But, I know, that to possess her. Is, therefore, not to desire her. Oh then, that lil' girl would just have to go. Go! Go
Oh, ghastly rubbish. They're boring, really. They only have six plots, but they swap them round a bit. Of course I was only on the kaleidoscopes. I was never in the Rewrite squad.
Monday, December 29, 2014
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Dialogue
«The echo of the question and answer at the beginning of the music creates a style of elegance and freedom. Then the thematic tone begins to change. The continuous addition of new tones carves out a hermit of unrestrained character. The strong acoustics and the split rhythms are comparable to the hacking sounds of the woodcutter.»
«What do you seek?»
«Many oaks and a thatched cottage...»
«What do you seek?»
«Many oaks and a thatched cottage...»
Saturday, November 29, 2014
sex/life
«The life of sexuality is the best, the noblest, the greatest opposition
against the drive for divisions. This is demonstrated most clearly in
cooperation between the conflicting social classes for the sake of
production. That which belongs together is torn apart at some point and
desires to be together once again with itself. Love (philia) has the
will to overcome the rule of strife: [Empedocles] calls her Philotes,
Affection, Cyprus, Aphrodite, and Harmonia[.] Innermost to this drive
is the search for equality: with inequality for everyone, Aversion
arises; with equality for all, want.» F. Nietzsche, THE PRE-PLATONIC
PHILOSOPHERS
against the drive for divisions. This is demonstrated most clearly in
cooperation between the conflicting social classes for the sake of
production. That which belongs together is torn apart at some point and
desires to be together once again with itself. Love (philia) has the
will to overcome the rule of strife: [Empedocles] calls her Philotes,
Affection, Cyprus, Aphrodite, and Harmonia[.] Innermost to this drive
is the search for equality: with inequality for everyone, Aversion
arises; with equality for all, want.» F. Nietzsche, THE PRE-PLATONIC
PHILOSOPHERS
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
essentially contested
«And yet perhaps, after all, it is better for a country that its seats
of learning should do more to suppress mental growth than to encourage
it. Were it not for a certain priggishness which these places infuse
into so great a number of their alumni, genuine work would become
dangerously common. It is essential that by far the greater part of
what is said or done in the world should be so ephemeral as to take
itself away quickly; it should keep good for twenty-four hours, or even
twice as long, but it should not be good enough a week hence to prevent
people from going on to something else. No doubt the marvellous
development of journalism in England, as also the fact that our seats of
learning aim rather at fostering mediocrity than anything higher, is due
to our subconscious recognition of the fact that it is even more
necessary to check exuberance of mental development than to encourage
it. There can be no doubt that this is what our academic bodies do, and
they do it the more effectually because they do it only subconsciously.
They think they are advancing healthy mental assimilation and digestion,
whereas in reality they are little better than cancer in the stomach.»
of learning should do more to suppress mental growth than to encourage
it. Were it not for a certain priggishness which these places infuse
into so great a number of their alumni, genuine work would become
dangerously common. It is essential that by far the greater part of
what is said or done in the world should be so ephemeral as to take
itself away quickly; it should keep good for twenty-four hours, or even
twice as long, but it should not be good enough a week hence to prevent
people from going on to something else. No doubt the marvellous
development of journalism in England, as also the fact that our seats of
learning aim rather at fostering mediocrity than anything higher, is due
to our subconscious recognition of the fact that it is even more
necessary to check exuberance of mental development than to encourage
it. There can be no doubt that this is what our academic bodies do, and
they do it the more effectually because they do it only subconsciously.
They think they are advancing healthy mental assimilation and digestion,
whereas in reality they are little better than cancer in the stomach.»
Monday, November 24, 2014
erewhonian rhapsody
«In the following chapter I will give a few examples of the way in which
what we should call misfortune, hardship, or disease are dealt with by
the Erewhonians, but for the moment will return to their treatment of
cases that with us are criminal. As I have already said, these, though
not judicially punishable, are recognised as requiring correction.
Accordingly, there exists a class of men trained in soul-craft, whom
they call straighteners, as nearly as I can translate a word which
literally means "one who bends back the crooked." These men practise
much as medical men in England, and receive a quasi-surreptitious fee on
every visit. They are treated with the same unreserve, and obeyed as
readily, as our own doctors—that is to say, on the whole
sufficiently—because people know that it is their interest to get well
as soon as they can, and that they will not be scouted as they would be
if their bodies were out of order, even though they may have to undergo
a very painful course of treatment.»
«There is one remedy for this, and one only. It is that which the
laws of this country have long received and acted upon, and consists
in the sternest repression of all diseases whatsoever, as soon as
their existence is made manifest to the eye of the law.»
«You may say that it is your misfortune to be criminal; I answer that
it is your crime to be unfortunate.»
«Lastly, I should point out that [...] the more you had been found guiltless of the crime imputed to you, the more you would have been found guilty of one hardly less heinous—I mean the crime of having been maligned unjustly.»
«What is responsibility? Surely to be responsible means to be liable
to have to give an answer should it be demanded, and all things which
live are responsible for their lives and actions should society see
fit to question them through the mouth of its authorised agent.»
what we should call misfortune, hardship, or disease are dealt with by
the Erewhonians, but for the moment will return to their treatment of
cases that with us are criminal. As I have already said, these, though
not judicially punishable, are recognised as requiring correction.
Accordingly, there exists a class of men trained in soul-craft, whom
they call straighteners, as nearly as I can translate a word which
literally means "one who bends back the crooked." These men practise
much as medical men in England, and receive a quasi-surreptitious fee on
every visit. They are treated with the same unreserve, and obeyed as
readily, as our own doctors—that is to say, on the whole
sufficiently—because people know that it is their interest to get well
as soon as they can, and that they will not be scouted as they would be
if their bodies were out of order, even though they may have to undergo
a very painful course of treatment.»
«There is one remedy for this, and one only. It is that which the
laws of this country have long received and acted upon, and consists
in the sternest repression of all diseases whatsoever, as soon as
their existence is made manifest to the eye of the law.»
«You may say that it is your misfortune to be criminal; I answer that
it is your crime to be unfortunate.»
«Lastly, I should point out that [...] the more you had been found guiltless of the crime imputed to you, the more you would have been found guilty of one hardly less heinous—I mean the crime of having been maligned unjustly.»
«What is responsibility? Surely to be responsible means to be liable
to have to give an answer should it be demanded, and all things which
live are responsible for their lives and actions should society see
fit to question them through the mouth of its authorised agent.»
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
the at-issue meaning
Dr. Ray Stantz: Everything was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by dickless here.
Walter Peck: They caused an explosion!
Mayor: Is this true?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes, it's true.
[pause]
Dr. Peter Venkman: This man has no dick.
- http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/10/30/ghostbusters_and_at_issue_ness_the_hidden_rules_of_conversation.html
Walter Peck: They caused an explosion!
Mayor: Is this true?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes, it's true.
[pause]
Dr. Peter Venkman: This man has no dick.
- http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/10/30/ghostbusters_and_at_issue_ness_the_hidden_rules_of_conversation.html
Sunday, November 9, 2014
naked lunch #1
«Without wanting to be overly reductive, Kerouac believed in his work
with a single-minded passion, and in refusing to accept cuts, he rejects
the publishers' power to force decisions onto him and to impose
narrative intelligibility — their commercially-driven definition of
aesthetic coherence. In the case of Burroughs, far from writing as if
beyond or outside the context of publishing, he has no illusions
whatsoever about his position, about all the compromises and economic
determinations involved in getting a book to market.»
«Clearly enough, the plan to combine the first person "Junk" with the
third-person "Queer" is not just a formal problem for Burroughs'
publishers. On the contrary, this plan to combine manuscripts is also a
plan for a visibly divided self: not just two books in one, but in
effect two persons with the same name in one book, split by the
difference in narrative point of view. The result would therefore embody
Burroughs' own lack of single-mindedness, his own internal rift, which
he has displaced onto Ace Books and literalised in the image of being
sawed in half.»
«In conclusion, the shift from "Junk" to "Queer" marked by the
appearance in April 1952 of the routine was a turning point in
Burroughs' writing — but what's equally clear is that it arises as a
moment of crisis and self-contradiction — as much the breakdown of a
straight method as the choice of a queer one. This was not the end of
the story, but its beginning.»
- http://realitystudio.org/scholarship/confusions-masterpiece/
with a single-minded passion, and in refusing to accept cuts, he rejects
the publishers' power to force decisions onto him and to impose
narrative intelligibility — their commercially-driven definition of
aesthetic coherence. In the case of Burroughs, far from writing as if
beyond or outside the context of publishing, he has no illusions
whatsoever about his position, about all the compromises and economic
determinations involved in getting a book to market.»
«Clearly enough, the plan to combine the first person "Junk" with the
third-person "Queer" is not just a formal problem for Burroughs'
publishers. On the contrary, this plan to combine manuscripts is also a
plan for a visibly divided self: not just two books in one, but in
effect two persons with the same name in one book, split by the
difference in narrative point of view. The result would therefore embody
Burroughs' own lack of single-mindedness, his own internal rift, which
he has displaced onto Ace Books and literalised in the image of being
sawed in half.»
«In conclusion, the shift from "Junk" to "Queer" marked by the
appearance in April 1952 of the routine was a turning point in
Burroughs' writing — but what's equally clear is that it arises as a
moment of crisis and self-contradiction — as much the breakdown of a
straight method as the choice of a queer one. This was not the end of
the story, but its beginning.»
- http://realitystudio.org/scholarship/confusions-masterpiece/
further to
Several quotes from a recent study.
(http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1245.pdf)
«If policy-makers care about well-being, they need a recursive model of
how adult life-satisfaction is predicted by childhood influences, acting
both directly and (indirectly) through adult circumstances. [...] The
most powerful childhood predictor of adult life-satisfaction is the
child's emotional health. Next comes the child's conduct. The least
powerful predictor is the child's intellectual development. This has
obvious implications for educational policy. Among adult circumstances,
family income accounts for only 0.5% of the variance of
life-satisfaction. Mental and physical health are much more important.»
«The second strand of work so far has used cohort data to explore the
distal influence of childhood and adolescence upon adult
well-being. [...] Such an approach could lead to an excessive focus on
childhood and adolescence as determinants of well-being, with little
role left for policies relating to adult life. [...] In this first
attempt at such a combined "path model", we take adult life-satisfaction
as the measure of a successful life. This is determined partly by
"adult outcomes", and partly by family background and childhood
development. But these "adult outcomes" also have to be explained
themselves – and childhood development may be crucial to this. Our
family background in turn profoundly influences development in
childhood.»
«How far can we predict adult life-satisfaction at different earlier
points in a person's life? So how far does the child "reveal" the adult?
Or can we all be remade in adulthood?»
«[W]hen to intervene – earlier or later. If childhood well-being
matters as much as adult well-being, then the main issue on the benefit
side is how long the effects last. For language learning for example
the answer here is clear (it lasts longer if the intervention is
earlier). But for emotional learning there is still much to be
discovered. On the cost side adult interventions generally produce
immediate flow backs to public finance as more people go out to work and
earn. Child interventions can produce massive savings to public
finances but these are often quite delayed. Clearly we need
interventions at all ages and the optimum balance will remain unclear
until we have better life-course models.»
«The model we develop is a recursive path model in which
life-satisfaction at each age can in principle depend on everything that
happened before that.»
«Policy-makers need models which show them the impact of all the main
factors affecting adult life-satisfaction, in a consistent framework
using the same metric.»
(http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1245.pdf)
«If policy-makers care about well-being, they need a recursive model of
how adult life-satisfaction is predicted by childhood influences, acting
both directly and (indirectly) through adult circumstances. [...] The
most powerful childhood predictor of adult life-satisfaction is the
child's emotional health. Next comes the child's conduct. The least
powerful predictor is the child's intellectual development. This has
obvious implications for educational policy. Among adult circumstances,
family income accounts for only 0.5% of the variance of
life-satisfaction. Mental and physical health are much more important.»
«The second strand of work so far has used cohort data to explore the
distal influence of childhood and adolescence upon adult
well-being. [...] Such an approach could lead to an excessive focus on
childhood and adolescence as determinants of well-being, with little
role left for policies relating to adult life. [...] In this first
attempt at such a combined "path model", we take adult life-satisfaction
as the measure of a successful life. This is determined partly by
"adult outcomes", and partly by family background and childhood
development. But these "adult outcomes" also have to be explained
themselves – and childhood development may be crucial to this. Our
family background in turn profoundly influences development in
childhood.»
«How far can we predict adult life-satisfaction at different earlier
points in a person's life? So how far does the child "reveal" the adult?
Or can we all be remade in adulthood?»
«[W]hen to intervene – earlier or later. If childhood well-being
matters as much as adult well-being, then the main issue on the benefit
side is how long the effects last. For language learning for example
the answer here is clear (it lasts longer if the intervention is
earlier). But for emotional learning there is still much to be
discovered. On the cost side adult interventions generally produce
immediate flow backs to public finance as more people go out to work and
earn. Child interventions can produce massive savings to public
finances but these are often quite delayed. Clearly we need
interventions at all ages and the optimum balance will remain unclear
until we have better life-course models.»
«The model we develop is a recursive path model in which
life-satisfaction at each age can in principle depend on everything that
happened before that.»
«Policy-makers need models which show them the impact of all the main
factors affecting adult life-satisfaction, in a consistent framework
using the same metric.»
Thursday, November 6, 2014
yum
And he would feed them from the shock
With flowr of finest wheat,
And satisfie them from the rock
With Honey for their Meat.
- https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/psalms/psalm_81/text.shtml
With flowr of finest wheat,
And satisfie them from the rock
With Honey for their Meat.
- https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/psalms/psalm_81/text.shtml
Saturday, November 1, 2014
one or many turtles
«This reflects our belief that a self-watching system should not be
organized as a rigid hierarchy of distinct levels, with each level
responsible only for detecting and responding to patterns occurring at
the level immediately below it, implying the need for an infinite stack
of separate "watcher" mechanisms. Instead, a single set of mechanisms
should be capable of detecting first-order patterns, higher-order
patterns within these patterns, patterns of patterns of patterns, and so
on, with all levels fused together and no limit in principle on the
potential complexity of the patterns involved (Hofstadter, 1985a).»
organized as a rigid hierarchy of distinct levels, with each level
responsible only for detecting and responding to patterns occurring at
the level immediately below it, implying the need for an infinite stack
of separate "watcher" mechanisms. Instead, a single set of mechanisms
should be capable of detecting first-order patterns, higher-order
patterns within these patterns, patterns of patterns of patterns, and so
on, with all levels fused together and no limit in principle on the
potential complexity of the patterns involved (Hofstadter, 1985a).»
