Next Tuesday, Only a Game returns for the final set of pieces before my Spring Social Media Break in May. There are six in all, exploring utopias, cultural disarmament, gender wars, viruses, public health colonialism, and finally, scientific truth and political reconciliation. These eclectic essays conclude the Magical Science Campaign that began over a year ago in January 2021. Thanks to everyone who has been joining me on this journey!
It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to my ludicrous superheroic alter ego Doctor Multiverse, appearing in a series of 15-minute videos on Doug Lain's Diet Soap Media starting Saturday 19th February! From Balrogs and Daleks to thought experiments and science fiction, Doctor Multiverse: Renegade Philosopher is a mind-melting journey into the moral multiverse, with yours truly as your guide.
I've been writing essays at Only a Game for nearly 17 years, and I have never come close of running out of things to write about. But I've been mindful for some time that the zeitgeist for the exchange of ideas is now video. There are disturbing costs to this transition that we do not acknowledge or indeed yet understand, but there are also remarkable possibilities, and it is with these potentialities that I hope to now supplement the power of my essays to foster understanding and forge peace.
Four episodes will run in this first series, and I shall not be posting new essays until they are over - but fret not, my philosophical nonsense resumes in writing once again on March 15th, and I plan to link the Doctor Multiverse episodes here in the meantime. I welcome discussion on these or anything else you'd care to engage on.
Tune in this Saturday for the debut of Doctor Multiverse: Renegade Philosopher!
Dear friends,
It's been rather a long social media break this time... partly, I have simply been too busy to attend to this side of my affairs, and partly I have not desired this kind of contact since it has not entailed much if any productive discourse recently, and so is merely aggravation and abuse, which I can understandably do without. But I cannot hide forever. There are matters at hand that need attending to.
What is coming up, you might reasonably ask...? Well, starting next Tuesday (11th January), a new five-part serial begins. Nicknamed "The Ascenturian Saga", it is not officially part of the Magical Science Campaign, but that campaign is not officially over either; rather, I see what is about to happen this year as a coda to Magical Science that is also its own mini-campaign on cultural disarmament. This will be followed in mid-February with my video debut as Doctor Multiverse: Renegade Philosopher on Diet Soap Media, about which there will be more anon.
All my philosophical projects this year are aiming at peace through cultural disarmament, and I have two specific fault lines I am targeting: the pro-vaxxer/anti-vaxxer fault line that fuels the nonsense, and the trans activist/lesbian feminist fault line that fuels the culture war. As ever, there are severe problems with aiming for peace in these particular battlegrounds...
For the nonsense, peace might potentially be obtained by putting the pro-vaxxers and the evidence-based medical research community back into discourse (the genuine anti-vaxxers are largely tangential to peace here, and were never truly the root problem). Alas, this is a path made excruciatingly difficult by now-ubiquitous censorship on these issues in both traditional media and social media. But because pro-vaxxers are emotionally committed to the sciences, being merely temporarily divorced from the research community and its essential disagreements as a consequence of the ongoing censorship, there is perhaps some hope for reconciliation here once the fear begins to subside.
However, since the nonsense has been turbo-charged by the blue-red fault line in the United States, the Senate Midterms are both an opportunity and an enormous risk. De-escalation without reconciliation will mean worse to come in the future... I hope to contribute in some small way to restoring medical discourse and thus the old ideals of clinical medicine and informed consent, and if that's not possible I will fall back to defending 'underground science' as long as is necessary. But I dread the harms on this path, which have already been horrific, particularly in Africa and southern Asia, although not for the reasons that are usually assumed by 'Westerners'.
For the culture wars, peace is hampered by the absence of recognisable spokespeople for the trans activists. This makes the hunt for gender armistice exceptionally tricky. On the plus side, the red-blue fault line is tangential here - this is a war fought internally to the 'left', although oft exacerbated by the tactless remarks made by denizens of 'red' States. I desperately wish for peace and a restoration of the Rainbow Alliance, but the attitudes of non-compromise that have grown up around this fault line make it exceptionally challenging to attain any kind of armistice now. But I could not live with myself if I did not at least try to broker peace here, although it will be walking upon a path of thorns to be sure.
Not everyone wants peace, alas, but such is always my goal. To that end, I leave you with a quote from Immanuel Kant's optimistic treatise of 1795, Towards Perpetual Peace:
One cannot expect that kings philosophize or that philosophers become kings. Nor is this desirable, for holding power unavoidably corrupts the free judgment of reason. Yet both kings and king-like peoples (those which rule over themselves in accordance with laws of equality), should not allow the class of philosophers to diminish or fall silent, but rather should have them speak publicly, for this enlightens the business of government, and, because by its very nature it is incapable of forming mobs and clubs, this class is beyond suspicion of being mere propagandists.
