Chris C. Mooney mentions something that certainly surprised me — the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets begin each home game with a prayer. Not just the team, the whole arena — the prayer is read over the loudspeakers by someone standing at center court. Since the Hornets are not a government institution, they certainly have a right to hold a prayer, but it seems obnoxious, as there are certainly plenty of non-religious people, or devotees of different religions, in the crowd for each game.

Apparently New Orleans is the only NBA franchise to have a prayer before each game. Among other things, the prayers ask for success for the Hornets and the NFL’s Saints. This gives us a nice chance to check on how useful it is to ask for divine intervention. Here are the current NBA standings:

PhoenixSuns          24  4   .857 

SanAntonioSpurs      23  6   .793 

SeattleSupersonics   20  6   .769 

MiamiHeat            23  7   .767  

DallasMavericks      19 10   .655 

SacramentoKings      17  9   .654 

MinnesotaT-wolves    16 10   .615 

ClevelandCavaliers   17 11   .607  

OrlandoMagic         15 11   .577  

WashingtonWizards    15 11   .577  

LALakers             15 12   .556 

DetroitPistons       14 12   .538  

NYKnicks             15 13   .536  

IndianaPacers        13 13   .500  

PortlandTrailBlazers 13 13   .500 

Philadelphia76ers    13 14   .481  

DenverNuggets        13 15   .464 

HoustonRockets       13 15   .464 

LAClippers           12 14   .462 

BostonCeltics        12 15   .444  

MemphisGrizzlies     13 17   .433 

UtahJazz             11 17   .393 

NJNets               10 17   .370 

GSWarriors           10 18   .357 

ChicagoBulls          9 17   .346  

TorontoRaptors       10 20   .333 

MilwaukeeBucks        8 16   .333 

CharlotteBobcats      7 17   .292 

AtlantaHawks          5 22   .185 

NOrleansHornets       2 25   .074 

Goodness, all that praying doesn’t seem to be helping very much. Where is God-Man when you need Him?

Richard Posner, guest-blogging for Brian Leiter (here and here, with an introduction by Leiter here), lives up to his image as a practical, hard-headed guy. He basically says that people have fixed ideas of right and wrong, and all the philosophical pondering in the world isn’t going to change their minds. And thank goodness, by his lights:

[T]he sort of political discussion in which political philosophers, law professors, and other intellectuals engage is neither educative nor edifying; I also think it is largely inconsequential, and I am grateful for that fact. I think that what moves people in deciding between candidates and platforms and so on certainly includes facts (such as the collapse of communism — a tremendous fact), as well as a variety of “nonrational” factors, such as whom you like to hang out with –I think that’s extremely important in the choice of a political party to affiliate with. When a brilliant philosopher like Rawls gets down to the policy level and talks about abortion and campaign financing and the like, you recognize a perfectly conventional liberal and you begin to wonder whether his philosophy isn’t just elaborate window dressing for standard left liberalism.

Over at Crooked Timber, Jon Mandle gives what I think is a good response:

But Rawls’s approach to moral reflection — and what he would count as a compelling reason –– s quite different. Moral reflection is not about devising arguments to get other people to switch over to the position that you already hold. It is to help you figure out where you should be.

…

[I]f we are in the position that Rawls imagines — with many internal conflicts and uncertainties — his opens up room for another project: trying to get our moral beliefs right. In pursuing that goal, it makes sense to try to construct arguments from our most secure beliefs (what Rawls calls “provisional fixed points”) to conclusions regarding issues we are much less certain about. (The fixed points are provisional because even they are not in principle immune from possible revision.) In this context, a compelling argument is not one that could move anyone like an irresistible force, but rather one that we judge to provide good support for its conclusion — valid inferences from premises we have a high degree of confidence in.

Actually I think that Mandle is conceding a bit too much. He is basically saying that the role of philosophy is to help us sort out our personal moral beliefs, even if there is little hope for convincing anyone else to change their minds. That seems a little too defeatist. Convincing other people is difficult, but it does sometimes happen, and sometimes even for good, rational reasons. It doesn’t necessarily happen — even two perfectly rational people may disagree about matters of morality, whereas they better not disagree on the solutions to a certain differential equation — but it can happen, and it’s worth trying.

The point is that there are no fixed moral truths upon which we can all agree with metaphysical certitude, but there nevertheless are pre-existing feelings that each of us has about what is right and what is wrong (basically Rawls’ provisional fixed points). Some of these feelings might even be opinions that we might want to think of as conclusions of arguments rather than axiomatic starting points, but they are nevertheless the launching-points for our moral reasoning. The job of moral philosophy is to sort them out and shoot for some kind of consistency. But, even though these points are not given as fixed external truths (and might arise from random formative events, religious influences, or even biological predispositions), we are fortunate enough that different people do not have completely non-overlapping ideas to begin with. Most of us have a great deal in common in our moral beliefs, even if we can’t achieve perfect unanimity.