Friday, October 31, 2014
dulce
Quoted here before, probably in another translation....
Let the boy toughened by military service
learn how to make bitterest hardship his friend,
and as a horseman, with fearful lance,
go to vex the insolent Parthians,
spending his life in the open, in the heart
of dangerous action. And seeing him, from
the enemy's walls, let the warring
tyrant's wife, and her grown-up daughter, sigh:
'Ah, don't let the inexperienced lover
provoke the lion that's dangerous to touch,
whom a desire for blood sends raging
so swiftly through the core of destruction.'
It's sweet and fitting to die for one's country.
Yet death chases after the soldier who runs,
and it won't spare the cowardly back
or the limbs, of peace-loving young men.
Virtue, that's ignorant of sordid defeat,
shines out with its honour unstained, and never
takes up the axes or puts them down
at the request of a changeable mob.
Virtue, that opens the heavens for those who
did not deserve to die, takes a road denied
to others, and scorns the vulgar crowd
and the bloodied earth, on ascending wings.
And there's a true reward for loyal silence:
I forbid the man who divulged those secret
rites of Ceres, to exist beneath
the same roof as I, or untie with me
the fragile boat: often careless Jupiter
included the innocent with the guilty,
but lame-footed Punishment rarely
forgets the wicked man, despite his start.
Let the boy toughened by military service
learn how to make bitterest hardship his friend,
and as a horseman, with fearful lance,
go to vex the insolent Parthians,
spending his life in the open, in the heart
of dangerous action. And seeing him, from
the enemy's walls, let the warring
tyrant's wife, and her grown-up daughter, sigh:
'Ah, don't let the inexperienced lover
provoke the lion that's dangerous to touch,
whom a desire for blood sends raging
so swiftly through the core of destruction.'
It's sweet and fitting to die for one's country.
Yet death chases after the soldier who runs,
and it won't spare the cowardly back
or the limbs, of peace-loving young men.
Virtue, that's ignorant of sordid defeat,
shines out with its honour unstained, and never
takes up the axes or puts them down
at the request of a changeable mob.
Virtue, that opens the heavens for those who
did not deserve to die, takes a road denied
to others, and scorns the vulgar crowd
and the bloodied earth, on ascending wings.
And there's a true reward for loyal silence:
I forbid the man who divulged those secret
rites of Ceres, to exist beneath
the same roof as I, or untie with me
the fragile boat: often careless Jupiter
included the innocent with the guilty,
but lame-footed Punishment rarely
forgets the wicked man, despite his start.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
set and match
What is being played out in Queer is communication not of a disease –
homosexual desire – but as a disease. The will to communicate occludes
human agency in a solipsistic continuous circuit, a circuit sabotaged
methodologically in Burroughs' cut-up texts through feedback, a '' self-
feeding system seeking its own catastrophe.'' In The Ticket That
Exploded, which begins by rewriting Lee's relationship with Allerton as
a chess match subject to a cut-up queering – '' I took his queen in the
first few minutes of play by making completely random moves '' –
Burroughs could not be more explicit ; '' Communication must become
total and conscious before we can stop it.'' Are the Nova Criminals ''
ghosts ? phantoms ? '' : '' Not at all – very definite organisms indeed
... Can you see a virus ? ''
homosexual desire – but as a disease. The will to communicate occludes
human agency in a solipsistic continuous circuit, a circuit sabotaged
methodologically in Burroughs' cut-up texts through feedback, a '' self-
feeding system seeking its own catastrophe.'' In The Ticket That
Exploded, which begins by rewriting Lee's relationship with Allerton as
a chess match subject to a cut-up queering – '' I took his queen in the
first few minutes of play by making completely random moves '' –
Burroughs could not be more explicit ; '' Communication must become
total and conscious before we can stop it.'' Are the Nova Criminals ''
ghosts ? phantoms ? '' : '' Not at all – very definite organisms indeed
... Can you see a virus ? ''
Friday, October 24, 2014
sing
«Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought
countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying
down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures,
for so was the will of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of
Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one
another. And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It
was the son of Zeus and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a
pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus
had dishonored Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the ships of
the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great
ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the scepter of Apollo wreathed with
a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the
two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs. "Sons of Atreus," he cried,
"and all other Achaeans, may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to
sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety; but free my
daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of
Zeus."» - Samuel Butler, 1898
countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying
down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures,
for so was the will of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of
Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one
another. And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It
was the son of Zeus and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a
pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus
had dishonored Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the ships of
the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great
ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the scepter of Apollo wreathed with
a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the
two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs. "Sons of Atreus," he cried,
"and all other Achaeans, may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to
sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety; but free my
daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of
Zeus."» - Samuel Butler, 1898
unsung heroes
«German film director Werner Herzog claims to have an affinity with
the work of Longinus, in a talk entitled "On the Absolute, the Sublime
and Ecstatic Truth", presented in Milan. Herzog says that he thinks of
Longinus as a good friend and considers that Longinus's notions of
illumination has a parallel in some moments in his films. He quotes
from Longinus: "For our soul is raised out of nature through the truly
sublime, sways with high spirits, and is filled with proud joy, as if
itself had created what it hears."»
the work of Longinus, in a talk entitled "On the Absolute, the Sublime
and Ecstatic Truth", presented in Milan. Herzog says that he thinks of
Longinus as a good friend and considers that Longinus's notions of
illumination has a parallel in some moments in his films. He quotes
from Longinus: "For our soul is raised out of nature through the truly
sublime, sways with high spirits, and is filled with proud joy, as if
itself had created what it hears."»
rustica
This defence against insects presents nicotiana with something of a
predicament, because it doesn't seem to be very good at keeping the
nicotine out of its nectar, or at least not completely. Thus, although
nicotiana nectar does contain less nicotine than the rest of the plant,
the two levels are still related; species with lots of nicotine in their
leaves also have relatively high levels in their nectar – high enough to
deter most pollinators.
Some species have decided to tolerate this limitation to their defensive
armoury and have relatively low levels of nicotine. But others have
really gone to town on the nicotine, avoiding the risk of poisoning
their pollinators by evolving self-pollination. No longer reliant on
pollinators, such species can have as much nicotine in their leaves as
they like – in practice, about 15 times more than the species that still
depend on pollinators. Nicotiana rustica, whose leaves can be up to nine
per cent nicotine, has gone down this route.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardeningadvice/10173025/The-toxic-charms-of-nicotiana.html
predicament, because it doesn't seem to be very good at keeping the
nicotine out of its nectar, or at least not completely. Thus, although
nicotiana nectar does contain less nicotine than the rest of the plant,
the two levels are still related; species with lots of nicotine in their
leaves also have relatively high levels in their nectar – high enough to
deter most pollinators.
Some species have decided to tolerate this limitation to their defensive
armoury and have relatively low levels of nicotine. But others have
really gone to town on the nicotine, avoiding the risk of poisoning
their pollinators by evolving self-pollination. No longer reliant on
pollinators, such species can have as much nicotine in their leaves as
they like – in practice, about 15 times more than the species that still
depend on pollinators. Nicotiana rustica, whose leaves can be up to nine
per cent nicotine, has gone down this route.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardeningadvice/10173025/The-toxic-charms-of-nicotiana.html
Thursday, October 23, 2014
third pheasant of the season
Here's a quick culinary adventure story for your literary delectation.
But maybe not right before lunch!
Yesterday when I was on my way to therapy, just before the last turn, I
encountered -- what shall we call it -- the corpse a large male
pheasant, nearly intact in the middle of a busy road. Pronounced dead
at the scene whilst more or less still intact is my usual criterion for
taking these things home, for strict hygiene reasons. And dining on
roadkill is itself a highly economical way to maintain a connection to
my rustic origins, in the style of Waushara county resident Francis
Hamerstrom.
The previous two birds I collected this year were females, a bit smaller
but in better condition. I let them "faisander" (i.e. hang around for a
while, in the lingo of the backwater gourmand) before cleaning them up.
Yesterday's cock pheasant had been hit harder, as I realised when I
returned to my roadside cache and noticed that the liver and a few other
bits and bobs had been put through its back. I tied it on my bicycle
rack with a few flexible willow whips, and brought it home, where I
immediately started to take it apart, and realised that it was in fact
still warm. One does not always think about the warm-bloodedness of
birds.
There's a useful video on YouTube about how to do these preparations,
which are mildly disgusting, but still I think worth knowing about. In
the end, I quartered it and broiled it, and ate the legs with peas,
sauteed mushrooms, and black pepper potato chips, while watching the
second half of "The Holy Mountain" by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
There is a moral to the story, which is to be careful when you're out
there on the road!
But maybe not right before lunch!
Yesterday when I was on my way to therapy, just before the last turn, I
encountered -- what shall we call it -- the corpse a large male
pheasant, nearly intact in the middle of a busy road. Pronounced dead
at the scene whilst more or less still intact is my usual criterion for
taking these things home, for strict hygiene reasons. And dining on
roadkill is itself a highly economical way to maintain a connection to
my rustic origins, in the style of Waushara county resident Francis
Hamerstrom.
The previous two birds I collected this year were females, a bit smaller
but in better condition. I let them "faisander" (i.e. hang around for a
while, in the lingo of the backwater gourmand) before cleaning them up.
Yesterday's cock pheasant had been hit harder, as I realised when I
returned to my roadside cache and noticed that the liver and a few other
bits and bobs had been put through its back. I tied it on my bicycle
rack with a few flexible willow whips, and brought it home, where I
immediately started to take it apart, and realised that it was in fact
still warm. One does not always think about the warm-bloodedness of
birds.
There's a useful video on YouTube about how to do these preparations,
which are mildly disgusting, but still I think worth knowing about. In
the end, I quartered it and broiled it, and ate the legs with peas,
sauteed mushrooms, and black pepper potato chips, while watching the
second half of "The Holy Mountain" by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
There is a moral to the story, which is to be careful when you're out
there on the road!
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
british library no. 3
"After all, the cultivated person's first duty is to be always prepared to rewrite the encyclopedia." - p. 28
«The discussion of emergence has grown out of the successes and the failusers of the scientific quest for reduction. Emergence theories presuppose that the once-popular project of complete explanatory reduction -- that is, explaining all phenomena in the natural world in terms of the objects and laws of physics -- is finally impossible. See, among many others, Austen Clark 1990, Hans Primas 1983, Evandro Agazzi 1991, and Terrance Brown and Leslie Smith 2003. Also helpful is Carl Gillet and Barry Loewer 2001, e.g. Jaegwon Kim's article, `Mental Causation and Consciousness: The Two Mind-body problems for the physicalist.»
These are: Clark: Psychological Models and Neural Mechanisms: An examination of reductionism in psychology -- Primas: Chemistry, Quantum Mechanics and Reductionism: Perspectives in Theoretical Chemistry -- Agazzi: The problem of Reductionisim in Science -- Brown and Smith: Reductionism and the Development of Knowledge -- Gillet and Loewer: Physicalism and its discontents
«By embracing an active externalism, we allow a more natural explanation of all sorts of actions. One can explain my choice of words in Scrabble, for example, as the outcome of an extended cognitive process involving the rearrangement of tiles on my tray. Of course, one could always try to explain my action in terms of internal processes and a long series of "inputs" and "actions," but this explanation would be needlessly complex. If an isomorphic process were going on in the head, we would feel no urge to characterize it in this cumbersome way. In a very real sense, the re-arrangement of tiles on the tray is not part of action; it is part of thought.»
Rather similar to Gilbert Ryle on the "Concept of Mind" and a way around "Ryle's regress."
Regarding the idea of levels -- Ruesch and Bateson deal with Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, one-to-many, many-to-one, space binding messages of many-to-many, and time-binding messages of many-to-many (Table on p. 277).
They make the interesting claim that «At the cultural level, the temporal and spatial limits of the network are not perceptible to the participants, who also are incapable of perceiving its topologoy. Therefore, for the participants, predictability is minimal and excessively difficult for the scientific observer.»
Does the universe exist? They refer to Rosenblueth, Wiener, and Bigelow, "Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology", J. Philos. Sc. 10:18-24, 1943.
I definitely would like a copy of "Structure and process in social relations" Psychiatry 12:105-124, 1949, which I had ahold of last week...
Entirely analogous to what Andy Clark was getting at: «Figure 2 represents the case in which the organism includes within the self various objects and events outside his skin but intimately connected with him, while he labels as parts of the environment certain of his own body parts or functions of which he is perhaps dimly aware or over which he feels that he has no control.»
«It was argued that the study of knowing or, as we call it, the study of "information," is inseparable from the study of communication, codification, purpose, and values. We have thus modified the study of epistemology towards the inclusion of a specific range of external phenomena, and at the same time have shifted the subject in our handling of it somewhat away from philosophical abstractions and toward scientific generalization.» p. 228
«If, for example, it were effective to tell the patient about normality, the language of psychiatry would surely have developed a rich terminology for this type of educational therapy. That it has not done so is due to a variety of circumstances -- not merely the impossibility of "telling the patient," but also a belief on the part of the pyschiatrists that the healthy state toward which patient A might progress is certain to be unique for him, and that of patients B, C, and D, each will have his own unique possibilities for growth and development. Language can only deal with recurring phenomena; never can it specify the unique, and especially the uniquely personal developments and complex growth which are still in the future.»
How's that for a Nietzschean sentence... And an invitation to 'pataphysics...
«Another Freudian states: "Neurosis is the expression of a tendency to repeat the experience and master the stimulus by repetition. If the child is capable of accepting the conditions and mastering traumatic events by repetition, then he is normal.»
Which of course connects directly to the lingistic comment above.
«A Jungian similarly shifts emphasis away from the clinical entity, but where the Freudians stress etiology, he stresses prognosis. "I look at the psychiatric aspects of the case -- but see them not as a diagnosis -- rather as prognosis. It is not a case history but a talk: and on the basis of his demands I see whether I think I can help.»
«I would not start with the person who is 'at fault' but with the persons who define what is a fault. We should ask, 'why does who call it a crime?'»
«We may introduce the discussion of reality by quoting the words of a Freudian lecturer, replying to a question from the floor. He said: "Yes. In fact, I wanted to come to that. In fact, ... I have to modify again everything I said." The concept "reality" is slippery because, always, truth is relative to context, and context is determined by the questions which we ask of events.» - p. 238
«The discussion of emergence has grown out of the successes and the failusers of the scientific quest for reduction. Emergence theories presuppose that the once-popular project of complete explanatory reduction -- that is, explaining all phenomena in the natural world in terms of the objects and laws of physics -- is finally impossible. See, among many others, Austen Clark 1990, Hans Primas 1983, Evandro Agazzi 1991, and Terrance Brown and Leslie Smith 2003. Also helpful is Carl Gillet and Barry Loewer 2001, e.g. Jaegwon Kim's article, `Mental Causation and Consciousness: The Two Mind-body problems for the physicalist.»
