Finitude is unbearable

Suppose for the while that there is no immortality of the soul.

Now try to imagine dying.

If you think you succeeded, you probably committed a few mistakes. First, you may have explicitly, or subconsciously, relied on memories of when you had been sleeping. Second, you may have imagined a blank, a complete darkness and silence. If there is no immortality, these conceptions are wrong.

There is no good reason to imagine death is like sleep, but there are a couple bad ones that happen to be persuasive. First, the dead are like the sleeping in appearance. Which is no reason to infer that they are alike in experience as well – we have the best reasons to suppose that they are very different in their experience. We instinctively draw some relation from the fact that they both sit motionless. We even, in funerals, array the dead as though they were sleeping.

Second, the first thing we do when trying to imagine death is try to imagine being unconscious, which we figure is the primary feature of a corpse, along with the lack of the potential to return to consciousness. Since we think we have memories of sleep, which is always called unconscious, we rely on those.

The problem is that, of course, insofar as we were capable of forming memories, we were not actually unconscious. We were dreaming, or almost waking up, or awake with our eyes closed and trying to sleep. Maybe we had a quite uneventful and ‘blank’ dream, and so we thought we were not dreaming but only sleeping. Either way, logically we can have no memories of being unconscious to rely on. The only way those half-conscious states resemble death is in their paucity of sense experience.

Realizing this, we may eschew the idea of sleep entirely and try to construct an experience of being unconscious. This is oxymoronic, but we do it anyway. We try to imagine darkness, silence – we imagine being in some way deprived of all sense experience. We try to imagine thinking nothing at all in this state, as we sometimes seem to do, especially when tired. Being satisfied, we think we have done it – that’s all that death is like, without immortality. We may then go on to use this to reason about whether immortality is desirable or not.

The problem is, of course, that this is still an experience. As you imagined this, there was still an “I” in your imagination. It was still you that was experiencing nothing, feeling nothing, thinking nothing. Death should cut away at that very self. Now try to imagine not being at all.

You can’t. And there’s the rub. It is impossible to imagine not existing. We think we can, but we can’t.

Since this ‘blank imagination’ is not really a proper imagination of non-existence, it is just as illogical to think death, without immortality, is like it, as to imagine that what follows is heaven, or hell, or Jello World. It is no more than a pleasant imagination that we use to stand in for a proper concept – pleasant, yes, because sleep is pleasant.

This is where reasoning about death, without immortality, should begin. From the utter unimaginability of death, not from the illusory conception. You have to be very aware that any imagination you have is wrong, that you are dealing with an absolute unknown.

Trying to do this, I find death to be absolutely terrifying. It is rational to fear the unknown. This world is ‘known’ and ‘given’ by comparison, and any chaos should be feared. If losing any important part of our world is a scary thought, it should be scariest to think of losing all of them, precisely because the unimaginability is greater. To cease to exist is an unbearable prospect, and it fills me with dread when it crosses my mind.

So, if I did not believe in immortality, and since I do not believe that I could “upload myself” into a computer and live on in it, as some people think they could – I would cling onto this life as tightly as I could. I would worry greatly about my health. I would look widely for the best ways to expand longevity, for death must be kept away. Either this, or I would try my hardest not to think about death – I could not, in good conscience, revert to the illusory conception.

But since I do believe in immortality, and I think I have good reasons to do so, that is not really my current problem as it stands. Non-existence is not only unimaginable, but actually impossible as a future prospect.

This is just my answer to the common atheist idea that, on their version of death, there is nothing to fear. Their version of death is the scariest possible. I would prefer hell – hell is suffering, and I can imagine suffering. I can even cherish the prospect, conditionally on my deserving it, as a reflection of the beauty of divine justice. But while I can fear it, it is finite fear, of something very conceivable – in comparison with nothingness, anyway.

This is also the reason why I despise annihilationists, who think non-existence is somehow a more bearable thought than hell.

