Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Summary (2011 - June)
(Text as at 06/07/2011 23:13:55)
*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***
(For the live version and other versions of this Note, see the tables at the end)
Rationale for this Report
This is a summary report with links to my various on-going projects. Detailed progress is shown on the sub-reports. This summary report should highlight whether my focus has become unbalanced or otherwise inappropriate to the achievement of my major goals. As they are rather a pain to produce, I’ve decided to produce them quarterly, rather than monthly as in the past.
Projects in Progress
I have ten projects currently on the go, though the last two are semi-dormant. Follow the hyperlinks for further details:-
- Research into Personal Identity1. This is the subject that ought to grab most of my attention at the moment. It is also, incidentally, the topic of my PhD. I need to achieve something in philosophy, as this is the only one of my endeavours that promises a professional outcome (in the sense of being one of more than merely personal interest).
- Studies in the Philosophy of Religion2. On and off, this represents the main preoccupation of my adult life (work and family aside). I’m no longer pursuing the MA in Philosophy and Religion at Heythrop College, London University, but intend to follow up on the Philosophy of Religion module in some detail.
- Development of Web-tools3. This project is intended to assist with the prosecution of philosophical research. It is fundamentally an enabling project, though one I hope will have general metaphilosophical implications. The above two projects are test cases of the method, as well as worthwhile studies in their own right.
- Consciousness4 Studies. A supporting project for both Personal Identity and Philosophy of Religion.
- Languages5: Gain at least a rudimentary understanding of 24 diverse languages – for practical and philosophical purposes.
- Bridge6: I’m playing up to three times a week for fun, but am also playing occasionally in weekend tournaments – now in order to achieve “expert” status.
- Mathematics7: Revive / improve my mathematical competence with a view to the use of mathematics as a tool in my various other projects.
- HiQ8: Enjoy and contribute to the intellectual society of ISPE and Mensa.
- Music9: Improve my competence as an oboist, and learn the piano. This project is currently on hold.
- Chess10: Improve my standard of play so I can perform acceptably in the London / Middlesex leagues (whenever I’m ready). This project is currently on hold.
These projects are (approximately) in order of decreasing priority, yet in practise the amount of effort expended on them fails to respect their relative priorities. My intention is to radically prune the lower-priority projects, Bridge in particular.
I have ignored the various infrastructural elements of my life in these reports – in particular family life, gym, and general reading, culture, current affairs and such like.
As these reports are now quarterly, I’m including a link to a brief uncommented list of what I’ve been working on since the last report (ie. this one, generated automatically from my time-recording system). Its main utility (to me, at any rate) is as a quick jumping-off point for the various writings in progress or recently completed. It’s here11. The list will be updated every few days, I imagine.
This report and the sub-reports obtained by following the immediate links above show the current status. The report headings show the month the reports are for. Earlier reports can be found by following the links in the “Table of Previous Versions of this Note” further down this report, or in the sub-reports.
Plan versus Actual Effort Summary (Previous Month & YTD)
Summary figures against the April – June 2011 plan are as below:-
Project | Planned Hours / Week | Planned %age | April - June Actual % | YTD Actual % | April - June Actual Hours | YTD Actual Hours |
Bridge | 12 | 22 | 25 | 25 | 168 | 525 |
Chess | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 12 |
Consciousness | 3 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 18 |
Hi-Q | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 14 | 15 |
Languages | 5 | 9 | 11 | 10 | 74 | 206 |
Mathematics | 2 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 22 | 48 |
Music | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
Philosophy of Religion | 12 | 22 | 15 | 35 | 104 | 720 |
Thesis | 12 | 22 | 34 | 20 | 234 | 415 |
Website | 4 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 47 | 113 |
TOTAL | 54 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 682 | 2075 |
Comparisons | 91 Days | 273 Days | 97 | 99 | 702 | 2106 |
The bottom row in the above table is non-standard. The first two columns show the number of days in the current month and YTD, and the last two columns show the hours planned (according to the latest monthly plan) for the current month and pro-rata YTD. The middle columns show %age actual vs plan (actuals taken from the Total row). In principle this allows monitoring of total effort vs plan, as well as the distribution of effort across projects.
