September 11
Turing learning
I’ve been thinking about Turing’s lesser-known but still very important other contribution (i.e. to mathematical biology) — so while in Turing groove, I was pleased to come across this open access paper from the latest issue of Swarm Intelligence. So glad to report that Swarm Intelligence has seen through its first decade.
Evidence Rebuts Chomsky’s Theory of Language Learning
Much of Noam Chomsky’s revolution in linguistics—including its account of the way we learn languages—is being overturned. Paul Ibbotson and Michael Tomasello in Scientific American
The Sensory Order and Other Writings on the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology
I’m very much looking forward to the reissue of TSO conveniently bundled along with other important MSS heretofore only available as Hoover photocopies. Kudos to Viktor Vanberg for pulling this together and of course to Bruce Caldwell, the series’ general editor.
Walker Percy Wednesday 100
Thirty years earlier the child knew that something was going to happen, and that the something was all he ever wanted or needed to know, and that it only remained for him to wait for it to happen and to settle for nothing less until it did.
What was the something? Women? War? Or victory in life? Death?
Thirty years passed. He had women, war, and victory in life.
But nothing changed. Thirty years later he knew no more than he knew in Dalhart, Texas, squeezing his legs together and looking at girls.
Yes, but you have just discovered again what you knew all along, that something is going to happen.
*****
But is it not also a surprise that discovering you’ve been dead all these years, you should now feel somewhat alive?
He killed me then and I did not know it. I even thought he had missed me. I have been living, yes, but it is a living death because I knew he wanted me dead.
Am I entitled to live? I am alive by a fluke like the sole survivor of Treblinka, who lived by a fluke, but did not really feel entitled to live.
Ah, but there is a difference between feeling dead and not knowing it, and feeling dead and knowing it. Knowing it means there is a possibility of feeling alive though dead.
*****
Again the past rose to haunt him and the future rose to beckon to him. Things took on significance.
*****
“Tell me the single truth, not two or more separate truths, unless separate truths are subtruths of the single truth. Is there one truth or several separate truths?”
*****
In any event, the historical phenomenon of the Jews cannot be accounted for by historical or sociological theory.
Screwtopia
The philosopher Alicja Gescinska visits Roger Scruton at his farm and chats about this, that, and the other or as Alicja puts it “on life, beauty and what we are about”. I didn’t know of Roger’s fall but glad to see him up and about and in good spirits. (Bob Grant in conversation with me always affectionately refers to RS as “Screwtape”).
Memoirs of an Anti-Semite
I’m pleased to see that Gregor von Rezzori’s Memoirs of an Anti-Semite has been rereleased — well, it was some eight years ago, as I’ve just discovered. Anyway, here is a review piece by Hitch on the reissue from the days when The Atlantic still retained some distinction.
New Zealand Mussels
On the lookout to bulk up my proposed spaghetti marinara I chanced upon New Zealand Greenshell Mussels in my crappy major chain supermarket. Wow! Unlike the miserable looking packs of cheaper vacuum packed mussels from China, these actually looked inviting and cooked up very nicely despite being frozen on the shell. They weren’t sinewy, they had much “melt-in-the-mouth” flesh and a good taste of the sea juiciness. Quality always beats quantity — a small pack was enough for four decent sized servings — I cut them in two for the sauce. Give it a go if you can find them.
Some recent Oakeshottiana
Here’s a roundup of some recent Oakeshottiana:
- Rationalism and Traditionalism in Politics. The Correspondence Between Karl R. Popper and Michael Oakeshott — Spartaco Pupo in SCIENZA & POLITICA, vol. XXVIII, no. 54, anno 2016, pp. 121-14
- Michael Oakeshott and Hayden White on the practical and the historical past — Jonas Ahlskog in Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice
- Review of The Legendary Past: Michael Oakeshott on Imagination and Political Identity by Natalie Riendeau — Aref Ebadi in Political Studies Review 14 (2)
- The Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty by João Carlos Espada (open to having someone review this for C+T)
It was the third of September
Some powerful social commentary from 44 years ago, possibly the greatest psychedelic soul funk song of all time and distressingly, is more salient now than ever before; then check out the Pew Report Parenting in America; and last, but by no means least, Larry Elder’s crisp assessment/diagnostic of the problem:
It was the third of September
That day I’ll always remember
Yes, I will
‘Cause that was the day that my daddy died
I never got a chance to see him
Never heard nothin’ but bad things about him
Mama, I’m depending on you
To tell me the truth
Mama just hung her head and said, “Son,..
