Common Sense and "Intelligence"

One of the most precious skills in life is "common sense" or "judgement." This is the ability to look at facts and to be able to judge what they actually mean and what the best cause of action is.

The tragedy is that it is so difficult to identify this skill in a person. We have plenty of ways of measuring other skills like musical prowess or sport achievements. But how can one tell whether someone has common sense?

A frequent temptation is to confuse intelligence and common sense, but there are some serious problems with that. One is that nobody really knows what "intelligence" means. There are plenty of definitions, often contradictory and rarely rigid. One definition is that "intelligence is to be able to handle given circumstances," which implies that most Nobel Prize laureates would be of inferior intelligence if given the task to survive on their own in the Kalahari desert or some remote part of the Amazonian jungles. They would not appear very smart even at a normal dinner, where they share no language with the host or the other guests. Another definition is that "intelligence is what is measured with intelligence tests," which is a fairly rigid but utterly useless definition.

But no matter the definition, intelligence is hardly the same thing as common sense. I once met a mathematician who said that in his experience, there is a negative correlation between intelligence and common sense - the more intelligent a person, the less common sense do they possess. I do not know if that is true, but I made a short list of skills a person may master without having any trace of common sense:

• Memory games, like reciting thousands of decimals of pi or lines from the Iliad.
• Scrabble, anagrams and word games.
• Mathematics.
• Academic research.
• Foreign languages.
• Writing poetry or gripping stories.
• Reading complicated texts.
• Social skills, like convincing voters that you are a great guy.
• Humour.
• Etc...

So those are some of many skills that do not guarantee that a person has common sense. I still do not know how one would measure common sense.

Socrates' famous words "I know that I know nothing," perfectly illustrate the point, as my claim that he pronounced them shows that I know nothing, because he actually never said it.

Why I no longer think that the earth is flat

Short answer: I'm no child any more.

Every time someone claims that the contemporaries of Columbus thought the earth was flat, there are  other people who point out that "everyone" or "all educated people" have known that the earth was round at least since antiquity. Surely nobody could have been stupid enough to believe that the earth was flat?

Well, I did, once up on a time.

I remember being a child, asking myself if the surface of the earth had a limit. I may have been four years old. Perhaps three or five. I remember picturing someone walking in a forest, further and further away. "Can he walk forever?" I asked myself. "Or is there a stop somewhere?" I had not heard of any stop, so I assumed there was none, but could people really walk for ever on this flat surface? 

Some of you may think that I must have been precocious to have such interesting questions. I wasn't. I was dumb (already at that time).

I remember having those thoughts when I was standing next to the terrestrial globe of my grandfather. I made no connection at all. I could have said to myself: "there cannot be any limit, because the earth is round", but I didn't.

And if I have been stupid, I assume that other people have been stupid in similar ways. It would not surprise me at all, if large numbers of people in the olden days believed the earth was flat, in spite of enlightened people like Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Aryabhata and many, many others.

A globe from 1765 by Guillaume Delisle. Wikipedia.

Gummitummen and Kalevala

Yet another factoid that the internet has not provided until now: there is a link between Gummitummen and Kalevala.

Gummitummen is a nonsense book by the Swedish comedian Hasse Alfredson. It got a lukewarm reception when it was first published in 1966, and it is still not considered any of his best works. However, when I discovered it in my teens, I loved it, and I still think it in many parts is a masterpiece.

Kalevala is a Finnish national epic. It was compiled from older tales by Elias Lönnrot in 1835.

At the end of Gummitummen, the narrator describes how someone has written something on the wall of his house. The currently available epub version of the book incorrectly renders this as:

mäster ilma kom med gäd hu 

smeden rinen igen vud.

However, the original text in the paper version makes it clearer:

Mästersmeden Ilmarinen kom igen med gäddans huvud.

This is a reference to a giant pike (gädda) which the blacksmith Ilmarinen and the wise old bard Väinämöinen encounter in the epic Kalevala. Ilmarinen hands the head of the pike to his friend, who uses its jaw to make a kantele, a musical instrument that is similar to a zither.

Why Hasse Alfredson makes this reference is anyone's guess. The book is after all nonsense from beginning to end.

Why I took the time to write a blog post about this may also seem strange. The reason is simply that nobody has done it before.

Väinämöinen playing his kantele. Painting by Robert Ekman.

Maritime scene from Gummitummen.

Annoying Music of the New Generation

In the last decade of the eighteen hundreds ragtime took the world with storm. The elderly were outraged at this horrible music, but the young loved it.