Plan Summary (Next Quarter & Full Year)
The latest stab at the redistribution of effort, in hours / week, for the coming Academic Year is as below. This reflects the change of direction following the abandonment of my MA. We’ll have to see how things settle down.
Project | Planned Hours / Week | Planned %age | Full Year Planned %age | July - September 2011 Planned Hours | Full Year Planned Hours | Full Year Actual + Planned Hours | Comparison (%ages) |
Bridge | 12 | 22 | 20 | 158 | 547 | 682 | 125 |
Chess | 1 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 39 | 25 | 64 |
Consciousness | 1 | 2 | 4 | 13 | 117 | 31 | 26 |
Hi-Q | 1 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 31 | 28 | 91 |
Languages | 5 | 9 | 8 | 66 | 222 | 271 | 123 |
Mathematics | 2 | 4 | 3 | 26 | 91 | 74 | 81 |
Music | 1 | 2 | 5 | 13 | 143 | 18 | 13 |
Philosophy of Religion | 10 | 19 | 25 | 131 | 705 | 851 | 121 |
Thesis | 17 | 31 | 25 | 223 | 690 | 639 | 93 |
Website | 4 | 7 | 7 | 53 | 209 | 165 | 79 |
TOTAL | 54 | 100 | 100 | 710 | 2794 | 2785 | 100 |
Summary of Progress during April – June 2011
The second quarter of 2011 was slightly below plan as far as time expended was concerned (97%, as against 99% in 1Q11, 99% YTD). My focus returned to my Personal Identity research project, though with about 25% of my time continuing to be spent on Bridge. Otherwise, most effort was expended on Philosophy of Religion and Languages (mainly Portuguese).
Follow this link for a list of recently purchased books. Some of these are random purchases from charity shops. Others are selectively purchased in support of my various projects.
Time Divisions
See the tables above. As last month, and most months, I didn’t stick to the planned percentage splits. For a detailed breakdown of time spent, by month and study location, follow this link12.
Plans for the Near Future
- Personal Identity
- Use "Thomas (Janice L.) - Mind and Person in the Philosophy of Religion" as a study-guide to review the foundations of the subject.
- Complete reading / annotating "Plato, Gallop (David) - Phaedo".
- Review "Wilson (Jack) - Beyond Horses and Oak Trees: A New Theory of Individuation for Living Entities", and
- Progress with the rest of "Wilson (Jack) - Biological Individuality - The identity and Persistence of Living Entities".
- Re-read and take notes on "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View".
- Re-read and take notes on "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology".
- Read and take notes on "Olson (Eric) - What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology".
- Read (re NDEs):-
… "Moody (Raymond A.) - Life After Life", and
… "Moody (Raymond A.) - The Light Beyond".
- Read "LePoidevin (Robin) - Travels in Four Dimensions: The Enigmas of Space and Time".
- Complete in-progress reviews of the following lesser works:-
… "Baillie (James) - Identity, Survival, and Sortal Concepts",
… "Donnelly (John) - Death and Ivan Ilych",
… "di Vito (Robert A.) - Old Testament Anthropology and the Construction of Personal Identity",
… "Fetzer (James) - The Evolution of Intelligence: Are Humans the Only Animals with Minds?",
… "Forrester (Mary) - Persons, Animals, and Fetuses: An Essay in Practical Ethics",
… "Grossman (Lev), Kurzweil (Ray) - 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal",
… "Sklar (Lawrence) - Philosophy and Spacetime Physics: Introduction",
… "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Material Beings: Preface",
… (and "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Précis of Material Beings"),
… "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Plantinga’s Replacement Argument",
… "Wiggins (David) - Preface: Sameness and Substance",
… (and "Wiggins (David) - Preface: Sameness and Substance Renewed"),
… "Wilkerson (T.E.) - Minds, Brains and People",
… "Wright (N.T.) - Mind, Spirit, Soul and Body: All for One and One for All - Reflections on Paul’s Anthropology in his Complex Contexts".
