No good deed

A customer had not one but two units shipped to him which were, unfortunately, defective. The base plates were not properly machined out on either one. Consequently, I picked them up to make corrections. So it goes; all things made by human hands are subject to issues. It's part of the job.

He had repacked the units into the shipping cartons so that I had to unpack them at the Shop. No big deal: it only takes an extra thirty seconds to remove them. I start with one, replacing the defective part. But rather than repack again I thought I'd just assemble the machines for the customer. It would save him time and be good customer service. And, why repack, right? I proceeded to completely assemble unit one.

That done, I unpacked unit two. I discovered that the hardware, the nuts and bolts and clips and what not which are necessary to put the thing together, were not there. Either they hadn't came from the factory or, more likely, the customer had inadvertently not included them in his repackaging of the machine.

What's a fellow to do? I wasn't about to disassemble the first one because I couldn't more easily assemble the second. I went to my own supplies for the various items and put unit two together. All the while giggling that no good deed goes unpunished.

First World problems, eh?

Science and Value

Science is fascinating, ian't it? And there are so many fields of endeavor within it that it isn't likely our appetite will ever be sated. One would think so, anyway.

After all the flap about the expanding universe which we raised the other day we now find ourselves enthralled with questions empirical. Today our subject is, we think, biochemistry. At the least, what we are considering are the notions of whether our physical makeup controls us.

Must we think what we think and if we must, how honestly responsible are we for our actions? There are those out there who believe, to paraphrase Mr. C. S. Lewis, that human thought is nothing more than cerebral biochemistry. If that's all it is, how can we argue for personal responsibility, indeed of any real ownership of our lives and ourselves?

Can we usefully speak of freedom and liberty if we cannot help who we are? Why bother with discussions of any sort if all we are is whatever nature drives us to be? What actually is the value of even such noble callings as scientific inquiry under such circumstance? Such a scientist after all must really only be thinking what he must think. If science were ever to prove that thought is only physical, wouldn't that include the value of science along with whatever morals or values we may deem to be true?

And that's our issue with so much of modern science. It attempts to argue that all is empirical when not everything is. Or, if it is, then everything is meaningless. For value is not empirical, and there is no value whatsoever to thinking what we cannot help but think and believing what we cannot help but believe.

In short, if science is correct and empiricism is king, then all human action is pointless. Even science itself.