Remembering the BBC Micro
First, this post has got nothing to do with sport, philosophy, or politics (which is what pretty every other post on this blog has been about).
It’s about the BBC microcomputer which is celebrating its 30th anniversary.
Having just read a BBC article about it I thought I’d add my thoughts since it formed such an important part of my childhood.
My dad was always an avid computer fan since first visiting a computer the size of a room in the 1960s which successfully managed to calculate a series of numbers and culminated in the ejection of a card with the answer in binary form. When the first personal computers were being developed in the late 1970s my dad was determined to get one. Unfortunately it took him until 1981 to save up which he did by going without lunch for a year (he also had three small children to support).
One of my earliest memories is of my dad coming home and unpacking our new acquisition. We set it up on the living room floor (though I doubt as a four year old I was that helpful) and connected it to our black and white TV. Over the next few weeks we practised programming it and even now I have an eery sensation whenever I hear the start up sounds and see the picture of the dot matrix owl.
It was an amazing process for me and even as a five year old I would sit for hours copying out various programmes from magazines – though inevitably there would always be a ‘syntax error at line 160′ which meant they would never run.
Having access to a computer from the beginning of my childhood, and a father who was so enthusiastic about it, gave me an advantage in computing skills that hold me in good stead even 30 years later. I never went into computing and don’t know any current programming languages, but it has given me a ease with computers that many of my peers don’t have. To me, they just seem intuitive. Yes, sure they can be temperamental sometimes but when you have spent hours trying to load a tape onto a BBC micro only for it to fail right at the end, you realise that actually these days they’re pretty reliable and incredibly fast.
I loved my dad’s BBC micro and I feel privileged and thankful that he was interested enough to get me involved: he took me to a weekly computer club – which in my memory was dark and full of bearded men talking over flashing screens and lights. He also took me to see my first film which happened to be Tron.
I have really fond memories of the BBCmicro which gave me a great start in life and the opportunity to spend so much quality time with my dad. Thanks Beeb.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: 1980s, BBCmicro, computing, memories, technology
New Facebook Page
I’ve just set up a Facebook page which is a really easy way for me to disseminate information. I’ll continue to use this blog as a place to write longer posts and articles but the facebook page is a lot more accessible and user friendly – and I don’t have to write a long post either which is one of my main limitations for writing here. It’s still undergoing some changes and modifications but is up and running.
If you want to subscribe then either click here or just search for Dr Emily Ryall.
Btw – the page is designed by YanTanTether (who I would thoroughly recommend for any social media / web design work).
Filed under: philosophy, work | Leave a Comment
I’m speaking at The Times Cheltenham Science Festival later today and for those of you that can’t make it, or those of you that are coming but want to have chance to think about the discussion in advance, here’s the first draft of my 10 min talk (apologies for any bad grammar or spelling – I said it was ‘rough’!):
It’s a Fair Game
Are the anti-doping rules and policies fair?
Well, in order to answer such a question we need think about what we mean by fair?
Does this mean; everyone is subjected to equal treatment?
A cursory glance suggests, yes, the rules are the same for everyone and therefore these rules and policies are fair.
However, you only have to dig a little bit deeper to realise that it isn’t quite as straightforward as we might like to think.
When sport is discussed the metaphor ‘level playing field’ commonly crops up. And this is founded on the idea that sport should be about testing the natural capacities of the athlete. And by ‘natural capacities’ we mean the raw God-given talent that we are born with, and the mental courage and tenacity to be dogged and determined in developing this talent in order to reach its potential.
And this is one of the odd things about our stance towards doping. One of the main arguments used in support of the anti-doping policies is that using these substances are a short cut to reaching, or even surpassing this natural potential. You are not only cheating the sport, you are cheating yourself.
