Micah Tillman

Once upon a time, Little Bobby was riding his bicycle.

He had found another note from Pheddec’s on his apartment building’s door. The note said, “Dear _rOBeRT_, we’re sorry to inform you that we cannot deliver the package that _SomE POor ChuMP_ sent you, even though you never asked for it. Please come to pick it up.”

So, Little Bobby was taking the 100-mile bicycle trip to the Pheddec’s building.

____

When Little Bobby arrived, three days later, the security guard was very nice. She told him which office to go to.

Little Bobby went to the office, and the people there were very nice too. The lady behind the desk called the keyless driver.

“Keyless driver,” she asked, “did you leave the package here for Little Bobby?”

“No!” said the keyless driver. “I’m taking it to his apartment. Bwah hah hah hah!”

“I’m very sorry,” said the nice lady behind the desk. “But the keyless driver lied to you.”

Little Bobby tried his best not to use profanities.

He said goodbye to the nice security guard and got back on his bicycle.

The ride home was very long.

____

When Little Bobby got back to his building, he was starving. He stumbled upstairs to his apartment and began to fix himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Little Bobby liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but only if the jelly was strawberry.

While Little Bobby was pleasantly humming to himself, and spreading peanut butter on the bread, the keyless driver broke into his apartment — quietly, like a ninja. Sneaking up behind Little Bobby, the keyless driver placed the package where Little Bobby would be sure to trip on it.

Then, he snuck away on tiptoe, silently cackling to himself.

____

Little Bobby was finished with the peanut butter, so he turned around to put it back in the cabinet.

But there was a package in his way! He tripped and fell face first into the radiator.

Paramedics found him hours later, unconscious.

____

Little Bobby woke up the next morning in the hospital.

“Where am I?” he asked the nurse, whose nametag said “Nancy P.”

“You’re in the hospital,” said Nurse Nancy P. “You tripped over a Pheddec’s package and broke both of your ears and sprained your left face.”

“Oh my,” said Little Bobby.

“Oh my indeed,” said Nurse Nancy P.

____

When Nurse Nancy P left the room, Little Bobby was all alone. And in the silence he thought he heard a noise.

It sounded like it was coming from outside.

Though his left face was hurting, as well as both ears, he stretched himself up to look out of the window.

On the hospital grounds below he could see a shadowy figure, standing beside the hospital’s main entrance sign.

The shadowy figure seemed to be convulsed in a fit hideous cackling. It also seemed to be pointing at something.

____

“Wait a second,” Little Bobby thought. “That looks like . . . !”

And it was. It was the keyless driver.

And he was pointing to the hospital’s sign.

The sign read:

Pheddec’s Memorial Hospital

THE END

Once upon a time, there was a company called “Pheddec’s Parcel Delivery Service”

It had two delivery drivers.

One delivery driver had a key to Little Bobby’s apartment building.

The other delivery driver did not have a key to Little Bobby’s apartment building.

Can you guess which driver Pheddec’s usually sent to bring Little Bobby packages? That’s right! Pheddec’s sent the keyless driver.

____

Sometimes the keyless driver arrived when Little Bobby was at work. Little Bobby would come home and find a note on his apartment building’s door:

“We’re sorry we missed you _rOBeRt_. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

But many times, the keyless driver arrived when Little Bobby was at home. The keyless driver never thought to knock. Finding the apartment building’s door locked, the keyless driver would simply leave a note:

“We’re sorry we missed you _RObeRT_. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

The keyless driver was clueless.

____

Sometimes Little Bobby would wait all day, listening for the keyless driver to come. But the keyless driver never knocked. So Little Bobby never knew he was there.

Then, after a few days of collecting “We’re sorry we missed you” stickers, Little Bobby would get on his bicycle, and ride 100 miles to the  Pheddec’s building where the two drivers worked. If they couldn’t manage to deliver the package, thought Little Bobby, I guess I’ll have to pick it up.

Little Bobby didn’t like doing other people’s jobs.

Little Bobby was sad.

THE END

I’m sure you’ve all heard about the “Ground Zero Mosque.” (I hear it’s actually a community center, but I’ll call it the “Ground Zero Mosque,” just because that’s what everybody’s calling it.) There’s a lot of controversy about it, and a lot of people don’t want it to be built. Some of those people have even tried to get the government to keep it from being built.