It’s this degree of overlap (“consensus” would probably be too strong a word) that allows us to make some progress in reasoning with each other. And I would claim that careful philosophizing can help us come to better degrees of agreement, as well as helping us to rationalize our individual moral judgments. It happens all the time that two or more people agree on some basic truths, but end up disagreeing on some specific policy conclusions; in such cases, academic philosophy can be helpful. It’s certainly completely unfair to imagine that the work of someone like Rawls is just an elaborate justification for a pre-existing set of random beliefs; the starting points for Rawls are very similar to those of most modern welfare-state liberals, so it’s not surprising that they generally end up at the same conclusions, although Rawls’ will be much more thoroughly thought-out and internally consistent. Philosophy isn’t impossible or useless, it’s just hard.

By the way, Posner of course has his own blog with Gary Becker. (Funny that the University of Chicago, generally way behind the curve in anything involving computers, would be so rife with good blogs.) He also authored a one-week diary for Slate, which is both inspirational and depressing. I would be happy to accomplish in any given week what that man does in a typical day.

The earthquake in southern Asia is having a devastating impact, with over 44,000 dead from the quake itself and the ensuing tidal waves. The seismic shift has moved some islands more than twenty meters, and possibly shortened the day by as much as three microseconds.

If you’d like to donate to the victims, World Vision is sending food and survival kits to families affected by the disaster.

Update: a more comprehensive list of ways to help is at the Command Post.

An article in the Duluth News Tribune recreates the atmosphere at the Arrows of Time meeting I went to recently. One of the things it doesn’t mention is the dinner-table reminiscences of the late Sidney Morgenbesser. I had never heard of Morgenbesser, but two of the participants knew him well — Steve Savitt was his Ph.D. student, and David Albert was a close friend of his at Columbia.

Morgenbesser was a philosopher who was known for making a profound impression on his students and colleagues; you can read some personal remarks at 3quarksdaily (also here and here). There are clearly a good number of favorite anecdotes about his dry Jewish humor, as several of the stories told around dinner in Minnesota are reproduced in the New York Times. He is less well-known to those who didn’t meet him personally, as he was notorious for publishing very little. He managed to have an important impact through his interactions with others, rather than by systematically expounding a particular system of thought.

Of course, there are figures throughout history who managed to make a splash without having an impressive publication record; Socrates and Jesus come to mind. But they were fortunate enough to have Plato and St. Paul put their words (or some possibly-distorted reflection thereof) onto paper; who knows how history might have been different if they didn’t have such prolific acolytes. Even in the recent history of physics, there are good examples of people who wrote very little and then managed to come up with big ideas when it counted; Ken Wilson’s ideas about the renormalization group and Alan Guth’s inflationary universe are good examples.

It’s hard to compare across generations, but I suspect that brilliant-but-reticent geniuses have a harder time getting hired as professors today than they did a few decades ago. It just seems that the competition for jobs is a little more fierce, and among the candidates for any one position there will always be someone who looks brilliant and also publishes a lot. You can hardly blame departments for being short-sighted if they tend to hire people who write papers, for the simple reason that most people are not quiet geniuses. For every Morgenbesser, there are a dozen others who show promise but will end up just taking up office space for the next thirty years as a tenured faculty member. It’s a shame, of course, as there are people who are great to have as colleagues and mentors in a department, even if they don’t publish very much. But, short of doubling all of the budgets so that we can hire more people, I don’t know of any better way than the system we have.

Update: Steve Savitt informs me that Morgenbesser was his undergraduate advisor, not his Ph.D. advisor. His Ph.D. advisor was Jean van Heijenoort, who was Leon Trotsky’s private secretary before going into academia. Another colorful life.

A few years old, but worth sharing: NASA interviews Santa.

In just a few hours the Jolly Old Elf will brush the fireplace ash out of his beard, don his famous red suit, and begin the serious work of delivering presents all over the world. It’s a job he’s done in the same way for a long, long time, but times may be changing. As humans and space probes travel to other worlds, the possibility of Christmas on other planets can no longer be ignored, and the prospect of delivering presents throughout the solar system is, well, turning Santa’s hair white.

Read on to get the big news: Santa is made of tachyons!

So I’m poking around the internet, looking for reviews of my book. (Still time to order it for Christmas!) And I come across this page, with the following enthusiastic collection of quotes:

“I can only recommend Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction _ to General Relativity. Special thanks to Addison Wesley which produced it. Recently I have got Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction _ to General Relativity, it is very cool. I can only recommend this item. This way I imagined Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction _ to General Relativity. Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction _ to General Relativity is very cool, it is worth all the money Addison Wesley wants for this product. Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction _ to General Relativity was a very nice present when I got it on 20 June, 2003. I was surprised that Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction _ to General Relativity was so nice, Addison Wesley really knows how to please customers.”