These are: Clark: Psychological Models and Neural Mechanisms: An examination of reductionism in psychology -- Primas: Chemistry, Quantum Mechanics and Reductionism: Perspectives in Theoretical Chemistry -- Agazzi: The problem of Reductionisim in Science -- Brown and Smith: Reductionism and the Development of Knowledge -- Gillet and Loewer: Physicalism and its discontents
«By embracing an active externalism, we allow a more natural explanation of all sorts of actions. One can explain my choice of words in Scrabble, for example, as the outcome of an extended cognitive process involving the rearrangement of tiles on my tray. Of course, one could always try to explain my action in terms of internal processes and a long series of "inputs" and "actions," but this explanation would be needlessly complex. If an isomorphic process were going on in the head, we would feel no urge to characterize it in this cumbersome way. In a very real sense, the re-arrangement of tiles on the tray is not part of action; it is part of thought.»
Rather similar to Gilbert Ryle on the "Concept of Mind" and a way around "Ryle's regress."
Regarding the idea of levels -- Ruesch and Bateson deal with Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, one-to-many, many-to-one, space binding messages of many-to-many, and time-binding messages of many-to-many (Table on p. 277).
They make the interesting claim that «At the cultural level, the temporal and spatial limits of the network are not perceptible to the participants, who also are incapable of perceiving its topologoy. Therefore, for the participants, predictability is minimal and excessively difficult for the scientific observer.»
Does the universe exist? They refer to Rosenblueth, Wiener, and Bigelow, "Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology", J. Philos. Sc. 10:18-24, 1943.
I definitely would like a copy of "Structure and process in social relations" Psychiatry 12:105-124, 1949, which I had ahold of last week...
Entirely analogous to what Andy Clark was getting at: «Figure 2 represents the case in which the organism includes within the self various objects and events outside his skin but intimately connected with him, while he labels as parts of the environment certain of his own body parts or functions of which he is perhaps dimly aware or over which he feels that he has no control.»
«It was argued that the study of knowing or, as we call it, the study of "information," is inseparable from the study of communication, codification, purpose, and values. We have thus modified the study of epistemology towards the inclusion of a specific range of external phenomena, and at the same time have shifted the subject in our handling of it somewhat away from philosophical abstractions and toward scientific generalization.» p. 228
«If, for example, it were effective to tell the patient about normality, the language of psychiatry would surely have developed a rich terminology for this type of educational therapy. That it has not done so is due to a variety of circumstances -- not merely the impossibility of "telling the patient," but also a belief on the part of the pyschiatrists that the healthy state toward which patient A might progress is certain to be unique for him, and that of patients B, C, and D, each will have his own unique possibilities for growth and development. Language can only deal with recurring phenomena; never can it specify the unique, and especially the uniquely personal developments and complex growth which are still in the future.»
How's that for a Nietzschean sentence... And an invitation to 'pataphysics...
«Another Freudian states: "Neurosis is the expression of a tendency to repeat the experience and master the stimulus by repetition. If the child is capable of accepting the conditions and mastering traumatic events by repetition, then he is normal.»
Which of course connects directly to the lingistic comment above.
«A Jungian similarly shifts emphasis away from the clinical entity, but where the Freudians stress etiology, he stresses prognosis. "I look at the psychiatric aspects of the case -- but see them not as a diagnosis -- rather as prognosis. It is not a case history but a talk: and on the basis of his demands I see whether I think I can help.»
«I would not start with the person who is 'at fault' but with the persons who define what is a fault. We should ask, 'why does who call it a crime?'»
«We may introduce the discussion of reality by quoting the words of a Freudian lecturer, replying to a question from the floor. He said: "Yes. In fact, I wanted to come to that. In fact, ... I have to modify again everything I said." The concept "reality" is slippery because, always, truth is relative to context, and context is determined by the questions which we ask of events.» - p. 238
Sunday, October 12, 2014
british library no. 2
There are oppositions that are incapable of synthesis, and coexist despite being mutually exclusive. ix
Distortion, Sigmund Freud, "Moses and Monotheism" - the displacement is very similar to Kafka's "Amerika".
"Ultimately it is not the unconscious that decides the fate of humans,
what truly counts is the incognito that conceals the origin of the dominant ideas." 17
Luhmann, Mann, Borkenau, Debray, Hegel, Boris Groys.
=====
Suppose a person is engaged in some well practiced activity. What determines what that person does, on a moment-by-moment basis, as he or she engages in that activity? What resources does the person draw upon, and why? What shapes the choices the person makes? What accounts for the effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of that person's efforts?
Schoenfeld, preface.
Wow, this is very similar to the Peeragogy questions from Howard.
Images at http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/AHSchoenfeld/AHSchoenfeld.html or http://www.routledge.com/9780415878654
«Knowledge base - just what mathematics do they know? problem-solving strategies, aka heuristics -- what tools or techniques do they have in order to make progress on problems they don't know how to solve monitoring and self-regulation -- aspects of metacognition concerned with how well individuals "manage" the problem-solving resources, including time, at their disposal beliefs -- individuals' sense of mathematics, of themselves, of the context and more, all of which shape what they perceive and what they choose to do.»
This sounds somewhat similar to Stafford Beer, to be honest.
"What I couldn't account for was how and why the problem solvers drew on particular knowledge or strategies, or how and why they made the decisions they did. That's the focus of this book."
"A logical step in my research program was to study situations that were socially dynamic but not reflecting the full-blown complexity of the mathematics classroom. Thus, I moved to studies of one-on-one mathematics tutoring."
"If you can understand (a) the teacher's agenda and the rountine ways in which the teacher tries to meet the goals that are implicit or explicit in that agenda, and (b) the factors that shape the teacher's prioritizing and goal setting when potentially consequential unforseen events arise, then you can explain how and why teachers make the moment-by-moment choices they make as they teach."
p. 19 - having breakfast. This is quite different from the way Tim Ingold has breakfast.
"I now have subgoals of toasting English muffins, making the poached eggs, making the bacon, and making the latte. Each of these involves some complexities..."
It all comes down to Goals, Resources (esp. Knowledge) and Orientation. Isn't there something called BDI that deals with just this combination?
Book includes transcripts of classroom dialogues.
=====
Kockelman: John Lucy, Nick Enfield, Michael Silverstein
Mead's version: "the I is the response of the organism to the attitudes of others and the me is the organized set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes." (1934, p. 175).
"The Me is the self as appropriating, having taken into account others' attitudes toward (or interpretants of) its mental states and social statuses (or kinds more generally); and the I is the self as effecting, enacting roles (or expressing indices) that change others' attitudes (and often others' kinds)." - p. 90
=====
Perception, evaluation, expression
input, central function, and output
«In the section entitled "Communication, Social System, and Culture", the reader will find a description of the social field, or the context, in which a message exchange takes place. The social field determines the parameters of the system that are significant for both the scientific observer and the particpants. For the scientist, the social setting provides the more time-enduring structure in which an exchange takes place; for the participant, it provides the instructions necessary for coding and decoding the messages. This has been described as meta-communication.» -p. 13
This reminds me of Deleuze's discusssion of Galois theory. Maybe that's the appropriate way to develop mu-calculus.
Structure and process in social relations
«Have human relations ever become the subject of scientific investigation, and, if not, can the processes of daily living become a focus of scientific endeavors? This is the question discussed in this paper. Social science is the study of human relations. Thus, sociology, economics, anthropology, and psychology are collections of generalizations about human behavior. However, in these disciplines there exists a tendency to ignore unique or divergent events, while, in contrast, psychiatry and psychoanalysis are characterized by the neglect of convergent events; that is, of statistical and mass phenomena.»
Wow - maybe this right here is the dilemma that faces us in thinking about lambda and mu functions.
====
«Examples like AM and Racter force one to ask "At what point does the seemingly innocent act of selection by a human turn into direction of the program?"»
Which seems to get into Kockleman territory, no? Example of Huff's escher-like drawings. And putting the shoe on the other foot:
«Suppose someone showed you a brilliant essay on humor and told you it had been "written by a computer". If subsequently you found out that it had been plucked whole from Arthur Koestler's book The Act Of Creation, you would surely feel defrauded. It would make little difference if you were further informed that Koestler's entire book, along with a hundred million other books on all sorts of topics, had been stored inside the computer, and that a program had selected this particular book and from it this particular passage, and printed it out.»
"But what if Koestler's original piece were chopped into ever-shorter segments? What if they were just two or three words long? At what point would we slide from being bored to being amazed at the computer's ability to create prose? When, in short, would we be forced to conclude that ideas, not mere formal tokens, were entering the picture?" - p. 481
This is similar to Deleuze's dx in a way, since the smaller things get the more like a manifold they are.
In 1977, I began my new career as a professor of computer science, aiming to specialize in the field of artificial intelligence. My goals were modest, at least in number: first, to uncover the secrets of creativity, and second, to uncover the secrets of consciousness, by modeling both phenomena on a computer. Good goals. Not easy.
«Much like the mathematical concepts just cited, our ordinary concepts are also structrued in a sphere-like manner, with the most primary examples forming the core and with less typical examples forming the outre layers. Such sphericity imes any concept with an implicit sense of what its stronger and weaker instaces are. But in addition to slowly building up richly layered spheres around concepts (a process that stretches out over years), we also quickly build spheres around events or situations that we experience or hear about (this can happen in a second or two, even a fraction of a second). ... surrrounding every event on an unconscious level is what I have referred to elsewhere as a commonsense halo or an implicit counterfactual sphere, so called because it consist of many related, usually counterfactual, variants of the event.» p. 71
=====
"Languages are not primarily used for what is today called the passing on of information, but serve to form communicating group-bodies."
=====
Zadig:
«une sagacit\'e qui lui d\'ecouvrait mille diff\'erences o\`u les autres hommes ne voient rien que d'uniform»
Hamlet:
«... un exp\'erimentateur qui met en une situation en abyme (une pi\`ece das la pi\`ece) das laquelle il pourra observer les r\'eactions de son oncle pour trouver la preuve de son innocence ou de sa culpabilit\'e. Comme le signale Merton, cette reconstruction n'est pas loin de la m\'ethod de l'ex\'erimentateur dals le domaine scientifique.»
Bolzano, "Epistemology", attempt of an extensive and largely new presentation of logic with a constant review of the researchers of it till now, 1837
Pour sortir de cette aporie, l'introduction d'un \'el\'ement nouveau ou inconnu (une observation ou une id\'ee surprenante) s'av\`ere n\'ecessaire, ainsi que l'ont soulign\'e C.S. Peirces, R.K. Merton et U. Eco. p. 44
D. A. Schum, Species of abductive reasoning in fact investigation in law, cardozo law reviwe vol 22, july 2001.
===
My question was the kind of questions someone who has grown up in a context that gives rise to intellectual property law would ask. My question was about Asarsing as something in its own right, with certain chemical attributes that make it `valuable' to Reite people. But the explanation I was given was not of that kind at all. It placed the plant in a narrative, and as part of a complex of myth, rituals, and kinship. It is this `position' that means it has the effect of making babies grow for Nekgini speaking people. p. 164
... the `knowledge' indigenous people have is routniely subsumed by a form of knowing that undermines its worth. p. 168
Distortion, Sigmund Freud, "Moses and Monotheism" - the displacement is very similar to Kafka's "Amerika".
"Ultimately it is not the unconscious that decides the fate of humans,
what truly counts is the incognito that conceals the origin of the dominant ideas." 17
Luhmann, Mann, Borkenau, Debray, Hegel, Boris Groys.
=====
Suppose a person is engaged in some well practiced activity. What determines what that person does, on a moment-by-moment basis, as he or she engages in that activity? What resources does the person draw upon, and why? What shapes the choices the person makes? What accounts for the effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of that person's efforts?
Schoenfeld, preface.
Wow, this is very similar to the Peeragogy questions from Howard.
Images at http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/AHSchoenfeld/AHSchoenfeld.html or http://www.routledge.com/9780415878654
«Knowledge base - just what mathematics do they know? problem-solving strategies, aka heuristics -- what tools or techniques do they have in order to make progress on problems they don't know how to solve monitoring and self-regulation -- aspects of metacognition concerned with how well individuals "manage" the problem-solving resources, including time, at their disposal beliefs -- individuals' sense of mathematics, of themselves, of the context and more, all of which shape what they perceive and what they choose to do.»
This sounds somewhat similar to Stafford Beer, to be honest.
"What I couldn't account for was how and why the problem solvers drew on particular knowledge or strategies, or how and why they made the decisions they did. That's the focus of this book."
"A logical step in my research program was to study situations that were socially dynamic but not reflecting the full-blown complexity of the mathematics classroom. Thus, I moved to studies of one-on-one mathematics tutoring."
"If you can understand (a) the teacher's agenda and the rountine ways in which the teacher tries to meet the goals that are implicit or explicit in that agenda, and (b) the factors that shape the teacher's prioritizing and goal setting when potentially consequential unforseen events arise, then you can explain how and why teachers make the moment-by-moment choices they make as they teach."
p. 19 - having breakfast. This is quite different from the way Tim Ingold has breakfast.
"I now have subgoals of toasting English muffins, making the poached eggs, making the bacon, and making the latte. Each of these involves some complexities..."
It all comes down to Goals, Resources (esp. Knowledge) and Orientation. Isn't there something called BDI that deals with just this combination?
Book includes transcripts of classroom dialogues.
=====
Kockelman: John Lucy, Nick Enfield, Michael Silverstein
Mead's version: "the I is the response of the organism to the attitudes of others and the me is the organized set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes." (1934, p. 175).
"The Me is the self as appropriating, having taken into account others' attitudes toward (or interpretants of) its mental states and social statuses (or kinds more generally); and the I is the self as effecting, enacting roles (or expressing indices) that change others' attitudes (and often others' kinds)." - p. 90
=====
Perception, evaluation, expression
input, central function, and output
«In the section entitled "Communication, Social System, and Culture", the reader will find a description of the social field, or the context, in which a message exchange takes place. The social field determines the parameters of the system that are significant for both the scientific observer and the particpants. For the scientist, the social setting provides the more time-enduring structure in which an exchange takes place; for the participant, it provides the instructions necessary for coding and decoding the messages. This has been described as meta-communication.» -p. 13
This reminds me of Deleuze's discusssion of Galois theory. Maybe that's the appropriate way to develop mu-calculus.