The whole controversy has really started to bother me, so could I say four things about it?

Thanks.

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1

First, Americans believe in freedom of religion. That means we believe that the government does not have the right to tell people what religions they are allowed to follow/practice, or where and when they are allowed to follow/practice them.

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2

Second, the people who want the government to keep the “Ground Zero Mosque” from being built are saying that they want the government to tell people what they can and cannot do with the land that they own.

But if you own your own land, do you really want the government to tell you what you can and cannot do on it? If the government can tell people that they can’t do “Muslim things” on land they own, the government can also tell you that you can’t do “Christian things” (or “Atheist things” or “Buddhist things,” etc.) on land you own.

Jesus said to “do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” But to do that, you must first “not do unto others the things you wouldn’t have them do unto you.” And, therefore, if you don’t want the government telling you what you can and cannot do on your land, you can’t use the government to tell other people what they can and cannot do on their land.

____

3

Third, there’s an ancient rule that we usually summarize as, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” It’s from the Bible. This rule tells you the maximum amount you are allowed to punish someone who’s done something wrong to you.

In Latin, the “eye for an eye” rule is called the “Lex Talionis,” and that sounds cool, so that’s what I’ll call it. The principle that the rule states is that the worst you should do to someone who has hurt you is to do exactly what he did to you. So, if he poked out your eye, the worst you should do is poke out his eye. You shouldn’t poke out two eyes, or chop off his ear or burn his house down.

The principle the Lex Talionis gives us can be summarized through the words “proportionality” or “commensurateness.” Your response to an offense should be “proportional” or “commensurate” to the offense. “The punishment should fit the crime.”

____

Now, if you think that the “Ground Zero Mosque” is “an offense” then the Lex Talionis says that the most you can do to respond is to do exactly what the “offender” has “done to you.”

So, if the “Ground Zero Mosque” is built, and if you are offended by this, what will have been “done to you”? A building will have been built, in which people might pray Muslim prayers and talk about the Qur’an. So what would be the “proportionate” or “commensurate” response? It would be, at most, for you to build a building of your own, in which you pray your kind of prayers and talk about your most important book.

To call in the government to “stop” the “Ground Zero Mosque” (by “banning” it) would be extremely disproportionate and incommensurate. It would mean using the police — physical force, violence — to stop any construction worker who tried to build the building. It would mean using the police — physical force, violence — to stop anyone who tried to say a Muslim prayer on the site. But physical force is not proportionate to construction, and violence is not commensurate with prayer.

If the government were to “ban” the “Ground Zero Mosque,” in other words, it would be violating the Lex Talionis. Therefore, anyone who wants the government to “ban” the “Ground Zero Mosque” wants the government to violate the Lex Talionis.

____

4

Fourth, some people might claim that the “Ground Zero Mosque” should not be built because it is “insensitive.”

To that I would respond: Is it the government’s business to save people from insensitivity? Is insensitivity illegal now?

Once again, we must remember the Lex Talionis. If someone is insensitive to you, the most you can do to him is to be insensitive to him. If, however, you call in the government — that is, if you demand that the police throw him in jail — if he keeps being insensitive to you, you would violate the Lex Talionis. Physical force is neither proportionate to, nor commensurate with, insensitivity.

To use the government to keep people from being “insensitive,” therefore, is disproportionate and incommensurate. That is, it is wrong.

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Conclusion

Americans believe (a) in freedom of religion, (b) that the government has no right to tell you what you can and cannot do on your own land (so long as you’re not violating anybody’s rights), (c) that people’s responses should be proportionate (e.g., “people shouldn’t overreact”), and (d) that insensitivity is not a legal issue.

In other words, people should let the “Ground Zero Mosque” be built.

Since the new school year is about to start, I’ve just prepared the revised version (v. 2.1) of my handout, “How to Survive a Philosophy Course without Going Insane.”

You can access the PDF of the handout here, if you so wish.

Tags: Philosophy Classes, Philosophy Courses

As someone who studies philosophy, plans on becoming an author when he grows up, and is married to a future librarian, I find myself concerned with books.

However, as someone who majored in computer science, who blogs, who uses Google Books and Amazon’s “Look/Search Inside” features, and who is married to a web consultant genius person, I’m also highly aware of the rise of the computerized book.