And yet no-one says the same about sleeping in a hypoxic chamber which has a similar effect on the red blood cells and oxygen carrying capacity as living at altitude. No one says the same about wearing state of the art clothing or footwear (although the recent ban on polyurethane swimsuits is an interesting exception that we might want to discuss further later). No one says that intensive sessions with your sports psychologist are a short cut to success. All of these things are part and parcel of elite sport whereby a fraction of a second can mean the difference between winning and losing, between success and perceived failure. Yet if we follow this argument that is often used against doping to its logical conclusion, we would rule out training altogether. Let the winner be the one who manages to get out of bed having never spent a day in the gym or watching what she ate, yet who manages to cross the line first. But this is ridiculous. Just as we value an athlete’s natural capacity, we also value the sacrifices they make in reaching their potential.
So when we talk about fairness in sport – it’s a myth. The countries that win the majority of Olympic medals are not those that happen to have the best gene pool (if we think a genetic lottery should be the basis for fairness) but those that are able to invest millions into talent identification, facilities, equipment, training, medicine, nutrition… the list goes on and on. It is the exceptions to this myth that get highlighted as examples that if you’ve got the raw talent and determination to succeed then you’ll make it. I note that the writer, journalist and former athlete, Matthew Syed, is speaking after this event on these ideas, and if you haven’t read his book Bounce, I thoroughly recommend it.
So sport at the elite level certainly isn’t fair if when we use the term, we mean ‘fairness as equality’. There are countless millions that had they been born in the right country, and spotted at the right time could have a shot at success.
So perhaps we mean fairness in that we are free to determine our own paths. Fairness as liberty and autonomy one might say.
Yet this certainly isn’t the case in terms of doping. Another common argument given in support of anti-doping is that these substances are terribly harmful and we don’t want these poor athletes suffering from their ill-judged decisions.
Now my parents might say that I make ill-judged decisions – not least because I play sports that I probably shouldn’t. And certainly not now I’m well into my thirties. I’ve got a large scar on my forehead from being stamped on in a rugby match, chronic pains in my shoulder from repeated injury to a collarbone I broke quite badly, several broken fingers and if you notice me hobbling about today it’s because I went to a gymnastics session last night and went over on my ankle. I’d be very surprised if you could find any former athlete that doesn’t suffer from chronic pain as a direct result from participation in sport. Sport is a dangerous pursuit.
Yet when it comes to doping, there is a sudden desire to protect athletes from potential harm. I don’t wish to get too side-tracked on the argument against doping from harm because this isn’t really what this session is about, but Verner Moller in his recent book ‘The Ethics of Doping and Anti-Doping’ makes a very compelling argument that allowing doping, particularly in the world of cycling, might actually reduce the harm done to athletes in their rigorous pursuit of glory.
So fairness as liberty doesn’t seem to stand up either.
Perhaps fairness could be applied then in relation to the fair treatment of athletes as human beings.
Yet I am doubtful of this too for two reasons. First, such is the hysteria that surrounds doping, any athlete that is suspected of a doping offence is vilified, particularly in the media. It is almost akin to serious crimes (and I don’t want to have a Ken Clark moment here) so I’ll leave you to think of which crimes these might be. Even athletes that are cleared of doping offences are seen to have a shadow lurking behind them. Cynical comments abound that the athlete just got off on a technicality whereas they are, in fact, still guilty.
Second, I don’t know whether you are aware of the anti-doping ‘whereabouts rule’ which requires athletes to state where they will be at a particular hour every day of the year. The rationale behind this is that the anti-doping authorities don’t have to go hunting for an athlete if they wish to conduct a test. Miss three of these tests and you’re guilty of an anti-doping offence. Now, I don’t know where I’m going to be from one day to the next but you can imagine that there may be good reasons why an athlete, even with a strict schedule, might not be exactly where they said they would be for every day of the year. This rule has been criticised for going against both privacy rights and data protection laws. Moreover, a rule of this kind is not fair in its treatment of athletes. It is akin to having a tag or curfew order or having to report to a police station on a daily basis.
So the idea of a fair game isn’t as straightforward as it initially seems. Apart from the fact that fairness itself is quite a slippery term, the idea that the anti-doping rules are part of making sport fair, doesn’t seem to ring true.
