2025

● Wednesday, 1-1-2025 (New Year’s Day):   I have two reasons for suspending my exercise-walking this morning: the air is very polluted, from all the firecrackers last night and early this morning; and my left thigh is injured, probably from excessive walking. I’ll see how the thigh feels tomorrow.

● Truncated Camarillo drive; refreshing. Traffic was unusually light, which always makes the drive more pleasant, for me.

● Thursday, 1-2-2025:   I had no thigh symptoms this morning, so I took my exercise walk. Afterward, I had slight symptoms in the thigh, so I forewent my second walk.

● Friday, 1-3-2025 (10:30 p.m.):   I just awoke from another dream in which two arts were fused: music and painting. I was studying the history of American painting, and the paintings were also musical compositions. I was surveying the history of the art, including compositions of Brahms, which led to the works of Beethoven. The dream (as I remember it) was dominated by the graphic images, colorful and beautiful, mostly of landscapes. I was trying to learn to paint. In one scene I was looking at a sketch of a family having a meal, sitting at a round table, and the advice was given to always show such tables with a radial pattern for the tabletop.

● Saturday, 1-4-2025:   We may say we’re against political violence on principle. Yet, would we not favor the assassination of Hitler? Which means we’re not against political violence on principle. We’re for or against it depending on the circumstances. Strictly speaking, I’m not for or against anything on principle. All decisions are ad hoc, depending on circumstances. As to certain kinds of actions, though, exceptions may be so rare or far fetched, that I’m for or against them virtually on principle.

● Wednesday, 1-8-2025:   I had a deposition scheduled for this morning. I had to cancel it because the fierce winds overnight blew over a tree near my garage, which blocked my way. The city has now removed the tree. Because of the winds, there are several major, devastating fires nearby. I feel fortunate that my apartment (so far) is not in danger. I’ve been fortunate over the years in this way.

● At first blush, I may seem inconsistent to say both that that which is valuable (not intrinsically, but quasi-intrinsically) is just an aspect of consciousness (happiness) but that what I most value is my writing. I’m not inconsistent: the first is my judgment about an objective truth. The second is my subjective, nonrational feeling. One is my philosophy; the other is my feeling.

[Later note (1-17-2025): That’s inaccurate: both are my philosophy—my philosophy of well-being, which I’ve defined as consisting in both an objective element (happiness) and a subjective element (our desires). Our desires are nonrational and arbitrary. Sometimes, as here, philosophy and psychology coincide. And you’d expect that they would: philosophy seeks the truth, and largely treats of man and his life; and the truth about man importantly involves his psychology.]

[Later note (1-24-2025): Another reason why I’m not inconsistent is that the two desiderata don’t strictly conflict because happiness is not intrinsically valuable.]

● Saturday, 1-11-2025:   I had an appointment with a physician’s assistant in the orthopedic department at Kaiser this morning, for my left upper arm, which has been painful on certain movements for the last few months. He examined me and opined that it was just a strain, which should resolve on its own. He suggested that I perhaps do light stretching exercises. Since the stretching exercises (doing them too strenuously) I think caused the injury, I’ll wait until this injury resolves before resuming those exercises.

● The horrendous fires in Los Angeles have been burning (and in fact expanding) since last Tuesday. The one in Pacific Palisades is creeping closer to my neighborhood. I’m starting to get very nervous, concerned about that. I’m by no means out of the woods in that regard. If I were religious, I’d pray. (But since I’m not, I won’t.)

● People are calling these fires “apocalyptic,” because of their huge scale: the great number of persons who’ve lost their homes. But however many—or however few—persons lose their homes, it’s catastrophic for them.

● Monday, 1-13-2025:   Today in a deposition the deponent (the person being questioned) commented that western civilization is based on Greek philosophy. He didn’t explain that, and I didn’t get a chance to ask him about it; but it occurred to me that that didn’t seem right. Later, this occurred to me: western civilization is not based on philosophy at all—it’s based on greed. . . . Well, less crudely, and more precisely, it’s based on desire: people’s quest to satisfy their various desires . . . and few persons, I suspect, have a desire involving or “based on” Greek philosophy!