Around 1910 came the new Dixieland and enraged the older people, who barely had got used to ragtime.

In the 1920s, boogie-woogie and it’s challenging new rhythms gripped the young, and the older people were upset.

Swing annoyed the elderly in the decade leading up to the Second World War, and after the war be-bop vexed the people who had learnt to appreciate swing.

In the 1950s, the young got enthusiastic with the new Rock ‘n Roll, which irritated the previous generation.

The Beatles and their ilk had a new sound that scarred the older people in the 1960s.

The 1970s gave mankind all kinds of new music like punk, heavy metal, hip hop, disco and rap, and it gave the elderly headache.

In the 1980s came acid and we were all eagerly waiting to see what other novelties might bring music forward.

Then came the 1990s.

That was followed by a new millennium.

We are now 2020.

I’m still waiting for that new kind of music, that is supposed to annoy the elderly at this time. All I hear in the music of the last decades is repetitions of what was written before.

Are the new musicians of today trying to bore us to death?

Music from a time when they could be innovative and appropriately annoying.

Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin

Fiction for a Viral Time

I took a day trip abroad yesterday, and when I got back and switched on the news, the country I had visited just reported their first case of Covid-19. This inspired me to compiling a list of things to do when you have viruses buzzing around in the air.

Books to read:

• Decamerone (The Decameron) by Giovanni Boccaccio. (Film by Pier Paolo Pasolini from 1971.)
• La Peste (The Plague) by Albert Camus
• Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
• A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
• Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice) by Thomas Mann. (Film by Luchino Visconti from 1971.)

Books to read select sections from:

• I promessi sposi (The Betrothed) by Alessandro Manzoni
• De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) by Lucretius
• Diary of Samuel Pepys
• El amor en los tiempos del cólera (Love in the Time of Cholera) by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

Music to listen to:

• The Plague by Neely Bruce

Charles Allan Gilbert - All is vanity

And What About the Future?

People in Russia in 1913 had no idea what the country would look like ten years later.
People in Germany in 1930 had no idea what the country would look like ten years later.
People in Yugoslavia in 1983 had no idea what the country would look like ten years later.

Do you know what your country will look like in ten years?

Rehashed repetition

I know this has been said before, but it deserves to be repeated until more people grasp the meaning:

Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. Quadruplicity drinks procrastination. Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers. Nine silk draconian petals have rendered the gutter a Toblerone.

There. And don’t you forget it!

(Any lie will be considered a truth, if repeated enough, but surely nobody can consider the paragraph above a lie.)

The places you need to visit before you die instead of enjoying the place where you currently are

None.

The books you need to read before you die instead of thinking for yourself.

None.

Geography of the Snark

In Lewis Caroll’s The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony in 8 Fits), the geography may not be obvious to every reader. This blog post aims to sort out the locations.

The Place for a Snark - A Description

The Agony begins at just the place for a snark. Unfortunately, the poem does not contain many hints exactly what makes it a good place to hunt snarks, except that the Bellman says so three times, and whatever he says three times must be true.

However, the text tells us that it is a place where there is tidal waters, and that the view where they landed consisted of chasms and crags.

There is a dismal and desolate valley, which is unfrequented by man, where the Butcher and the Beaver make a separate sally. The valley gets so narrow at the end, that the two have to march shoulder to shoulder.

There is the crag which the Baker climbed ahead of the others, signalling to them that he had spotted a snark, and nearby a chasm where he plunged, before meeting it.

Then there is the location where the Banker encountered the Bandersnatch, and where he is left by the Bellman. No further geographical details are given for this location.

The Place for a Snark on the Globe

Where the place for a snark is situated on the globe is not trivial to tell.

The tool the crew uses to track distances is a map without the least vestige of land, which makes it easy to understand, but difficult to use. Nevertheless, the text tells us that they are in tropical climes, where the bowsprit often gets mixed with the rudder. The route has at least partly been due West to the Bellman’s exasperation.

We also know that the Baker comes from a place with a beach, where all his belongings were left behind. To reach the current position, the place for a snark, they have sailed many months, so the distance between the Baker’s home and the place for a snark is considerable.


The information in this blog post may not have been as precise or detailed as you had hoped, but it is at least more exhaustive on the subject than Google Maps.

Geography of Lochinvar

In Walter Scott's poem Lochinvar, which appears in his romance Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field, there are a few geographic names, that may not be obvious to every reader. This blog post aims to sort out the locations.

