Robert Pirsig’s 1974 “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” is a special interest of Psybertron, and is the favourite book of Peter Flannery. So, he’s created a dramatization to be be broadcast next Saturday 23rd June at 2:30pm as BBC R4 Saturday Drama. (Mentioned earlier.)
Month: June 2012
Stapp & Mersini-Houghton
Interesting. Reading Henry Stapp’s Mindful Universe – too early to review, but it is excellent so far. Scientism based on 300 years of engrained classical physics has simply not learned the the role of human consciousness in quantum mechanics – to the detriment of of all human endeavours, not just science generally and science of mind specifically.
The interesting surprise was to find Laura Mersini-Houghton on the editorial board of the lay science book series of which Mindful Universe is a part. And yes, I did also mention the link between Stapp and Rovelli in that previous link to Stapp above.
Small (well, cosmic actually) world of people talking sense.
[Post Note : Deeper into Mindful Universe, it’s a tougher read – not exactly for the lay reader but more the non-specialist scientist – all I can do is trust his reasoning / conclusions.]
Corner of a Foreign Field
Roy’s Corner in Malmo.
The End of Coryton
It’s been on the cards for a while since Petroplus went bust – but a sad day for refining in the UK. Remember some interesting projects at Coryton.
The cost-effectiveness and over-capacity arguments leave me wondering about strategic dependency on wherever the cost-effective capacity remains – what is that, just 4 or 5 liquid fuel refinery complexes left in the UK ? (Fawley, Pembroke, Grangemouth, Stanlow, Carrington, Humberside and Teesside, a couple of which only do chemical intermediates, and a couple more also in doubtful commercial operations ?)
Fine Example
A marvellous episode of Melvyn Bragg’s BBC R4 In Our Time; in this case discussing James Joyce Ulysses. Bloomsday this coming Saturday, 16th June. (*)
Not just the content of the programme – Ulysses itself and the life and work of Joyce contributing to it – but the enthusiastic scholarly interaction of the participants. (Yes, I did read it cover to cover and enjoy it, but you can never cease to get more out of it, if you’re motivated to give it the attention. Ulysses and Nietzsche, Nietzsche and Joyce.)
The throwaway story about “throw it away” is a classic example of a story you could never get from just reading it.
[(*) Post Note : Not just Bloomsday, but the BBC has several special Joyce / Ulysses programmes over the weekend including a dramatisation of the book – I was going to say “hard to imagine”, but thinking about it I have the film “Bloom” on DVD. And another dramatization next weekend, 23rd, of Pirsig”s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I remember now why I had to consciously give up reading for a while.]
Accountable Psychopath #Breivik @lbevanger
Whole day of psych witnesses (authors of the first “insane” report) describing their investigation, report and conclusions. Will be cross-questioned tomorrow about current / changed views.
As well as those two witnesses, Lars Bevanger also has quotes from other psych experts in the court.
“His speech is logical and coherent; He has shown no sign of cognitive lapses. He has created an identity in order to convince other right-wing extremists and fascists, and this does not fit in with his natural expression and with who he really is – but not in a psychotic way.”
Almost certainly true. Mustn’t confuse logical coherence with a sound mind, and being psychotic is not the only possibility for mental illness. (I won’t repeat my “hyper-rational” arguments here.)
“He is as I see it a person with a personality disorder, in more common terms a psychopath. He is not psychotic, not at all. He’s accountable, that’s for sure.”
That’s for sure, roger that. Again, he’s accountable for his guilt, and sure he has mental disorder(s). I can no longer see why this is a difficult sentencing decision. If the “psychotic” decision is solely about whether he is / was so deranged as to be unaccountable then it was a non-starter, whatever the technicalities of psychotic vs psychopath – he is so clearly accountable AND mentally ill. Here’s hoping the various psych experts don’t get dug into face-saving professional positions and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Henry Stapp
Henry Stapp’s words quoted by Brian Josephson, were one of the first occasions I was turned on to considering that (eastern) mysticism might have something real to add to science. Both serious physicists, the latter a Nobel prizewinner, both interestingly, present at the 2003 Science of Consciousness event in Tucson. At the time (noted in 2005 paper) it was a real “does not compute” (*) moment for me, that set the tone for a whole decade of open-minded gathering of unlikely sources here on psybertron.
Quantum non-locality & collapse effects were very fashionable, not least with Stuart Hameroff director of the Tucson Centre for Consciousness studies and co-founder of the event, and co-founder with Roger Penrose of the tubules and quantum coherence “Orch-OR” theories of mind. At that point I seem to have left Stapp behind – I found the Penrose-Hameroff stuff too literal, too “physical” a model of the possibility suggested. (For those of us who hold a monism underlying both physical and mental, we need to be careful not to preference one over the other.)
Anyway, long story short, at last month’s Tucson event Sue Blackmore ended up in a debate with Deepak Chopra in the War of the Worldviews. Comments on Sue’s blogs including Ten Zen and the Guardian “Comment is Free” (it never is) almost universally panned Chopra as a charlatan, a con man, a “snake oil salesman” for his mystical agenda – inflamed by his wealth-making activities. One particular commenter on Ten Zen, amidst a string of incoherent rants against Sue – against accepted scientific views – mentioned Stapp. So I looked him up. He has a new 2011 edition of his recent 2007 “Mindful Universe – Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer”.
We have a recurring problem, a Catch-22 I’ve called it before. It’s a language and communication problem. If you have a problem with science, it’s very hard to talk about it without being scientific, and using the common sense science language of subjects and objects – of course if it’s not scientific, your talking pseudoscience. Mysticism is not “paranormal”, it’s just not necessarily science as we know it. All talk becomes mumbo-jumbo. Catch-22.
When I linked to Carlo Rovelli here, it was because we have a scientist who seems to have spotted where the fault lies. With a metaphysics underlying science, that is invisible to science as we know it; as engrained in our common folk-science psyches.
(*) Ironic that I should use this “compute” expression, because I’ve since formed the view that the underlying monism is probably information – significance difference and dynamic processing of relations. Ooh look – quantum computing.
[Post Note : Also ironic that after posting that, I find Stapp correspondence suggesting Rovelli was going in the wrong direction.
www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/
http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~
#Breivik Game
Mentioned this earlier, and see that today one of the psych witnesses suggesting #Breivik’s behaviour is a dynamic game of fit between his actual / apparent objectives and perceived / expected / actual responses of the authorities.
Question is though;
How may levels of double bluff?
Odd or even?