Filed under: philosophy, science, sport | Leave a Comment
Tags: doping, fairness, sport
Proponents on each side of the AV debate have amped up their rhetoric over the past week and it’s difficult to know what to believe. As someone who has swayed between the positions of ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘why bother voting at all?’ I’ve been trying to work out what I should do that is consistent with my core beliefs and values. So here’s my take:
My initial thoughts were to reject AV since one of the highlights of our elections is the quick counting and declaration of seats. Sad and pathetic, I realise, but I love the election night fever whereby I am desperately trying to stay awake at 4am to see what the next seat is to declare, and what colour it’s going to be.
However, my mum told me this wasn’t a good enough reason to vote ‘no’ so I had to think a bit harder. But as I’ve been trying to work out the merits of each case, what has really made my mind up is the disingenuous campaigning by the ‘no’ side.
For instance, the one thing that has really wound me up is the phrase used by the ‘no’ campaign that states ‘Under AV the winner wouldn’t win’, or the picture they are using which shows 100m runners and an arrow pointing to the last finisher:
This is a bad argument since they are already using the term ‘winner’ to denote the first finisher. Under a different system, the criteria for deciding the winner would be different and so the winner would still win but just not in the way that the current criteria dictates. Let’s change the analogy to the 4x100m relay. One team manages to get round the track the quickest but they dropped the baton at the first changeover. Just because they managed to finish first doesn’t mean that they won because the rules state that the baton must be transferred within a specified area and carried over the finish line with the competitor. The criteria for deciding the winner is different to just ‘being first over the line’ and this is the same with the AV system. The criteria for deciding the winner under AV is that a candidate must achieve 50% of the vote according to specified means (transferring of second and third votes (or more) if necessary) so under AV the winner does still, unsurprisingly, win.
It is this type of disingenious campaigning that has actually swayed me into action for voting yes to AV.
The other rhetorical ploy that is used is the incorrect labelling of our current system as ‘first past the post’ – the analogy of a race doesn’t work (in fact it is a better description of AV than our current system). We would be better off imagining it as a ‘highest score wins’ competition such as snooker, badminton or decathlon. Let’s say that you have a constituency of 30,000 people. The person who receives the most votes out of that 30,000 wins (whether they get 80% or 30% is irrelevant as long as they get more than any other candidate), just as the player who takes the most frames, sets or points wins. So let’s stop calling our current system ‘first past the post’.
AV is far from perfect (as Nick Clegg is frequently cited in saying from his ‘pathetic compromise’ comment) but it’s a start to a better form of democracy whereby the representatives of a country are more representative of the desires of their electorate.
As an aside, I’m not completely in favour of democracy – I prefer Plato’s philosopher kings idea (well, I would, wouldn’t I?!) – since the majority don’t always make sensible or reasoned choices, but since the possibility of us changing to a benevolent dictatorship is not presented as an option in this referendum, I am going to go with a ‘yes’ in favour of changing our system.
Filed under: politics, sport | Leave a Comment
Tags: AV, referendum, voting
This week an IBM computer comprehensively defeated two former Jeopardy game show champions. Since Jeopardy is essentially a general knowledge competition, one might think that this feat isn’t particular impressive. After all, computers are able to reliably store millions of facts via databases; all a computer needs to do is access the piece of information via its memory. The difficulty with Jeopardy is the cryptic way that the questions are asked. It would be impossible to program the computer with all the relevant information. Rather, the computer needs to understand what information it needs to access and ‘see’ connections between one piece of information and another. If a computer was able to draw out information contained within larger bodies of text, for example, it might have a chance. However, understanding natural language isn’t that simple.
Whilst I was an undergraduate studying Philosophy and Linguistics, I took a module in computational linguistics whereby we spent a whole semester programming a computer with natural language. After twelve weeks of entering determiners, pronouns, nouns and verbs, the limit of the computer’s language was to be able to to come up with a novel sentence such as ‘The cat laughed’. And it was probably able to come up with a handful of these type of sentences. It was a slow, boring slog with limited end results. But what it made me realise was that Alan Turing’s test (whereby a computer could fool a human into thinking it was human) was a long way off. Even if we, as humans, aren’t always perfect with our grammar, we can understand the difference between ‘The cat sat on the dog’, ‘The dog sat on the cat’ and ‘The dog was sat on by the cat’. Yet this is an immensely complex task for a computer. But now it seems as if a computer is able to understand language in a similar way; it is able to interpret questions and access the correct results.