Impressive indeed, except … who thanks the publisher for the appearance of a book? And on closer inspection, it’s especially interesting that they were pleased to receive their copy in June 2003, since I remember quite clearly that I was feverishly writing Chapter Nine during that time. The actual book didn’t appear until October.

It’s perfectly clear that these people just make stuff up! They’re like Bill O’Reilly talking about Christmas!

Speaking of which, I’m off for the week, so don’t expect any blogging. Merry Christmas to everyone, especially you ornery atheists out there.

Why didn’t I think of this first? If you want to teach about intelligent design, you will have to decide which of the designers you should highlight. And, despite what you might read in comic books, there are a lot more designer-based theories of creation than science-based ones. Apostropher points to a helpful list of the Top Ten Intelligent Designs:

• Norse mythology
• Zorastrianism
• Babylon’s Enuma Elish
• Egyptian mythology
• The Aztec Earth Mother
• China’s Cosmic Egg
• Japan’s incestuous siblings
• Hinduism’s Rig Veda
• Hesiod’s Theogony
• The Judeo-Christian-Islamic Garden of Eden

Find the whole article, complete with pictures, at LiveScience.com. Looks like a good site.

Here’s something a few people have mentioned to me: the Pirelli Relativity Challenge. The tire company is sponsoring a prize of 25,000 Euros to “the best multimedia work that explains special relativity theory to the layperson.” By “multimedia” they apparently mean a web-based animation, using Flash or some such thing. My total lack of animation skillz prevents me from entering, I’m afraid. If anyone is interested, the deadline is March 31, 2005.

There will probably be a bunch of similar stunts, associated with the World Year of Physics in 2005. (Another site here — I think the latter is more US-based.) It’s the anniversary of Einstein’s “Miraculous Year,” in which he had no fewer than three amazing breakthroughs: an understanding of Brownian motion in terms of atomic theory, an understanding of the photoelectric effect in terms of light quanta, and the ultimate formulation of special relativity. Of course, his best breakthrough was ten years later, when he came up with the ultimate formulation of general relativity. Plenty of room for more celebrations then.

Reporting now from a rustic lodge deep in the forests of Minnesota, where a motley collection of physicists and philosophers have gathered to talk about the Arrows of Time. My job is of course to let people know that we have an explanation for the apparently low entropy of our observable universe. Once you have that, there are still a number of interesting questions, but I think that the cosmo-thermodynamic arrow is the origin of all the rest.

Actually the collection is not so motley; there are some very smart people here in the woods, including one Nobel laureate, Tony Leggett. The other night we shared the lodge with the holiday party of a local real estate firm, and let me tell you something: women swoon for Nobel prizewinners. Even (especially?) ones as gentle and soft-spoken as Tony. Trust me on this.

Physicists have a lot to learn from philosophers (and vice-versa). I learned something (or think I did) about the psychological arrow of time from David Albert. As you know (since even those who haven’t been reading the blog from the start have gone back and combed through all the archives), I have previously mentioned the idea that the thermodynamic arrow of time — the fact entropy is very small in the past, and tends to grow on purely statistical grounds — is responsible for the fact that we can remember the past but not the future. But why is that exactly?

It’s a tricky argument, and I’m still not sure I understand it correctly. But the basic idea hinges on the consistency of different hypotheses about what was going on in the far past. In particular, imagine a situation where we have three things: 1) a memory of receiving a new sweater for Christmas last year, 2) detailed knowledge of the laws of physics, and 3) complete ignorance about the initial conditions of the universe, i.e. a hypothesis that all conditions consistent with our current macroscopic state are equally likely. (Our macroscopic state is really everything we think we know about the present universe, including positions and properties of the macroscopic objects in it; but this knowledge is compatible with a huge number of microstates, which would correspond to a specification of the properties of each and every elementary particle comprising these objects.) Can we conclude, from these three pieces of information, that we probably did receive a sweater? No; in fact, it turns out to be incredibly unlikely. That’s because, of all the ways we could have a memory of receiving the sweater, most involve very high-entropy conditions in the past, out of which we and our memory have appeared very recently as a random fluctuation. Random fluctuations of order from disorder are very rare; however, there are many many more ways to be disordered than to be ordered, so the number of ways to achieve order is dominated by trajectories that come from disorder, not trajectories that come from greater order. So if we really believe that all possible past configurations are equally likely, our “memories” are utterly unreliable.

What saves us from such a psychologically devastating situation is that this set of beliefs is cognitively unstable. That’s because we used our knowledge of the laws of physics (not to mention the rules of logic, probability, and so forth) to reach this conclusion. But the reason why we believe these laws is that we have memories of experiments that count as evidence for them — but these memories are completely unreliable! So we have no reason to think that we actually understand the laws of physics. Thus, this set of beliefs is self-undermining; if we hold it, we conclude that we have no reason to hold it.