With unlimited love to you all,
Chris.
There is one final post to run, then my Autumnal Social Media Break begins. It will run throughout November. In my absence, the robots will continue to share shiny things, but I won't be there to reply. You can still reach me through the usual email channels if you need me (via the ihobo contact link if you haven't emailed me previously).
I currently have no plans to run anything in December..
I am uncertain whether this current campaign is concluded... I presume it is not, as I have not yet written about Truth and Reconciliation, which I would expect to be the final bookend. Still, it might not be a bad idea to take a break. However, my work-in-progress serial, Rethinking Intellectual Property, is only half complete, and I can't reasonably go back to that until we have restored some kind of civil society whereby that discussion could have a meaning. But I have some half-developed ideas riffing on science fiction themes that might be a good place to take us in the Spring. Goodness knows we could use some fresh ideals about now.
If you can spare a moment to leave an encouraging message about my blogging while I'm away, it would mean the world to me. With my family 4000 miles away right now and no sign of the US Embassy getting even close to reviewing my immigration paperwork, I am in a rather lonely place. Even if I won't be reading these messages now, I would love to find something other than nothing here when I get back. Thanks in advance to anyone who leaves a supportive message.
I leave you all with my unlimited love and respect and, in half an hour, something to think about.
Whoever you are, be welcome.
I do not make this offer lightly.
There are some terrifying people in our world but I still extend my welcome to everyone who is able to talk respectfully, no matter who they are.
Even if I cannot bear your politics, or (worse) your tactics, I still welcome you to speak here - indeed, I want to hear what you have to say. Now, perhaps more than ever, we truly need to talk, because we seem to have forgotten how to do it.
I welcome with an especial warmth all the outcasts, the misfits, and the besieged; the metaphysical vagabonds, the ethical enigmas, and the wild and beautiful freaks who make this world wonderful without ever realising that they had this gift.
I welcome everyone who has made a mistake and not been able to realise it, or who came to understand yet could not bear the truth revealed. I greet with open arms all those whose world barely hangs together after suffering through all the distractions, lies, and confusion inflicted upon us by the powerful, the deluded, or the complicit.
I welcome all you desperate immigrants - legal or otherwise - whether you have fled from the ruins of a life that my nation or its allies intentionally or inadvertently bombed into oblivion, or are just hoping to eke out a life somewhere new. I have been - and am about to be again - an immigrant, but I have not suffered like many of you have since I am a white, English-speaking male, and can “pass” almost anywhere that the desperate pin their hopes.
I welcome the unvaccinated, these new lepers, accused witches, and despised untouchables who face segregation and hatred on all sides. All those with medical beliefs outside the majority I welcome, all those who are told they are vile by panicking hordes. They call you ‘anti-scientific’ with a sneer, yet ironically those who revile you still have (like everyone else, alas) quite a slender grasp of the complex puzzle box that even the simplest of empirical investigations represents. And even they, for all their ill-begotten hatred, are welcome here.
I welcome all those iridescent trans folks who are suffering still - even (especially?) all those outcast trans folks in the shady corners of discomfort who risk being abhorred if they admit that their own beliefs diverge from the party line. So too I welcome those lesbians and their allies who staunchly defend a regimented view of sex that is not my own, but that is logical, consistent, and clearly crucial to your understanding of being in the world. Whichever side you find yourself, whether in this heartbreaking culture war or any other, you are welcome here.
Please know that no matter how we disagree I will never tell you what you are obligated to believe about politics, medicine, sex, gender, patriarchy, God, the Goddess, hot dog buns, or anything else. Every 'ought' I speak depends upon the principle it follows from, but it is up to you and you alone to choose those principles you must follow. And whenever someone tries to silence, deplatform, marginalise, abuse, ignore, or demonise you - or anyone else engaged in peaceful discourse - I will always lend my support to your free speech, and the freedom of thought it defends. How could I do otherwise...?
I won’t say I don’t take sides - even journalists lie to themselves when they think they can play at neutrality - but I want to listen. I want to hear what troubles you, I want to know how others have marshalled pressure against you, and if you have been excluded I want to include you here, even (especially?) if you are not welcome elsewhere. Because nothing good comes from seeing other people as demonic. Even those grotesque dictators, those Nicolae Ceaușescu and Idi Amin who brutalised the innocent, they too were still human, all too human.
So, be welcome.
Be welcome whoever you are.
Be welcome whatever you believe.
Be welcome here for as long as you can talk respectfully. Yet even if you lapse into demon-scrying screeds, I will still forgive you. I must. For you are my sisters, my brothers, and everything in between and beyond.
