Economies of Scale in the Graphic Design Industry

| Tom Schenk |

Khoi Vingh argues there is very small economies of scale for graphic artists:

When a design operation scales up the equation becomes much more diffuse. Beyond a certain point, a business of designers is no longer a studio — focusing on a specific niche of design, or devoting energies into a small number of projects at once — but rather an agency — a provider of multiple services, staffed by different kinds of specialists. Ideas must travel more complicated routes from brains to hands, and reconciling conflicting signals becomes difficult.

The Charge of Philosophy

| Scott Belcher |

The force of history trembles with the birth of a new idea, for it is the ubiquitous power of question to undermine the integrity of an age. By inciting a crisis in the foundation of a paradigm’s method, we empower forth a trajectory of cultural renewal. As philosophers, we must stand as the vanguard of this scholarly progress, ensuring the extension of knowledge through the theoretical movements we inspire; never forsaking the responsibility or aspiration of driving the twin societal engines of hope and creation. Ultimately, we must be the ones to fuel the way, pioneering untold realms of conceptual space, advancing the united purpose of our humanity. For the engineering of civilization is judged to be only as mighty as the scope of its vision. What, then, awaits the illumination of philosophical discovery, the fields of inquiry yet to be harvested of their promise, their opulence? What is this dogma clouding our awareness of the coming horizon, limiting the periphery of our intellectual eye? What ought we to be anticipating as the next standard bearer of history, that singular vision daring to emancipate our minds of these conventional philosophical fiefdoms, infested by the seditious squires of specialization, now lording over and taxing the imagination of our once holistically integrated landscape? These are the questions we must be ever mindful, if we are to vigilantly remain a dynamic, curiosity seeking species of innovators; fulfilling the charge of our epic theoretical quest, as we struggle together, bridging our rational dichotomies, resolving our universe’s indeterminacies, and overcoming the throes of nihilism. Let this be the sacred mandate of the great philosopher, come what may in the history of ideas.

Why We Haven’t Posted

| Tom Schenk |

Remember, it’s graduate students running this blog…this is what we have been doing.

Worth Noting

| Tom Schenk |

The New York Times is now providing free access to all content, including subscriber-only content. You’re required to have a University email address (e.g., .edu, ac.uk, etc…) to be eligible.

In the Tenth Dimension

| Tom Schenk |

“Everything is in the tenth dimension,” said the door mouse as Alice followed the rabbit down the hole. Super string theory sounds like a Jefferson Airplane song written by Charles Dodgson. Nevertheless, the happenings in the 10th dimension appear to create what we see in our own three-dimensional world. It’s hard to visualize what happens in the dimensions between us and the tenth dimension. But the website associated with Rob Bryanton’s book, Imagining the Tenth Dimension, has an excellent visual and conceptual explanation of all ten dimensions. (Flash required)

What the Sun Says About Probabilities

| Trin Turner |

Anyone know what the Coulomb Barrier is? Fear not, because that is what I am presently going to write about…

The Coulomb Barrier, named after the physicist Charles de Coulomb, is the electrostatic energy barrier of a nuclei, a barrier which must be breached by a nuclei of like charge in order for nuclear fusion to occur.

Now, classical (read post Newtonian pre Maxwellian) deterministic physics does not allow the fusion of like-charged particles and, though less obvious, neither does Qunatum Mechanics (though with probabilistic undertones that I will get into shortly): the reason we don’t fall through the streeet and end up on the underside of China is essentially because of the Coulomb Barrier between the electrons in our bodies and those comprising the street we are walking on. The point of this rambling is that the fusion taking place in our very own sun is the fusion of single like-charged protons (and a single neutron) comprising the nuclei of two hydrogen atoms in order to form the more complex nuclei of helium. So the obvious question is ‘how do the hydrogen nuclei overcome the Coulomb Barrier in order to initiate the fusion process?’ Well, the answer is that they don’t, probabilistically speaking. Even with the awesome velocities of these nuclei due to the extremely higfh energy environment only about one in one billion potential collision scenarios (these events are called ‘quantum tunnelling’ by the way) actually succeeds in the fusing of two protons in order ot garner a helium atom. What is most astonishing is that this is the same figure that quantum mechanics predicts (given quantum indeterminacy, mind you) should occur on average. And, most importantly, this is the exact figure required to sustain the fusion process (until the sun goes red giant, that is…)

What are the conclusions to be drawn from this? What does this situation say about the laws of physics? More pointedly, what does this say about the structure of the laws of physics? Namely, if we lived in a completely deterministic universe with laws that disallowed margins of error and probabilistic indeterminacy of the metaphysical as opposed to the epistemic sort, then the Coulomb Barrier would disallow the possibility of fusion and, more essentially, if the Coulomb Barrier (interpreted fully deterministically) represented an actual law of nature (a bonafide universal constant, that is) then fusion would not, and physically could not, occur. It is only because of the indeterminate state of fundamental particles that fusion can occur.