The way out is to change our initial set of assumptions. We simply replace the assumption that any past configuration is equally likely with the “past hypothesis” — the idea that the early universe is in a very special state (or one of a small number of special states) with very low entropy. This simple hypothesis removes from consideration all of the thermodynamically unlikely (but very numerous) possible histories in which we and our memories of Christmas past are just fluctuations from the surrounding chaos. Given that we have a memory of receiving a sweater, and that the universe began in a highly ordered state, it is quite likely that we actually did receive a sweater.

The lesson that we are supposed to learn from this is that the past hypothesis is a crucial part of our understanding of how the world works — it has the status of a law of nature. In the picture that Jennie Chen and I have suggested of a universe in which our observed patch is just a small part of a bigger ensemble, this hypothesis is local and contingent, but still reasonable. There are other parts of the bigger universe which are close to thermal equilibrium, where the past hypothesis wouldn’t be appropriate. But in regions of thermal equilibrium you won’t have living beings, much less reliable memories.

David Albert is also known for being perhaps the sole respectable person to appear in the movie What the #$*! Do We Know?, a docu-drama about quantum mechanics and consciousness. (I haven’t actually seen the movie, but Peter Woit has. FYI, “#$*!” is usually pronounced as “bleep”, but more colorful renderings are allowed.) The movie was made by crackpots, who want to argue that consciousness and quantum mechanics are inextricably intertwined, to the extent that we can literally change reality by appropriately focusing our mental states. David was asked by the producers to sit for an extended interview about the mysteries of quantum mechanics, and he innocently agreed. After five hours of filming, in which he patiently explained to them that their views were completely crazy, they chopped up the footage into short sounds bites of quotes like “Yes, that’s an important question,” and interspersed them throughout the film. David is on record as saying that his views were dramatically misrepresented by the movie. Another lesson learned: if anyone wants to get you on film, you have to establish that you trust them not to twist your words against themselves.

All of Bob Park’s What’s New is good this week. I’m on the road again, so I’ll just cheat by reproducing this (you’re welcome to subscribe yourself).

WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 17 Dec 04 Washington, DC

1. MISSILE DEFENSE: EXPLAIN TO ME AGAIN WHY THEY WERE TESTING IT? The Missile Defense Agency said this week’s flop would not affect the decision to declare the system operational. In the previous test, two years ago, the kill vehicle failed to separate from the booster. That was unfortunate, but MDA said it didn’t affect the “success rate” because the interceptor never reached the “endgame” http://www.aps.org/WN/WN02/wn121302.cfm. This week, the Missile Defense Agency tried again. This time the interceptor failed to make it out of the silo. In April, a GAO report said the tests were not realistic. The MDA director, General Kadish, director explained, “you can’t operationally test the system until you put it in place” http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn043004.cfm. So what’s the problem? There are now 6 interceptors in place in Ft. Greely, AK, just hanging out waiting to be tested operationally.

2. NASA: THE SEARCH IS ON FOR SOMEONE TO REPLACE SEAN O’KEEFE. General Kadish is said to be high on the list. Under O’Keefe, top NASA positions were often filled by military men, but competition is stiff. Although several former astronauts are rumored to on the list, the front runner is thought to be Bob Walker, a former Member of Congress who was chair of the House Science Committee. He predicted the space station would produce a Nobel Prize, backed cold fusion, and introduced his Hydrogen Futures Act, which in the initial version violated the First Law of Thermodynamics. He is now the Chairman of Wexler & Walker, a Washington lobbying firm tied to science and space interests. A member of the President’s Moon-Mars commission, Walker has no science background, but then neither does O’Keefe, who has just accepted the job of Chancellor of Louisiana State University. He says he took it for the money.

3. THE HUBBLE FACTOR: O’KEEFE SHOULD BE GIVEN A MEDAL OF FREEDOM. O’Keefe bore none of the blame for the Columbia accident, but it led to the Hubble problem. The Columbia review called for using the ISS as safe haven in case of a shuttle problem, but that’s not practical for a shuttle flight to the Hubble orbit. While O’Keefe pushed hard for the President’s Moon-Mars plan, he decided Hubble should go. O’Keefe is going instead. It’s time to start over. Put the shuttles in museums, and drop the ISS in the Philippine Trench, but take care of Hubble till it can be replaced. In the meantime, if Tenet is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom after telling the President that weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are a “slam-dunk,” why not give one to O’Keefe?

4. TARGETED PRAYER: “PRAYER WARRIORS” ARE LINKED BY THE INTERNET. On ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings there was a report about Christian prayer teams organized over the internet from the World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs. By praying in unison for specific targets they say the effect is multiplied. They could pray for Missile Defense. It will have as much effect as a test.