ve had my break now, so it’s back to studying. Well, it’s actually time for dinner, but then back to studying. Please pray for me this Thursday and Friday morning. Thanks.Grace and peace

The Blessings of Friends

I was reminded this weekend about how nice it is to have great friends. Not only did Tina Marie and I have a great time at the movies with Chad, but we also had a great time Sunday night watching the Super Bowl at the Starling house. It was nice to just hang out and catch up a little bit. The time we spent with them reminded me of other friends that I have throughout the States that I miss dearly.For anyone reading this that is still in college, take advantage of the times you have to build a solid community that you can maintain once you leave school. It wasn’t until after I graduated from SAGU that I realized the difference between graduating from college and graduating from high school. When you finish high school, you still think there is a chance you’ll see your friends back home again. Most of the time that is an illusion, but there’s still hope. When you finish college, most of your friends move to different parts of the country or the world. What’s great though is that I was lucky to develop solid relationships with most of them and still are close. I hope you do can do the same.Lord, I pray that those reading this will continue to understand the value of having a community that will be there to encourage, strengthen, and challenge them in their life’s journey as a follower of your way. Be with them and lead them to new relationships or just help them to renew old relationships that haven’t been appropriately attended to. Thank you. Amen.

My conversion story

Many of you know this about me already, but after emailing a friend the other day I decided to publish a story about my conversion experience. To set the stage, it began approximately 8-9 months ago, but has really taken hold of my life in the past 2-3 months. I know, I know…you thought that I was ‘converted’ several years ago, back in high school. Well, this is a conversion of a different kind. What follows is the email I sent my friend Steve (who, you will see, is a former graduate of Miami University), I hope it explains a bit more about who I am.

How’s it going man? Things are going well out here in OK, but I have a confession to make. Most of my life I have pulled for OSU (but never really wanted OU to lose, unless they were playing OSU). After a lot of soul searching, I decided that I have more reasons to be an OU fan than I do to be an OSU fan. I’ve been wooed. I know I know, this is unthinkable for you, but remember I was never a ‘die-hard’ OSU fan in the same way you are a die-hard Miami fan. If I liked OSU as much as you like Miami, I would probably wear a “THE SOONERS SUCK” shirt everyday, but I’m not. I thought, they’re paying for my school, they’re paying me a yearly stipend to go to school, and my wife is a full time employee as well…it’s hard to not start pulling for them. We spend more of our time on the OU campus than we do off campus, and let me tell you, Sooner Magic isn’t just alive when OU’s trailing a game. There’s something about being on campus, I’m sure if I attended OSU, I would have much different feelings. In reality, the only reason I started pulling for OSU was to piss off my brother. So, there you go…rip, ream, and make fun all you want. I feel like I’ve ‘come out of the closet’, but now have a clean conscience. 

So, this may be shocking to you, but it does feel nice to get it off my chest. Well, now you all know that I am a University of Oklahoma fan. It’s still hard to call myself a Sooner, for now I’ll just stick with being an OU fan. The ‘Sooner’ will come someday, just not today.

What hard work gets you…

I spent this last weekend working with my father in our backyard. You see, about three weeks ago there were a bunch of fires in Mustang, Oklahoma. My parent’s backyard caught fire, but thankfully the firemen were able to save the house and our cabana. Unfortunately, our shed was not saved from the destruction.Thankfully my parents did have the shed and contents insured and will be able to build a new one relatively soon. Actually, because my father knows so many contractors of various sorts, he is going to end up with a much nicer building that he can finally restore old cars in. I knew that he was going to do much of the removal work himself, and he isn’t 25 years old any more, so I volunteered to help out (because, well, I am in fact 25 and have no excuse to not work my butt off for family). We spent almost all day Friday disassembling the shed. It was pretty fun actually. Hard work, but fun. After we were through tearing it down (got it down by lunch, thank you very much), we carefully stacked all the wood pieces in our just delivered dumpster. We knew we had a lot and needed to be conscientious about how things go in to make sure it all fit. It seems that was more work than the actually tearing it down part. As the night wore on, I found myself really enjoying this time with my dad. It’s times like these that I am thankful Tina Marie and I moved to Oklahoma.I was so tired Friday night that Tina Marie and I decided to spend the night. We got up somewhat early on Saturday morning and started helping our neighbor tear down his shed. What was interesting about his shed is that from the outside you couldn’t even tell it was burned. Somehow the fire made it’s way inside the shed and was burning it inside out. This was a bit more fun than tearing down our shed because it involved chain saws and a Bobcat (the tractor, not the animal). We filled our second dumpster by 2:00pm and then it was finally time for me to go home. I had earlier received my first assignment of the semester and needed to go buy The Complete Works of Plato before I could begin.As I was sitting on my couch Saturday night my mother called and asked me a strange question. She said, “Would you rather have an 8-cup or 12-cup coffee maker?” I of course responded that the 12 would be better, still not knowing why she asked. She said thanks and then hung up the phone. You see, my wife and mother went shopping while we were working in the backyard and my parents decided to reward me with a brand new Barista Aroma Grande coffee maker from Starbucks.Needless to say, I was pretty excited about this. You see, we received a really nice coffee maker as a wedding gift that kept causing us lots of problems. First the electronic buttons wouldn’t work correctly, then it started leaking, not stuff that you want to deal with, especially if it costs as much as it did. Tina Marie had taken it back earlier in the day and got a store credit to buy other items that we needed, but we had no coffee maker! Things were going to be really bad the next couple of days. Then, out of nowhere, my parents come through and buy us a coffee maker that is nicer than the one we just returned.So, for those of you that might shy away from lending a helping hand, just remember (but don’t tell Kant!) there is always the possibility that self-satisfaction with a hard days work might not be your only reward.