- Research Repositioning:
… Complete a full review and update of the Notes I’ve created on Personal Identity, focusing on those with little / no content other than a reading list.
… Review Thesis Outline13 to see if it still makes sense.
… Review Research Proposal14 to see if this also still makes sense.
… Review / Progress Essay15 What Are We?
- Continue:-
… Cataloguing Books
… Updating Book / Paper Abstracts
- As a recreational task, write a file-note on "Regis (Ed) - Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly over the Edge".
- Philosophy of Religion
- Origins:
… "Conway Morris (Simon) - Darwin’s Compass: How Evolution Discovers the Song of Creation" (briefly review),
… "Conway Morris (Simon) - Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe" (continue reading),
… "Davies (Paul C.W.) - Are We Alone? Implications of the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life" (read / review)
… "Davies (Paul C.W.) - The Fifth Miracle: Search for the Origins of Life" (read / review)
… "Dyson (Freeman) - Origins of Life" (read / review)
… "Easterbrook (Gregg) - Science and God: A Warming Trend?'" (review & send to Mike),
… "Johnson (Donald E.) - Programming of Life" (continue reading)
… "Le Fanu (James) - Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves" (briefly review),
… "Leslie (John) - Universes" (read / review)
… "Wiseman (P.J.) - Creation Revealed In Six Days: The evidence of Scripture confirmed by Archaeology" (continue reading).
- Resurrection: Continue with:-
… "Ludemann (Gerd) - The Resurrection of Jesus",
… "Rawlings (Maurice S.) - To Hell and Back: Life after Death - Startling New Evidence",
… "Richards (Hubert John) - The First Easter: What Really Happened?",
… "Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God", and
… "Zaleski (Carole) - Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of Near Death Experience in Mediaeval and Modern Times".
- Science versus Religion: Read / Review:-
… "Alexander (Denis) - Science and Christian Belief 22.1 (April 2010)",
… "Alexander (Denis) - Science and Christian Belief 22.2 (October 2010)",
… "Berry (R.J.), Ed. - Real Scientists, Real Faith: 17 Leading Scientists Reveal the Harmony Between Their Science and Their Faith",
… "Davies (Paul C.W.) - The Mind of God - Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning",
… "Easterbrook (Gregg) - Science and God: A Warming Trend?'" (+ write to Mike).
- Background Reading / Writing:
… "Baeck (Leo), Kaufman (Walter) - Judaism and Christianity: A Modern Theologian's Discussion of Basic Issues Between the Two Religions",
… "Dougary (Ginny) - A Very English Farewell": write file-note,
… "Hitchens (Christopher) - God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything",
… "LePoidevin (Robin) - Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion",
… "Plantinga (Alvin) - Warranted Christian Belief: Preface".
- Ontological Argument: Continue with reading + essay; ie. Via:-
… Seminar Paper16,
… Essay17,
… "Van Inwagen (Peter) - McGinn on Existence", and (of course) …
… "McGinn (Colin) - Existence".
- Write up recent discussions with Mike & Sylvia re Blog18.
- Continue to read up on other aspects of Peter Vardy’s Philosophy of Religion module19.
- Follow up the reading list (supplied by Pete) from John McDade’s Contemporary Christian Thought module20.
- Continue:-
… Cataloguing Books
… Updating Book / Paper Abstracts
- Web-tools
- Correspond with Rudi (a recently rediscovered old school friend) about VBA bugs, legal copies of Office 2010, etc.
- Complete take-on of OBT Website. This is the site of a Christian Group I was formerly involved with (OBT). I’m doing this to help out, and will hopefully learn something in the process.
- Complete development of “Philosophy Papers Full by Sub-Topic”.