So what does this hold for the future of artificial intelligence? There are some, such as Raymond Kurzweil, who argue that in the next 30-40 years superhuman (artificial) intelligence will spell the end for the human race as we understand it. When electronic technology has developed at an exponential rate over the last 100 years, it won’t be long before computers are able to understand, manipulate and construct the world in a (super)human way. Kurzweil predicts that by 2045, the computing power of artificially created devices will exceed the brainpower of all humans that have ever lived. That is quite a sobering thought and one that will have profound effects on our own existence. That doesn’t mean that computers will attempt to destroy the human race or enslave us as portrayed in science fiction films such as ‘Terminator’. It is more likely that we will start to amalgamate this technology into our own bodies.
The age of the cyborg will finally (after many false proclamations) have arrived.
Filed under: philosophy, science | Leave a Comment
Tags: AI, artificial intelligence, cyborg, language
This blog post originated from a Twitter conversation that I had with a colleague @oddhack following my tweet “After consideration, I am starting to come around to the proposed increase in student fees. *she says bracing herself for some flak*”
I suppose there are three different questions that need to be considered:
- Is there any way that HE could be funded without students having to pay fees?
- Should HE be funded without student fees?
- If fees are the only option then what is the fairest way of paying for this?
I don’t know the answer to question 1. There obviously is a finite pot of money so should it be spend on defence or health or other forms of education (i.e. pre-school, primary school – which the coalition is arguing for). Saying that, I’m sure that millions is spent on things I wouldn’t agree with such as men’s World Cup football bids.
The more important question then is question 2. This is much more complex. People that haven’t gone to University argue that they shouldn’t have to fund those who do but this doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t. I think the real problem is that those making the decision to increase fees had the advantage of free University (my PhD supervisor said that he had enough money from his student grant to go travelling every summer during his degree!). For a coalition who’s mantra is ‘fairness’ this seems the opposite. I wonder how much it would actually cost to implement the old grant system with numbers rising to 40+% of the population. The question is whether the good resulting from making HE free is worth the investment (and the sacrifice of other things). The criticism I suppose is that it is intellectual elitism as those who have the intellectual skills/abilities/motivation will be given an additional push to help them secure a better job whereas those who do not have the skills/ability/motivation will be left at a disadvantage. Ought we to fund vocational training in the same way? I think one of the main problems at the moment is that the Government (and wider society) isn’t clear as to what Universities are – they are not supposed to be vocational training centres (which I fear they are turning into – many of my students seems surprised that they are expected to both read and think!) and their value can’t be measured in purely economic returns.
Which brings us to 3. I think the mistake that the coalition has made here is in the language they have chosen to use. Why didn’t they just call it a graduate tax as that is essentially what it is. Saying that they are increasing fees has misled so many students into thinking that they still have to find the money up front which just isn’t true. If they had just said that all new graduates would be paying 2% of their income once they were earning £21,000 in order to fund other students, then I expect the reaction wouldn’t have been so fierce. I’m also not convinced of the argument that it will put off students going to University once they realise that they don’t have to pay anything up front. This was the fear of raising fees to £3000 and it hasn’t had any effect whatsoever. It might actually mean more older people coming to University because if you’re already 55 or 60 then you might think it is an opportunity for a free degree as there’s little chance you’ll be earning over the threshold once you complete. It might also have the same effect on part time students who will get the same opportunities as full time students which they haven’t had previously.
These questions then really come down to how much should we (both from a collective and individual point of view) value higher (and I also think further and vocational) education? Do we say as a society that we value it so much that we will give everyone the opportunity to participate in it free at the point of need? Or do we say that if individuals value it then they ought to pay for it (by being provided with a loan or greater tax burden)? I would argue the former, simply because it gives the signal that society values well educated and trained individuals. And if David Cameron really wants to measure well-being then being appreciated for what you can offer is a great part of this.