Structure and process in social relations
«Have human relations ever become the subject of scientific investigation, and, if not, can the processes of daily living become a focus of scientific endeavors? This is the question discussed in this paper. Social science is the study of human relations. Thus, sociology, economics, anthropology, and psychology are collections of generalizations about human behavior. However, in these disciplines there exists a tendency to ignore unique or divergent events, while, in contrast, psychiatry and psychoanalysis are characterized by the neglect of convergent events; that is, of statistical and mass phenomena.»
Wow - maybe this right here is the dilemma that faces us in thinking about lambda and mu functions.
====
«Examples like AM and Racter force one to ask "At what point does the seemingly innocent act of selection by a human turn into direction of the program?"»
Which seems to get into Kockleman territory, no? Example of Huff's escher-like drawings. And putting the shoe on the other foot:
«Suppose someone showed you a brilliant essay on humor and told you it had been "written by a computer". If subsequently you found out that it had been plucked whole from Arthur Koestler's book The Act Of Creation, you would surely feel defrauded. It would make little difference if you were further informed that Koestler's entire book, along with a hundred million other books on all sorts of topics, had been stored inside the computer, and that a program had selected this particular book and from it this particular passage, and printed it out.»
"But what if Koestler's original piece were chopped into ever-shorter segments? What if they were just two or three words long? At what point would we slide from being bored to being amazed at the computer's ability to create prose? When, in short, would we be forced to conclude that ideas, not mere formal tokens, were entering the picture?" - p. 481
This is similar to Deleuze's dx in a way, since the smaller things get the more like a manifold they are.
In 1977, I began my new career as a professor of computer science, aiming to specialize in the field of artificial intelligence. My goals were modest, at least in number: first, to uncover the secrets of creativity, and second, to uncover the secrets of consciousness, by modeling both phenomena on a computer. Good goals. Not easy.
«Much like the mathematical concepts just cited, our ordinary concepts are also structrued in a sphere-like manner, with the most primary examples forming the core and with less typical examples forming the outre layers. Such sphericity imes any concept with an implicit sense of what its stronger and weaker instaces are. But in addition to slowly building up richly layered spheres around concepts (a process that stretches out over years), we also quickly build spheres around events or situations that we experience or hear about (this can happen in a second or two, even a fraction of a second). ... surrrounding every event on an unconscious level is what I have referred to elsewhere as a commonsense halo or an implicit counterfactual sphere, so called because it consist of many related, usually counterfactual, variants of the event.» p. 71
=====
"Languages are not primarily used for what is today called the passing on of information, but serve to form communicating group-bodies."
=====
Zadig:
«une sagacit\'e qui lui d\'ecouvrait mille diff\'erences o\`u les autres hommes ne voient rien que d'uniform»
Hamlet:
«... un exp\'erimentateur qui met en une situation en abyme (une pi\`ece das la pi\`ece) das laquelle il pourra observer les r\'eactions de son oncle pour trouver la preuve de son innocence ou de sa culpabilit\'e. Comme le signale Merton, cette reconstruction n'est pas loin de la m\'ethod de l'ex\'erimentateur dals le domaine scientifique.»
Bolzano, "Epistemology", attempt of an extensive and largely new presentation of logic with a constant review of the researchers of it till now, 1837
Pour sortir de cette aporie, l'introduction d'un \'el\'ement nouveau ou inconnu (une observation ou une id\'ee surprenante) s'av\`ere n\'ecessaire, ainsi que l'ont soulign\'e C.S. Peirces, R.K. Merton et U. Eco. p. 44
D. A. Schum, Species of abductive reasoning in fact investigation in law, cardozo law reviwe vol 22, july 2001.
===
My question was the kind of questions someone who has grown up in a context that gives rise to intellectual property law would ask. My question was about Asarsing as something in its own right, with certain chemical attributes that make it `valuable' to Reite people. But the explanation I was given was not of that kind at all. It placed the plant in a narrative, and as part of a complex of myth, rituals, and kinship. It is this `position' that means it has the effect of making babies grow for Nekgini speaking people. p. 164
... the `knowledge' indigenous people have is routniely subsumed by a form of knowing that undermines its worth. p. 168
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
the origins of (metal)
http://youtu.be/AX2y51ixsu8 - Rondellus, "Verres Militares" (3'27")
Now, Memmius,
How nature of iron discovered was, thou mayst
Of thine own self divine. Man's ancient arms
Were hands, and nails and teeth, stones too and boughs-
Breakage of forest trees- and flame and fire,
As soon as known. Thereafter force of iron
And copper discovered was; and copper's use
Was known ere iron's, since more tractable
Its nature is and its abundance more.
With copper men to work the soil began,
With copper to rouse the hurly waves of war,
To straw the monstrous wounds, and seize away
Another's flocks and fields. For unto them,
Thus armed, all things naked of defence
Readily yielded. Then by slow degrees
The sword of iron succeeded, and the shape
Of brazen sickle into scorn was turned:
With iron to cleave the soil of earth they 'gan,
And the contentions of uncertain war
Were rendered equal.
And, lo, man was wont
Armed to mount upon the ribs of horse
And guide him with the rein, and play about
With right hand free, oft times before he tried
Perils of war in yoked chariot;
And yoked pairs abreast came earlier
Than yokes of four, or scythed chariots
Whereinto clomb the men-at-arms. And next
The Punic folk did train the elephants-
Those curst Lucanian oxen, hideous,
The serpent-handed, with turrets on their bulks-
To dure the wounds of war and panic-strike
The mighty troops of Mars. Thus Discord sad
Begat the one Thing after other, to be
The terror of the nations under arms,
And day by day to horrors of old war
She added an increase.
Bulls, too, they tried
In war's grim business; and essayed to send
Outrageous boars against the foes. And some
Sent on before their ranks puissant lions
With armed trainers and with masters fierce
To guide and hold in chains- and yet in vain,
Since fleshed with pell-mell slaughter, fierce they flew,
And blindly through the squadrons havoc wrought,
Shaking the frightful crests upon their heads,
Now here, now there. Nor could the horsemen calm
Their horses, panic-breasted at the roar,
And rein them round to front the foe. With spring
The infuriate she-lions would up-leap
Now here, now there; and whoso came apace
Against them, these they'd rend across the face;
And others unwitting from behind they'd tear
Down from their mounts, and twining round them, bring
Tumbling to earth, o'ermastered by the wound,
And with those powerful fangs and hooked claws
Fasten upon them. Bulls would toss their friends,
And trample under foot, and from beneath
Rip flanks and bellies of horses with their horns,
And with a threat'ning forehead jam the sod;
And boars would gore with stout tusks their allies,
Splashing in fury their own blood on spears
Splintered in their own bodies, and would fell
In rout and ruin infantry and horse.
For there the beasts-of-saddle tried to scape
The savage thrusts of tusk by shying off,
Or rearing up with hoofs a-paw in air.
In vain- since there thou mightest see them sink,
Their sinews severed, and with heavy fall
Bestrew the ground. And such of these as men
Supposed well-trained long ago at home,
Were in the thick of action seen to foam
In fury, from the wounds, the shrieks, the flight,
The panic, and the tumult; nor could men
Aught of their numbers rally. For each breed
And various of the wild beasts fled apart
Hither or thither, as often in wars to-day
Flee those Lucanian oxen, by the steel
Grievously mangled, after they have wrought
Upon their friends so many a dreadful doom.
(If 'twas, indeed, that thus they did at all:
But scarcely I'll believe that men could not
With mind foreknow and see, as sure to come,
Such foul and general disaster.- This
We, then, may hold as true in the great All,
In divers worlds on divers plan create,-
Somewhere afar more likely than upon
One certain earth.) But men chose this to do
Less in the hope of conquering than to give
Their enemies a goodly cause of woe,
Even though thereby they perished themselves,
Since weak in numbers and since wanting arms.
-- Lucretius, "De Rerum Natura", 5.1281-5.1349,
trans. William Ellery Leonard, 1916.
Now, Memmius,
How nature of iron discovered was, thou mayst
Of thine own self divine. Man's ancient arms
Were hands, and nails and teeth, stones too and boughs-
Breakage of forest trees- and flame and fire,
As soon as known. Thereafter force of iron
And copper discovered was; and copper's use
Was known ere iron's, since more tractable
Its nature is and its abundance more.
With copper men to work the soil began,
With copper to rouse the hurly waves of war,
To straw the monstrous wounds, and seize away
Another's flocks and fields. For unto them,
Thus armed, all things naked of defence
Readily yielded. Then by slow degrees
The sword of iron succeeded, and the shape
Of brazen sickle into scorn was turned:
With iron to cleave the soil of earth they 'gan,
And the contentions of uncertain war
Were rendered equal.
And, lo, man was wont
Armed to mount upon the ribs of horse
And guide him with the rein, and play about
With right hand free, oft times before he tried
Perils of war in yoked chariot;
And yoked pairs abreast came earlier
Than yokes of four, or scythed chariots
Whereinto clomb the men-at-arms. And next
The Punic folk did train the elephants-
Those curst Lucanian oxen, hideous,
The serpent-handed, with turrets on their bulks-
To dure the wounds of war and panic-strike
The mighty troops of Mars. Thus Discord sad
Begat the one Thing after other, to be
The terror of the nations under arms,
And day by day to horrors of old war
She added an increase.
Bulls, too, they tried
In war's grim business; and essayed to send
Outrageous boars against the foes. And some
Sent on before their ranks puissant lions
With armed trainers and with masters fierce
To guide and hold in chains- and yet in vain,
Since fleshed with pell-mell slaughter, fierce they flew,
And blindly through the squadrons havoc wrought,
Shaking the frightful crests upon their heads,
Now here, now there. Nor could the horsemen calm
Their horses, panic-breasted at the roar,
And rein them round to front the foe. With spring
The infuriate she-lions would up-leap
Now here, now there; and whoso came apace
Against them, these they'd rend across the face;
And others unwitting from behind they'd tear
Down from their mounts, and twining round them, bring
Tumbling to earth, o'ermastered by the wound,
And with those powerful fangs and hooked claws
Fasten upon them. Bulls would toss their friends,
And trample under foot, and from beneath
Rip flanks and bellies of horses with their horns,
And with a threat'ning forehead jam the sod;
And boars would gore with stout tusks their allies,
Splashing in fury their own blood on spears
Splintered in their own bodies, and would fell
In rout and ruin infantry and horse.
For there the beasts-of-saddle tried to scape
The savage thrusts of tusk by shying off,
Or rearing up with hoofs a-paw in air.
In vain- since there thou mightest see them sink,
Their sinews severed, and with heavy fall
Bestrew the ground. And such of these as men
Supposed well-trained long ago at home,
Were in the thick of action seen to foam
In fury, from the wounds, the shrieks, the flight,
The panic, and the tumult; nor could men
Aught of their numbers rally. For each breed
And various of the wild beasts fled apart
Hither or thither, as often in wars to-day
Flee those Lucanian oxen, by the steel
Grievously mangled, after they have wrought
Upon their friends so many a dreadful doom.
(If 'twas, indeed, that thus they did at all:
But scarcely I'll believe that men could not
With mind foreknow and see, as sure to come,
Such foul and general disaster.- This
We, then, may hold as true in the great All,
In divers worlds on divers plan create,-
Somewhere afar more likely than upon
One certain earth.) But men chose this to do
Less in the hope of conquering than to give
Their enemies a goodly cause of woe,
Even though thereby they perished themselves,
Since weak in numbers and since wanting arms.
-- Lucretius, "De Rerum Natura", 5.1281-5.1349,
trans. William Ellery Leonard, 1916.
Friday, October 3, 2014
Chop wood, carry water
Image: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/x4vctmsx3xw/maxresdefault.jpg
Sound: http://youtu.be/pZ28stet7-E
"Now, boys, you won't see this operation performed very often and
there's a reason for that…. You see it has absolutely no medical
value. No one knows what the purpose of it originally was or if it had
a purpose at all. Personally I think it was a pure artistic creation
from the beginning."
- http://realitystudio.org/texts/naked-lunch/benway-operates/
"The best laid plans of mice and men and Henry Bemis, the small man in
the glasses who wanted nothing but time. Henry Bemis, now just a part
of a smashed landscape, just a piece of the rubble, just a fragment of
what man has deeded to himself. Mr. Henry Bemis in the Twilight Zone."
- http://jdsarmiento.com/blog/?p=1125
Sound: http://youtu.be/pZ28stet7-E
"Now, boys, you won't see this operation performed very often and
there's a reason for that…. You see it has absolutely no medical
value. No one knows what the purpose of it originally was or if it had
a purpose at all. Personally I think it was a pure artistic creation
from the beginning."
- http://realitystudio.org/texts/naked-lunch/benway-operates/
"The best laid plans of mice and men and Henry Bemis, the small man in
the glasses who wanted nothing but time. Henry Bemis, now just a part
of a smashed landscape, just a piece of the rubble, just a fragment of
what man has deeded to himself. Mr. Henry Bemis in the Twilight Zone."
- http://jdsarmiento.com/blog/?p=1125
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Another Night in Baghdad
«In an interview with the Guardian three years ago, Merton recalled that
in his early 20s he had wished he was the kind of person who read that
paper, before realising belatedly that there was nothing stopping
him. "So much of the working-class thing is about thinking you're not
allowed to do stuff," he said then – a statement that could also be
taken as the keynote of this thoughtful, understated memoir.» -
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/25/only-when-i-laugh-paul-merton-review-autobiography-comedy
Prov. 22
In the paths of the wicked are snares and pitfalls,
but those who would preserve their life stay far from them.
Start children off on the way they should go,
and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
« We pick and choose who we help, is that it? Some are worthy, others
not?! Who was it, Ororo, told me Wolverine was an X-Man, not because of
his "sterling" character, but his potential for good. That to deny him--
though we abhor his violent nature-- would thereby deny our true reason
for being, which is to help him achieve that potential. The same
argument holds for Rogue, does it not? Of course, there's a risk in
accepting her-- but consider the alternative. At least with us she has a
chance for a better life, Deny her and we condemn her outright... and
that I will never do-- to any mutant-- so long as breath remains within
me.» - Professor X, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Uncanny_X-Men
in his early 20s he had wished he was the kind of person who read that
paper, before realising belatedly that there was nothing stopping
him. "So much of the working-class thing is about thinking you're not
allowed to do stuff," he said then – a statement that could also be
taken as the keynote of this thoughtful, understated memoir.» -
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/25/only-when-i-laugh-paul-merton-review-autobiography-comedy
Prov. 22
In the paths of the wicked are snares and pitfalls,
but those who would preserve their life stay far from them.