Dear friends,
After worrying about what comments would be waiting for me I have eventually returned to find... no comments. I suppose that is not the worst outcome. However, at this time I have no plans to return to Twitter in the near future, and I am not resuming posting articles until I complete my dialogue with Babette Babich on vaccinations (which is ongoing). I am reachable via blog comments or all the other usual channels in the meantime. I am not saying I am never coming back to Twitter, only that at this time I am evaluating whether Twitter is a tool I can morally justify engaging with.
I note that robots may post to Twitter on my behalf in the meantime, and I apologise for not being there to respond... but if you actively want to talk to me, there are plenty of good options for doing so.
I hope everyone is well and that we might return to collaborating towards living together some day soon.
Chris.
A week from today, Act II of the Philosophy of Science 'campaign' will resume... I've realised at this point that the name of this particular adventure is The Magical Science Campaign, since its theme is precisely the disparity between people's feelings about the sciences and the actual practices of scientists. I started out thinking this was a mini-campaign, but it's clear at this point that it is a fully-fledged epic like the Metaphysics Campaign and the Ethics Campaign before it.
In this second Act, we will begin by exploring the greatest philosophical resistance movement of our time, the Four Oxford Moral Philosophers, then we'll venture forth to explore relationships between the sciences and other aspects of the human experience - specifically religion, journalism, and ultimately, death. From providing a framework of the problem (the state of pseudoscience, and the way magical science can trigger that collapse of scientific practice), these pieces confront some of the symptoms of the current epistemic crisis and perhaps also illuminate some of its causes too.
The Game resumes in earnest next Tuesday.
Are you old enough to remember when movies stopped after the first few reels and a person came down the aisles to sell ice cream...? I think this was all over by the end of the 1980s. The last movie I recall with an intermission was David Lynch's sumptuous adaptation of Dune, which he apparently hated - a view shared, I think, by most of the audience at the screening I was at in 1984! I am a fan of intermission as a concept, and grateful that it survives in the theatre if not in the movie theatre.
And in the spirit of Intermission, please take this opportunity to get your own metaphorical ice creams, as I'm not ready to resume my musings on our tortured relationship with the sciences just yet. The new pieces for the Philosophy of Science mini-campaign are coming along quite robustly, but they're fighting among themselves as some things want to come out that I hadn't originally intended and I'm having to give them space to breath. As a result, I don't think I'll be running the second act until April.
In the meantime, I shall leave you with an intermezzo piece on personal identity that actually connects to a forthcoming Philosophy of Science piece but stands better on its own. It turned out to be about Freddie Mercury. But it was always also about me. And I suspect it's also about a few other people as well... maybe everyone. We'll see. It's called 'Coming Out'. You can read it tomorrow.
Please return to your seats before the next reel commences.
Greetings and salutations!
I am still gearing up for blogging and such, and not yet on top of anything (least of all Twitter, which I've not touched since early November). I have some philosophy of science pieces ready to run, but I need to get my head into my work a little more before I can start kicking things off here at the Game.
I confess, it was not my intention to go back to philosophy of science - The Mythology of Evolution was the one project I had intended in that space, and that was motivated by political diplomacy. I see now that the tension between the sciences and politics alluded to by Bruno Latour is far more problematic than I had previously imagined, and that if there's any hope of rescuing the Kantian project of living together, it is not only in the evolutionary sciences that we shall have to be careful not to mistake fantasies for facts.
So we'll have something of a mini-campaign on philosophy of science in the back-end of the Winter, and depending how long it takes to wrangle the drafts I'll be moving into political philosophy with Rethinking Intellectual Property in the Spring. Watch this space!
New rambling nonsense soon...
My Autumnal Social Media break has been such a relief that I don't quite want to come back... but still, I must write, so I cannot hide forever! I am making good progress on the Rethinking Intellectual Property serial, but it is frequently becoming complicated as I work through the specific issues, so I can't quite see this reaching a climax any earlier than Spring 2021. In the meantime, I have some philosophy of science pieces for January, since it seems that we are desperately in need of debugging our hopelessly broken relationships with our research communities, and I obviously can't simply keep my mouth shut when there are philosophical confusions abroad that are bringing about dire unintended consequences.
However, as the title says, it's only a 'limited service' this December. I shall be available on the blogs for the next two weeks - and I already have two blog-letters to reply to, which should keep me very busy during that time! I will also be replying to any comments on the blogs (as usual) but I shall not be having any significant engagement with Twitter or anything of the kind until January 2021 at the earliest. I will probably turn on the robot for ihobo, though, and Typepad will echo blog posts and comments onto Twitter too, so if you see activity there it will be a robot rather than me personally. Please accept my apologies for not replying on Twitter while I am elsewhere.
Anyway, I'm still here, and you can still reach me for virtuous discourse. It's just that other kind of 'communication' I'm not ready to attempt yet...
More soon!