Holy Cyclops

Last night’s WCCC game was a pretty one, although I probably attacked prematurely.  I was paired against the club master’s 1500-rated nemesis—how it is that he gives Michael more trouble than anyone else in the club is a mystery, possibly partly (but only partly) explicable by the fact that Charles plays an opening system that no one else in the club plays.  It seems to be of his own devising, although I have recently seen something like it referred to as “the Hippo”—a sort of extended Hedgehog formation.  I had White against him, and I was able to sacrifice a knight for the attack early on:

1 e4 b6 2 d4 Bb7 3 Nc3 d6 4 Nf3 e6 5 Bc4 Nd7 6 O-O a6 7 Ng5 Qe7 8 f4 h6 9 Nxf7 Qxf7 10 f5 Ngf6 11 fxe6 Qg6 12 exd7+ Kxd7 13 d5 Re8 14 Bd3 Qf7 15 Qf3 Be7 16 Ne2 Rhf8 17 Qh3+ Kd8 18 Nd4 Bc8 19 Nc6 mate.

My nephews just saw the new Get Smart movie.  Apparently, there is an entrance form that Maxwell Smart has to fill out at some point, and one question on it has something to do with existentialism.  Intrepid Agent Eighty-Six leaves that particular answer space blank, and is later complimented on his answer—the best answer they’ve ever gotten, apparently.

My older nephew M. later asked me about that, while we were at Dairy Queen getting ice cream.  He wanted to know why it was funny.  And I laughed and then told him that while I got the joke, I wasn’t sure how to explain it.  Eventually, I told him a bit about Jean-Paul Sartre’s title Being and Nothingness, and about how some existentialists seem to concern themselves with nothing and nothingness (a mistake, I explained, since nothing or nothingness is not a thing but is simply the lack of anything and the word “nothing” does not denote an object but is simply a word meaning, “not anything”), but it wasn’t until my sister C.—the converted-to-Islam mother of my nephews—mentioned something about nihilism that I realized that the joke probably had to do with the attitude of despair that, in the popular mind, characterizes existentialism—the attitude that life is pointless and worthless and has no meaning.  And then I explained to him the following extremely important point:  Existentialism says that life has no intrinsic meaning and the universe has no intrinsic purpose, not that an individual person can find no meaning in the living of his life or that an individual person can find no purpose in the world around him.  For those who, like me, spent years searching for Ultimate Truth, such a realization—that there is no Meaning of Life or Cosmic Purpose to be found by introspection or by sitting around saying om over and over or in any other way—is initially discouraging.  But when one further realizes that meaning is always meaning to someone, and that purpose is always purpose to someone, so that one creates his own meaning and chooses his own purposes in living his life, then the existential realization is liberating—it is freeing. 

So, Maxwell Smart’s blank space was appropriate just to the extent that it expressed the realization that there was no intrinsic meaning or purpose to life; but if it was meant to express the popular despair of thinking that there was no meaning or purpose at all in life, then it went too far.  But it was funny.

What I didn’t say, though, was that the mistake some religious people make is in thinking that we should all ascribe what they think are God’s purposes to ourselves.  (Notice that one might easily think that it isn’t really a mistake for people to adopt religious purposes for themselves; we all choose our own meanings and purposes, and if those are the ones they want to adopt, well, why not?  I do wonder if it matters whether our meanings and purposes are chosen on the basis of justified beliefs about reality or not.  I’m inclined to think it does, but that might be my high valuation of truth showing, or perhaps my high valuation of reasons.)  First, why should someone else’s meanings or purposes be ours, even if that someone else is God?  God might find it meaningful to have people worship him, but why should people find it meaningful to worship God?  Meaningfulness to God shouldn’t be mistaken for intrinsic meaningfulness.  The reply would presumably be that one shouldn’t have God’s purpose, but rather the purpose that God thought best for him—he, being vastly knowing, ought to know better than anyone else what purpose would best suit a person, so one should listen to him when he tells him what that purpose is.  But, second—and, I think, rather devastatingly—how can one know what purpose God thinks is best for him?  If a holy book is then cited, how can it be known that the holy book is reliably relaying God’s thoughts on the matter?  I don’t see how it’s possible to know.

Here, I argued that whether or not to accept the fatalistic argument really boiled down to a choice to how to view future events—as already fixed or not as already fixed. Propositions about future events might be taken as already having truth-values, or they might be taken as taking on truth-values only at the time of occurrence of those future events.