Start children off on the way they should go,
and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
« We pick and choose who we help, is that it? Some are worthy, others
not?! Who was it, Ororo, told me Wolverine was an X-Man, not because of
his "sterling" character, but his potential for good. That to deny him--
though we abhor his violent nature-- would thereby deny our true reason
for being, which is to help him achieve that potential. The same
argument holds for Rogue, does it not? Of course, there's a risk in
accepting her-- but consider the alternative. At least with us she has a
chance for a better life, Deny her and we condemn her outright... and
that I will never do-- to any mutant-- so long as breath remains within
me.» - Professor X, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Uncanny_X-Men
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
graphics
Standards of excellence for information design are set by high quality maps, with diverse bountiful detail, several layers of close reading combined with an overview, and rigorous data from engineering surveys. In contrast, the usual chartjunk performances look more like posters than maps. Posters are meant for viewing from a distance, with their strong images, large type, and thin data densities. Thus poster design provides very little counsel for making diagrams that are read more intensely. Display of closely-read data surely requires the skilled craft of good graphic and poster design: typography, object representation, layout, color, production techniques, and visual principles that inform criticism and revision. Too often those skills are accompanied by the ideology of chartjunk and data posterization; excellence in presenting information requires mastering the craft and spurning the ideology. - Edward Tufte
iannis/anaïs
«If there is harmony, it is in the finishes that in their roughness and
near-brutality betray some empathy with the life of a friar.»
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte_Marie_de_La_Tourette
«As he talked, I thought of my difficulties with writing, my struggles
to articulate feelings not easily expressed.»
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana%C3%AFs_Nin
near-brutality betray some empathy with the life of a friar.»
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte_Marie_de_La_Tourette
«As he talked, I thought of my difficulties with writing, my struggles
to articulate feelings not easily expressed.»
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana%C3%AFs_Nin
Friday, September 19, 2014
on writing
«I think the trick is that you have to use words well enough so that
these nickle-and-dimers who come around bitching about being objective
or the advertisers don't like it are rendered helpless by the fact that
it's good.» - hst
these nickle-and-dimers who come around bitching about being objective
or the advertisers don't like it are rendered helpless by the fact that
it's good.» - hst
Thursday, September 11, 2014
where
Where there was a 'backslash' there will now be a 'yen' symbol.
Where there was a swelling between the legs, there will now be a penis
or clitoris growing.
Where there was waste, there will now be efficiency. Where there was
tiredness and inertia, there will now be energy and enthusiasm.
Where there was skin there will now be screen.
Where there was a swelling between the legs, there will now be a penis
or clitoris growing.
Where there was waste, there will now be efficiency. Where there was
tiredness and inertia, there will now be energy and enthusiasm.
Where there was skin there will now be screen.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
poverty vs inequality
The definition of poverty generally used in the UK, as in the rest of
the developed world, is set at 60% of median income. But these people
aren't poor in the same way as those 1.2 billion living on less than
$1.25 a day, obviously; they are poor in relation to the person who is
in the middle of the income distribution, with half the country above
them and half below. That median UK household income at the moment is
£23,200, which means the official threshold for poverty in the UK is
£13,920.
- http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/05/poverty-uk-better-calling-it-inequality
the developed world, is set at 60% of median income. But these people
aren't poor in the same way as those 1.2 billion living on less than
$1.25 a day, obviously; they are poor in relation to the person who is
in the middle of the income distribution, with half the country above
them and half below. That median UK household income at the moment is
£23,200, which means the official threshold for poverty in the UK is
£13,920.
- http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/05/poverty-uk-better-calling-it-inequality
Thursday, July 24, 2014
nakedness
Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect
much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are
as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. - Bacon
Expressing the idea in the most general form, the main promise lying
at the root of this method is as follows: the child, in mastering
himself (his behaviour), goes on the whole in the same way as he does
in mastering external nature, e.g. by technical means. The man masters
himself externally, as one of the forces of nature by means of a
special cultural 'technic of signs'. - Vygotsky
much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are
as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. - Bacon
Expressing the idea in the most general form, the main promise lying
at the root of this method is as follows: the child, in mastering
himself (his behaviour), goes on the whole in the same way as he does
in mastering external nature, e.g. by technical means. The man masters
himself externally, as one of the forces of nature by means of a
special cultural 'technic of signs'. - Vygotsky
Friday, July 18, 2014
pay it all back
The people that are staffing these intelligence agencies are ordinary
people, like you and me. They're not moustache-twirling villains that
are going, "ah ha ha that's great", they're going: "You're right. That
crosses a line but you really shouldn't say something about that
because it's going to end your career."
"The public should not know about these programmes. The public should
not have a say in these programmes and, for God's sake, the press had
better not learn about these programmes or we will destroy you."
people, like you and me. They're not moustache-twirling villains that
are going, "ah ha ha that's great", they're going: "You're right. That
crosses a line but you really shouldn't say something about that
because it's going to end your career."
"The public should not know about these programmes. The public should
not have a say in these programmes and, for God's sake, the press had
better not learn about these programmes or we will destroy you."
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
korova's corona
"Then came the discovery that adrenochrome, which is a product of the
decomposition of adrenalin, can produce many of the symptoms observed
in mescalin intoxication. But adrenochrome probably occurs
spontaneously in the human body. In other words, each one of us may be
capable of manufacturing a chemical, minute doses of which are known
to cause profound changes in consciousness." -- Huxley
decomposition of adrenalin, can produce many of the symptoms observed
in mescalin intoxication. But adrenochrome probably occurs
spontaneously in the human body. In other words, each one of us may be
capable of manufacturing a chemical, minute doses of which are known
to cause profound changes in consciousness." -- Huxley
Sunday, June 22, 2014
three types of causality
"Each of the entities I am dealing with possesses the three types of
causality that [Bloor] keeps so cleanly separated: each of them is
self-referential -- like society in his scheme -- each of them is
causal -- as in what he calls non-social nature -- and yet each of them
underdetermines the next one in the series -- as in his conception of
the gap between sensory data and interpretation. Instead of
distributing his three types of causality according to different
ontological domains (one for non-social nature, one for social nature,
and one for their connection), I attribute each of them to all of the
entities. This is what has allowed me to tackle anew the question of
what society and nature are made of. I claim that this question has
become empirically studiable only since this methodological move has
been taken."
- Bruno Latour, "For David Bloor... and Beyond: A Reply to David
Bloor's 'Anti-Latour'"
causality that [Bloor] keeps so cleanly separated: each of them is
self-referential -- like society in his scheme -- each of them is
causal -- as in what he calls non-social nature -- and yet each of them
underdetermines the next one in the series -- as in his conception of
the gap between sensory data and interpretation. Instead of
distributing his three types of causality according to different
ontological domains (one for non-social nature, one for social nature,
and one for their connection), I attribute each of them to all of the
entities. This is what has allowed me to tackle anew the question of
what society and nature are made of. I claim that this question has
become empirically studiable only since this methodological move has
been taken."
- Bruno Latour, "For David Bloor... and Beyond: A Reply to David
Bloor's 'Anti-Latour'"
Sunday, June 8, 2014
the time has come
"Perhaps the moment has come to leave behind the old Leftist obsession
with ways and means to 'subvert' or 'undermine' the order, and to
focus on the opposite question -- on what, following Ernesto Laclau,
we can call the 'ordering of the Order': not how we can undermine the
existing order, but how does an Order emerge out of disorder in the
first place? Which inconsistencies and splittings alow the edifice of
Order to maintain itself?" - Slavoj Žižek,The Indivisible Remainder,
1996
with ways and means to 'subvert' or 'undermine' the order, and to
focus on the opposite question -- on what, following Ernesto Laclau,
we can call the 'ordering of the Order': not how we can undermine the
existing order, but how does an Order emerge out of disorder in the
first place? Which inconsistencies and splittings alow the edifice of
Order to maintain itself?" - Slavoj Žižek,The Indivisible Remainder,
1996
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
stripped
Well the time will come
When the wind will shout
And all the sinners know
What I'm talking about
When all the creatures of the world
Are gonna line up at the gate
And you better be on time
And you better not be late
Well you know in your heart
What you gotta bring
No big mink coat
No diamond ring
Well take off your paint
Take off your rouge
Let your backbone flip
And let your spirit shine through
All the men we got
Well they're goin' down the drain
And when I see your sadness
On a river of shame
You got to raise up
Both the quick and the dead
With no shoes on your feet
No hat on your head
Ain't nothin' in my heart
But fire for you
With my rainy hammer
And a heart that's true
When the wind will shout
And all the sinners know
What I'm talking about
When all the creatures of the world
Are gonna line up at the gate
And you better be on time
And you better not be late
Well you know in your heart
What you gotta bring
No big mink coat
No diamond ring
Well take off your paint
Take off your rouge
Let your backbone flip
And let your spirit shine through
All the men we got
Well they're goin' down the drain
And when I see your sadness
On a river of shame
You got to raise up
Both the quick and the dead
With no shoes on your feet
No hat on your head
Ain't nothin' in my heart
But fire for you
With my rainy hammer
And a heart that's true
Saturday, May 17, 2014
prologue to an open letter
Considering the historical technologies for doing science, it makes sense that public funding for research is administered via a competitive, hierarchical model. Science is too big for everyone to get together in one room and discuss. However, contemporary communication technologies and open practices seem to promise something different: a sustained public conversation about research. The new way of doing things would "redeem" the intellectual capital currently lost in rejected research proposals, and would provide postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers with additional learning opportunities through a system of peer support.
JISC recently ran an experiment moving in this direction (the "JISC Elevator"), but the actual incentive structure ended up being similar to other grant funding schemes,with 6 of 26 proposals funded. It strikes me that if we saw the same numbers in a classroom setting (6 pass, 20 fail), we would find that pretty appalling. Of course, people have the opportunity to re-apply with changes in response to another call, but the overheads in that approach are quite high. What if instead of a winners-take-all competitive model, we took a more collaborative and learning-oriented approach to funding research, with "applicants" working together, in consultation with funders – until their ideas were ready? In the end, it's not so much about increasing the acceptance rate, but increasing the throughput of good ideas! Open peer review couldn't "save" the most flawed proposals; nevertheless, it could help expose and understand the flaws – allowing contributors to learn from their mistakes and move on.
With such an approach, funding for "research and postgraduate training" would be fruitfully combined. This modest proposal hinges on one simple point: transparency. Much as the taxpayer "should" have access to research results they pay for (cf. the recent of appointment of Jimmy Wales as a UK government advisor) and scientists "should" have access to the journals that they publish in (cf. Winston Hide's recent resignation as editor of Genomics), so to do we as citizen-scientists have a moral imperative to be transparent about how research funding is allocated, and how research is done. Not just transparent: positively pastoral.
JISC recently ran an experiment moving in this direction (the "JISC Elevator"), but the actual incentive structure ended up being similar to other grant funding schemes,with 6 of 26 proposals funded. It strikes me that if we saw the same numbers in a classroom setting (6 pass, 20 fail), we would find that pretty appalling. Of course, people have the opportunity to re-apply with changes in response to another call, but the overheads in that approach are quite high. What if instead of a winners-take-all competitive model, we took a more collaborative and learning-oriented approach to funding research, with "applicants" working together, in consultation with funders – until their ideas were ready? In the end, it's not so much about increasing the acceptance rate, but increasing the throughput of good ideas! Open peer review couldn't "save" the most flawed proposals; nevertheless, it could help expose and understand the flaws – allowing contributors to learn from their mistakes and move on.
With such an approach, funding for "research and postgraduate training" would be fruitfully combined. This modest proposal hinges on one simple point: transparency. Much as the taxpayer "should" have access to research results they pay for (cf. the recent of appointment of Jimmy Wales as a UK government advisor) and scientists "should" have access to the journals that they publish in (cf. Winston Hide's recent resignation as editor of Genomics), so to do we as citizen-scientists have a moral imperative to be transparent about how research funding is allocated, and how research is done. Not just transparent: positively pastoral.
pipestone
'With this holy pipe you will walk like a living prayer', the White Buffalo Woman told the people, 'your feet resting upon the grandmother, the pipe stem reaching all the way up into the sky to the grandfather, your body linking the Sacred Beneath with the Sacred Above. Wakan Tanka smiles on us, because now we are as one, earth, sky, all living things and the ikce wicasa — the human beings. Now we are one big family. This pipe binds us together. It is a peacemaker. There is a pool of blood somewhere, a place you came from. You will find this blood petrified into stone and it is red. It comes from a sacred spot common to all people, where even enemies are turned into friends and relatives'. And it is probably from this time onward that the Sioux people started the custom of ending all important ceremonies with the words Mitakuye oyasin - all my relatives - plants, animals, humans, all one big universal family.
Lame Deer, Seeker of visions, 1972
Lame Deer, Seeker of visions, 1972
Thursday, May 15, 2014
the philosophy of crime
"What does this tell us? Not much? No! The Count's child thought see nothing, therefore he speak so free. Your man thought see nothing. My man thought see nothing, till just now. No! But there comes another word from some one who speak without thought because she, too, know not what it mean, what it might mean. Just as there are elements which rest, yet when in nature's course they move on their way and they touch, the pouf! And there comes a flash of light, heaven wide, that blind and kill and destroy some. But that show up all earth below for leagues and leagues. Is it not so? Well, I shall explain. To begin, have you ever study the philosophy of crime? `Yes' and `No.' You, John, yes, for it is a study of insanity. You, no, Madam Mina, for crime touch you not, not but once. Still, your mind works true, and argues not a particulari ad universale. There is this peculiarity in criminals. It is so constant, in all countries and at all times, that even police, who know not much from philosophy, come to know it empirically, that it is. That is to be empiric. The criminal always work at one crime, that is the true criminal who seems predestinate to crime, and who will of none other. This criminal has not full man brain. He is clever and cunning and resourceful, but he be not of man stature as to brain. He be of child brain in much. Now this criminal of ours is pre-destinate to crime also. He, too, have child brain, and it is of the child to do what he have done. The little bird, the little fish, the little animal learn not by principle, but empirically. And when he learn to do, then there is to him the ground to start from to do more. `Dos pou sto,' said Archimedes. `Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world!' To do once, is the fulcrum whereby child brain become man brain. And until he have the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every time, just as he have done before! Oh, my dear, I see that your eyes are opened, and that to you the lightning flash show all the leagues,"for Mrs. Harker began to clap her hands and her eyes sparkled.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
lunar syllabus - what makes cancer tenacious?
"The headnote of a reported case; the brief statement of the points of law determined prefixed to a reported case. The opinion controls the syllabus, the latter being merely explanatory of the former."
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
telos
"You mean that universal explanation for all mysterious
disappearances, 'the cat did it'?" said Arthur.
