Impressive case. “Minding Your Mitochondria” – Large quantities, but minimal grain or pulse-based carbohydrate.
Thanks to Dave Gurteen for reposting Robert Paterson’s blog.
Category: Uncategorized
Talking of Memes
Loving the second series as much as the first. Even though the relentless plot twists and red-herrings are infuriatingly, yet somehow predictably unpredictable, with motives and suspects ten-a-penny, a la Morse, it is still gripping stuff. Forget the knitting patterns, the question is – is it always necessary to cross the bridge to Malmo to avoid the rain in Copenhagen ? This week’s cliff-hanger – is her sidekick already dead ? Probably.
It’s not the plot, it’s the character(s) – though the political players are less believable this time around. Brix is the hero, and no, her sidekick did survive for another week.
What are Arabs ?
I’m reading The Arabs – A History by Eugene Rogan – lots of positive reviews by the likes of Max Hastings for example as well as Arab speakers. I’m only 90-odd pages in (out of 600ish), but I’m baffled. There are less than 10 pages from 1200 to 1500, and by page 90 we’re already in the post-Ottoman Greece of 1832. There is nothing pre-1200 !
Given the fact that it is hard enough to maintain distinctions between regional tribal origins, nomadic, sea-faring, agrarian and urban, the Arab language(s), the Moslem religion and its factions (and its neighbours and rivals), the imperial ebbs and flows of custody over the Moslem holy places of Medina and Mecca as well as the more strategic imperial resource and trade machinations – I’m simply amazed there is absolutely nothing about the origins of any of these before these dates ? What makes an Albanian an Arab ? It’s almost as if once-an-Ottoman is the definition of Arab – without any explanation.
The book is scholarly, with sources translated from contemporary Arab (and colonial) writers where available, and maybe it’s the availability of written records that limits the book’s time-frame ? Or maybe this is book 2 of a pair ? Either way, I’m missing something. I can’t believe it’s political correctness that excludes (say) the crusades from the story – or can they be irrelevant ?
So far what it does contain gels well with my readings of T E Lawrence, Edward Gibbon and Barbara Tuchman for example, but it seems a pity to skim the history just to get to the “hegemony” of France, UK and USA …. if that’s what we’re doing. Why is Moslem history pre-1200 not Arab ? And that’s not a rhetorical question.
Wikipedia offers (quite carefully IMHO):
Arab people, also known as
Arabs (Arabic: عرب, ʿarab), are a panethnicity[13]
primarily living in the Arab world,
which is located in Western Asia and North Africa.
They are identified as such
on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds,[14]
with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships
playing an important part of Arab identity in
tracing descent of a national from an Arab state.[15]
And …
The earliest documented use of the word “Arab” to refer to a people appears in the Monolith Inscription, an Akkadian language record of the 9th century BC Assyrian Conquest of Syria (Arabs had formed part of a coalition of forces opposed to Assyria).[16]
Oppenheimer Recommends Feynman
A letter from Robert Oppenheimer recommending Richard Feynman for work at UCAL Berkeley posted by “Letters of Note“. (Via Jorn Barger)
“He is a second Dirac, only this time he’s human.”
Has to be the pick of the quotes (used in the blog post title in fact). Graham Farmelo’s biography of Paul Dirac is entitled “The Strangest Man”
PS Jorn Barger (Robot Wisdom) is the granddaddy of blogging – an inspiration of mine not just in blogging, but in taking a “timeline” view of complex (ie evolving) subjects – he’s really got his act together using Google+ as his blog. Must look into that; so far my Google+ account is lying dormant.
I Don’t Believe It !
Listening now to Laurie Taylor’s Thinking Allowed … quoting Emily Dickinson’s “Brain is Wider than the Sky”.
Not an original idea, but Bryan Appleyard uses it as the title of his latest work. A veritable meme.
Actually drawn to this edition of TA by Laurie’s introduction:
“Bryan Appleyard and John Gray on why simple solutions don’t work in a complex world.”