● Friday, 1-17-2025:   To justify his controversial political actions, Trump construes his decisively winning the presidential election as a mandate. But Trump won because his opponent (Joe Biden) was so unpopular. Probably almost any candidate who ran against Biden would have won. Dissatisfaction with your opponent does not necessarily translate to support for your crackpot ideas.

● Well, I’ve just finished the latest read-through of my Journal. This one took exactly a month. The editing was—as usual—very fruitful, and I added six pages of new Diary material, much of which I think is quite good. So I’m in a happy quandary: I’d like to submit the Journal to book publishers for publication; yet doing so seems perpetually premature when I’m continually enhancing it. If this trend continues, when will I submit it? For now, I suppose, there’s no urgent need to do so (my health and my finances are good). I can bide my time, and let the work continue to grow.

My feeling of good fortune on completing this latest read-through is augmented by my appreciation of having been spared a calamity by the still-burning Los Angeles fires. The greatest danger in that regard (for me) has passed.

● Sunday, 1-19-2025:   Truncated Camarillo drive. Enjoyable.

● Trump’s second presidential inauguration is tomorrow. Some have wondered how the American people could have elected a President who’s so great a threat to the country’s democracy. I’ve said this: “Dealing with an acute medical problem takes precedence over dealing with a chronic or long-term one.” Many working persons’ already-dire financial situations were deteriorating, and close to collapse. That danger (one that affects them personally) was acute; danger to the country’s democracy (and which might not soon affect them personally) was longer-term, or chronic. For those voters, the former took precedence over the latter.

● Monday, 1-20-2025:   When modern American politicians (at least the Republicans) laud the virtue of “sacrifice,” they don’t mean sacrifice by the rich to alleviate the suffering of the poor, or even sacrifice by everyone. They mean sacrifice by the poor, so that the rich can get richer.

● The Philosophy Club meets again next Sunday (1-26-2025). Before every meeting, Brian Gould, the Club organizer, emails a set of 5 topics for participants to vote on, to pick one for the meeting. Among the present 5 is this one:

“IS IT BETTER NEVER TO HAVE BEEN BORN? Is most any human life too tragic or painful on balance to be worth living? If you’re persuaded this is the case, should we therefore refrain from bringing children into the world? We can evaluate the reasons “Anti-Natalist” philosophers believe that it would be better if we’d not been brought into existence.”

Without reading any of the reference material (which will be provided only if the topic is chosen), here’s my initial answer: I think most people, including me, would have been better off not having been born, because most of us are predominantly unhappy. But unhappy people, most of them, choose to continue living because they possess values in addition to happiness (perhaps this is a manifestation or sublimation of the survival instinct). The value that keeps me going is my wish to maximize my body of creative work. And I would prefer that humanity continue, so that my work will live on, which requires a continuing audience. . . . But I favor changing the world so as to make human life more pleasant, or less unpleasant.

● I’m going to view the mathematics lectures again, starting now.

● Tuesday, 1-21-2025:   That right wrist and forearm pain, which I thought had gone for good, has returned.

● Wednesday, 1-22-2025:   For the last hour of the bed cycle this morning, sleep was impossible, with the smell of cigarette smoke in my apartment. Miserable!

● Thursday, 1-23-2025:   This morning, Larry Mantle, a National Public Radio host, said, on air, that Donald Trump is a populist. The dictionary defines populist as “a supporter of the rights and power of the people”; and populism as “a political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.” Trump is the opposite of a populist—he’s a plutocrat. He’s a member of the wealthy elite, and his actions and policies as President (like his tax cuts for the wealthy) favor the elite at the expense of the people, though he pretends to be a populist. And Mantle’s statement was not just the typical namby-pamby euphemism. It was a lie . . . unless he meant merely that Trump is a populist because he seeks to be popular (his comment was dishonest or stupid—but Mantle is intelligent).

. . . On second thought, the comment could still have been merely stupid. Intelligent people sometimes say stupid things. But I think the alternative is more likely. . . . Do honest people sometimes lie? Perhaps he’s generally honest, but in this instance he gave in to fear, knowing that Trump is vindictive, and that, with Trump as President, public radio stations are vulnerable, to loss of government funding . . ..