"Yes," she replied. "What a convenient thing it would be if all
thieves had the same shape! It's so confusing to have some of them
quadrupeds and others bipeds!"
"It has occurred to me," said Arthur, "as a curious problem in
Teleology—the Science of Final Causes," he added, in answer to an
enquiring look from Lady Muriel.
"And a Final Cause is—?"
"Well, suppose we say—the last of a series of connected events—each of
the series being the cause of the next—for whose sake the first event
takes place."
"But the last event is practically an effect of the first, isn't it?
And yet you call it a cause of it!"
Arthur pondered a moment. "The words are rather confusing, I grant
you," he said. "Will this do? The last event is an effect of the
first: but the necessity for that event is a cause of the necessity
for the first."
"That seems clear enough," said Lady Muriel. "Now let us have the problem."
"It's merely this. What object can we imagine in the arrangement by
which each different size (roughly speaking) of living creatures has
its special shape? For instance, the human race has one kind of
shape—bipeds. Another set, ranging from the lion to the mouse, are
quadrupeds. Go down a step or two further, and you come to insects
with six legs—hexapods—a beautiful name, is it not? But beauty, in our
sense of the word, seems to diminish as we go down: the creature
becomes more—I won't say 'ugly' of any of God's creatures—more
uncouth. And, when we take the microscope, and go a few steps lower
still, we come upon animalculae, terribly uncouth, and with a terrible
number of legs!"
disappearances, 'the cat did it'?" said Arthur.
"Yes," she replied. "What a convenient thing it would be if all
thieves had the same shape! It's so confusing to have some of them
quadrupeds and others bipeds!"
"It has occurred to me," said Arthur, "as a curious problem in
Teleology—the Science of Final Causes," he added, in answer to an
enquiring look from Lady Muriel.
"And a Final Cause is—?"
"Well, suppose we say—the last of a series of connected events—each of
the series being the cause of the next—for whose sake the first event
takes place."
"But the last event is practically an effect of the first, isn't it?
And yet you call it a cause of it!"
Arthur pondered a moment. "The words are rather confusing, I grant
you," he said. "Will this do? The last event is an effect of the
first: but the necessity for that event is a cause of the necessity
for the first."
"That seems clear enough," said Lady Muriel. "Now let us have the problem."
"It's merely this. What object can we imagine in the arrangement by
which each different size (roughly speaking) of living creatures has
its special shape? For instance, the human race has one kind of
shape—bipeds. Another set, ranging from the lion to the mouse, are
quadrupeds. Go down a step or two further, and you come to insects
with six legs—hexapods—a beautiful name, is it not? But beauty, in our
sense of the word, seems to diminish as we go down: the creature
becomes more—I won't say 'ugly' of any of God's creatures—more
uncouth. And, when we take the microscope, and go a few steps lower
still, we come upon animalculae, terribly uncouth, and with a terrible
number of legs!"
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
this episode brought to you by the number 5, the letter H, and the color yellow
(Coldplay vs the Innocence Mission)
AND HAVE NO THORNS TO DISTANCE ME,
WARM AS YELLOW.
And it was all "Yellow."
I wrote a song for you,
I drew a line,
BRIGHT,
Oh what a thing to have done,
HAPPY TO BE MEETING.
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for you,
WARM AS YELLOW.
Look how they shine for you,
I'd bleed myself dry.
Look how they shine for,
Look at the stars,
Turn into something beautiful,
Yeah, they were all yellow.
I jumped across for you,
THAT I WANT TO BE SO SO
INSIDE.
And it was called "Yellow."
BRIGHT,
And all the things you do,
I DO NOT WISH TO BE PALE PINK,
It's true, look how they shine for you,
AND YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH YOUR ARMS STRETCHED OUT.
Your skin
BRIGHT, BRIGHT AS YELLOW,
I'd bleed myself dry for you,
Look how they shine.
BRIGHT,
BUT FLOWER SCARLET, FLOWER GOLD.
EVEN IF I'M SHOUTING, DO YOU SEE THAT I'M WANTING,
Oh what a thing to do.
ENTER ROOMS WITH GREAT JOY SHOUTS,
Oh yeah, your skin and bones,
BRIGHT, BRIGHT AS YELLOW,
EYE TO EYE WHEN SPEAKING.
AND HAVE NO THORNS TO DISTANCE ME,
WARM AS YELLOW.
And it was all "Yellow."
I wrote a song for you,
I drew a line,
BRIGHT,
Oh what a thing to have done,
HAPPY TO BE MEETING.
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for you,
WARM AS YELLOW.
Look how they shine for you,
I'd bleed myself dry.
Look how they shine for,
Look at the stars,
Turn into something beautiful,
Yeah, they were all yellow.
I jumped across for you,
THAT I WANT TO BE SO SO
INSIDE.
And it was called "Yellow."
BRIGHT,
And all the things you do,
I DO NOT WISH TO BE PALE PINK,
It's true, look how they shine for you,
AND YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH YOUR ARMS STRETCHED OUT.
Your skin
BRIGHT, BRIGHT AS YELLOW,
I'd bleed myself dry for you,
Look how they shine.
BRIGHT,
BUT FLOWER SCARLET, FLOWER GOLD.
EVEN IF I'M SHOUTING, DO YOU SEE THAT I'M WANTING,
Oh what a thing to do.
ENTER ROOMS WITH GREAT JOY SHOUTS,
Oh yeah, your skin and bones,
BRIGHT, BRIGHT AS YELLOW,
EYE TO EYE WHEN SPEAKING.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
creativity pages
Ingold, Tim
The Poetics of Tool Use: From Technology, Language and Intelligence to Craft, Song and Imagination. In The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. Pp. 406-19.
Hallam, Elizabeth and Tim Ingold eds.
Creativity and Cultural Improvisation. Oxford: Berg, 2007.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
but it was all a big mistake
"When Socratic irony was taken seriously and the dialectic as a whole was confused with its propaedeutic, extremely troublesome consequences followed: for the dialectic ceased to be the science of problems and ultimately became confused with the simple movement of the negative, and of contradiction." - Difference and Repetition, p. 237
Thursday, April 24, 2014
mind over matter
«It is by means of reflexiveness—the turning back of the experience of
the individual upon himself—that the whole social process is thus
brought into the experience of the individuals involved in it; it is by
such means, which enable the individual to take the attitude of the
other toward himself, that the individual is able consciously to adjust
himself to that process, and to modify the resultant of that process in
any given social act in terms of his adjustment to it. Reflexiveness,
then, is the essential condition, within the social process, for the
development of mind.» - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mead/
By "mind" here, Mead means something very particular --
«Mentality on our approach simply comes in when the organism is able to
point out meanings to others and to himself.»
What we could understand is that there is a reality of social
programming -- and another parallel reality of non-signifying
experience. Surely, we have an awareness of non-meaningful experience.
For example, I am sitting on a chair, but this is not a meaning, it is
an act; it is only made "social" by me writing about it.
Students and followers could get confused by this. It's interesting
that Jung takes a similar view of language and the mind, whereas
Burroughs, for example, takes a rather different view:
«The soft machine is the human body under constant siege from a vast
hungry host of parasites with many names but one nature being hungry and
one intention to eat. If I may borrow the lingo of Herr Doctor Freud
while continuing to deplore the spread of his couch no one does more
harm than folks feel bad about doing it 'Sad Poison Nice Guy' more
poison than nice -- what Freud calls the 'id' is a parasitic invasion of
the hypothalamus and since the function of the hypothalamus is to
regulate metabolism... 'Only work here me.' 'Under new management.'
What Freud calls the 'super ego' is probably a parasitic occupation of
the mid brain where the 'rightness' centers may be located and by
'rightness' I mean where 'you' and 'I' used to live before this 'super
ego' moved in room on the top floor if my memory serves. Since the
parasites occupy brain areas they are in a position to deflect research
from 'dangerous channels'. Apomorphine acts on the hypothalamus to
regulate metabolism and its dangers to the parasitic inhabitants of
these brain areas can be readily appreciated. You see junk is death,
the oldest 'visitor' in the Industry.»
Junk... heh
the individual upon himself—that the whole social process is thus
brought into the experience of the individuals involved in it; it is by
such means, which enable the individual to take the attitude of the
other toward himself, that the individual is able consciously to adjust
himself to that process, and to modify the resultant of that process in
any given social act in terms of his adjustment to it. Reflexiveness,
then, is the essential condition, within the social process, for the
development of mind.» - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mead/
By "mind" here, Mead means something very particular --
«Mentality on our approach simply comes in when the organism is able to
point out meanings to others and to himself.»
What we could understand is that there is a reality of social
programming -- and another parallel reality of non-signifying
experience. Surely, we have an awareness of non-meaningful experience.
For example, I am sitting on a chair, but this is not a meaning, it is
an act; it is only made "social" by me writing about it.
Students and followers could get confused by this. It's interesting
that Jung takes a similar view of language and the mind, whereas
Burroughs, for example, takes a rather different view:
«The soft machine is the human body under constant siege from a vast
hungry host of parasites with many names but one nature being hungry and
one intention to eat. If I may borrow the lingo of Herr Doctor Freud
while continuing to deplore the spread of his couch no one does more
harm than folks feel bad about doing it 'Sad Poison Nice Guy' more
poison than nice -- what Freud calls the 'id' is a parasitic invasion of
the hypothalamus and since the function of the hypothalamus is to
regulate metabolism... 'Only work here me.' 'Under new management.'
What Freud calls the 'super ego' is probably a parasitic occupation of
the mid brain where the 'rightness' centers may be located and by
'rightness' I mean where 'you' and 'I' used to live before this 'super
ego' moved in room on the top floor if my memory serves. Since the
parasites occupy brain areas they are in a position to deflect research
from 'dangerous channels'. Apomorphine acts on the hypothalamus to
regulate metabolism and its dangers to the parasitic inhabitants of
these brain areas can be readily appreciated. You see junk is death,
the oldest 'visitor' in the Industry.»
Junk... heh
Sunday, April 20, 2014
to sum up: philosopher's phootball phantasy
Deconstruction is entirely a theory of relations of interiority,
even though it recognizes that such relations are never completed
but always still in process.
[...]
Note for further elaboration: a lot of this has to do with the way
that DeLanda, through Deleuze, is ultimately channelling Spinoza, to
whom the language of capacities to affect and be affected is
originally due; and also Hume — again via Deleuze's reading — in order
to account for how the individual person exists as an "emergent
property" of the assemblage of a quantity of impressions, ideas, and
chains of association. Now, Whitehead writes a lot about Spinoza and
particularly Hume, recognizing their importance but also their
limitations, which have to do with the fact that neither of them think
sufficiently in terms of events. Spinoza fails to think the event
because of his absolute monism; Hume, because of his denial of "causal
efficacy", and development of a theory of mind entirely in terms of
"presentational immediacy." Where Deleuze uneasily juxtaposes Spinoza
and Hume with Bergson, and DeLanda entirely ignores the Bergsonian
side of Deleuze in favor of the Spinozian side, Whitehead is the one
thinker who actually does — much better than Deleuze — integrate
(using this term in the mathematical sense) Spinozian and Bergsonian
imperatives. This needs to be explained further, in conjunction with
Whitehead's aphorism that "there is a becoming of continuity, but no
continuity of becoming" (Process and Reality 35). -
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=541
even though it recognizes that such relations are never completed
but always still in process.
[...]
Note for further elaboration: a lot of this has to do with the way
that DeLanda, through Deleuze, is ultimately channelling Spinoza, to
whom the language of capacities to affect and be affected is
originally due; and also Hume — again via Deleuze's reading — in order
to account for how the individual person exists as an "emergent
property" of the assemblage of a quantity of impressions, ideas, and
chains of association. Now, Whitehead writes a lot about Spinoza and
particularly Hume, recognizing their importance but also their
limitations, which have to do with the fact that neither of them think
sufficiently in terms of events. Spinoza fails to think the event
because of his absolute monism; Hume, because of his denial of "causal
efficacy", and development of a theory of mind entirely in terms of
"presentational immediacy." Where Deleuze uneasily juxtaposes Spinoza
and Hume with Bergson, and DeLanda entirely ignores the Bergsonian
side of Deleuze in favor of the Spinozian side, Whitehead is the one
thinker who actually does — much better than Deleuze — integrate
(using this term in the mathematical sense) Spinozian and Bergsonian
imperatives. This needs to be explained further, in conjunction with
Whitehead's aphorism that "there is a becoming of continuity, but no
continuity of becoming" (Process and Reality 35). -
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=541
quick fix
"The film becomes an allegory of the dead end of white Euro-American
culture, which can only live so long upon its no-longer-active
cultural heritage of Elizabethan poetry and vinyl 45s." -
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=1205
culture, which can only live so long upon its no-longer-active
cultural heritage of Elizabethan poetry and vinyl 45s." -
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=1205
Friday, April 18, 2014
advice from an elderly gentleman
JG: I can hazard only a guess at what he might say, but based on his
many published "admonitions for youth," I'd say this sums it up:
"Think for yourself. Fortune and misfortune: take neither personally.
You have to take a broooooaaaaad, general, view of things, you see."
Oh yes, and here's one he liked to remind people, noting "It may save
your life!" Goes like this:
"If you are holding onto a rope to a lighter-than-air balloon, and it
comes loose from its moorings and heads into the sky, LET GO OF THAT
ROPE! IMMEDIATELY!"
many published "admonitions for youth," I'd say this sums it up:
"Think for yourself. Fortune and misfortune: take neither personally.
You have to take a broooooaaaaad, general, view of things, you see."
Oh yes, and here's one he liked to remind people, noting "It may save
your life!" Goes like this:
"If you are holding onto a rope to a lighter-than-air balloon, and it
comes loose from its moorings and heads into the sky, LET GO OF THAT
ROPE! IMMEDIATELY!"