Thus, I periodically find myself worried about the future of books.  Will books go the way of CDs?

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Though I prefer to buy physical CDs that you have to take out of their wrapping and open up, with real covers and liner notes/lyric sheets, and art/photos and whatnot, and although I hate the idea that you can just copy music nowadays, and send it all around the internet — without the people you’re giving it to having to pay the artist for it — I still use an iPod now, and prefer it to my old Walkman and Discman.

So, will books eventually be swallowed by computers, and libraries by databases? Why is it that I prefer physical books to their computerized imitations? And is there anything about books that ties them to their physical medium in such a way that they won’t be able to be finally cut loose like music?

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For all purposes other than searching and copying quotations, I prefer physical books to computerized books.  But why?

I can identify at least two major reasons.

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First

A physical book you can hold in your hands.  You can see and feel its height, width, and depth.  You can feel its weight.  You can experience “how long it is.”

None of this is true with an electronic book.  You cannot hold it, you can only hold a “reader” or a computer. You can neither see nor feel how long an electronic book is.  You cannot feel its weight.

You can never see nor feel the book as a whole. You can only see one page at a time (if even that).  Therefore, you can never experience an electronic book (as a whole). You can only experience a part of it. (A page or less.)

And that means no one ever reads an electronic book.  You read a series of screenshots, perhaps, but not a book.

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Second

With a physical book, you not only see the page you’re on, but the previous page (if you’re on the right-hand page) or the next page (if you’re on the left-hand page).  Likewise, you see the pages “below” the page you’re on, because of the way pages “spread out” when a book is opened.

If you’re on the left-hand page, those “pages below” are “what you’ve already read.”  You can see and feel how much you’ve read.  You can experience your accomplishment and progress.

And you know that what is in those pages has “already happened,” since you’ve already read them — and yet they’re still there.  They’re gone, and yet still there.  You can see that they’re hanging around in a kind of limbo, frozen in time, ready for you to bring them back to life if you read them again.

If you’re on the right-hand page, on the other hand, those “pages below” are “what’s coming up.”  You can see that there’s more to the book than what you are now reading.  You can tell there’s something “in there” that is happening right now, except that it’s not happening because you’re not reading it.  But you can see that it’s waiting for you, and is being hidden from you.  And you can see that you must work (through what is between you and it) to uncover it.

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With a physical book, you can see the hiddenness of the events or revelations or thoughts (or whatever the book contains) that happen in the rest of the book.  The experience of a physical book, then, involves an implicit experience of mystery (the experience of something being there, but hidden/absent).

And that means that the experience of a physical book is tinged with the experience of beauty. Physical books have a mystery, and therefore a beauty, to them, that an electronic book cannot have, since you cannot experience an electronic book as a whole, and therefore cannot see the hiddenness of “what comes next” or “what is coming up.”

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Conclusion

So, you can experience a physical book (as a whole), and that experience is characterized by a subtle mystery and beauty. But neither of these is true of electronic books.

Therefore, electronic books will not be able to replace physical books in the way computer-stored/transmitted music has replaced CDs, or cars have replaced carriages.  Electronic books will offer an experientially-impoverished alternative to physical books, but will not replace them.

There are three advantages of electronic books over physical books, however:

(1) They don’t take up space or weigh anything, which is good for travelling/transportation.

(2) They can be searched.

(3) You can copy quotations from them into documents without having to type out those quotations.

But these advantages are not advantages for experiencing the book as a book. They are advantages for experiencing the book as a thing-that-makes-my-backpack-heavier, or a thing-that-takes-up-space-in-my-luggage, or an object-of-research.

My prediction, therefore, is that publishers will begin bundling their physical books with electronic copies, but won’t stop publishing physical books.  You’ll read the physical book (or, if you’re travelling and need to take several books, but don’t have the space, you’ll read the electronic book), and use the electronic book for searching and copying out quotations for research papers.

Tags: Books, Electronic, Physical

My first blog post on the passing of Mrs. Kitchin is up at mtsophiaideas.com.

It should be called “Rituals and Communities,” but I couldn’t think of the right word.

(. . . until my mom left a comment on the post, using the word “rituals.” Then I realized.)

My mother-in-law passed away this afternoon. The funeral should be next Monday.