But if we assume the existence of a foreknowing God, that changes. Propositions about future events must then be taken as already having truth-values, which God already knows (although we don’t). The fatalistic argument I gave there, then, must go through:

1. p v ~p (Premiss, by the Law of the Excluded Middle)
2. p—>O(E) (Premiss: If it is true that E occurs at time t, then E has an occurrence-value)
3. ~p—>O(E) (Premiss: If it is true that E fails to occur at time t, then E has an occurrence-value)
4. O(E) (1, 2 ,3, Constructive Dilemma)

This applies to any future event E of which a foreknowing God has knowledge, whether it’s the result of human choice or not. And although one may still argue that God’s foreknowledge is like his looking through a time-telescope, so that he is not bringing about event E (or not-E) but is simply observing it or aware of it, one can no longer argue that event E’s occurrence-value isn’t yet fixed.  One can no longer argue that future contingent propositions are neither true nor false.

June was a really bad month for me, chesswise.  I lost to two players rated in the 1400s; at the quads, I offered a draw in an elementarily won position and, in a winning position, I hallucinated an undefended piece, which I proceeded to start to capture with my queen before realizing my mistake and resigning; I went 1/2-2 1/2 at the quads and was 0-3 in the club’s Morphy Swiss before, finally, winning last week.  And this week—another win. 

Oddly, both wins have come out of the opening.  Last week’s game, Johnson-Jin, began 1 e4 c6 2 Nc3 d5 3 Nf3 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Bg4 (4…Bf5, as in the Classical Variation, gives White a big advantage after 5 Ng3 Bg6 6 h4 h6 7 Ne5 Bh7 8 Qh5 g6 9 Bc4 e6 10 Qe2) 5 Bc4 Nf6? (5…e6 was necessary) 6 Ne5!  My opponent then thought for half an hour before the game continued 6…Qd4 7 Bxf7+ Kd8 8 Nxg4 Qxe4+ 9 Ne3 (Black has limited her losses to a pawn and the loss of her castling privilege) Nbd7 10 d3 Qd4 11 Bd2 (I don’t have Fritz; one might want to analyze the variations following 11…Qxb2 12 Rb1 and 13 Rxb7 Nb6, with the threat of …Kc8, trapping the White rook; at the time, I trusted that she wouldn’t take on b2) Ne5 12 Bc3 Qf4 13 Be6 Kc7 14 Qe2 (threatening Nd5+ and Bxe5+, winning the Black queen) Ng6 (now both king bishop and king rook are locked out of play) 15 g3 Qd6 16 Nc4 Qc5 17 O-O-O Nd7 (I expected 17…Nd5, allowing 18 Be5+ Kd8 [18…Nxe5 19 Qxe5+ Kd8 20 Ne3 wins a pawn for White]) 18 f4 Rd8 19 f5 Black resigns.

This week’s game, Park-Johnson, also featured an early win of material:  1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 Nf3 g6 4 Nc3 Bg7 5 e4 cxd4 6 Nxd4 Nc6 7 Bf4 d6 8 h3? Nxd4 9 Qxd4 e5, forking bishop and queen.  Play continued 10 Bxe5 dxe5 11 Qxd8+ (I expected 11 Qxe5+) Kxd8 12 Rd1+ Ke7 13 c5 Be6 14 b3 Rhd8 15 Ra1 Rac8 16 b4 Rd4 17 a3 a6 18 f3 Bh6 19 Kf2 Rd2+ 20 Be2 Rc2 21 Na4 Rd8 22 Rad1 Rxd1 23 Rxd1 Bc4 24 Nb6? Rxe2+ 25 Kg1 Be3+ 26 Kh1 Bb5 27 Nc8+ Kf8 28 Na7 Ba4 29 Rb1 Bc2 30 Ra1 Nxe4 31 fxe4 Bxe4 32 Rg1 Bxg1 33 Kxg1 Rxg2+ 34 Kf1 Ra2 White resigns

I can’t help being pleased with my opening play in these two games—in particular, with my noticing the wins of material.  We’ll see how I do at the quads next weekend—not this weekend, as the club doesn’t want to compete with the World Open and therefore delays its July quads to the second Saturday of the month.  I managed to drop seventy-one rating points, from 1838 to 1767, in the course of seven games (including the first of the two wins).  We’ll see how quickly I can get back to 1800—and we’ll also see if I’m ever able to reach 1900!

On the walk home from chess club is a stretch of road next to which is a marsh. Red-winged blackbirds like marshes, and I often see them when I walk to the club. Occasionally, I see a deer near there, too; tonight, on my way home from chess club, I did, in fact, see a deer. But that wasn’t what caught my eye tonight. Instead, what I noticed were this summer’s lightning bugs. Fireflies were out tonight in great number, flashing rhythmically, outdoing the early fireworks people were setting off for Independence Day. Flashing on and off, they reminded me of myriad miniature pulsars—a phrase I’m sure I’ll use in a poem sometime.