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
cause and effekt
"Nonlinear and statistical causality bring back to the philosophical
conception of the causal link some of the complexity that was taken
away by the notion of constant conjunction. Additional complexity may
come from an analysis of catalysis, an extreme form of non linear
causality in which an external cause produces an event that acts
merely as a trigger for an entire sequence of further events. But
while restoring the richness of causal relations does make them more
likely to explain complex material behavior, it is a restoration of
their objectivity that will have more profound philosophical
consequences: material events producing other material events in ever
more intricate series, whether there are humans around to observe them
or not." - Manuel DeLanda,
http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2008/12/13/manuel-delanda-matters-2/
conception of the causal link some of the complexity that was taken
away by the notion of constant conjunction. Additional complexity may
come from an analysis of catalysis, an extreme form of non linear
causality in which an external cause produces an event that acts
merely as a trigger for an entire sequence of further events. But
while restoring the richness of causal relations does make them more
likely to explain complex material behavior, it is a restoration of
their objectivity that will have more profound philosophical
consequences: material events producing other material events in ever
more intricate series, whether there are humans around to observe them
or not." - Manuel DeLanda,
http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2008/12/13/manuel-delanda-matters-2/
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
there is no spoon
"It is very likely that this infant, when placed in its high-chair at
the dining table, will pick up and shake a graspable item that has a
rounded shape at one end. We call that item a spoon and may say that
the infant is assimilating it to its rattling scheme; but from the
infant's perspective at that point, the item is a rattle, because what
the infant perceives of it is not what an adult would consider the
characteristics of a spoon but just those aspects that fit the
rattling scheme." - ernst von glasersfeld
the dining table, will pick up and shake a graspable item that has a
rounded shape at one end. We call that item a spoon and may say that
the infant is assimilating it to its rattling scheme; but from the
infant's perspective at that point, the item is a rattle, because what
the infant perceives of it is not what an adult would consider the
characteristics of a spoon but just those aspects that fit the
rattling scheme." - ernst von glasersfeld
Monday, April 14, 2014
feasts of the passover
"The cause of the final plague, the death of the first borns of Egypt,
has been suggested as being caused by a fungus that may have poisoned
the grain supplies, of which male first born would have had first
pickings and so been first to fall victim."
"... with man hu meaning "this is plant lice", which fits one
widespread modern identification of manna, the crystallized honeydew
of certain scale insects. In the environment of a desert, such
honeydew rapidly dries due to evaporation of its water content,
becoming a sticky solid, and later turning whitish, yellowish, or
brownish; honeydew of this form is considered a delicacy in the Middle
East, and is a good source of carbohydrates."
"The speculation that manna was an entheogen, also paralleled in
Philip K. Dick's posthumously published The Transmigration of Timothy
Archer, is supported in a wider cultural context when compared with
the praise of soma in the Rigveda, Mexican praise of teonanácatl, the
peyote sacrament of the Native American Church, and the holy ayahuasca
used in the ritual of the União do Vegetal and Santo Daime
churches..."
has been suggested as being caused by a fungus that may have poisoned
the grain supplies, of which male first born would have had first
pickings and so been first to fall victim."
"... with man hu meaning "this is plant lice", which fits one
widespread modern identification of manna, the crystallized honeydew
of certain scale insects. In the environment of a desert, such
honeydew rapidly dries due to evaporation of its water content,
becoming a sticky solid, and later turning whitish, yellowish, or
brownish; honeydew of this form is considered a delicacy in the Middle
East, and is a good source of carbohydrates."
"The speculation that manna was an entheogen, also paralleled in
Philip K. Dick's posthumously published The Transmigration of Timothy
Archer, is supported in a wider cultural context when compared with
the praise of soma in the Rigveda, Mexican praise of teonanácatl, the
peyote sacrament of the Native American Church, and the holy ayahuasca
used in the ritual of the União do Vegetal and Santo Daime
churches..."
Sunday, April 13, 2014
learning to fly (ESR vs FWN)
and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for
things–metaphors which correspond in no way to the
original entities.
With creative pleasure it throws metaphors into confusion
and displaces the boundary stones of abstractions, so
that, for example, it designates the stream as "the moving
path which carries man where he would otherwise walk."
These features suggest that the customs are not
accidental, but are products of some kind of implicit
agenda or generative pattern in the open-source culture
that is utterly fundamental to the way it operates.
things–metaphors which correspond in no way to the
original entities.
With creative pleasure it throws metaphors into confusion
and displaces the boundary stones of abstractions, so
that, for example, it designates the stream as "the moving
path which carries man where he would otherwise walk."
These features suggest that the customs are not
accidental, but are products of some kind of implicit
agenda or generative pattern in the open-source culture
that is utterly fundamental to the way it operates.
Friday, April 11, 2014
demotic french
Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
"Eugenides" means "well bred", but this is belied by his actions: a
blatant homosexual invitation at the Cannon Street Hotel (in the City,
a terminus to the Continent), followed by a dirty weekend in Brighton,
the Metropole then a fashionable hotel. Eliot had originally written:
"And perhaps a weekend at the Metropole", implying that the invitation
forms the poet's unspoken thoughts as to what might follow the
luncheon; Pound wrote "dam per'apsez" in the margin of the manuscript,
and underlined the offending word.
- T S Eliot: 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' and 'The Waste
Land', by C. J. Ackerley
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
"Eugenides" means "well bred", but this is belied by his actions: a
blatant homosexual invitation at the Cannon Street Hotel (in the City,
a terminus to the Continent), followed by a dirty weekend in Brighton,
the Metropole then a fashionable hotel. Eliot had originally written:
"And perhaps a weekend at the Metropole", implying that the invitation
forms the poet's unspoken thoughts as to what might follow the
luncheon; Pound wrote "dam per'apsez" in the margin of the manuscript,
and underlined the offending word.
- T S Eliot: 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' and 'The Waste
Land', by C. J. Ackerley
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
concept formation (on truth and lies)
Fred said:
"Every word immediately becomes a concept, inasmuch as it is not
intended to serve as a reminder of the unique and wholly individualized
original experience to which it owes its birth, but must at the same
time fit innumerable, more or less similar cases -- which means,
strictly speaking, never equal -- in other words, a lot of unequal
cases. Every concept originates through our equating what is unequal."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cber_Wahrheit_und_L%C3%BCge_im_au%C3%9Fermoralischen_Sinn
"Every word immediately becomes a concept, inasmuch as it is not
intended to serve as a reminder of the unique and wholly individualized
original experience to which it owes its birth, but must at the same
time fit innumerable, more or less similar cases -- which means,
strictly speaking, never equal -- in other words, a lot of unequal
cases. Every concept originates through our equating what is unequal."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cber_Wahrheit_und_L%C3%BCge_im_au%C3%9Fermoralischen_Sinn
disjecta membra
1. Gregory Bateson - "digital versus analogic"
Bateson describes the speech of cats (and dolphins, and others) in
terms of something called μ-functions, which are communicational moves
that describe relationship. "Mew" means "dependency"!
But more generally an analogue *depicts* relationship, does it not?
ἀναλογία : "proportion"...
And I think it's safe to say that communication *of* the relationship
is concomitant in maintaining the relationship. If the cat said, "and
don't forget to take out the trash," then we would not only be
surprised, but more than mildly offended.
For Bateson, humans are unique among animals in their digitality,
which provides the ability to refer to discrete things rather than to
take part in "voicing" the relationship.
(Are you with me so far?)
2. Georges Bataille - sacrificial economy
Bataille considers variations on the theme of "potlatch". His idea is
that that expenditure is at the root of our economic systems. This is
taken up by Jean Baudrillard who argues that the *symbolic* order
comes directly from expense and destruction. In the first place, the
"sacred" is whatever is sacrificed. But it goes further than that.
Economics in these regimes is about maintaining relationships -
between the chiefs and those they lean on, and among the chieftain
class itself. Economics achieves a certain form of analogue
communication. A potlatch demands a return potlatch. A sacrifice to
the ancestors puts one into direct relationship to the ancestors.
The "symbolic" is therefor, roughly speaking, the world of
μ-functions: and of course, within this space there are all manner of
relational things that can be communicated, e.g. "I am your senior
adult male, you puppy!" (among wolves).
This adds some depth to a statement like this one:
"'Symbol' becomes a trope for a component of social practice rather
than the hinge for a theory of meaning."
3. Terrence Deacon - emergent orders
Now, it no coincidence that expenditure and destruction is the
fundamental form in "primative" societies, because it is the
fundamental form in general. In "civilized" societies, we have simply
become more efficient at it. What might this mean?
(a) First, according to Baudrillard, we have largely destroyed, or at
least neutralized, the symbolic order. What this means is that
everything is "coded" or digital. Disjecta membra rather than relata
refero perhaps (scattered fragments, as with the limbs of a dead poet
-- versus referring to things related, if only to highlight their
strangeness). In terms of Deacon's theory, what does this mean? It
means a new higher-order constraint that insists on thingness,
indexicality, graspability, familiarity, fungibility, usability, and
intelligibility.
Virtual reality triumphs over the vision quest.
(b) And so things are accelerated. Instead of mixing sugar and water
and waiting for the sugar to dissolve, one drinks Coca Cola.^*
Nevertheless, the concern with this sort of emergence is that it will
ultimately destroy itself. The whirl-pool is the fastest way to drain
the tub. According to Deacon's theory, life is supposed to put in
*additional* higher order constraints to allow the heightened form of
entropy to be sustained. Because no one has time to wait an entire
generation for change anymore, we invent things like peeragogy.
But apart from the question as to whether "we" (or anything) will
survive, there is another interesting question to ponder in the mean
time: is there hope in any of this for a neo-primitivist order, a new
symbolism, real relationship, etc.?
4. Martin Heidegger - whither relationship?
Mathematical things are "things, insofar as we learn them; things
insofar as we take cognizance of them as what we already know them to
be in advance, the body as the bodily, the plant-like of the plant,
the animal-like of the animal, and so on."
"And so on" means -- the human-like of the human, and the very
mathematical of the mathematical itself.
And this mathematical of the mathematical is the one thing that is
essential to the proper functioning of emergent orders. This is the
function we call "learning." And what is this? ...... Is it perhaps a
strange sort of μ function?
The way Heidegger puts it, learning is a kind of "taking where he who
takes only takes what he basically already has." It is a form of
direct seeing in the world -- a way of relating to the world as it is.
I think it would be OK to say, optimistically: a way of relating to
the world AS relationship, a way of apprehending the world itself as
an emergent order.
(One acknowledges that this is somewhat strange feature to observe in
something that went digital long before digital was cool.)
5. William Burroughs - language is a virus
In this note, I have traced the evolution of language from the cat's
meow to modern mathematics -- in a very schematic form, to be sure.
The question that remains is whether there are relationships within
the particular μ function that is mathematics, whether we can find
*within* this form further "endogenous" μ-functions. Are there
mathematical forms that voice their relationship with other
mathematical forms, to us, or to anything else?
One naive answer would be "category theory." But there is another
more interesting answer, which is that mathematics is, in effect, the
entire "DNA" of what we have learned. Except, this is not quite
right. It would be better to say that *we* are *its* RNA. We
replicate it, and expand it, and unfold it. We give voice to it in
the same way that "mew" gives voice to the relationship between cat
and human. In brief, yes, there are μ functions within mathematics:
for mathematicians, they are, quite literally, the stories of our
lives.
*: Bergson: "Though our reasoning on isolated systems may imply that
their history, past, present, and future, might be instantaneously
unfurled like a fan, this history, in point of fact, unfolds itself
gradually, as if it occupied a duration like our own. If I want to mix
a glass of sugar and water, I must, willy nilly, wait until the sugar
melts."
Bateson describes the speech of cats (and dolphins, and others) in
terms of something called μ-functions, which are communicational moves
that describe relationship. "Mew" means "dependency"!
But more generally an analogue *depicts* relationship, does it not?
ἀναλογία : "proportion"...
And I think it's safe to say that communication *of* the relationship
is concomitant in maintaining the relationship. If the cat said, "and
don't forget to take out the trash," then we would not only be
surprised, but more than mildly offended.
For Bateson, humans are unique among animals in their digitality,
which provides the ability to refer to discrete things rather than to
take part in "voicing" the relationship.
(Are you with me so far?)
2. Georges Bataille - sacrificial economy
Bataille considers variations on the theme of "potlatch". His idea is
that that expenditure is at the root of our economic systems. This is
taken up by Jean Baudrillard who argues that the *symbolic* order
comes directly from expense and destruction. In the first place, the
"sacred" is whatever is sacrificed. But it goes further than that.
Economics in these regimes is about maintaining relationships -
between the chiefs and those they lean on, and among the chieftain
class itself. Economics achieves a certain form of analogue
communication. A potlatch demands a return potlatch. A sacrifice to
the ancestors puts one into direct relationship to the ancestors.
The "symbolic" is therefor, roughly speaking, the world of
μ-functions: and of course, within this space there are all manner of
relational things that can be communicated, e.g. "I am your senior
adult male, you puppy!" (among wolves).
This adds some depth to a statement like this one:
"'Symbol' becomes a trope for a component of social practice rather
than the hinge for a theory of meaning."
3. Terrence Deacon - emergent orders
Now, it no coincidence that expenditure and destruction is the
fundamental form in "primative" societies, because it is the
fundamental form in general. In "civilized" societies, we have simply
become more efficient at it. What might this mean?
(a) First, according to Baudrillard, we have largely destroyed, or at
least neutralized, the symbolic order. What this means is that
everything is "coded" or digital. Disjecta membra rather than relata
refero perhaps (scattered fragments, as with the limbs of a dead poet
-- versus referring to things related, if only to highlight their
strangeness). In terms of Deacon's theory, what does this mean? It
means a new higher-order constraint that insists on thingness,
indexicality, graspability, familiarity, fungibility, usability, and
intelligibility.
Virtual reality triumphs over the vision quest.
(b) And so things are accelerated. Instead of mixing sugar and water
and waiting for the sugar to dissolve, one drinks Coca Cola.^*
Nevertheless, the concern with this sort of emergence is that it will
ultimately destroy itself. The whirl-pool is the fastest way to drain
the tub. According to Deacon's theory, life is supposed to put in
*additional* higher order constraints to allow the heightened form of
entropy to be sustained. Because no one has time to wait an entire
generation for change anymore, we invent things like peeragogy.
But apart from the question as to whether "we" (or anything) will
survive, there is another interesting question to ponder in the mean
time: is there hope in any of this for a neo-primitivist order, a new
symbolism, real relationship, etc.?
4. Martin Heidegger - whither relationship?
Mathematical things are "things, insofar as we learn them; things
insofar as we take cognizance of them as what we already know them to
be in advance, the body as the bodily, the plant-like of the plant,
the animal-like of the animal, and so on."
"And so on" means -- the human-like of the human, and the very
mathematical of the mathematical itself.
And this mathematical of the mathematical is the one thing that is
essential to the proper functioning of emergent orders. This is the
function we call "learning." And what is this? ...... Is it perhaps a
strange sort of μ function?
The way Heidegger puts it, learning is a kind of "taking where he who
takes only takes what he basically already has." It is a form of
direct seeing in the world -- a way of relating to the world as it is.
I think it would be OK to say, optimistically: a way of relating to
the world AS relationship, a way of apprehending the world itself as
an emergent order.
(One acknowledges that this is somewhat strange feature to observe in
something that went digital long before digital was cool.)