Filed under: philosophy, politics, work | Leave a Comment
Tags: #demo2010, fairness, funding, higher education, student fees
The Scottish Premiership referees have voted to strike this weekend in protest against the growing threats that they receive from players, managers and fans alike in addition to the fact that they feel their integrity is being questioned. But are they right in doing so?
The latest controversy was fuelled by match officials, Steven Craven and Dougie McDonald, admitting that they lied about the reason for changing a penalty decision. This led to widespread criticism about the honesty and integrity of referees, and Celtic Chairman (and ex Home Secretary) John Reid and Scottish MP Pete Wishart, to suggest that officials are forced to declare which teams they support and prevented from refereeing in those matches.
There are two particular ethical concepts at the core of this issue; fairness and respect. One of the basic tenets of sport is that it is a fair contest where the best (i.e. most talented, most deserving) side wins. A sport where the rules are ignored or overlooked can quickly descend into anarchy and is no longer sport at all. Sport can only work if the rules are followed. The Victorian conception of sport was that officials were unnecessary since players themselves were able to ensure adherence – the role of umpire in cricket was just to hold the hats and jumpers of the bowlers and count the balls in the over. However, the rise of professional sport (with its extrinsic rewards), along with a change in sporting attitudes, led to officials being needed to make sure that players didn’t try to give themselves an unfair advantage. And these officials were expected to be totally objective and impartial, even if their competency could sometimes be questioned.
Now, the SPL officials are being attacked on grounds of both competency and impartiality. On the latter, there is no defence for official’s bias towards one team over another. If the adherence to rules is a prerequisite for sport then this undermines the game itself. Even if all officials do genuinely seek to remain impartial, it would still seem reasonable to bring in Mr Wishart’s suggestion that referees do not officiate in games where they support one of the teams so as to ensure there is no sub-conscious conflict of interests or grounds for accusation of bias.
However, on the issue of competency, the criticism given towards the referees is unreasonable. And this bring in the concept of respect. All those involved in the game realise that matches can not be played without a referee. Let us be charitable and say that these referees are doing their utmost to ensure they make the correct decisions. So when considering the limitations of being human and the balance of probability, an incorrect call occurs, does this justify the torrent of abuse that officials receive? Of course it doesn’t. No-one deserves to be subject to death threats, especially on the grounds that they gave a penalty when it wasn’t, or vice-versa.
And this seems to be the fundamental problem with football. Officials are not given the respect that they, as humans, ought to be given. The FA’s respect programme seeks to change behaviour towards officials in football, but it it is limited because it focuses primarily on amateur and children’s football rather than professional leagues. Arguably, it is fighting a losing battle when those at the grass roots emulate the behaviour of players and managers at the top.
In no other job would such behaviour be considered anywhere near acceptable, and those involved would be subject to disciplinary measures on the grounds of bullying and harassment. However, sport once again, appears to be a moral vacuum.
So are the referees right to opt for strike action? I would say absolutely. I would like to see such solidarity spreading out to other associations whereby referees refuse to officiate unless they are granted the respect they deserve, both in the capacity of being human and in that they enable the game to take place at all (let us witness a professional game without the use of match officials to see how it works). Nevertheless, in return, officials need to ensure that their biases do not affect (either consciously or sub-consciously) the decisions they make. They need to ensure that they do their level best to keep the game fair.
I recognise the frustration that clubs and fans feel when referees make incorrect decisions but the times I have been on the receiving end of this, I have had to bite my lip for I know that without them we would have no game at all. We must respect officials regardless of the (human) mistakes that they might make simply because without them the game would become unplayable.
Filed under: philosophy, sport | Leave a Comment
Tags: fairness, football, referee, respect, Scottish Premiership
Academics at the University of Bath are currently conducting research into the biomechanical forces inherent in the rugby scrum. The rationale behind this investigation stems from a premise that the welfare of players should take precedence over all else.