So, does the probability exist in our interpretation of the behavior of fundamental particles or does it rest within the structure of the universe itself?

Bayesian Updating & Time

| Tom Schenk |

Henry over at Crooked Timber pointed out a new clock that runs a few minutes fast:

 Many people have their clocks running a few minutes fast, to encourage them to leave earlier for appointments to get there on time etc etc. The problem with this is that if you’re half-way rational, you’ll correct for the error, making it useless. So the solution is to have a probabilistic clock, where the clock is fast, but you aren’t sure how fast it is within a given and relatively short time range…This is exactly what some bloke has programmed, although it doesn’t appear that it has an alarm feature yet.

The comments section has some interesting discussions on whether this would really work. Namely, wouldn’t one just take the expected value (e.g., the average) difference between the actual time and the time on the clock? So if it is, on average, 5 minutes fast, wouldn’t you just assume the time is always 5 minutes fast?

No one has yet mentioned the possibility of using Bayesian Updating to figure out the real time. There are probably better indicators for time than the probablistic clock, for instance, what’s on TV at the moment, whose online, how sunny it is. My indicator is Headline News, that I usually watch every morning. Certain segments (e.g., sports) tends to be at the same intervals (e.g. 10 and 40). Usually when they get to entertainment or oddball news, I know it’s approaching either the top or the bottom of the hour.

The Place For Journals

| Tom Schenk |

The Foreign Policy Passport Blog quotes a recent blog entry by Ethan Zuckerman on whether peer-reviewed journals are becoming obsolete. After Mr. Zuckerman, a nonacademic, dealt grugingly with editors at a well-respect technology magazine that resulted in a paper not being published, he writes:

It’s hard to figure out the value of academic publishing if you’re not an academic. When I write here, I tend to get critique – usually smart, well-informed critique – within hours. I often discover that I’m flat out wrong about something I’ve asserted, and I can update my opinions and impressions based on feedback from people better informed than I am. That seems like a much more efficient form of peer review – at least in the academic realm I inhabit – than waiting six to twelve months to find out whether an anonymous reviewer thinks my now-out of date paper is worth publishing.

The Foreign Policy Blog asks a more poignant question: “In an age when everything from genetic science to foreign policy changes so quickly, can peer reviewed academic journals be relevant?”

But have journals always been responsible for delivering timely and pertinant information? Genetic sciences still rely upon 10-year studies, so even a year delay from article submission to article publication seems to be a short wait in retrospect. Rapidly changing foreign policy is made for the pages of magazines (maybe Foreign Policy is just trying to plug their product?), rather than a journal which aims to explain more than current trends.

So what is the intention of academic journals? Probably the largest contribution of journals is acting as a filter to the multitudes of papers. While Mr. Zuckerman’s problem seemed to be a marketing related issue to the journal, but most rejections come because the paper isn’t “innovative” or “clear” as the next. Even though journals are a more static, they play a crucial (and effective) role in choosing important articles for the academic community. Blogging and Wikipedia simply does not have the same sort of filter, and indeed, most of the top bloggers today are originally constant writers in published periodicals.

Reality Reflected

| Amy Turner |

 

A recent Scientific American article (Rizzolatti, Fogassi, and Gallese, 2006) piqued our interest and I was hoping to share this newer revelation with you. Ten years ago, a group of Italian scientists discovered a new subset of motor neurons within the monkey and human brain, which they termed Mirror Motor Neurons. These neurons are located within the motor system of the ventral premotor cortex and deal with movements, observation of movements, intention, and context. What these scientists found was that these neurons were not only stimulated by actual movement (motor actions) within the brain, but also fired as the subject observed someone else performing those same actions. For example, if you watch someone reaching out to grasp a cup of tea, the same motor neurons that fire for the person actually doing the motion are the same neurons that are simultaneously firing within your brain. The authors claim that this system of neurons not only function as direct motor activity, but also as a “direct internal experience, and therefore understanding, of another person’s act, intention or emotion.” They believe that these neurons endow us with the complex act of imitation, of which only humans and a few chimps can do, and lead us to learn through these acts of imitation; setting up a bridge of communication between individuals on multiple levels. This lead to more research involving emotional ‘mirrors’ and language centers, revealing that the phrase, “I feel your pain,” is physically true. Emotion and pain centers within the parietal lobe will light up not only for the person who is experiencing the emotion, but for that person that who is observing someone else ‘act out’ these emotions. Emotional and physical mirroring allows us to learn and interpret our environment, helping us to decide how to act and possibly predict how someone is going to act. These mapping and mirror systems seem to be inherently present at birth, hence the reason a newborn will stick their tongue out at you when you do it.

