Hello, and Let’s Get Started!

'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where —' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

At first glance, it would seem that the infamous Cheshire Cat of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has produced an excellent bit of wisdom: if you don’t know where you’re going, then it doesn’t matter how you go about getting there. My immediate objection to this conversation concerns the habit that we all have of speaking in extreme, black-and-white terms. I highly doubt that Alice has no desire to get to any particular place; in fact I’m sure if she reflected upon the question she would be able to enumerate a variety of different places that she might like to visit. I believe it far more likely that Alice has some idea of where she wants to go, and so perhaps we can adjust the Cat’s response to say that if you have someplace you sort-of-maybe think you’d like to go, then the direction you choose to travel matters at least a little bit. And that’s a perfect place to start from with this blog.

If I could name just one thing I like about myself, it would be my persistence in following my curiosity to its limits. Throughout my time in university I was frequently astounded by the lack of interest in the intersectionality of the disciplines that I was studying with my peers. Consider the nature-nurture debate that insistently pervades the realm of scientific psychology. Do our ideas, motivations, preconceptions etc. have a biological basis, or are they developed through our interactions with our environment? In order to examine this question, would you not need a comprehensive understanding of what our ideas, motivations, and preconceptions are to begin with? What about the things themselves – what kind of substance makes up an idea? What is a motivation? Furthermore, in order to understand the biological determinants of our behaviour, would one not have to understand evolution, neurology, and genetics? And in order to adequately research those domains, would one not need a fundamental grasp of the laws of chemistry and physics? And so from a question within a single discipline we find we must become knowledgeable in not just one, but many different areas, and this encourages us to develop the abilities to both ask the right questions and to search in the appropriate places for the answers. Throughout my writing I will do my best to make my questions abundantly clear, and I will attempt to consider the levels of analysis that are appropriate in my answers. This is a task I hope you all will help me with.

Returning to our literary example, I believe the insight of the Cheshire Cat should be examined at a level that is both deeper and more encompassing than that of our first impression. What if, ultimately, none of us were really going anywhere? That’s not to say that there aren’t places that we would like to go – similar to Alice above – but rather that these destinations are more akin to detours along our final journey. And surely there is a journey that each of us is traveling along, although I’m not so certain that it makes sense, in light of what we now seem to know about the universe, to speak of final destinations in human affairs. This Aristotelian habit died out long ago. However, I don’t think it useful to discard such ideas so unceremoniously, which ties us again into Mr. Carroll’s story: I will not hesitate to explore domains that others consider nonsense. Given my interest in philosophy and most people’s general disdain for its language, it shouldn’t be a surprise that my ideas are sometimes dismissed by others. As a response, I will do my best to be charitable to my own interlocutors and their ideas, while separating the wheat from the chaff according to my own judgement. The threat of obscurity makes it all the more important to be clear about my own thought processes and their direction.

Finally, I should say a couple of things about the purpose and title of this blog. I will not answer the question of the similarities between ravens and writing desks, as I consider the exercise to be one of divergence rather than convergence. Some questions encourage us to find concrete answers, while others push us to explore our boundaries and let our imaginations flow through the realm of possibility. Nonsense can also serve this creative purpose, and a balance of creativity and analysis is exactly what I’m aiming for here. Both are fun in their own right, and if I’m not having as much fun as I can while doing this, then what am I really doing it for in the first place?

So welcome once again! I hope you’ll follow along and provide me with feedback as we go :)