The debate over whether the scrum in rugby is a safe and necessary part of the game is a perennial one which seems to polarise opinion as can be seen in the comments on The Guardian’s article on this. You will get veracious advocates maintaining that one of the key values of rugby compared to the majority of other sports is that it provides an avenue for all body shapes and sizes to perform. Others will state that the front row is a highly technical part of the game that requires important mental tenacity and skills that should remain. Yet the critics point to the serious injuries and long term damage that result from the impact of antagonistic forces on the neck and spine. This is reinforced by the announced retirement of England prop, Phil Vickery, who after several neck operations was advised by doctors that if he continued to play he would do himself even more permanent damage.
There are many philosophical questions that arise from this discussion. First, how much should risk and danger be eliminated from our lives? Do we take a paternalistic stance and limit the type of activities that people can freely choose to participate in? Or do we take a libertarian approach and say that if people want to do dangerous things to themselves, even if it might cause them injury or even death, then we should let them do so?
I’m always inclined to take a libertarian approach to these types of things (although there are some issues surrounding the free choice of children and other vulnerable individuals) but the case of the tight-head prop forward is slightly more complicated than the case of the lone base-jumper. This stems around the notion of ‘free choice’. It is given that there are players who relish each and every scrum as the opportunity to dominate their opposing player and provide an effective platform for the rest of the team. However, as every team knows, these types of front row players, and props in particular are hard to come by. Conduct a poll asking players what position they would ideally play and I suspect back-row and centre will come out on top. Prop forward would be at the bottom. The reasons for this are two-fold. First, it is a technical position that requires immense concentration in order to avoid discomfort at best and serious neck injury at worse. When I started playing rugby (at University) I had no idea what the positions meant and found myself put in at prop having had very limited training. My first match against Cambridge University saw me leave the pitch with three broken ribs. As soon as I recovered I moved to fly-half.
The second reason is that because of the bound nature of the position in the scrum, props (and this is certainly the case at lower levels) often don’t get to appreciate the most valued and essential features of the game, that is; running, passing and tackling. By the time a front row player has extracted herself from the scrum, the ball is over the other side of the pitch and then the whistle is blown for another scrum. At the lower echelons of the game where the basic skills are weaker, front row players find themselves going from one scrum to the next with little opportunity to take part in the rest of the game. This might be accepted by the few players who feel their scrummaging skills are about all they can offer to their team but for all other players who want the opportunity to run with the ball, it is not surprising that there is often a dearth of front row forwards.
This returns us to the problem with the notion of ’free choice’. If prop forwards are difficult to find and few players openly express a desire to play there, and yet the laws of the game state that a contested scrum is a key part of the game, players may find themselves being reluctantly cajoled into playing there out of a fear of letting their team down.
A few years ago, the Premiership team Clifton was deducted points and relegated for being unable to field a front row. When this is the outcome, it would be unsurprising that players find themselves pressurised to play in these positions. And this is hardly ‘free choice’ is it? Yes, one could take a Sartrean position and say that the player always has a choice (The French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre said that if a man held a gun to your head saying ‘Your money or your life’, you still had a free choice!) but we need to recognise that the pressures that players feel from being part of a team mean that they might acquiesce to things that they wouldn’t do if they didn’t feel these social pressures.
So what is the answer to this conundrum then? I would argue that the research conducted by the University of Bath has to be supported by a philosophical investigation into the values and aims of rugby. The results of a biomechanical analysis will offer no insight into what ought to be done. Even if it were concluded that the forces that players were subject to were great enough to cause injury, then it doesn’t provide any advice as to whether this means they should be removed. The inherent risks involved in many things doesn’t mean that they are banned (e.g. alcohol, cigarettes, horse riding, boxing…).
So the answer to this is to decide what it is that is fundamentally important to the game of rugby. What makes it a worthwhile and valuable sport and social activity? And do we wish to eliminate risk or manage it in other ways (e.g. better training for players, coaches and referees)? These are the questions that will really provide an answer to the place of the scrum in rugby.
N.B. There is a new book coming out in December on Ethical Issues in Sports Coaching, of which I have co-authored a chapter on Coaching Dangerous Sports.