Eventually I’ll get the time and energy to do some philosophical analysis of the experience (such important things should be analyzed philosophically at some point), but for now I just wanted to thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Sorry I’ve been a little non-posty recently.  Working hard on dissertation and another project.

Am currently back in Delaware because my mother-in-law has been admitted to a hospice center and “the prognosis isn’t good.”

Would appreciate your prayers, for her and the family.  (Her name is Sarah, if that helps.)

Thanks!

^{[ Intro | I: Intro | II.Intro | III.Intro | III.1 | III.2 ]}

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Part III.Two

1

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” (NRSV)

First, it is interesting here that the Woman refers to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as “the tree that is in the middle of the garden.” Back in 2.9 it was the Tree of Life that was identified as being in the middle of the garden. What was implied there has now been confirmed: both the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil are together.

Second, it is interesting that the Woman adds something to what God said, which we have not been informed of before: they were not to even touch the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Given that the Serpent had quoted God incorrectly, some have claimed that the Woman is here doing the same thing. I, however, see no reason to assume this. No story tells us everything that all its characters say during the course of the Story. Perhaps the no-touching command was simply left out till now.

2

Or it could be that the Woman is still so mentally young that she has mixed up God’s command not to eat with an agreement she had made with the Man that they would just stay away from the Tree altogether. The temporal location of this section of the Story is not given to us, after all, and therefore could have been anything from minutes to years after the Woman was first created. Just think of how long it takes babies to figure out that when things disappear they do not cease to exist, or how long it takes youngsters to be able to start to see the world as others see it. Both the Man and the Woman had a lot of growing to do, and so it would not be surprising that she would mix an ultimatum she and her husband had given themselves with the divine ultimatum it was meant to help them obey.

But then one would have to wonder if she was so young as to mix up these two different “rules,” how could she have been mature enough to have made up rules for herself? Given the fact that she changes from first person plural to second person plural in her statement, it seems clear that she is able to distinguish her actions from God’s commands. That is, when she quotes God, she speaks as if God were speaking. She does not say, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said we shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall we touch it, or we shall die.’” Rather, when she begins to quote God she speaks as God would speak.

As with many of the other puzzles we have uncovered in Genesis 1 and 2, this one seems to be unsolvable. And as we have noted before, it is these puzzles that lend the Story much of its mystery and beauty. They both allow and invite continued contemplation.

Notice the serpent’s next claim:

3

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (NRSV)

This is, of course, a blatant lie. But it is an extremely “subtil” one. It is subtle because it is almost entirely true. It is completely true except for the “You will not die” part.

Indeed, it is precisely because eating the fruit of the Tree will make them like God that they will die (see Part II.Eight). The right and responsibility for teaching the Humans to see good has been reserved by God for Himself. God, after all, can already see good, and has been passing on this ability to the Humans through teaching them. Therefore, to become like God by eating of the Tree is to usurp an authority God has not given away. To do so would be for the Woman to put herself in God’s place.

The Story does not imply that the humans are not allowed to know good and evil. This, however, has been read into the text for eons. Neither does the Story say they are not allowed to be like God. On the contrary, God made them to be “likenesses” of Himself!

Being like God is not the problem. Trying to be God is.

4

God has reserved the right to teach the humans to see good (and evil). God has reserved the right to help them become more godly. Eventually, as the lessons continued, they would have become “like God, knowing good and evil.”

It wasn’t the knowledge, then, that was deadly. If it was, the command would have been “Do not learn!,” rather than “Do not eat!” Gaining knowledge did not kill them. It was the attempt to do God’s job by giving themselves the knowledge that God is supposed to teach them that did.

By putting themselves in God’s place they are trying to be the very thing they were meant to be the image of. An image cannot simultaneously be an image and that which the image is of. Images cannot image themselves without destroying themselves. They make themselves infinitely empty by doing so, and an infinitely empty image is no image at all.

5

People usually think that God is somehow afraid of the humans achieving the knowledge of good and evil, and that the threat of death is to keep humans subservient. They agree with what the serpent implies: God is trying to keep the humans down.

The story, however, tells us the opposite. As Teacher, God is trying to raise the humans up by teaching them over time. They could get the information instantly by eating the fruit. But for some reason God likes processes (see Part I). God prefers interaction and relationship.

