Epistemological Relativism

In my struggle to meet the demands of my now long forgotten, but now remembered, resolutions of the New Year I read Adam’s Curse by W.B. Yeats last night. Some of the stanza’s I have faint memories of. If I can dare to do so I’d say that this poem summarizes nicely what I tell my children; doing things that are worthwhile take serious time and effort. Yeats, I think, agrees. Poetry, beauty and love all take work. I should correct myself here. If you are successful, the recipient of your effort should scarcely notice the labor. This is one of the signs of its quality according to Yeats; the quality of seeming like “a moment’s thought”.

Sadly, and I get this sense near the end, we’ve lost the motivation to pursue this sort of quality. Or we invent new ways that short-circuit some of that time and effort. Maybe when we do this, we lose some of the personal benefits of this exertion?

We sat together at one summer’s end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, “A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.”

And thereupon
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
There’s many a one shall find out all heartache
On finding that her voice is sweet and low
Replied, “To be born woman is to know –
Although they do not talk of it at school –
That we must labour to be beautiful.”
I said, “It’s certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.”

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.
I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

Thoughts Poetry, W.B. Yeats

Wow, has it really been a month since my last post?  It certainly isn’t because I don’t have anything on my mind. It is a time/motivation thing. So, since I am writing now I must have something worthwhile to say? Maybe.

I’ve had several conservations over the past couple of years about religion. Yes, probably more than several. In particular though, these conversations centered around the most pure, earliest, oldest or the most correct form of a given religion. There is a continuing effort, it seems to me, by people of all religions to try to “get back to the roots” of their respective religions. It is as if they are saying that the current forms are somehow deficient. I find this fascinating.

Obviously, over time religions “evolve”. As people and cultures change, religious expression and understanding also undergo changes of their own. But, when people become unsatisfied by current religious forms, what are they trying to recover by going back in time?  I would venture a guess that there is some connection in their minds between time and accuracy. The older the religious practice, the more pure (read: correct) it must be. Naturally, if this is our position, one would look to the oldest practices to find solace in their religion. But doesn’t this make a fatal mistake? Doesn’t it elevate the people of the past into positions that they themselves would not lay claim to? Namely, that they alone understood what the correct religion looked like or that they were less likely to make errors of judgment? I don’t think the devout peoples in antiquity would touch that with a 10-foot pole.

This grows more acute when there are religious figures in the mix. Even if these religious figures are elevated to some perfection because of some innate power, does it follow that emulating their religious practices would lead one to the correct understanding and practices of a religion? Doesn’t this commit the same error? It removes the figures from their historical setting. If they are a part of history, then aren’t they also constrained in some ways by space and time? I think there is a sort of reverse chronological snobbery at play here. Anything “old” is good, anything “new” is bad. Or, maybe, “the older the better”.

Why were the ancient caretakers of religion any more or less human, imperfect or prone to error than us? I don’t think they were any of those things. I think it is more a modern phenomena. Maybe it is a means to preserve and connect with a larger community. Maybe the current religious experiences are devoid of any real content, meaning or force. But is the answer to this that twe revert back to 2500 year old practices? I don’t think so.

Theology, Thoughts Orthodoxy

Contrary to my expectations, Lilith by George MacDonald is a tough slog. I’m not sure why. Maybe I was expecting something more like The Princess and the Goblin. It seems as though Lilith is really a message with a story as a background rather than a story with a message in the background. I’m sure it is just my lack of sophistication. Despite this, MacDonald manages to transmit quite a few profound ideas to the attentive reader.

“These words are too big for you and me: all is one of them, and ever is another,” said a voice near me which I knew.

George MacDonald, Lilith, p.93

Ahh, such sweet music to my epistemological senses, however distorted they may be. Yes, there is little context to go on here, but it does speak for itself doesn’t it? All and ever are rarely epistemologically admissible and yet easily used in our everyday speech. Who has such authority to lay claim to all and ever? Is it you and I?

“Doubt”, I said to myself, “may be a poor encouragement to do anything, but it is a bad reason for doing nothing.”