5. William Burroughs - language is a virus
In this note, I have traced the evolution of language from the cat's
meow to modern mathematics -- in a very schematic form, to be sure.
The question that remains is whether there are relationships within
the particular μ function that is mathematics, whether we can find
*within* this form further "endogenous" μ-functions. Are there
mathematical forms that voice their relationship with other
mathematical forms, to us, or to anything else?
One naive answer would be "category theory." But there is another
more interesting answer, which is that mathematics is, in effect, the
entire "DNA" of what we have learned. Except, this is not quite
right. It would be better to say that *we* are *its* RNA. We
replicate it, and expand it, and unfold it. We give voice to it in
the same way that "mew" gives voice to the relationship between cat
and human. In brief, yes, there are μ functions within mathematics:
for mathematicians, they are, quite literally, the stories of our
lives.
*: Bergson: "Though our reasoning on isolated systems may imply that
their history, past, present, and future, might be instantaneously
unfurled like a fan, this history, in point of fact, unfolds itself
gradually, as if it occupied a duration like our own. If I want to mix
a glass of sugar and water, I must, willy nilly, wait until the sugar
melts."
just browsing
"For books that enter Google Books through the Library Project, what
you see depends on the book's copyright status. We respect copyright
law and the tremendous creative effort authors put into their work. If
the book is in the public domain and therefore out of copyright, you
can page through the entire book and even download it and read it
offline. But if the book is under copyright, and the publisher or
author is not part of the Partner Program, we only show basic
information about the book, similar to a card catalog, and, in some
cases, a few snippets -- sentences of your search terms in context. The
aim of Google Books is to help you discover books and assist you with
buying them or finding a copy at a local library. It's like going to a
bookstore and browsing -- with a Google twist."
you see depends on the book's copyright status. We respect copyright
law and the tremendous creative effort authors put into their work. If
the book is in the public domain and therefore out of copyright, you
can page through the entire book and even download it and read it
offline. But if the book is under copyright, and the publisher or
author is not part of the Partner Program, we only show basic
information about the book, similar to a card catalog, and, in some
cases, a few snippets -- sentences of your search terms in context. The
aim of Google Books is to help you discover books and assist you with
buying them or finding a copy at a local library. It's like going to a
bookstore and browsing -- with a Google twist."
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
virtual argumentation (untaken notes)
Baudrillard:
«[J]ust as Mallarmé said that a throw of the dice would never abolish
chance -- which is to say that there would never be a final throw of
the die that, through its automatic perfection, would put an end to
chance -- so one can hope that virtual programming will never abolish
events.»
Hutto:
«In this model the clinic could become a virtual model of the
patient's workplace or home and the construction of such virtual
environments in a clinical setting could introduce novel (more
thoroughly embodied/enactive and environmentally informed) aspects to
the therapeutic process.» - "Embodied cognition and body
psychotherapy: the construction of new therapeutic environments"
Me:
0: (Permitted and encouraged.) Virtue, Wisdom; what the philosophers
seek to teach. (Related to the idea of a prima causa.)
1: (Permitted but discouraged.) Vice, as distinct from sin or crime.
(Do not worship false idols; or phrased positively, study cosmic principles.)
2: (Required and encouraged.) Using the common currency, speaking
the common language. (Study the liberal arts.)
3: (Required but discouraged.) Social transformation through
deviation from the norm. (There is a time for all things under the
sun.)
Hayles:
The Illusion of Autonomy and the Fact of Recursivity: Virtual
Ecologies, Entertainment, and "Infinite Jest"
New Literary History
Vol. 30, No. 3, Ecocriticism (Summer, 1999), pp. 675-697
Aberdein:
«Virtue theory originates in ethics, and in particular the work of
Aristotle. In recent years, it has come to be applied to other fields
of philosophy, most conspicuously epistemology. There are two main
constituencies among virtue epistemologists, distinguished by their
different characterizations of virtue. Reliabilists understand virtues
to be reliable faculties, such as sight or logical inference. For
responsibilists virtues are acquired character traits, such as
open-mindedness or intellectual humility.» - In Defence of Virtue: The
Legitimacy of Agent-Based Argument Appraisal
Lenin (as quoted in "The Big Lebowski"): "You look for the person who
will benefit."
«[J]ust as Mallarmé said that a throw of the dice would never abolish
chance -- which is to say that there would never be a final throw of
the die that, through its automatic perfection, would put an end to
chance -- so one can hope that virtual programming will never abolish
events.»
Hutto:
«In this model the clinic could become a virtual model of the
patient's workplace or home and the construction of such virtual
environments in a clinical setting could introduce novel (more
thoroughly embodied/enactive and environmentally informed) aspects to
the therapeutic process.» - "Embodied cognition and body
psychotherapy: the construction of new therapeutic environments"
Me:
0: (Permitted and encouraged.) Virtue, Wisdom; what the philosophers
seek to teach. (Related to the idea of a prima causa.)
1: (Permitted but discouraged.) Vice, as distinct from sin or crime.
(Do not worship false idols; or phrased positively, study cosmic principles.)
2: (Required and encouraged.) Using the common currency, speaking
the common language. (Study the liberal arts.)
3: (Required but discouraged.) Social transformation through
deviation from the norm. (There is a time for all things under the
sun.)
Hayles:
The Illusion of Autonomy and the Fact of Recursivity: Virtual
Ecologies, Entertainment, and "Infinite Jest"
New Literary History
Vol. 30, No. 3, Ecocriticism (Summer, 1999), pp. 675-697
Aberdein:
«Virtue theory originates in ethics, and in particular the work of
Aristotle. In recent years, it has come to be applied to other fields
of philosophy, most conspicuously epistemology. There are two main
constituencies among virtue epistemologists, distinguished by their
different characterizations of virtue. Reliabilists understand virtues
to be reliable faculties, such as sight or logical inference. For
responsibilists virtues are acquired character traits, such as
open-mindedness or intellectual humility.» - In Defence of Virtue: The
Legitimacy of Agent-Based Argument Appraisal
Lenin (as quoted in "The Big Lebowski"): "You look for the person who
will benefit."
Sunday, March 23, 2014
how to mutate and take over the world? (pt 2)
A survey of various control applications in physics is given: control
of chaos, controlled synchronization, control of spatiotemporal
systems, control of molecular and quantum systems. An approach for
building models of system dynamics based on control methods is
discussed. The presented methods and results are illustrated by
examples of new approaches to classical problems: Stephenson-Kapitsa
pendulum, escape from a potential well, synchronization of coupled
oscillators, control of chemical reaction with phase transition,
controlled dissociation of molecules, controlled oscillations of
complex crystalline lattices. Controlled pendulums appear in many
parts of the book since pendulum models can be thought of as the
"atoms of nonlinear physics". - Alexander L. Fradkov, "Cybernetical
Physics: From Control of Chaos to Quantum Control", preface
of chaos, controlled synchronization, control of spatiotemporal
systems, control of molecular and quantum systems. An approach for
building models of system dynamics based on control methods is
discussed. The presented methods and results are illustrated by
examples of new approaches to classical problems: Stephenson-Kapitsa
pendulum, escape from a potential well, synchronization of coupled
oscillators, control of chemical reaction with phase transition,
controlled dissociation of molecules, controlled oscillations of
complex crystalline lattices. Controlled pendulums appear in many
parts of the book since pendulum models can be thought of as the
"atoms of nonlinear physics". - Alexander L. Fradkov, "Cybernetical
Physics: From Control of Chaos to Quantum Control", preface
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Re: Open Ed Challenge
Fred said:
Possibility of Progress.--When a master of the old civilization vows to
hold no more discussion with men who believe in progress, he is quite
right. For the old civilization has its greatness and its advantages
behind it, and historic training forces one to acknowledge that it can
never again acquire vigor: only intolerable stupidity or equally
intolerable fanaticism could fail to perceive this fact. But men may
consciously determine to evolve to a new civilization where formerly
they evolved unconsciously and accidentally. They can now devise
better conditions for the advancement of mankind, for their
nourishment, training and education, they can administer the earth
as an economic power, and, particularly, compare the capacities of
men and select them accordingly. This new, conscious civilization is
killing the other which, on the whole, has led but an unreflective
animal and plant life: it is also destroying the doubt of progress
itself--progress is possible. I mean: it is hasty and almost
unreflective to assume that progress must necessarily take place: but
how can it be doubted that progress is possible? On the other hand,
progress in the sense and along the lines of the old civilization is
not even conceivable. If romantic fantasy employs the word progress
in connection with certain aims and ends identical with those of the
circumscribed primitive national civilizations, the picture presented
of progress is always borrowed from the past. The idea and the image
of progress thus formed are quite without originality.
-- http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38145/38145-h/38145-h.htm
(Of First and Last Things, section 24), cf.
http://attempter.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/scientism-1-of-5/
Possibility of Progress.--When a master of the old civilization vows to
hold no more discussion with men who believe in progress, he is quite
right. For the old civilization has its greatness and its advantages
behind it, and historic training forces one to acknowledge that it can
never again acquire vigor: only intolerable stupidity or equally
intolerable fanaticism could fail to perceive this fact. But men may
consciously determine to evolve to a new civilization where formerly
they evolved unconsciously and accidentally. They can now devise
better conditions for the advancement of mankind, for their
nourishment, training and education, they can administer the earth
as an economic power, and, particularly, compare the capacities of
men and select them accordingly. This new, conscious civilization is
killing the other which, on the whole, has led but an unreflective
animal and plant life: it is also destroying the doubt of progress
itself--progress is possible. I mean: it is hasty and almost
unreflective to assume that progress must necessarily take place: but
how can it be doubted that progress is possible? On the other hand,
progress in the sense and along the lines of the old civilization is
not even conceivable. If romantic fantasy employs the word progress
in connection with certain aims and ends identical with those of the
circumscribed primitive national civilizations, the picture presented
of progress is always borrowed from the past. The idea and the image
of progress thus formed are quite without originality.
-- http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38145/38145-h/38145-h.htm
(Of First and Last Things, section 24), cf.
http://attempter.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/scientism-1-of-5/
Friday, February 28, 2014
gathatoulie live
... some of the mental equipment a man orders his visual experience
with is variable, and much of this variable equipment is culturally
relative, in the sense of being determined by the society which has
influenced his experience. Among these variables are categories with
which he classifies his visual stimuli, the knowledge he will use to
supplement what his immediate vision gives him, and the attitude he
will adopt to the kind of artificial object seen. The beholder must
use on the painting such visual skills as he has, very few of which
are normally special to painting, and he is likely to use those skills
his society esteems highly. The painter responds to this; his
public's visual capacity must be his medium. Whatever his own
specialized professional skills, he is himself a member of the society
he works for and shares its visual experience and habit. - "Painting
and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy", by M. Baxandall, quoted by
Clifford Geertz in "Art as a Cultural System"
with is variable, and much of this variable equipment is culturally
relative, in the sense of being determined by the society which has
influenced his experience. Among these variables are categories with
which he classifies his visual stimuli, the knowledge he will use to
supplement what his immediate vision gives him, and the attitude he
will adopt to the kind of artificial object seen. The beholder must
use on the painting such visual skills as he has, very few of which
are normally special to painting, and he is likely to use those skills
his society esteems highly. The painter responds to this; his
public's visual capacity must be his medium. Whatever his own
specialized professional skills, he is himself a member of the society
he works for and shares its visual experience and habit. - "Painting
and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy", by M. Baxandall, quoted by
Clifford Geertz in "Art as a Cultural System"
Sunday, February 23, 2014
alterations
Connoisseurs of the Russian novel could have foretold with certainty
that this fresh, still youthful novel would lose its harmony before
thirty years had passed; it would "spread", that the thick cover would
become puffy, and that wrinkles would very soon appear upon the
fronticepiece and round the colophon; the texture of the pages would
grow coarse and smudged perhaps--in fact, that
it was only a novel of the moment, the fleeting novel which is so
often read by Russian women.
- Dostoyevsky (with modifications), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html
that this fresh, still youthful novel would lose its harmony before
thirty years had passed; it would "spread", that the thick cover would
become puffy, and that wrinkles would very soon appear upon the
fronticepiece and round the colophon; the texture of the pages would
grow coarse and smudged perhaps--in fact, that
it was only a novel of the moment, the fleeting novel which is so
often read by Russian women.
- Dostoyevsky (with modifications), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html
Friday, February 14, 2014
Venus Infers
"In order to make up our minds we must know how we feel about things;
and to know how we feel about things we need the public images of
sentiment that only ritual, myth, and art can provide." - Clifford
Geertz, "The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of Mind", p. 82 in
"The Interpretation of Cultures" (2000)
and to know how we feel about things we need the public images of
sentiment that only ritual, myth, and art can provide." - Clifford
Geertz, "The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of Mind", p. 82 in
"The Interpretation of Cultures" (2000)
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
le penseur
"As jumping a stream in order to find out if it is jumpable is on a
higher sophistication-level than jumping to get to the other side so
exploring is on a higher sophistication-level than piloting, which in
its turn is on a higher sophistication-level than following a pilot's
lead. Similarly, Euclid trying to find the proof of a new theorem is
working on a higher accomplishment-level than Euclid trying to teach
students his proof when he has got it; and trying to teach it is a
task on a higher accomplishment-level than that on which his students
are working in trying to master it.
None the less it may still be true that the only thing that, under its
thinnest description, Euclid is here and now doing is muttering to
himself a few geometrical words and phrases, or scrawling on paper or
in the sand a few rough and fragmentary lines. This is far, very far
from being all that he is doing; but it may very well be the only
thing that he is doing. A statesman signing his surname to a
peace-treaty is doing much more than inscribe the seven letters of his
surname, but he is not doing many or any more things. He is bringing a
war to a close by inscribing the seven letters of his surname." -
Gilbert Ryle, 1968
higher sophistication-level than jumping to get to the other side so
exploring is on a higher sophistication-level than piloting, which in
its turn is on a higher sophistication-level than following a pilot's
lead. Similarly, Euclid trying to find the proof of a new theorem is
working on a higher accomplishment-level than Euclid trying to teach
students his proof when he has got it; and trying to teach it is a
task on a higher accomplishment-level than that on which his students
are working in trying to master it.
None the less it may still be true that the only thing that, under its
thinnest description, Euclid is here and now doing is muttering to
himself a few geometrical words and phrases, or scrawling on paper or
in the sand a few rough and fragmentary lines. This is far, very far
from being all that he is doing; but it may very well be the only
thing that he is doing. A statesman signing his surname to a
peace-treaty is doing much more than inscribe the seven letters of his
surname, but he is not doing many or any more things. He is bringing a
war to a close by inscribing the seven letters of his surname." -
Gilbert Ryle, 1968
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