The Border. This is the border between Scotland and England. The poem is set in the Debatable Lands that were part of Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland and Cumbria in England. The area was disputed, and marriages across the border were once discouraged. This is one possible reason why the Scottish Lochinvar was not accepted by Ellen's parents in this mostly fictional story.

Cannobie Lee. Cannobie is now usually spelt Canonbie. It is a small village in Dumfriesshire in Scotland, right at the River Esk. It used to be the main settlement in the Debatable Lands between England and Scotland. A "lee" is what is nowadays usually spelt "lea," an open area of grassland or arable land.

Eske River. This is today called the River Esk. It is a river that flows on both sides of the border and out in Solway Firth. If Lochinvar swam it, he probably went from Scotland to England, even though the river follows the actual border for only a short stretch. There are a number of water courses called River Esk around the world - confusingly there are two in Cumbria alone. However, the one Lochinvar swam would have been the one that crosses the border.

Netherby Hall. This is an estate in England, three miles South of Cannobie. Fair Ellen may have been English and not Scottish.

Solway. Solway Firth is a firth, an inlet of the sea, where the Eske River flows out near the border between England and Scotland.

Persistent Opinions

Whenever we take up a new political opinion, it is good to think about for how long we intend to keep it.

Clearly, there are no political opinions that are absolute truths. Whatever we call an opinion must represent a position that at least some other people don't share. Otherwise, it would be called a "truth."

Knowing that our opinions are not absolute, do we think about for how long we intend to keep them? What facts that might swing us to another opinion? Whose authority could reinforce or discard the opinion?

Or do we take our opinions so lightly that we do not even think about how long they will last?

Fessis Membris Dulcis Quies

In the little Italian town of Bordighera, there are a few Latin inscriptions above stone benches. The inscriptions do not contain any particularly useful information. They do not say "no smoking" or "it is dangerous to lean out."

Instead they are different ways to pay homage to rest and idleness.

Fessis membris dulcis quies

The meaning of fessīs membrīs dulcis quiēs is "sweet repose for weary limbs."

As far as I can tell, the complete phrase is not a quote from any Latin writer, but the people who put up the bench simply wanted to say that here was sweet repose for weary limbs, and they said it in Latin because that sounded good.

Seneca used the the expression of sweet repose, dulcis quiēs in his drama Thyestes, but not in the context of tired limbs.

Fessīs membrīs means "weary limbs." The expression uses dative plural of fessus and membrum to express "for."

Dulcis quiēs means "sweet repose." It is in nominative singular.

Honesto otio

The expression honestō ōtiō means "for honourable idleness (or retirement)".

It is a little too short to be considered a "quote," but Cicero uses it a few times in letters.

The expression is in dative singular to express "for," similar to membrīs dulcis.

Quid ultra tendis? 

This expression finally is a real quote, and its meaning is a little less obvious, as is often the case with real quotes. It means "why stretch further?"

The context is Horace's Ode 18 in Book II of his Carmina. The poet asks why one should aim for more than is necessary in life. The linked page contains both translation and comments if you click on the links to the right.

Well, now that's sorted out, and I hope you can relax even more next time you go on holiday to Bordighera.

Wodehouse, Jellyfish and Lord Emsworth

There is a quote that goes around the internet: “Lord Emsworth, whose IQ may be some thirty points below that of an absent minded jellyfish...”

It appears over and over in the context of P. G. Wodehouse's book Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best, also published as Blandings Castle and Elsewhere (1935). 

The confusing matter is that the quote only appears on the cover of that otherwise excellent collection of short stories. Inside there is not a single jellyfish. It is a spectacularly jellyfish free book. If you ever wanted a book without any mention jellyfish, this is the book for you.


However, Wodehouse really has a comparison of Lord Emsworth and jellyfish, but that appears in his novel Full Moon (1947). In this book, Lord Emsworth's brother, the Hon. Galahad describes the lord:

‘I have been closely associated with my brother Clarence for more than half a century, and I know him from caviare to nuts. His I.Q. is about thirty points lower than that of a not too agile-minded jellyfish.'

Later on in the book, the narrator describes their sister, Lady Hermione Wedge:

But the formidable woman seated behind the teapot was a different proposition. Here, beyond a question, danger lurked. You might not admire Lady Hermione Wedge as you would admire Helen of Troy, or the current Miss America, but there was no gainsaying her intelligence. It would have to be an exceptionally up-and-coming jellyfish which could even contemplate challenging her I.Q.