● Sunday, 1-26-2025:   Philosophy Club. Topic: “Utilitarianism and Consequentialism.” I think that philosophers who argue for utilitarianism make at least two fundamental errors: One, they assume that morality is objective; and, two, (perhaps a consequence of the first mistake,) they assume that morality can be reduced to formulas.

In the Wikipedia article on Utilitarianism, J.S. Mill’s proof of the principle of utility is criticized as embodying several logical fallacies, including the naturalistic fallacy; the equivocation fallacy; and the fallacy of composition. A more fundamental criticism of Mill’s argument is to note that, because morality is not objective, moral precepts, like utilitarianism, cannot be proven. The best we can do regarding a moral precept is to say what our thoughts are about it, why it appeals to us (or not). Some will agree; other will disagree, and they, too, can say why. None are right or wrong. It’s like explaining why you prefer Beethoven to Bach.

Karl Popper’s suggestion that the principle “maximize pleasure” should be replaced by “minimize pain” is easily refuted: if the sole relevant principle were to minimize pain, there could be no better world than a nonexistent world, because it holds the least possible amount of pain (zero). But surely a world with no pain but considerable pleasure is better. Though we may give priority to decreasing pain over increasing pleasure, yet pleasure and pain are commensurable. I would willingly experience a certain amount of pain in order to (later) experience a great enough amount of pleasure. And the traditional utilitarian principle “maximize pleasure” already accounts for pain: it means the greatest net pleasure (pleasure over pain).

Another argument against (or criticism of) utilitarianism is that “it is impossible to do the calculation that utilitarianism requires because consequences are inherently unknowable.” Well, yes and no. It’s true that our actions’ consequences are not completely knowable. But they’re not completely unknowable. Surely, we do more good by trying to do good than by trying to do harm, or even just by not trying to do good. Else, it would be just as good that I ignore the traffic rules when I drive as obey them, just as good that a rich businessman cut his workers’ pay as raise it. In a rough way, we get what we intend.Another argument against (or criticism of) utilitarianism is that “it is impossible to do the calculation that utilitarianism requires because consequences are inherently unknowable.” Well, yes and no. It’s true that our actions’ consequences are not completely knowable. But they’re not completely unknowable. Surely, we do more good by trying to do good than by trying to do harm, or even just by not trying to do good. Else, it would be just as good that I ignore the traffic rules when I drive as obey them, just as good that a rich businessman cut his workers’ pay as raise it. In a rough way, we get what we intend.

In the article section “Aggregating utility,” there’s this: “Philosopher John Taurek also argued that the idea of adding happiness or pleasures across persons is quite unintelligible and that the numbers of persons involved in a situation [is] morally irrelevant. . . . We cannot explain what it means to say that things would be five times worse if five people die than if one person dies. . . . There is not five times more loss of happiness or pleasure when five die: who would be feeling this happiness or pleasure?” That’s true in a certain theoretical way (perhaps what he’s getting at—though he doesn’t realize it—is the idea that there’s no intrinsic value). But, practically, taking into account numbers of persons makes sense. If there’s no difference between helping five and helping one, then there’s no difference between helping five and helping none. And the policy of helping as many as possible works to the advantage of any given person, because he’s more likely to belong to a larger group than to a smaller one.

About average utility, the Wikipedia article says: “On the other hand, measuring the utility of a population based on the average utility of that population avoids Parfit’s repugnant conclusion but causes other problems. For example, bringing a moderately happy person into a very happy world would be seen as an immoral act; aside from this the theory implies that it would be a moral good to eliminate all people whose happiness is below average, as this would raise the average happiness.” In response, bringing a moderately happy person into a very happy world would not be counter-utilitarian, let alone immoral, because it would reduce no one’s happiness. Likewise, average utility would not indicate eliminating people whose happiness is below average, because that would raise no one’s happiness (and would anguish the family and friends of those eliminated). Plus, if we start “eliminating” people, everyone will become anxious (unhappy). Utility does not require us to abandon common sense.

Finally, yet another criticism of utilitarianism is that it’s too demanding. Shelley Kagan says: “Given the parameters of the actual world, . . . maximally promoting the good would require a life of hardship, self-denial, and austerity . . ..” But we don’t reduce a moral standard to conform to your conduct. If you’re honest half the time, and the rest of the time you lie, cheat, and steal; we don’t change the rule “One should be honest” to “One should be honest at least half the time” so that you’ll be able say that you abide by it. Utilitarianism describes an ideal. Perhaps it will never be fully attained. But it’s useful to have in our minds as a guide for what to strive for, both in our conduct and in the state of the world.