Solon & Philo: Ten ages of man

Philo of Alexandria, in his treatise On the Creation of the World (§104; I quote §§103–105), as part of a broader point on the perfection of the number seven (of the days of creation), preserves a poetic fragment of Solon:

And besides what has been already said, the growth of men from infancy to old age, when measured by the number seven, displays in a most evident manner its perfecting power; for in the first period of seven years, the putting forth of the teeth takes place. And at the end of the second period of the same length, he arrives at the age of puberty: at the end of the third period, the growth of the beard takes place. The fourth period sees him arrive at the fullness of his manly strength. The fifth seven years is the season for marriage. In the sixth period he arrives at the maturity of his understanding. The seventh period is that of the most rapid improvement and growth of both his intellectual and reasoning powers. The eighth is the sum of the perfection of both. In the ninth, his passions assume a mildness and gentleness, from being to a great degree tamed. In the tenth, the desirable end of life comes upon him, while his limbs and organic senses are still unimpaired: for excessive old age is apt to weaken and enfeeble them all. And Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, described these different ages in the following elegiac verses:

In seven years from th’ earliest breath,
The child puts forth his hedge of teeth;
When strengthened by a similar span,
He first displays some signs of man.
As in a third, his limbs increase,
A beard buds o’er his changing face.
When he has passed a fourth such time,
His strength and vigour’s in its prime.
When five times seven years o’er his head
Have passed, the man should think to wed;
At forty two, the wisdom’s clear
To shun vile deed of folly or fear:
While seven times seven years to sense
Add ready wit and eloquence.
And seven years further skill admit
To raise them to their perfect height.
When nine such periods have passed,
His powers, though milder grown, still last;
When God has granted ten times seven,
The aged man prepares for heaven.

Solon therefore thus computes the life of man by the aforesaid ten periods of seven years. But Hippocrates the physician says that there are Seven ages of man, infancy, childhood, boyhood, youth, manhood, middle age, old age; and that these too, are measured by periods of seven, though not in the same order. And he speaks thus; “In the nature of man there are seven seasons, which men call ages; infancy, childhood, boyhood, and the rest. He is an infant till he reaches his seventh year, the age of the shedding of his teeth. He is a child till he arrives at the age of puberty, which takes place in fourteen years. He is a boy till his beard begins to grow, and that time is the end of a third period of seven years. He is a youth till the completion of the growth of his whole body, which coincides with the fourth seven years. Then he is a man till he reaches his forty-ninth year, or seven times seven periods. He is a middle aged man till he is fifty-six, or eight times seven years old; and after that he is an old man.”

Ivan Linforth gives a different translation of the poem in his book Solon the Athenian:

A boy, before he cometh to man’s estate, and while he is still a child, getteth and loseth his rampart of teeth within the first seven years. When God bringeth the second seven to a close, the signs of budding manhood begin to show. In the third period, a downy beard appeareth, though the limbs have not reached their full growth, and the boyish bloom of the complexion fadeth. In the fourth period of seven years, every man is at the prime of his physical strength.... The fifth period is the season for a man to bethink him of marriage and seek offspring against the future. In the sixth, experience of every sort carrieth his mind on to perfection, and he feeleth no longer the same inclination to the wild pranks of youth. In the seventh seven, he is at his prime in mind and tongue, and also in the eighth, the two together making fourteen years. In the ninth period, though he still retaineth some force, he is feebler both in wisdom and in speech and faileth of great achievement. If a man attaineth to the full measure of the tenth period, the fate of death, if it come upon him, cometh not untimely.

So, just to be clear:

Period #	Age	What he is	What happens
1	0–7	infant	he gets and loses his first set of teeth
2	7–14	child	this period itself is unremarkable, but at the end of it he reaches puberty
3	14–21	boy	he grows a beard
4	21–28	youth	he reaches the prime of his physical strength
5	28–35	man	in this season, he should think of marriage
6	35–42	man	he reaches the maturity of his understanding; he no longer feels the same inclination to the wild pranks of youth
7	42–49	man	he reaches the prime of his wit and eloquence, that is, his prime in mind and tongue
8	49–56	middle-aged	same as the previous period, or maybe the previous two periods; he is at his best in understanding, reasoning, speaking
9	56–63	old man	his intellectual passions/powers grow milder and gentler; he is feebler both in wisdom and in speech, and does not reach great achievement
10	63–70	old man	Philo thinks that this is a good time for him to die, since his limbs and senses are still unimpaired
11+	70+	old man / dead	Solon thinks that death is not untimely from this point on

That’s all.

