For Want of a Bolt

For want of a nail the shoe was lost;

For want of a shoe the horse was lost;

For want of a horse the battle was lost;

For the failure of battle the kingdom was lost—

All for the want of a horse-shoe nail.

    This past week, I spent several days putting a new engine into Theseia.  This is the second time I've swapped the engine in her.  The last was about 9 years ago, and was the reason she and I were separated for all that time.

    Theseia is named for the classic philosophy problem, the Ship of Theseus.  For those not familiar:

The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.

— Plutarch, Theseus

    When I purchased her, Theseia had the classic 258 inline 6 with a 2-barrel carburetor.  Theseia is a 1976 CJ-7, which raises an interesting question, because the 2-barrel carburetor was not introduced in America until 1979.  This means that at the very least, the original intake manifold had been replaced, and more likely, the entire engine.

    That 258 never ran right, so I decided to replace it with a V8.  I (like every AMC Jeep owner) toyed with the idea of a Chevy 350, but I decided instead to stay AMC and put in a 304.  Working for Tennessee Med Tech wages at the time, I had to scrape together all my savings and liquidate an asset to put together the princely sum of $650.

    Recently, I purchased the 360 that I am working on putting in and a backup 304 for $400, so make of that what you will.

    Anyway, the 304 I purchased had apparently been lowered a wee bit energetically when removed, and the oil pump housing was cracked.  I jumped on the Jeep Forum and bought a used one for $15 or so.  When it arrived, I threw it on the engine and promptly went out with my brother for a test drive.

    Unfortunately, I forgot to reassemble the oil pressure relief valve.

It goes right there.

    And so it was that my brother and I blew all the oil out of the engine all over the back roads of McMinn County.  We got about 20 minutes of use out of the engine before it started making funny noises.  By the time I figured out what had gone wrong, the engine was seized.

    I was out of discretionary money (indeed, shortly thereafter, we began to accrue debt after the Shieldmaiden quit her job to stay home with the kids), so Theseia sat.  And sat.  About 2 years later, we finally recognized that we couldn't make ends meet in Tennessee and moved to Montana.  The next year, Theseia made it as far as my parents' cabin in Michigan.  It took many more years until we could arrange to haul her out to Montana, and so she sat and sat some more.  All told, she's been sitting for the next best thing to a decade.

    All for want of 2 minutes' labor.

    Anyway, the new engine is in, though there's still a few more days of work to get it running.  More importantly, the brake system needs to be purged so that she'll stop.  

    But this time, I put the oil in and have been letting it sit for a week to make sure there's no leaks before I start her up.

Puddleglum's Wager

On the topic of Hogfather, I've gone down a bit of a Jordan Peterson rabbit hole recently.  What does that have to do with Terry Pratchett?  Mostly, that I find an interesting similarity in Peterson's arguments that mythologies are useful to controlling human behavior:

    “All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

    REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

    "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

    YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

    "So we can believe the big ones?"

    YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

    "They're not the same at all!"

    YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

    "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

    MY POINT EXACTLY.”

    Death here is echoing Plato's "Noble Lie" in The Republic.  His belief is that in order for society to rise above Hobbes's bellum omnium contra omnes, humanity requires myths to stir their aspirations to higher ideals.

   This is similar to two of America's founders (whose identities escape me at the moment).  In personal correspondence, one mentioned that he was contemplating coming out as an atheist.  The other cautioned him against it saying that while he personally agreed, some form of theism was required for a society to function.

    What I find interesting is the comparison and contrast with another, older British work of fantasy:

    "One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things--trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

    The comparisons are obvious.  Both authors are suggesting that belief in a higher narrative is required for virtuous behavior, and can instill virtuous behavior, even if the higher narrative is false.  The contrast, of course, is that in The Silver Chair, there is a Narnia.

    Peterson seems to fall between the two.  He seems open to the idea that there is reality to the metaphysical claims of Christianity, but so far as I have seen, he never affirms it.  He seems more interested in the practical outcomes of Christian virtue, i.e. that the world is a better place when people love their neighbors as themselves, and if it's necessary to love God with all one's heart, soul, and mind in order to do so, then let's not dismiss that.  It's much the same as the many psychologists who say that if a ritual will make you feel calmer, then you should use it for its practical value whether there's any objective religious or magical "power" in it or not.

    Of course, as any sophomore logic student will point out, this smacks of appeal to the consequences.  And to the extent that someone makes the statement, "__________ must be true, or else __________ will happen," it is.  It is absolutely irrational to say, "Christ must have risen from the dead, or else holodomor."

    But if one accepts that beliefs result in actions, then consequences are worth considering.  A friend of mine, writing on the occasion of a school shooting, said the question is not "Why does this keep happening?" but rather, "Why does this not happen more often?"  It's a good question.  If one is to throw out all metanarratives that would appeal to a higher story than the individual's existence, then you quickly find yourself in solipsism.  In such a worldview, other individuals are NPCs in your story.  And as a college acquaintance noted about playing Halo 2, "[NPC] teammates are just there as ammo drops."

    Why, yes, he was a bit scary.