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Interesting new philosophical blog … anonymous by the handle of “afterall” … also with musical interests.

Just rough notes – wanted to dig out Philip Pullman’s Jesus vs Christ references.

Meaning of Life ? Meaning is about connections – to refer to, to call to mind … , and for humans this is about purpose – main purpose is increasing consciousness because we humans are fortunate to be the most advanced self-reflective conscious beings we know about – hence Humanism.

Stories and hence story-tellers are important part of our consciousness and increasing it. Parental respect, authority & guidance. Not so much identify with, but would like to befriend as ourselves. Morals in stories, not explicit, but by association with the characters, thoughts and actions. Real life fiction so much better than the fantastic – the effort in fantasy reduces the subtlety of morality tales possible – hence simplistic good-guy / bad-guy morals only – compare Voyage to Arcturus David Lindsay with “feeble / piffle” Lord of the Rings (and “detestable, stupendous wicked waste” Narnia) and set the tone to blame for a lot of imitation. (Tolkien catholic vs Lewis protestant.) George Eliot.

Pullman’s latest The Good Man Jesus, and the Scoundrel, Christ. (Must obtain & read.) Enough reality in Jesus, in how the key parables and phrases and lessons were reported – someone creative created them – and contrast in how reported in the gospels – adds to core of truth and mystical / mythical aspects thereof. Story telling. Much of bible is trash, but everyone should read the gospels.

And … Joe Campbell Hero with a Thousand Faces – “influential” but “Jungian”.
And … Proust hard but worth it. Kafka of course.

“What might have been ….
the biggest physics story of the past century
…. may instead be down to a faulty connection.”

When the idiots get their minds out of the interminable God vs Science wars, will they notice the state science is in these days. Maybe they do and the war is just flak to disguise the true state. But more likely more cock-up than conspiracy – business as usual.

And courtesy of This Week in Christian Nationalism

My only knowledge of Richard “Handsome Dick Manitoba” Blum was as lead singer with New York proto-punks The Dictators (I have their Manifest Destiny album).

The death today of  MC5 bassist Michael Davis led me to notice Dick had also been singer with MC5 at some point, and that Dick is the owner of Jack Dempsey’s bar (now Manitoba’s) in Manhattan, and The Manitoba’s open for Guns & Roses in NYC tomorrow night … etc etc … anyway amazing collection of snaps of Dick with everyone UK and US punk and new wave from Kinks and NY Dolls, right up to a recent John Lydon (Bowie, Iggy, Ramones, Debbie Harry, Billy Bragg, … ). Dictators were the final act at CBGB’s too. Ongoing link with The Buzzcocks doing UK gigs with extended line up including Howard Devoto in May this year … And on Stevie van Zandt’s Underground Garage radio station:

“Best Satellite Radio DJ” by The Village Voice.
Manitoba truly is Mr. Manhattan.
Hear him take on anything and everybody, every weeknight.

Sylvia and I often reply that bread is our favourite food if asked. Often we’d have a whole fresh bloomer (with nothing else) for lunch on a Saturday – and of course when paying attention to carbohydrate intake, that can be a problem.

James Corden on BBC R4 Desert Island Discs, after losing 6 stones – referred to bread as his nemesis – it’s personal. Before going on to introduce Erasure’s “A Little Respect” – great tune and great song.

Picked-up on this BBC Magazine story from the memetic “fashion” angle, but the second quote is telling too.

“The fear of nuclear war has diminished partly because the risk has receded significantly with the end of the Cold War,” says Nick Bostrum, director of Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute. “But another factor might be simple changes in risk fashion – it becoming more popular recently to worry about global warming, for example.”

More immediate worries are terrorist attack, pandemic disease, and economic meltdown. Robert Harris in his recent novel The Fear Index examined the modern anxiety that fuses the threat of powerful technology with unbridled financial markets. The main character, who runs a hedge fund, remarks:

“Fear is driving the world as never before… The rise in market volatility, in our opinion, is a function of digitalisation, which is exaggerating human mood swings by the unprecedented dissemination of information via the internet.”

Another case of less is more when it comes to free communication.

I need to finish off my notes on Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow” since I posted some criticisms before I’d read the concluding chapters.

Strange to read the explicit dualisms:

Two systems – Fast intuitive thinking and Slow considered thinking.
Two species – Humans (reasonable) and Econs  (entirely rational).
Two selves – Experiencing self and Remembering self.

As I commented before it’s almost trivial to conclude this is how humans do actually work, what was slightly scary was the implicit suggestion that human deviation from pure rationality was a problem to be corrected. Cognitive biases (vs rationality) are real, but they value more than rationality. In admitting a complex picture of values without prescriptive conclusions Kahneman uses masterful understatement to admit economic decision-making is more than maths:

“Philosophers could struggle with these questions for a long time.”

He makes a number of plain wrong statements along the lines that – the integral of pain experienced over time is somehow obviously more significant than remembered pain – doh ! But also a number of key positive conclusions:

“I have …. devoted many pages to errors of intuitive judgement and choice … However, the relative number of pages is a poor indicator of the balance between the marvels and the flaws of intuitive thinking. System 1 is indeed the origin of much of what we do wrong, but it is also the origin of most of what we do right – which is most of what we do. Our thoughts and actions are routinely guided by system 1 and are generally on the mark.”

“One of the marvels is the rich and detailed model of our world that is maintained in associative memory: it distinguishes surprises from normal events in a fraction of a second, immediately generates an idea of what had been expected instead of a surprise, and automatically searches for some causal interpretation of events as they take place.”

ie we’d do well not to assume system 1 is somehow inferior to pure rationality, to be corrected and brought under control of system 2 – which would be autistic.  [see McGilchrist – let’s not forget who is master and who is emissary.]

Also, often talks of “laziness” in under-use of system 2, as If more use would lead to more (rationally) optimal decisions – but this is basic economy of effort – consideration costs are part of the optimisation. [Brunsson / Argyris  decision rationality is action irrationality, etc.]

Libertarian Paternalism – after Richard Thaler’s “Nudge” – we humans do actually need “help” with free choices, beyond free access to “information”. We need meta-information about different ways information should be considered and valued, and how presenting the same information different ways, might lead us to different considerations. Those entrusted with governance do (need to) know better than free popular choice would suggest. Their power to “nudge” us to given conclusions must be trusted, even if we baulk at their power to physically restrict our choice. And:

“Decision-makers are sometimes better able to imagine the voices of present gossipers and future critics, than to hear the hesitant voice of their own doubts. They will make better choices when they trust their critics to be sophisticated and fair, and when they can expect their decision to be judged by how it was made, not only by how it turned out.”

Governance, sophistication, values, fairness and trust – all in there.

“Better able to imagine than to hear“

Another case of less communication is more.
A little ignorance goes a long way.

All this recent negative stuff around football contrasts with the real thing seen as Barca visited Leverkusen last night.

Scrap handshakes ? That’s how to do it. Defenders laughing and congratulating Messi when he beats them. Messi continuing regardless as he is repeatedly mis-tackled, and coming back for more. Contrast the grace of Messi (again) with the graceless Ballack, fortunately dropped from Leverkusen’s squad for the game.

Interesting that Malcy MacKay actually suggested scrapping handshakes – to put the focus back on the game. Gentlemanly conduct is part of the game. Suarez could / should have been sent off before the kick-off – full marks to the ref for not doing so, so as to better manage the situation – and again at the end. Let’s hope the apologies are not hollow politics. The beautiful game needs grace.

[Though misery-guts German director of football Rudi Voller  wishes his players weren’t quite so enthusiastic about their opponent 😉 ]