...or so I thought. Seeing how terribly the table above seemed to render on my computer and phone, and having no hope of making it better in a durable way through styling on this blog, I have rendered it in Microsoft Excel and made an image of it:

On the topic of dividing life into seven-year periods, see also this SMBC comic; on the topic of there being seven ages, see also Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Act 2, scene 7.

Intellectual property, to Catholics

What ought a Catholic to think of intellectual property? I mean the class of rights including patents, copyrights, and trademarks.

You would think that this is one of those things that someone could easily look up and find ‘the official Catholic doctrine’ about, but it is not; it seems to be taken for granted in most popular sources. As a result, many opinions seem to have appeared on this subject in the minds of the public, and two of them are so terribly wrong, that I thought to write a blog post. This post will examine the two opinions that I think are awfully wrong, the one that I think is the most plausible, and some possible difficulties to its applicability.

0. Contents

1. That to respect intellectual property is a moral duty because such rights are a private property of its holder, so that to infringe upon them is a kind of theft, or vandalism
2. That to respect intellectual property is a moral duty because it is sinful to defraud a laborer of his wages, which is always done when someone infringes upon intellectual property
3. That to respect intellectual property is a moral duty because intellectual property laws, like other civil laws, are binding in conscience, and ought to be followed on pain of sin
4. Conclusion

1. That to respect intellectual property is a moral duty because such rights are a private property of its holder, so that to infringe upon them is a kind of theft, or vandalism

Two facts apparently support this opinion; first, that the name “intellectual property” seems to imply it.

This can be dealt with very quickly. It is an elementary mistake to derive the nature of something from its name, and the name in this case is applied only analogously. Every legal system distinguishes intellectual property rights from property rights, and every Catholic system of moral theology means only the latter by the word property.

Second, at least one notable modern philosopher has strongly supported such an opinion – Ayn Rand, most clearly in the following quotation:

Patents and copyrights are the legal implementation of the base of all property rights: a man’s right to the product of his mind.

Every type of productive work involves a combination of mental and physical effort: of thought and of physical action to translate that thought into a material form. The proportion of these two elements varies in different types of work. At the lowest end of the scale, the mental effort required to perform unskilled manual labor is minimal. At the other end, what the patent and copyright laws acknowledge is the paramount role of mental effort in the production of material values; these laws protect the mind’s contribution in its purest form: the origination of an idea. The subject of patents and copyrights is intellectual property. [...]

Today, patents are the special target of the collectivists’ attacks—directly and indirectly, through such issues as the proposed abolition of trademarks, brand names, etc. While the so-called “conservatives” look at those attacks indifferently or, at times, approvingly, the collectivists seem to realize that patents are the heart and core of property rights, and that once they are destroyed, the destruction of all other rights will follow automatically, as a brief postscript.

— Ayn Rand, Patents and Copyrights

I believe that Ayn Rand’s doctrine cannot be maintained by a Catholic, for three reasons. First, because it is innovative in the extreme. No one held Ayn Rand’s doctrine, or anything similar, up until around the time she came up with it; if it were part of the natural or divine law, then the consequence is that no one understood this important aspect of the law until her time, which is absurd.

Second, because there is no reason to think that “a man’s right to the product of his mind” is “the base of all property rights”. This is something that Ayn Rand simply made up, for no reason.

Third, because competing doctrines are endorsed by the Church, namely that of Thomas Aquinas, who said, in S.T., II-II, Q66, A1–2, that “the possession of external things is natural to man” because “man has a natural dominion over external things”, and that “the division of possessions is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from human agreement which belongs to positive law”. Ayn Rand’s doctrine contradicts this by giving a different base for property rights, one which is innovative besides.

2. That to respect intellectual property is a moral duty because it is sinful to defraud a laborer of his wages, which is always done when someone infringes upon intellectual property

This one is strange, but it comes up in discussions. It is said that patents and copyrights ensure that a writer, or inventor, will get the just payment for his work.