Ramachandran and Oberman, neuroscientists out of California, have also looked at these systems for a way to postulate a theory of Autism. Because these individuals seem to exhibit similar symptoms varying in degree of severity (sometimes referred as Autism Spectrum Disorder), Ramachandran believes that the mirroring system in the brain may be a component of the autistic brain affected. Symptoms include emotional and social withdrawal, lack of eye contact, poor language capacity, absence of empathy, problems understanding metaphors, and preoccupation with repetitive and/or stereotyped activities and interests, especially inanimate objects. Though most scientists agree that autism has a strong genetic link from twin studies and other congenital disorders, environmental factors can play a role, a controversial one at that. These defects within emotional reciprocity, language, and stimulus overload have lead the above researchers to believe that this mirroring system is somehow damaged. In fact, when testing these children, they consistently showed deficits within the mirroring systems. The authors suggest that these mirroring systems might be able to be repaired and suggest biofeedback therapy, MDMA (ecstasy) treatment as a way to stimulate these neurons, and other novel treatments.

Another avenue of research within this topic might be the lack of empathy in sociopaths: do they have a defect within the emotional mirroring system which makes them incapable of remorse or guilt, or at least a skewed representation of that?

What Is Philosophy and Why Does It Matter?

| Scott Belcher |

 

 

During the course of your own life you have undoubtedly felt it, that inner tension within you, the conflicts that arise in your inner desire to understand who you are. Within each of us there exists a sacred need since childhood to develop and maintain a sense of shared identity with others, fostered in an environment of mutually accepted values and behaviors. And yet, simultaneously, we contradict our own needs by further needing to be our own unique self, to be freed of the communal burdens imposed upon us and express in an individualized fashion our uninhibited personality.

Who you are forms out of those experiences that you alone carry. Take, for example, romantic love. Each expression of love is the delicate crystallization of a uniquely shaped relationship, the temporal sentiments of lustful desire for another. We each feel in our hearts different experiences that mean different things to each one of us and only to us. It is this memorable feeling towards a special experiential collection of thoughts and moments that forms the burden of being an individual. The burden lies in the painful feeling of isolation, the realization that what you carry can never be completely articulated to another, to be altogether communicated “soul-to-soul”. We must settle for approximations. As we all know, identity as an autonomous freedom comes at a steep price.

But there is another side to this: the positive that comes with community. We learn from the power of friendship that we may be unique in what we have experienced, but that we can share and understand these experiences collectively and sympathetically with one another. So love may be on the one hand, unique in its sensual moments and place in time, but the form of love is shared by all. Underlying all the flux of life, the emotions, the personalities, the behaviors, the practices, we find through community the universal truth that each and every one of us equally shares a human nature, an emotive and rational core that explains what we know, what we feel; our limits and our possibilities. Thus, the form of love transcends all time and circumstance. This is why good literature and poetry speaks to us all, for it taps into the core of human nature, of those fundamental traits that transcendentally articulate what it is to exist in a state of love; good literature defines what love is.  Take the writings of Shakespeare.  How can something written hundreds of years ago still speak to us across the many cultural changes in history?  It is precisely because something essential, something necessay, is captured in the writing, portraying the truth of how something is. 

In effect, philosophy is this process of reconciliation on the most general level. Philosophical literature is the search for the ultimate forms that unite not only the form of love that we humans share with one another, but asks these questions of reality, of knowledge, of judgment, of language, of justice, of beauty. What are those forms by which we necessarily rely upon in order to understand anything like world? What do we require in order to reconcile the inner tensions of human nature as a practical activity and as a theoretical endeavor?

Philosophy is thereby defined as having its own crisis of identity. Just like you and me, philosophy is divided by the tension of wanting to be universal and having absolute forms true of all things throughout all time, while simultaneously being chaotically divided into unique moments, unique sensations, and unique identities that do not fit with the perfect picture. Philosophy is the desire for absolute knowledge that can be determined and absolute freedom that breaks free of the very chains that are required for this understanding. We call these two tensions, the practical and the theoretical, and they have plagued philosophy since the time of Plato and Aristotle some 2,300 years ago. So what makes philosophy matter to you and me is that it is the ultimate reflection of whom you and I are, it is the struggle to know ourselves through the study of what we most implicitly rely upon every day in all of our decisions. So every time you ask a question, every time you analyze a situation, you are partaking in the general form of the philosophical inquiry. Its subject is ubiquitous and only limited by the knowable.

By answering those most fundamental questions and reconciling those most basic tensions in our nature, we answer the most fundamental things about whom each of us really are. And this is why philosophy matters.