Greenspan's guarded optimism

In this WSJ article entitled "Seeking Rational Exuberance," Greenspan says we're emerging from a time of irrational exuberance - an overly indulgent investment period. How did this failure in aggregated knowledge happen? Megan McArdle has a nice bulleted list of 'cognitive errors' not the least of which I think is being overly optimistic. Believe me, it's my Achilles' Heel - I would know.

One of the things I'm getting my brother for Christmas

Disappearing Civil Liberties Mug - your liberties disappear when you pour in hot liquid!

Timely discussion on faith

Great discussion about intellectualizing God over at Sand in the Gears. Actually worth slogging through the comments, but here's my favorite of Tony's retorts so far:

I suspect where you and I disagree about knowledge of God is that I don’t confine knowing to that which can be discerned by the senses. Christian belief is predicated on the underlying assumption that we can know by means other than the senses, i.e., by the action of the Holy Spirit, who generates throughout the Christian life epiphanies large and small, all of which go into a category of knowing that cannot be reached by sensory investigation.

The rationalist and the atheist rejects this out of hand, of course, and for understandable reasons — because all he has known has come to him, so far as he can discern, via the senses. Thus when he hears that there is knowledge to be had by some other means, he naturally rejects the notion. This is akin, however, to a man who has been blind for life, and who has been raised among the blind, asserting that there is no such thing as this mystical “seeing” that the so-called “sighted” claim to engage in.

"Love Actually" has its limits

Seven calls from my mother in twenty minutes last night. This doesn't count the three calls earlier in the day. Two of which were for me to explain how to use her remote to view the On Demand video channel. I only answered the first of the seven calls. Yes, I ignored 6 calls. She's obviously not on fire or dying or she wouldn't be able to dial me over and over. Four conversations in one day is enough. Four interruptions to an otherwise pleasant Sunday was enough. Enough!

Ramblings on faith

Why do I believe in God? Where does my faith come from? Humility before creation. Awe of the complexity of nature. Experience in the intangible. The blessings of kindness in my fellow man. My favorite Bible passage - Hebrews 11:1 "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen."

A friend sent me a sermon with the following passage this morning that seemed especially timely:

I think William James captured it pretty well when he observed that the crucial element within all the varieties of religious experience throughout the world came down to one woefully inadequate word: and that word is "more."

That to be religious was, simply, to recognize or to learn that there was – that there is more. More to all of this than meets the eye. More than language can ever capture. "More things," as Hamlet tells Horatio…. "There are more things in heaven and on earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

The language of faith is, maybe, the only language we have to express what's going on in those fundamental moments of life when we encounter a sense, or maybe even the presence of the reality of "more."

The passage was timely because I was moved to tears by a late night theological discussion over the weekend. Surprised even by my own passion, I tried to stick to a somewhat rational discussion of what motivates my faith. The primary sticking point was whether I could be with someone (long term) who wasn't Christian. I'm an open minded gal and as long as my main squeeze would accompany me to church, I think I'd be fine, but the thought of having kids with someone who lacks faith chills me to my core. Yes, this is a few years off - this is just how Whitney's mind works.

When I was a little girl, I was scared of the dark and of alligators under my bed. I was scared when my daddy worked late and came home after I went to bed - would he get home ok? The future frightened and overwhelmed me.

My belief in God comforted me even at a tender age and got me through tough times. Perhaps it was a vivid imagination or perhaps children understand the essence of existence better than us adults, but young Whitney knew with radiant certainty that there was a loving and merciful Creator out there who gives life purpose. What that purpose is differs for every individual, but it makes individuals optimistic and self-reliant. It's what makes me the rationally exuberant woman I am today. Though I want my children to find faith on their own, I want to provide them a religious structure and example to guide them in their youth.

My faith is the manifestation of all my hopes and the cumulative result of many unseen, but meaningful experiences.

The Psychic Power of Crowds

Years ago, I skimmed The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. Over the last two years, I've also read a lot about the aggregation of information in society and spontaneous orders. I got another interesting example of this seemingly magical phenomenon in one of my grad school classes last week: the Delphic Method. Cool example from class:

Thirteen people were asked to write their weight on a sheet of paper along with their best guess at the class's average weight. The actual average weight was 158.15. The estimated average weight = 157.23. The amazing thing is that the law of large numbers tends to balance out individual errors even in a small group. So the aggregated estimate was closer than any one individual's guess. Cool, huh?

This financial crisis seems to fly in the face of this concept. I mean isn't that Wall Street specializes in - aggregating financial information? But like a frog being gradually boiled to death, Wall Street didn't see what hit 'em. Despite this failure, I still trust the crowd more than I trust the government. The audacity they have to think that they know how to fix it.

Even the people I know who understand this meltdown and can explain it up and down still don't have a firm opinion on what the government could possibly do to fix it. But ask these individuals what they plan to do and they know. Ask Joe Sixpack on the street what he plans to do and he knows. That's because they will all do what is in their individual self interest. When you aggregate this self-interest, I have faith that the economic tide will continue to rise and we'll get through this mess. If the government doesn't drown us first.

Question.

I thought the Amish couldn't use modern technology so I was surprised when I stumbled upon the following page created by an Amish person selling Amish wares. Then I found this Amish Furniture Review site which looks like it was created by a non-Amish person. But it got me thinking...do the Amish really only market their goods by word of mouth or do they cheat...just a little?

Question: Is the internet exempt from the Amish's technology ban?