This is strange, since no one is due any payment for work which he was not hired to do. If I decide, out of my own free will, to build a public park on my private property, no one is obliged to pay me anything for having done this; they need only pay me for such things as they ask me for, such as entry or food, if I choose to charge for them. The work of building the park, which was not requested, deserves no payment.

Similarly, suppose a band were to play so loud in a concert that I can hear it from a neighboring house. I also owe no payment to that band; unlike someone who paid for a ticket, I did not ask for the band to play any music. It was once said to me that to infringe upon intellectual property is like sneaking into the concert, but, of course, someone who sneaks into the concert is infringing upon physical property, namely the land where the concert is held.

There is really nothing to be said in favor of this opinion, that I can think of at least. I will go on to the next one now.

3. That to respect intellectual property is a moral duty because intellectual property laws, like other civil laws, are binding in conscience, and ought to be followed on pain of sin

I think this one is the most likely to be correct. It is a well-known Catholic doctrine that civil law binds in conscience, and ought therefore to be followed, on pain of sin. It is worth noting that one consequence of this being the reason for the duty to respect intellectual property is that, if intellectual property laws were abolished, there would be no sin in making unlicensed copies of new artistic works or scientific inventions.

It is not obvious, however, that all intellectual property laws existing today are of such a kind as to bind in conscience. Some facts could, in theory, change this. I can think of three: first, if they were immoral laws; second, if they were abrogated by some custom; third, if they were merely penal laws. I will speak of each in turn.

Immoral laws, of course, do not bind; it would certainly be right to disobey a law commanding blasphemy. It is unlikely, however, that any current intellectual property laws are actually immoral. There seems to be no reason to consider them immoral, however prejudicial they may be. I have heard one argument that they are immoral because they make ideas into property, which ideas cannot be; but legally they generally in fact do not, despite the use of the word “intellectual property”, as I have already said.

Second, it is sometimes argued that Thomas Aquinas said that a law can be “abolished by custom”, and that since the state does not seem to prosecute some kinds of intellectual property infringement, namely the downloading of pirated movies, the law has been abolished by this new custom. I have no idea whether this is correct.

A third concept that may be brought to bear upon intellectual property laws is that of “merely penal” laws. Such laws, in Catholic moral theology, are “laws which oblige the citizen either to obey them or to accept the penalty appointed for their violation”; it is not a sin to break these laws, but it is a sin to evade punishment if caught breaking them. This seems to be how many Catholics approach copyright laws, although they have not heard of the term for it.

It is unclear, however, whether the concept of “merely penal” laws applies to any modern intellectual property laws, and one author has written a lengthy criticism of the concept. So it seems to me that, besides being the “safe” opinion, it is also the more probable opinion that intellectual property laws are not merely penal.

4. Conclusion

The conclusion is that the first two opinions I proposed to discuss are definitely wrong, and the third one may be correct, but may also, depending on the applicability of some strange conditions, not apply to particular modern laws.

Update (2021-09-18): I have written a follow-up post to this one.

Obviousness

Note: This blog post has been retracted, since I no longer think of it as a good representation of how I think about its topic. I may, or may not, have written a better post about the same topic since; check the full list of posts.

What is obvious should never be denied or doubted. No good has ever come from doing so and no good ever will.

When Parmenides came to the conclusion that motion does not exist, this should have been a reason for him to stop and think about where he made a mistake.

When Descartes made a method out of doubting everything, he created the largest amount of errors that have ever been made at once in philosophy.

Anyone who doubts or denies the obvious is not thinking seriously, and the doubt or denial should not be taken seriously. Only confusion, error and disaster can come from doing so.

Kindle in bed

I have a Kindle, and it is the best device for reading in bed. These are the reasons:

1. Light

The front light of the Kindle Paperwhite is much softer and more comfortable to see in the dark than the backlighting of a phone screen. Of course, having any attached light at all also makes it superior to physical books, which require careful positioning of a lamp to be read in the dark.