Reductionism of mind to brain, the mental to matter. The hype of the “Transhumanist” “H+” “Singularity” … Aaaaggghh my entire agenda in a single edition of TA. We don’t want to believe mind-brain “explanations” – I agree with Laurie. (Previous post …) Incoherent post, but for now this is the loop of thought I’m in …
https://www.psybertron.org/?p=3931 No-one wants to believe
https://www.psybertron.org/?p=3430 Hofstadterian Algorithmic Loops
http://vimeo.com/7441291 Schmidhuber’s Humour as Compression Algorithm
https://www.psybertron.org/?p=3440 Compression Loop
https://www.psybertron.org/?p=3392 Hofstadter’s Tabletop
https://www.psybertron.org/?p=279 Rationalisation as Compression
Mandelbrot on Roughness at TED2010
http://www.cognitionresearch.org/extras/bio.htm Computing as Compression
https://www.psybertron.org/?p=278 Cornflowers – Too Blue
https://www.psybertron.org/?p=794 Edelman – Wider than the Sky
https://www.psybertron.org/?p=806 Sacks & Emily D
All these posts are inter-linked to each other, but following that link collection in order will give you the flavour. Now where’s that windmill we’re tilting at ? What was the name of the place again ?
It’s all Welsh to me. Acknowledgement to Gerry Wolff for the image.
Daniel Kahneman
Excellent short interview by Claudia Hammond (BBC-R4 All in the Mind) with economics-psychologist Daniel Kahneman.
(Also in the same edition another twist on the many studies of real-life abnormal brain lesions contributing to the understanding of normal brain-mind functions. A pair of conjoined-twins with separate-but-connected brains – 4-half-brains having more possibilities than the usual two. Interesting to consider the “case-study” distinct from the two human individuals. Personally, I don’t find the brain-mind findings in the least mysterious, there is so much reinforcement of common sense in published cases – it’s almost as if
we don’t want to believe explanations of consciousness and identity
See previous blog post on Claudia Hammond.)
[Post Note : Forgot also to attach this link to Kahneman’s appearance with Kirsty on Desert Island Discs. Learn a bit about the man.]
[And: a growing number of Daniel Kahneman references in the blog.]
Technocracy
So in practice the working rule is, when times are easy popular democracy is OK, when the going gets tough what we need is a meritocracy of peer-appointed technical experts.
I’m good with that. In practice, as I keep pointing out to over-confident UK electoral reform people, we need a balance of both. Both houses fully elected would be a disaster. There needs to be conservatism with “wise” custodians and only slow change according to popular fashion, and there needs to be liberal freedom (of speech and criticism, naturally, and) of popular mandates. An element of “elitism” in the conservative core is inescapable – the liberal freedoms need to act as checks and balances, not as an over-riding veto. Trust can only be mutual, working relationships cannot be built on criticism alone.
Oh, what was I saying about wisdom & criticism, see here.
“Critics say” they are undemocratic, short-term fix.
Shows what wisdom critics have.
Morphogenetic Fields
Sheldrake’s conception of socio-cultural & intellectual fields which influence and are influenced by the living things within them – and contain that socio-culturo-intellectual memory.
Doesn’t seem in the slightest contentious – memes & memeplexes, Pirsigian levels of static patterns (of quality). Doesn’t seem in the slightest undermined by a holistic computer / machine / system metaphor of living / thinking things, things which perceive natural morality. Humans are “special” (a species as distinct as any) but not privileged.
Morphic resonance, the idea that new forms arise more easily within fields that have similar patterns of form – sounds just like “fit”, as in survival of. Why do people want to see “revolutionary” ideas in what is clearly common sense.
Formative causation. Laws of physics as “evolving habits” rather than mathematically fixed laws. Now that is more radical, but even then not entirely unique or original – a pan-Evolutionary model. Physics always was “nature”.
Sheldrake interviewed on PBS some years ago.
Interestingly in the closing words of that interview he reverses Shakespeare’s words (as I did)
“Such dreams as stuff are made of.”
[Also interestingly, I notice I first use the phrase in reviewing Pinker here in 2002, though even then it was clear I’d heard it somewhere before.]
Nautis Project
The project for navigators (through life). Interesting blog, but can’t work out who “Matthew” is.
Bobdobrorock
Interesting del.ici.ous aggregation on Pirsigian philosophical topics – no idea who it is.