In her attempt to get to the head of the class, then, the Woman would end up standing behind the lectern. The Human desire to teach themselves cannot work, however, if they are images rather than subjects. The coup contradicts itself.

And the Teacher will return. But not immediately. We learn later in the Story that God will introduce a temporary substitute schoolmaster called “The Law.” But that is many plot twists away as of yet.

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^{[  Scripture quotations: Genesis 3:2-5, NRSV ]}

^{[ Intro | I: Intro | II.Intro | III.Intro | III.1 | III.2 ]}

Tags: creation, Die, Evil, Genesis, Genesis 3, Genesis 3:2, Genesis 3:2-5, Genesis 3:3, Genesis 3:4, Genesis 3:5, God, Good, Knowledge, Serpent, Story, The First Story, Tree, Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

^{[ Intro | I: Intro | II.Intro | III.Intro | III.1 | III.2 ]}

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Part III.One

1

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. (KJV)

The Storyteller of Genesis never ceases to amaze. Imagine reading this verse for the first time. What could your reaction be other than, “Say what?” A subtle serpent, eh? The NRSV translates it “crafty.” Either way, this is a strange statement.

We are used to thinking of some animals as more intelligent than others. Dolphins and certain primates invariably come to mind. But not snakes. Creepy, yes; intelligent problem-solvers who can be taught language or to do tricks, no.

Evidently at this point in the Story, it is the Serpent that takes the cake. And we can see why. Without even having to be taught . . .

2

He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (NRSV)

. . . it can talk. It can not only talk, but it can ask questions. It can not only ask questions, but it can quote other talking beings. And it can not only quote other beings, but it can quote them incorrectly (i.e., it is not just parroting). This is a “subtil” beast indeed.

We can have two reactions to the Serpent at this point. We could think it’s adorable because it didn’t quite understand God’s command. Maybe it just wants clarification, like a curious child. Or, we could think it’s up to no good. It might be going somewhere with this question, manipulating.

Those would be our two possible reactions if we can get over the fact that the Serpent is talking in the first place. So far the Story has asked us to “suspend disbelief” about a lot of things. It tells us about God, how God works, and about the nature of God’s Creation. But now it has gone off the deep end. We, after all, don’t believe fairytales anymore.

If we understand the Story (and modern psychological experiments with animals), however, the thought that an animal might talk won’t sound so fairytale-ish. It is the job of Humans in the Story to bring order, form, rationality to the Animal and Plant worlds (and perhaps to teach some animals human language, as some scientists have taught sign-language to apes). If Humans are to be Images of God, and God is teaching them to understand their world better, perhaps it is Humans’ job to provide the same service to the Animals. That one of them can already talk would give them hope that the others can eventually be taught to participate in the higher life as well. It would thus make sense to introduce a Talking Animal at this point in the Story.

3

But even given this charitable reading of the opening of Chapter 3, two other curiosities remain:

The first is that the Serpent is referred to in the singular. It is not that “serpents are the most subtil, and one of them said to the woman. . . .” Rather, it is that “the serpent was the most subtil, and he said to the woman.” We have to assume, however, that the Storyteller does not mean us to think there are no other Serpents around. After all, there would have been Serpents in the Storyteller’s day and reproduction is a cooperative endeavor. But evidently only one Snake is of consequence to the Story.

The second curiosity is that the Serpent asked the Woman what God said, and got it wrong. That is, the Serpent is doing something that can only be done in God’s absence. This is the first time in the Story that God has disappeared!

We should have seen this coming, as God has been gradually turning over responsibility to Creation itself, and therefore has been “stepping back” from various areas of control. To turn over responsibility for something is to: (a) become absent to it and (b) make it present to someone or something else. God here seems to have decided to let the humans completely run the show for a while. So, instead of asking God to clarify the teaching about which Trees were good for food and which weren’t, the Serpent turns to the Woman.

That is, of course, treating the Serpent charitably as well.

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^{[ Scripture quotations: Genesis 3:1a, KJV and Genesis 3:1b, NRSV ]}

^{[ Intro | I: Intro | II.Intro | III.Intro | III.1 | III.2 ]}

Tags: creation, Genesis, Genesis 3, Genesis 3:1, Serpent, Snake, Story, The First Story