George MacDonald, Lilith, p.97

Classic. Do I need to elaborate?

Books, Thoughts George MacDonald, Lilith

What smites us with unquenchable amazement is not that which we grasp and are able to convey but that which lies within our reach but beyond our grasp; not the quantitative aspect of nature but something qualitative; not what is beyond our range of time and space but the true meaning, source and end of being, in other words, the ineffable.

– Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man is Not Alone P.4

Many times we experience things we do not fully understand and cannot begin to adequately articulate. It is as if something has grasped us as we struggle in search for meaning or something bigger than ourselves. Sometimes we are grasped even when we are not searching. Heschel comes very close, I think, to explaining this sort of experience. To those that are fortunate enough to share in such an encounter, Heschel’s words need little explanation. Nature’s mysteries sometimes draw us into this mystery of causes. Who or what is this mystery that we sometimes glimpse however dimly? What is it that we feel kinship with in those mundane and extradinary of times? Is it imagination or wishful expectation or something much, much greater?

Books, Theology, Thoughts Abraham Joshua Heschel, Theology

After reading several Longfellow poems with topics ranging from children, life, death and faith I’m beginning to have a certain affinity for the fellow (pun intended). I don’t mind at all if his poems were written for the masses as some have claimed. When I read a poem, I am the only one responding to his words at that moment in time. There is nobody else the poet is speaking to other than me. Can it really be any other way?

My favorite stanza has got to be sixth. I try to focus on what I can do in the present. Alas, my focus seldom turns into action. So many times we linger in the past or wander into the future that we forget about our responsibilities to act in the present moment. Longfellow clearly understand this challenge and our natural inclination to do nothing. After reading this poem I feel compelled or inspired to continue acting in the present, to make the most of the time that we have here and to get to a place where I can, just maybe, leave “footprints on the sands of time” for someone to benefit from.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,–act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;–

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life

General, Thoughts Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poetry

But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool of you that you will know yourself for one, and so begin to be wise!

– George MacDonald, Lilith 1895

I love the Platonic ring to this. Socrates in the Apology makes a similar statement about how little we really know and how we let ourselves to believe otherwise.

Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is – for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know.

– Plato, Apology

In MacDonald’s novel, as a twist of irony, the statement comes from the mouth of a talking raven! The exchange leading up to the quotation above is fantastic. It reminds me in how we sometimes do not want to go through the trouble of learning things for ourselves or doing the work required to acquire some skill. Here’s the rest if you’re interested.

“Could you not teach me to know a prayer-flower when I see it?” I said.

“I could not. But if I could, what better would you be? You would not know if of yourself and itself! Why know the name of a thing when the thing itself you do not know? Whose work is it but your own to open your eyes?”

– George MacDonald, Lilith 1895

Part of the fun is the journey itself. I know, it seems trite these days, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Books, Thoughts George MacDonald, Lilith

Here is a poem that I’ve been contemplating for the past several days.

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls

After several readings I’m beginning to think this poem has something to say about Death. I have a few reasons for this conclusion. The coming morning, instead of arousing traditional feelings of life, hope and renewal, bring into focus the termination of a journey. The traveler will never return to the shore. I think this reversal, using the morning to speak of some loss instead of renewal, is very powerful. The tide and its cyclical and almost timeless nature contrasts well with the fate of the traveler. The tide continues in perpetuity, but the traveler cannot. The traveler is finite and limited. The footprints emphasize this fact. The memory, life and activities of the traveler fade quickly away, but the tide repeats its playful and deliberate act.

I’m not sure if my conclusion is accurate, but it does seem reasonable. Of course, more examination is necessary. Why, for example, do the waves have soft, white hands? Where are there steeds and a hostler? I imagine that as these questions are answered my conclusion may seem more or less accurate. What do you think? Am I “right”? Better still, what does it mean to be right?

–UPDATE: I found an audio link to The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls on archive.org. Enjoy!

