Catching the clean (badly), September, 2010

This is not just for rugby players, but for everyone. I remind my husband of this when belief in his own dream falters. Perhaps this is simply “making sacrifices” – he knows we will need to move cities if he is to progress, but we love it here.
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Genuine confidence is probably an athlete’s most powerful weapon. Genuine confidence means you have an expectation of performing to your peak, both in training and in games and it is this expectation that bears the fruit of maximum effort.

If you expect yourself to win or to reach a particular goal, you are far less likely to be satisfied with a “just doing enough”. You take the extra effort and make it happen.

Confidence produces more than mere performance. I love to watch our captain train. Even when she is personally tired, she keeps her head up, keeps team momentum rolling. Positive body language – no hands on hips or head when tired, looking strong – has a massive impact on the confidence of teammates and on the perceptions of the opposition.

Confidence means new challenges can be faced and surmounted. True confidence, I think, comes from what Lombardi call “the perfectly disciplined will”. It comes from knowing you are seeking excellence and have done all you can in pursuit of it.

confidence · preparation

Upon recommencing studies in Science, I’m struck by the human desire to classify; it seems our natural method of organising both data and concepts. I don’t think there is any surprise that Object Oriented Programming has emerged as a dominant programming paradigm because it provides a platform for designers to create classified systems in which members of classes interact in predictable ways. Seems quite a good corollary to biology to me.

This, for me, touches on two other lines of thought. Firstly, it reminds me of both Plato’s Forms and of Kant’s Categories. I’m no expert on these subjects at all, but I do find them highly appealing.

I like the idea that we possess or create abstract concepts and make sense of the world by treating our experiences as concrete instances of these concepts. From watching my children learn, and from observing my own mind, I think these abstract concepts or forms or categories are fluid: they can be adjusted and refined or subclasses can be created as necessary. They provide the framework for learning and for understanding the world.

Secondly, and perhaps more enigmatically, I am drawn again to thinking about the nature of the relation between human thought and reality. C.S. Lewis says that human reason bears a direct correlation with reality – I hope I am paraphrasing correctly. We only understand reality through logical inference, and this applies to knowledge gained through science, but also to general everyday knowledge such as the sun sets in the evening and rises in the morning. We aggregate our experiences and draw conclusions about what is likely – sometimes almost inevitably likely – to occur. Lewis’s conjecture is that the operation of our logic mirrors the operation of reality, and from this our ability to obtain knowledge is derived.

These are mere ruminations – I really ought to spend some time developing a coherent theory for myself on these topics. The results would have big implications for me and I would enjoy it. I really ought to get back to my Biology and Chemistry for the moment, but my heart remains with Epistemology and Metaphysics.

Categories · Forms · philosophy · science