Filed under: philosophy, sport | 6 Comments
Tags: coaching, danger, ethics, libertarianism, paternalism, risk, rugby, scrums
In the BBC programme ‘Inside Sport‘, Ed Smith asked, ‘Is professionalism killing sport?’ This isn’t meant as a literal question, but rather one that focuses upon the individuals participating in sport at a professional level. Smith’s argument is essentially that being a professional (where the goal of winning becomes paramount - whether that is monetary reward, medals or status) requires putting aside those things that enable individuals to get to that level in the first place; things such as: fun, self-expression, enjoyment, playfulness, flair and instinct. This, Smith argues, is a bad thing, as he concluded towards the end of the programme when he threw his lens upon Tiger Woods:
“People usually argue that the rest of his life is damaging Tiger’s golf. In fact, maybe it’s too much golf that has harmed the rest of his life.”
It think it’s this sentiment that is the most important aspect of Smith’s analysis. It’s not that the levels of performance in sport have got worse through professionalism; as records will show. Humans now run faster, kick more accurately and tackle more powerfully (in rugby for instance). But all this improvement in overall performance is at the detriment of the eudaimonia (well-being) of individual athletes and also at the expense of other aesthetic and emotional values of sport.
I’m giving a talk in October for the Gloucestershire Philosophical Society on the technologicalisation of the athlete, which is going to focus upon some of these issues. The problem, I will argue, is not to do with innovations in technology which are used to dissect and analyse performance in order to perfect techniques and movement, but rather the real problem is with our attitude towards sporting performance believing that it ought to be treated in this technological way. The upshot of this technological attitude is that we treat humans as automatons that can be controlled and manipulated in every way to achieve a specific sporting goal. We forget that the human experience and what it is to live a good life is so much more than this reductionist approach to improving sporting performance. As Ed Smith quite rightly demonstrated through his interview with former England cricketer and Strictly Come Dancing winner, Mark Ramprakash, there is more to life than this narrow view of winning in sport.
Incidentally, if you fancy coming along to my talk to discuss these ideas in more depth then details can be found here: 27 October 2010, 19:30 – 21:30, Room HC203, FCH, Uni of Gloucestershire, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, GL50 4AZ.
Filed under: philosophy, sport | 2 Comments
Tags: attitude, BBC, Ed Smith, Gloucestershire Philosophical Society, GPS, Inside Sport, performance, technology
There has been much discussion in the philosophy of sport about what makes a ‘good game’ and the conclusion seems to be best expressed by Sigmund Loland who uses the phrase ‘the sweet tension of uncertainty of outcome’ (p149, Fair Play in Sport).
Essentially, this means that ‘good games’ are those in which the result is always in doubt; the higher the level of doubt, the greater the anticipation of a ‘good game’. It perhaps is also a psychological reason why we (as non-partisan observers) root for the ‘underdog’; we want to convince ourselves that we will see a game where we simply don’t know what will happen. At the very least, it makes life more interesting.
And so on day 2 of the Women’s Rugby World Cup, I’m once again hoping that there really is the ‘sweet tension of uncertainty of outcome’; I don’t want New Zealand to walk over Australia, and I’d like to see Kazakhstan shake England up a bit. It’ll take just one match going against the odds to put the question of doubt in everyone’s minds about all the other matches; the whole tournament will take on a different perspective.
And when nothing is certain, the tension will taste all the sweeter.
Filed under: philosophy, sport | Leave a Comment
Tags: rugby, women, world cup, wrwc
Recent Entries
- Remembering the BBC Micro
- New Facebook Page
- It’s a Fair Game – Cheltenham Science Festival 2011
- How should I vote on the AV referendum?
- Watson IBM computer wins Jeopardy
- My thoughts on the proposed student fees…
- Should the SPL referees go on strike?
- Should scrums be banned in rugby?
- Inside Sport: ‘Is professionalism killing sport?’
- The ‘sweet tension of uncertainty’ #wrwc
- 5 ways to follow the Women’s Rugby World Cup
Categories
- books (4)
- environment (2)
- philosophy (23)
- politics (4)
- science (3)
- sport (18)
- Uncategorized (3)
- work (3)
