What, Why & How do we Know ?
Moving post over at Enlightened Caveman, where Chris announces his intention to write fiction to get his message across. A man after my own heart as regular readers will recognise. The plot thickens.
(My thoughts are in the comments to that post.)
Must log a link to Cormac McCarthy’s recommended “All the Pretty Horses“.
Added to the list. Sigh.
Old news to anyone in the know technology-wise, and old-hat to anti-Microsoft geeks and long-standing converts to open comms standards, but I think it’s significant that this story reaches mainstream news at the Beeb.
From 2006 ALL files generated by MS-Office products will be XML, not just optional, not just some. Oh for some meta-schematic structuring / patterning standards too, as well as file formatting. Yes I know – standards – so good, you can never have too many, but here’s hoping for sensible convergence to continue.
Also Johnnie Moore, this time posting an analysis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
But, apart from that moment of immediate experience, do we ever have any non-interpreted experiences on which to base our life and business decisions ? (See my comment on Johnnie’s post.)
Says Dave Snowden, with apologies to the autistic everywhere. [via Johnnie Moore]
“The only humans who analyse all the data and then make a rational choice are autistic, but economists insist this is the way we all work.”
But how do you turn the “non-rational” into something manageable, predictable, justifiable, etc …
One day.
Noticed this meme (sic) circulating – “Name 5 books you’re embarassed to admit you’ve not actually read”. Will Wilkinson’s response is interesting and very reminiscent of my own predicament. In response to one particular book, not important here which, he says ” [introducing] this helpful category: Books I’ve read, but not by myself. I’ve read so much secondary literature about [it], that it seems like I’ve read it. I consider it among the books I’ve read, but just not by myself. But I suppose I should actually work my way through it. ”
I probably have a dozen books in that category – some I realy should read, but some I’m happy I’ve simply got the (second hand) gist. I also have a list of “Books I’ve only read part of, but still feel they are important enough to complete ….. sometime”. I may create those lists, in the spirit of the “meme”.
Actually, one of the reasons my habit is to post book “reviews” in stages – once at the start (exposing my objectives and prejudices), once after introductory chapters (exposing my prognosis), again after about 20% or so, and again on completion (if I ever get there) is so I can (a) capture the value of what I did read, and (b) diagnose afterwards why I did or didn’t complete it, without the post-rationalising filter of hindsight.
[The use of “meme” here is kind of specific to this “chain letter” idea – a suggestion circulated with the explicit suggestion that you pass it on, rather than an idea or implied assertion, that simply gets passed on in the course of other communication – the “less is more” in me says if you have to say “this is a meme” and invent a communication specifically to communicate it, it probably isn’t really one, but that’s a side issue here. I am after all, passing it on – the game theorists meme – a double double bluff.]
One of my subjects recently has been “quality of explanation”, and alternatives to “psuedo-logical rationale” in misplaced circumstances. Interesting quote from Neil Kinnock today, commenting on the EU needing to start from scratch on its future strategy syaing it’s “got to do what it should have done for years past … go for a propaganda-free, explicit, factual strategy of tireless explanation.”
Transparent politics – now there’s an idea.
Open Sauce Live is a marketing blog to which Johnnie Moore contributes. Some interesting quotes on the front page …
Rupert Murdoch “What I worry about much more is News Corps ability to make the necessary cultural changes to meet the new demands of the digital native.”
The Economist “The less control a company has over its marketing message, the greater its credibility.” This latter is an example of the rational plans achieving the opposite of their intent. Which begs questions about whether any cynical deception / game theory strategies could ever counter it ?
Another quote, not really related to my agenda, just Joe Public amateur interest – “the challenge is not awareness, it’s engagement” Slick marketing may attract attention and entertain, and sow brand awareness and linked associations, but does it ever do anything at all to make a potential customer believe in (buy into) the product. The awareness is of the brand marketing values, not the product qualities, and as a human, you can tell the difference.
A review by Josh McHugh in Wired of a paper by Peter Lynds “Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Continuity”. [via Leon] Really is just a review. Wheeler gets a namecheck, Everett doesn’t, Hawking is dismissed as “off”, but David Deutsch is the “godfather”. Typical Wired racey overview. Ominous news is “Lynds has a literary agent, Heide Lange, who also represents Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code. That’s the kind of firepower that practically assures publication – and serious marketing” … whatever the quailty … “Lynds can be Dan Brown to Hawking’s Umberto Eco”. In the review, the jury is out on the multiverse – but the conclusion is the current one – time doesn’t flow anywhere, it’s just a sequence (network?) of events.
(Review also mentions different cultural views of time flowing forwards or backwards, from or to the future, etc, treated at length by many writers, Pirsig included. Social anthropology or evolutionary psychology, again.)
A couple of interesting posts by Seb Fiedler quoting Vincent Kenny / George Kelly on the non-mechanistic aspects of human learning and knowledge (of each other).[Here] & [Here] & [Anticipating Autopoiesis].
I noticed earlier that BlogWalk 8 was downunder here in Oz. Seb posts some observations.
[Oh well]