2. Battery

My phone’s battery is pretty good, but not that much; I want it to be fully charged when I wake up. I think this is the case with most phones. If I use it while charging, then I have to lay in bed in a certain position, so as to not tangle myself with the cable or pull it tight, which is less comfortable. The Kindle has a long battery; while Amazon no longer advertises, or provides, one month of battery duration, it is still long enough that I can use it without charging for many days in a row; I can read it in bed without thinking of the battery.

3. Notes

The Kindle has a rudimentary notes function, made rudimentary mainly by the annoying on-screen keyboard. It is still enough that I do not need to immediately stop reading and turn on a light or look at a bright screen in order to make a note of something or remember to look something up later.

Mercy

Note: This blog post has been retracted, since I no longer think of it as a good representation of how I think about its topic. I may, or may not, have written a better post about the same topic since; check the full list of posts.

Mercy should clearly be defined in relation to justice, on which I have already written. That blog post left a gap for some further explanation of mercy, which I will now try to give. (This post is a sequel to that one, and §§1–3 of it apply here too.)

A brief excursus on the physician theory. As I said, most clearly in the fifth footnote of that post, “mercy” to criminals is unjust according to that conception, if it is conceived of as involving not punishing them, or lowering the degree of their punishment from the amount you think they need. Someone holding the physician theory might therefore define “mercy” differently – I have once heard one such person say that “mercy” would be to punish an evildoer, while “justice” would be to not punish him, since this leaves him with his just desert, viz., the injustice in his soul which comes from his evil act. I will no longer entertain physician notions in this post.

Mercy, then, according to my view of the debt theory of justice, should be defined as destroying a right that you have, whether this right be a monetary debt or a ‘debt of justice’ – a right to punish. A right, in turn, is defined simply as another person’s obligation towards you, which means mercy can equally be defined as the relieving a man of his obligation. If it is the case that some rights are indestructible, i.e., some obligations cannot be relieved, then mercy is simply impossible with respect to those rights.

It can then, in my opinion, never be unjust to forgive a debt or a criminal – your rights, like your property, may in justice usually be done with as you like. I think it may be wrong to do so, but the mode of its being wrong is that it is imprudent, or unwise. And the reason of its being imprudent is that it fails to fulfill certain conditions of prudence. I have been able to think of two of them, which I currently believe to be exhaustive; what follows is my statement of them.

1. The will condition: It is imprudent to forgive a man if that man is more likely to do further wrong if forgiven than if not forgiven.

I believe this one is uncontroversial. It is often held to be a purpose of punishment that it incapacitates the criminal, or removes him from society. I do not believe that this is a requirement of justice, but of prudence. If punishment may be demanded in a way that protects society from further harm, it is unwise to demand it in another way – e.g., to inflict corporal punishment when the criminal may be better prevented from doing further wrong by being jailed –, or to fail to demand it by way of forgiveness.

This is also true with monetary debts, although it is more difficult to apply to them. Prudence demands that you do not forgive a debtor if you know that he is likely to use his money to do wrong.

2. The knowledge condition: It is imprudent to forgive a man who will not acknowledge that he is in debt.

I believe this one is very controversial. Yet, it seems self-evidently true to me. I can think of a few considerations that may support it, but neither amounts to an argument:

1. Doing this is bad for the debtor, since it tends to allow him to get into the vicious habit of neglecting his debts.
2. It tends to have the appearance, to onlookers, of rewarding the behavior of forgetting or denying a debt, which encourages this bad behavior in them.

Even if neither consideration seems to apply to a particular case, though, I would still find it imprudent to forgive a criminal who does not acknowledge that he did wrong, or to forgive a debtor who does not acknowledge that he is in debt. I hope to one day be able to better explain this impression that I have.

Purpose of this blog

Note: This blog post is retracted; for information about this blog, see this new post.

On some things, I have a pretty constant opinion which takes some length to state clearly. If I write a blog post with my opinion about something, I can link people to the post instead of repeating what I usually say. I can also improve the post over time so that it is as clear as possible, though very major revisions are more likely to be written as new posts.

I have also posted some of my research into my particular interests here. Really the blog is very open-ended, but in case someone ever wonders, its main purpose is to link people to particular posts when in the future I might wish to do so.