Books, General, Thoughts Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poetry

Over the past several weeks I have had the pleasure of reading through a large stack of academic papers (that I could retrieve without cost) on security requirements. As I suspected going into this task there were as many opinions on the proper way to elicit, describe, generate and document such things as there are tastes in chocolate. That said, there were some gems that I  found scattered throughout. It may be that I consider them gems because they happen to agree with my thinking on the subject, but I digress. Why did I go to all of the trouble? In my almost insane quest for continually improving the state and practice of security I knew that there had to be a better way of “doing requirements” and introducing this part of security into a lifecycle (however broken it might be). I’ve seen bizarre checklists, a ream of non-functional requirements appended to a project with almost no budget or critical regions of functionality and unintelligible policy-laden statements trying to masquerade as requirements for engineers and designers. It is a mess. It gets worse. Most of the time requirements of the security variety, in whatever form they appear, may be all that a project team ever sees prior to construction of their widgets. Not only is their an interpretative barrier at times, but the fact that we’ve left requirements at the door without venturing further into the various stages of a life cycle guarantees that things will break.

It really doesn’t end after requirements. Well, it may if your requirements look anything like what I’ve discussed above. After requirements someone has to come along and take that information and turn it into some form of design. It seems to me that security requirements are for the most part existential statements about security *functions*. That’s where some security folks go wrong. We think that requirements are really just a synonym for policies and procedures. Sorry, they’re not. They should be something closer to prescribed functions of a system or constraints on functions dictated by business requirements. A simple example is authorization. We can make some general statements about the existence of an authorization component. Something should be there to grant the appropriate entitlements to a user. This make sense right? What sometimes happens though is that we load in all sorts of other implementation or design requirements into the cart. When we do this we run into all sorts of problems like traceability, complexity and adoption. Should statements about least privilege, compartmentalization or filesystem access control lists be included in requirements? I don’t think so. Those states are either design principles and constraints or implementation details. Maybe if we can think about security expectations more broadly we will realize that those expectations can be articulated in a more contextually useful manner. Here is a very coarse taxonomy of what I’m talking about.

• Goals
• Non-Functional Requirements (Security Functions, Attack Resistant Qualities)
• Design Constraints/Principles
• Implementation Guidance

Each one of these categories depends in some part on its predecessor. You can see the process here. We’re moving from the general to the specific. What security people typically do is something like this:

• Requirements = Policies, Standards, Attack Language, Security Functions, Design Statements

It is a wonder that any of this makes its way into a final product. There could be information in that bundle of joy for developers, architects, requirements engineers, business analysts and others. To make things work we have to do a better job of understanding the who consumes our documented expectations. We can’t use the kitchen sink of requirements if we really want our applications to be “secure”.

Security, Thoughts

After hearing of the Supreme Court’s decision regarding detainee’s rights at Guantanamo Naval Station I decided it was time to read their opinion. No, I have not read the entire 125 page document. I just finished reading the eight page syllabus. For those that are living under a rock, the detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been held there without the entitlement of the Writ. This basically means that they have not been given the opportunity to question the legality of their imprisonment. As a result, many of the detainees are held there indefinitely. Now, this is a gross oversimplification. There are many other factors at play such as the location of the detention center, it’s status as a territory, the citizenship of the detainees and their status as “enemy combatants”. Based on these and other factors the court ruled that the detainee’s rights to the Writ cannot be suspended. I have to say at first, because of the “at war” considerations, I thought this was a bad decision. After reading, some reflection and a few interesting conversations I now think this was a good decisions. It is, of course, not without difficulties, but the decision heads in the appropriate direction.

One of the main themes touched on in the Syllabus is the Writ’s ability to ensure individual liberty. If the conditions by which the Writ may be suspended are broadened our liberties will have been significantly curtailed.

That the Framers considered the writ a vital instrument for the protection of individual liberty is evident from the care taken in the Suspension Clause to specify the limited grounds for its suspension: The writ may be suspended only when public safety requires it in times of rebellion or invasion.

The problem is that the Guantanomo scenario is unique. Some argue that because Guantanamo isn’t a United States territory that the Constitution has little influence or power. The Court does agree that this uniqueness presents challenges for effectively resolving the dilemma.