[Later note (3-11-2025): In my foregoing comments on utilitarianism, I start out criticizing it, but I end up defending it. The resolution is this: I think utilitarianism is a good, useful guide. But it must be appropriately qualified. The criticisms of it that I argue against are not apt criticisms.]

● Monday, 1-27-2025:   I see in the news that Trump’s long-promised deportation blitz has begun. I suppose any day now, grocery prices will start to come down.

● Tuesday, 1-28-2025:   I went to Fresno again today, for a deposition. Some of the landscape between Los Angeles and Bakersfield was covered with snow. Again my car (and I) performed beautifully.

● Saturday, 2-1-2025:   I’m starting another read-through of the Journal. I took my standard two-week break from it, though, also as usual, during that break I did some new writing in my Diary.

● Tuesday, 2-4-2025:   I’m the fifofiest of them all!

● Wednesday, 2-5-2025:   This neck pain is a pain in the neck!

● Friday, 2-7-2025:   This is from my report on today’s workers’ compensation deposition:

Defense attorney asked Mr. Cruz whether he filed this workers’ compensation claim because he was fired, and he answered “Yes.” Defense attorney might argue that that means that Mr. Cruz filed the claim to retaliate against the employer for their firing him. But the counterargument would be that that’s not what it means. Rather, it means only that he would not have filed the claim if he had not been fired—if he still worked there—because he needed the job, and would be afraid that his filing a claim would cause him to lose the job. Since that condition which he felt precluded his filing the claim was removed (he no longer works there), he felt free to file it. Besides, he has genuine injuries, for which he has a right to compensation, regardless of his motive for bringing the case.

● Monday, 2-10-2025:   Donald “Wrecking-Ball” Trump.

● Tuesday, 2-11-2025:   I parked my car in the alleyway this afternoon to give plumbers access to my garage. I left this note on my car:

Tuesday 4:00 p.m.

I’ll move this car shortly.

If you need it moved sooner, please call me (Richard): (818) 343-0123.

● Donald Trump hates the United States government as we know it, and is trying to destroy it. He’s cutting everything, government agencies, public funding, the federal workforce . . .. That’s as likely to benefit the public as a surgeon (or someone masquerading as a surgeon) opening a patient on the operating table and indiscriminately cutting the viscera is likely to benefit the patient. Many common people think Trump is a real surgeon, who knows medicine, that he’s wielding a scalpel, to try to help them. But he’s a butcher wielding a butcher knife. And he has no intention of helping the common people. I hope they wake up before it’s too late.

[Later note (2-14-2025): That analogy is flawed, in two ways. First, to picture the country as “a patient,” a single person, suggests that everyone’s interests are aligned, that the “surgeon’s” actions affect everyone in the same way. Rather, the country is made up of numerous people, and different persons are differently affected. Second, the Trump administration is not an incompetent butcher blindly slashing. They know well what they’re doing: their cutting hurts the vast majority (poor and working people), but it helps the wealthy, which is their aim.]

● Thursday, 2-13-2025:   When I’m reading my Journal for editing . . . it seems strange, but I’m actually glad when I come upon an entry that I think needs correcting, either by rewriting it or by adding a Later note to it. I think that’s because I enjoy the revising; and because I know that I’m thereby making an improvement; and because—at least momentarily—it makes me feel that my obsessive, constant rereading of the work is justified.

● Friday, 2-14-2025:   Among Trump’s lies are these: He speaks of acting (specifically, cutting taxes) to help “the taxpayers.” Since even working people pay taxes, “the taxpayers” connotes “the people”; and we think he’s talking about helping the people. The way he cuts taxes is to cut government programs that taxes fund. When he does that, he describes it as cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse.” But that’s a pretext. Even the most laudably efficient government program will contain some waste, fraud, or abuse. That doesn’t mean that the program, overall, is wasteful, fraudulent, or abusive (the great majority of government programs that help poor and working people are beneficial). Trump is not cutting a program’s waste, fraud, or abuse; he’s cutting the program. (For example, he wants to cut, or end, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.) For working people, the value of the government programs they thereby lose exceeds the amount of their tax reduction; for the wealthy, their tax reduction exceeds the value, to them, of any lost government programs. Hence these tax cuts help the wealthy and hurt working people. Trump speaks of helping “the taxpayers.” What he means is helping the wealthy. . . . And what has happened is that the American people have been had.