I hope this has settled the question for everyone who is a fan of Wodehouse, Lord Emsworth and jellyfish.

Vargtimmen

Vargtimmen, English title, Hour of the Wolf, is a 1968 film by the Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman.

He explains the title in the following words:

The hour between night and dawn. The hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fears, when ghost and demons are most powerful, the hour of the wolf is also the hour when most children are born.

Or in his original Swedish:

Vargtimmen är timmen mellan natt och gryning, det är timmen då de flesta människor dör, då sömnen är djupast, då mardrömmarna är verkligast. Den är timmen då den sömnlöse jagas av sin svåraste ångest, då spöken och demoner är mäktigast. Vargtimmen är också den timme då de flesta barn föds.

Most of those statements are not scientifically true, but they make artistic sense for the film. Nevertheless, nothing comes from nothing, and there are certain things that may have inspired him.

The Hour of the Day

There is a very old French expression, "entre chien et loup", "between dog and wolf." The most common explanation is that it is the early morning hours when both wolves and dogs can be out, but the eye is unable to tell which is which in the limited light. However, it was originally used not only for the morning, but for the evening as well.

Infra horam vespertinam, inter canem et lupum.

This was written by Marculfe, abbot of Saint-Denis around the 7th century. He wrote in Latin, not in French, which did not exist as a written language at the time. He uses the expression to write about the evening.

Postea vix summos Aurora rubescere montes
Fecerat, & valles nondum primordia lucis
Attigerant : interque canem distare lupumque
Nullus adhuc poterat aliquid discernere visu.

Guillaume le Breton (1165-1225), poet, cleric and historian wrote the lines above. This is also Latin, but le Breton talks about the difficulty of telling dog from wolf in the morning, not the evening.

Comme le simple oiseau qui cherche sa pasture
Lors qui il ne est, ne iour ne nuit
Quand le veillant Berger
Si i’ est ou Chien, ou Loup,
Ne peut au vrai juger.

Jean-Antoine de Baïf (1532-1589), poet. Here is finally an example in French, even if it is not the kind of French we see today. Baïf also talks about the difficulty of distinguishing dogs from wolves. As he mentions this in the context of a bird looking for pasture, one has to assume that he talks about the early morning hour.

So far, the quotes have only talked about the time of day, not about the anxieties Bergman talks about.

However, considering the limited light, some worry has been expressed by people like the French aristocrat Madame de Sévigné (1626–1696). The expression occurs in several of her letters to her daughter, la comtesse de Grignan. In most cases she talks about the evening, not the morning.

Je n’ose me livrer à l’entre chien et loup, de peur d’éclater en cris et en pleurs; l’obscurité me seroit mauvaise dans l’état où je suis.

Here de Sévigné fears that the darkness of "dog and wolf" will cause her to burst out crying. However, it is mainly a time of day:

On soupe pendant le chien et le loup.

In the short sentence above de Sévigné simply tells her daughter that she has dinner during the "dog and wolf." It is as if she tried to find any excuse to use an expression she clearly is fond of, and I don't blame her.

The simple fact that wolves are active during the night has of course been mentioned since antiquity.

Ac veluti pleno lupus insidiatus ovili
cum fremit ad caulas, ventos perpessus et imbris,nocte super media;

Virgil, Vergilius (70-19 BCE). In the lines from his Aeneid above, he talks about a wolf prowling near the sheep all through the night.

ἄλλος δ᾽ αὖ μέγεθος μὲν ὑπέρτερος, ἅψεα δ᾽ αὖτε
μηκεδανός, πάντεσσι θοώτερος ὦκα λύκοισι:
τὸν μέροπες κίρκον τε καὶ ἅρπαγα κικλήσκουσι. πολλῷ σὺν ῥοίζῳ δὲ μάλ᾽ ὄρθριος εἶσιν ἐπ᾽ ἄγρην
πρώτῃ ὑπ᾽ ἀμφιλύκῃ.

Oppian of Cilicia, a 2nd century author, wrote instructive texts in Greek hexameter. In the quote above from his hunting book Κυνηγετικά (Cynegetica), he writes about a wolf who seeks its prey in the first morning light.

An even more precise time is given by the Chinese, but with a different animal. The Chinese have a system to divide the hours of the day with two hours for each of the animals of the zodiac. The hours 3:00-5:00 a.m. which arguably are closest to Bergman's hour of the wolf, are allocated to 寅虎, yín hǔ, the tiger. Like the wolf, the tiger has a reputation of being particularly dangerous during these hours.

