The terms “homosexual” and “sexual orientation”

We need to be aware that the concepts “homosexual” and “sexual orientation” are modern, and perhaps Western.

I don’t feel that recognizing this has anything to do with essentialism versus social construction. One is not arguing the fact that people throughout history have been attracted to their own sex or the fact that this is not a conscious choice for them, but at least feels inborn. Instead it has to to with the linguistic and cultural concepts that different cultures offer, the patterns of behavior that can be referred to simply in a word or two, without complicated, esoteric explanations.

The Greeks and the Romans had different concepts for it than we do, and anyone “homosexual” in the modern sense must have had a difficult time explaining themselves — even to themselves.

Plato and Protagoras: “. . . of things that are, how they are . . .”

How can we know what Plato really thought?

He never (almost never) spoke for himself. He wrote “dialogues” in which the only voices belong to the characters. We know what Meno, Protagoras, Theaitetos, and the others say — but what does Plato say?

. . . every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite

A post in the ongoing series Poetry in the Arts.

In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake wrote about the “doors of perception.”

The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.

For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed, and appear infinite, and holy whereas it now appears finite & corrupt.

This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.

But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul, is to be expunged: this I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.

For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.

What does Blake mean when he says that if “the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite?”

Why is the world “infinite?” And if it is, what does perception have to do with it?

I’m not sure about what Blake thought, but I have my own personal theories.

Herakleitos, 1

κόσμον τόνδε, τὸν αὐτὸν ἁπάντων, οὔτε τις θεῶν οὐτε ἀνθρώπων ἐποίησεν, ἀλλ’ ἦν ἀεὶ καὶ ἔστιν καὶ ἔσται πῦρ ἀείζωον, ἁπτόμενον μέτρα καὶ ἀποσβεννύμενον μέτρα.The ordered world, common to all, was not made by a god or a man; rather, it always was — and it is and will be an ever-living fire, lighting by measures and going out by measures.

– Herakleitos of Ephesos

This is the first in a series of posts about the philosophy of Herakleitos the Ephesian — and later about other ancient Greek philosophers as well. I write them in order to work out certain ideas for myself.

Medicine: Using probabilty to treat people versus using it to treat groups

I saw an interesting post complaining about the “magic” of clinical trials and the refusal by many people to consider other types of evidence rationally. One commenter there replies, “Let me give you an example I like to use. George Burns smoked 4 or 5 cigars every day and lived to be 100. Does that mean smoking cigars is harmless?”

I’d like to offer my 2 cents.

Let’s try a different example first, not George Burns. You go to the airport, planning to fly to Peoria and visit your aged mother. The ticket agent informs you that, statistically, fewer than .01 of the passengers leaving your airport go to Peoria, and therefore Peoria wouldn’t work for you and isn’t really what you want. She takes your money and hands you a ticket to Orlando.

Sherlock Holmes — on imagination

On my About page, I present quotations and images that—like the ones at the top of the sidebar to the left—suggest the importance of imagination, inspiration, imagery, art.

There is some dialogue in the film of The Hound of the Baskervilles that, for me, also expresses this perfectly.