● If the American people ever figured out what’s happening in this country—a big if—they’d be very angry.

● Sunday, 2-16-2025:   When Trump says he’s using “common sense,” it doesn’t mean he’s seeing a problem in a fresh, clear way. Rather, it merely serves as justification for his doing what he wants to do, with no deliberation or argument, and no discussion of whom the action helps, and whom it hurts (and it usually helps the privileged few and hurts the many—which means it does more harm than good).

● For two weeks’ time, my left lower leg (in the usual place, just below the knee) has been painful enough to prevent me from taking my exercise-walks. I could walk despite the pain, but that would make it worse, and it would delay and prolong the healing.

● Sunday, 2-23-2025:   My left leg is healing. It’s finally good enough to resume the exercise-walks. But I’m doing it cautiously. Yesterday I went just a third of the way, once. Today I walked the same distance, twice.

● Philosophy Club meeting, in-person; I’m not going—I attend just the ones that meet by Zoom (computer). But I read the readings on the topic: “Bowdlerizing literary works.” And, as usual, I have an opinion about it (if not an argument): I’m against it. I wouldn’t want my work bowdlerized.

It’s useful to contrast bowdlerization with (normal) editing: Editing furthers the author’s intention in and vision of the work; bowdlerization (to make it more acceptable to some audiences) subverts it. Editing, when done well, improves the work; bowdlerization degrades it.

● Tuesday, 2-25-2025:   I overdid the walking yesterday, because today the left lower leg symptoms have returned, albeit mildly. I’ll suspend the exercise walking again this morning. . . . In the afternoon (I had no deposition today), the leg felt OK, so I took an exercise-walk. First I went two-thirds of the usual distance of one walk. About an hour later, I went one-third of the way. The leg still feels all right.

● Thursday, 2-27-2025:   Cutting taxes is the rich robbing the poor.

● Friday, 2-28-2025:   He who cannot admit (at least to himself) that he makes mistakes, cannot learn from his mistakes. Trump seems to be an example, of someone who can’t admit that he makes mistakes . . . and of a mistake.

● The recent flare-up of the left leg injury seems for now to have completely resolved. This morning I took my full exercise-walk, though just once; no ill effect.

● Saturday, 3-8-2025:   That pain in my left leg has returned, with a vengeance! I’ll have to suspend my exercise-walking for at least a few days.

● Sunday, 3-9-2025:   I set all my clocks ahead for daylight saving time.

● Today my left leg feels better than it did yesterday. It’s not yet good enough to do my exercise-walking; but the improvement is encouraging.

● I just awoke from a dream. I was in late college or graduate school, and soon to graduate and start a professional career. I was in a quandary over what to study and to choose as my career. I had been studying law, but turned it down as a career because I found it tedious. Instead, I chose the kind of work involved in the last class I happened to take: studying bird biology. In the last scene in the dream, I was meeting with the professor—alone (it was so late in the school year that she was meeting with me specially, not as part of a regularly scheduled class)—and I was explaining to her my decision about this. At one point in my explanation, I was showing her a scene of a hypothetical legal case, a traffic collision. I said something like, “I find it so boring that I couldn’t even remember the color of the sky, and we both, unsuccessfully, tried to remember the color of the sky. Then the scene zoomed in on the cars involved in the massive gridlock/collision. There were many newish luxury cars; one was a new, white Rolls Royce. I think it was somehow a reference to the potential lucrativeness of a legal career, wealth that I somehow missed. But my point was that law was out of the question because I hated the work. This dream came just a few hours after I added a note in this Journal to an entry of 1-26-2001, wherein I express an insight about the difference between humans and lower animals (and which note I thought was especially good). I interpret the study of bird biology as symbolizing my desire to write: when I write, I fly. . . .