None of the cases the parties cite reveal whether a common-law court would have granted, or refused to hear for lack of jurisdiction, a habeas petition by a prisoner deemed an enemy combatant, under a standard like the Defense De- partment’s in these cases, and when held in a territory, like Guantanamo, over which the Government has total military and civil control.

The Court, thankfully, does not agree that the location of the detention center determines where and when the Constitution applies. We cannot simply claim that because Cuba is sovereign over Guantanamo that we must obviate the entitlements to the Writ.

but it does not accept the Government’s premise that de jure sovereignty is the touchstone of habeas jurisdiction.

Furthermore, to draw a clear line in the sand, it is not the place of the Executive or Legislative branches to determine where the law should be applied.

The Constitution grants Congress and the President the power to acquire, dispose of, and govern territory, not the power to decide when and where its terms apply.  To hold that the political branches may switch the Constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this Court, say “what the law is.”

The Court, through the Syllabus, understands that there are other considerations when extended the entitlements to Writ to detainees. “Due process” in this context takes time. It may be the case that the governement and/or military have very good reasons for detaining individuals. At the end of the day, at some reasonable point in time and in this context they must be allowed to understand why they are being held.

This holding should not be read to imply that a habeas court should intervene the moment an enemy combatant steps foot in a territory where the writ runs.

I think the Court understands the complexity of the situation. This isn’t a straight-forward case of a citizen being withheld certain rights. This isn’t a straigh-forward case of detention on U.S. soil. There are aspects terrorism, intelligence information, “aliens” that are intertwined in this case. We have to protect the country from foreign hostilities, but it cannot come at the expense of the liberty of citizens or, worse still, at the expense of our countries heritage of preserving liberty through due process.

 In considering both the procedural and substantive standards used to impose detention to prevent acts of terrorism, the courts must accord proper deference to the political branches.  However, security subsists, too, in fidelity to freedom’s first principles, chief among them being freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to the separation of powers.

General, Thoughts

I had a very interesting discussion with my carpool buddy about those atheism versus theism debates that are all the rage these days. He had some very astute observations despite his self-proclaimed lack of knowledge (he’s agnostic and I’m kidding). He noticed how the various camps typically claim that their side was the victor. See, debates aren’t exactly like the UFC. There isn’t a tap-out, a referee stoppage or a decision in the end. Instead, it is just a bunch of fans cheering for their fighter. What’s worse is that it is unlikely that one side would switch to the other as a result of such a brawl, but it is still entertaining and a great fuel source for conversation.

We discussed how atheistic arguments are sometimes made up of refutations of theistic arguments. Now, there is nothing wrong with this. If you can demonstrate that premises are incorrect or invalid you have successfully torpedoed the conclusion. What we observed is that in some cases this method (the refutation of theistic arguments) is successful. If they are successful (I think they are in some cases) then the argument for god is refuted. I agree with this. However, and I know this is obvious here, by refuting a positive proposition we have in no way confirmed it’s negative. In other words, refuting an argument for the existence of god does not get us to the truth claim that there is no god. I know, “the burden of proof is on you to prove god”. I agree. But if I cannot conjure up proof or my proofs are refuted, we simply slide into agnosticism. I can’t jump over the chasm into atheism without some logical help (I need some arguments). At the heart of it atheistic propositions, just like their theistic counterparts, are knowledge claims.

This of course led to all sorts of discussions regarding the problem of knowledge (a favorite of mine). Rarely, if ever, do I get the opportunity to talk about something that I think is fun and yet painful. So, I was sort of like the abominable snow man in this Looney Toons spoof. We talked about deduction and induction and the challenges of a priori knowledge. We talked about what meta-justification is. We even ventured off into the notions of “proof”. It seems that many today view scientific knowledge and proof in  the same way and forget that even within science there are a priori assumptions at play; nevermind the fun that ensues when we talk about sense data and what that data represents. Needless to say debates are a great way to pass the time of a long commute!

Philosophy, Theology, Thoughts