- Read
… "PC Pro - Computing in the Real World"
… "Custom PC - Custom PC"
… "CS - Computer Shopper"
- Ensure FN referencing within Notes and referencing between Abstracts and Notes works for archived Notes.
- Determine why “copy to transfer” occasionally fails with a “permission denied” error.
- Complete the review of the 2nd-level categorisation gaps for Papers, and generally review the effectiveness of the categorised reading lists for both Papers and Books.
- Web Spider:
… Analyse the results of the data collection exercise and design a plan of campaign to fix broken links and prevent recurrence,
… Correct the code so the discovered problems don’t recur, and
… Fix the historical data (no simple task to automate).
… Delete “orphan pages” that are never linked to.
- Add “Date Created” to Note-Links (for audit purposes; I’m still not convinced that links disappear when they should).
- Fix bugs in multi-level footnoting in Printable Notes – the referencing is going wrong.
- Investigate the use of RTF in memo fields, so that I can get round the 64k character limit.
- Consciousness Studies
- Languages
- All:
… Continue with "Roeper (Tom) - The Prism of Grammar: How Child Language Illuminates Humanism".
- Japanese:
… Complete another run through "Berlitz - Japanese Guaranteed".
… Make another stab at "Kardy (Glenn) - Kana De Manga: Fun, Easy Way to Learn the ABCs of Japanese".
- Portuguese:
… "Whitlam (John) - Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar: A Practical Guide",
… "Whitlam (John) - Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar Workbook",
… "Kershul (Kristine K.) - Portuguese in 10 Minutes a Day",
… "Amery (Heather) & MacKinnon (Mairi) - First Thousand Words in Portuguese",
… Weekly 2-hour Portuguese Lesson (Cristiane Jacobs),
… Homework / reviews,
… Pimsleur CDs.
- Turkish:
… Try to make use of Zehra’s knowledge, and
… "Celen-Pollard (Asuman) & Pollard (David) - Turkish (Teach Yourself Complete Courses)"
- Others: As time (and boredom with Portuguese) allows. Try to refresh each language so far untouched this academic year over the next 3 months. This is now a tough ask, and would involve:-
… Amharic: Look at "Lonely Planet, Kebebe (Tilahun) & Aberra (Daniel Aboye) - Ethiopian Amharic (Lonely Planet Phrasebook)".
… Coptic: Look at "Layton (Bentley) - Coptic in 20 Lessons: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic with Exercises and Vocabularies"
… Dutch: Look at "Shetter (William) - Introduction to Dutch - A Practical Grammar".
… Egyptian: Look at "Collier (Mark) & Manley (Bill) - How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Step-by-step Guide to Teach Yourself Hieroglyphs".
… French: Look at "Mauger (G.) - Grammaire Practique du Francais d'Aujourd'hui: Langue Parlee, Langue Ecrite".
… German: Look at "Tenberg (Reinhard) & Ainslie (Susan) - Deutsch Plus", and listen to the CDs.
… Greek (Modern): Look at "Matsukas (Aristarhos) - Complete Greek Course", and listen to the CDs.
… Greek (NT): Look at "Dobson (John H.) - Learn New Testament Greek", and listen to the CDs.
… Hindi: Look at "Snell (Rupert) - Hindi", and listen to the CDs.
… Italian: Look at "Wilkes (Angela) & Shackell (John) - Italian for Beginners", and listen to the CD.
… Persian: Look at "Farzad (Narguess) - Complete Modern Persian", and listen to the CDs.
… Russian: Look at "West (Daphne) - Russian", and listen to the CDs.
… Syriac: Look at "Robinson (Theodore) - Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar".
- Mathematics
- Bridge
- HiQ
- Music
- Oboe & Piano: Try to regain enthusiasm by practicing occasionally.
- Chess
Live Version of this Archived Note
Table of 12 Earlier Versions of this Note (of 47)
Table of 12 Later Versions of this Note (of 58)
| This version updated |
Reference for this Topic |
Parent Topic |
| 06/07/2011 23:13:55 |
512 (Status: Summary (2011 - June)) |
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