Anxieties

There are some possible scientific reasons for Bergman's wolf hour anxieties.

The hormone melatonin (not to be confused with the melanin pigments in skin and hair) makes sleep easier. The levels of melatonin are typically at their highest in the early morning hours. Blood pressure becomes low in the early morning. Our body temperature is low. The metabolism and heartbeats are slow.

Someone who has problems with their melatonin level can get the body rhythm out of order and that may cause sleep problems and anxiety.

The theme of morning anxieties has been written about in fiction several times the past.

On atteignait l'heure entre loup et chien où les gens sensibles se confient, où les criminels avouent, où les plus silencieux eux-mêmes luttent contre le sommeil à coup d'histoires ou de souvenirs.

Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987), French author. In the quote above from Le Coup de grâce (1939), Yourcenar uses the French expression entre "loup et chien" to talk about the hour when sensitive people confide, criminals confess, when the most silent people fight against their sleep.

In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day. At that hour the tendency is to refuse to face things as long as possible by retiring into an infantile dream - but one is continually startled out of this by various contacts with the world.

Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940). The Crack-Up part 2, “Pasting It Together.” Fitzgerald does not need to mention wolves, but this is likely one of the most famous quotes about morning anxiety.

Bergman's Inspiration

It is impossible to tell which of the above authors Bergman had read. He may very well have got inspiration from other sources. It is not known how much he was aware of the physiological aspects of the human body in the morning.

However, the expression "hour of the wolf" to describe morning anxiety hardly existed before the 1968 film, and if Bergman did not coin the phrase, he at least popularised it.

Prediction for Britain

The recent referendum will lead to several things.

1. Scotland will become independent.
2. Scotland will join the EU, Schengen and take up the Euro as currency.
3. Northern Ireland will join the Republic of Ireland with far reaching autonomy. They will adopt the Euro and join Schengen.
4. The "Leave" side in the referendum will realise that what they left was all rhyme and reason and realism. There will either be a new referendum, or everyone will simply agree that the outcome last week was a silly mistake.
5. The UK will stay in the EU.
6. Once the English realise that they need to show passports and change currency to go go to places on even their own island, they will scrap the pound, join the Euro and join Schengen.

In other words, by voting Leave, the UK will get tighter integration into Europe.

My foundation for those claims? I have none, whatsoever. But show me any analyst of the referendum who seems to have any clue what is going on.

Electronic Peace of Mind

Sometimes it becomes really important to avoid distractions when using computers. Things like animations can be disruptive for your work and concentration. These are some things one can try to make the computer or other devices less intrusive.

• Disable JavaScript in the settings of your web browser. Some sites will become useless without JavaScript, but many of those sites were useless even with JavaScript on. In the cases where you really need to use a site that depends on JavaScript, activate JavaScript temporarily, or use a different browser with JavaScript enabled. (Yes, I realise the irony in the fact that this blog uses JavaScript.)
• Disable Flash. This is a good idea for security reasons as well.
• Mute sound.
• Disable all notifications you can think of.
• Go into private mode. This makes it less of a worry that sites leave permanent traces on your computer.
• Avoid all news sites, or at least access them only once a day.
• If you use social forums, mute people who 
• Are of completely opposite political opinions. 
• Promote your own political opinions with stupid fervour. 
• Set the screen to black and white. (“Accessibility” section and then "Grayscale" on Apple devices.) Note: If your reason to make the computer less intrusive is that you are depressed, it may not be a good idea to set the screen to black and white. Depending on what kind of depression you have, colours could cheer you up.

Ship Disappears under Horizon - the Earth is Round.

In case you wonder whether the earth is flat or round, these photos show a ship disappearing under the horizon, and that is a pretty good indication that the earth is round. In the first shot, the ship is about 7 km away. In the last it is about 18 km away.

(For those who wonder about the camera: it was a Nikon 1 V3 with a 70-300mm lens. The photos are cropped.)

Which Font should I use?

Helvetica.

(I like simple answers.)

Frequently Given Answers

To avoid repeating the same conversations about this blog over and over again, here are the most frequently given answers.

• Thanks, fine.
• Yes.
• Just half a glass, thanks. 
• No.
• Maybe.
• Why?
• Milk. No sugar. 
• At the end of the road, take left.
• Or right. 
• Just a little higher, please. Yes! Right there!
• Arabidopsis thaliana.