Goodbye to the genius who changed the way we think (and you didn’t know even know it)
John Holland’s obituary by Scott Page (H/T Melanie Mitchell)
John Holland’s complexity studies helped us understand what this complex bacterial colony has in common with your brain, political theory, ants, computers, urban life and more.
Walker Percy Wednesday 48
The game was the thing. One became impatient with non-game happenings—a nurse coming in to empty the urinal. Time disposed itself in short tolerable stretches between the bright beads of the games. The score itself, toted up and announced, had the cheerful workaday effect of a small tidy business.
It came to be understood too that one was at the other’s service and that any service could be required. As it sometimes happens between two young men, a kind of daredevil bargain was struck in which the very outrageousness of a request is itself grounds for obeying.
. . .
“Then you have nothing to tell me,” the engineer asked him again.
“That is correct. Nothing.”
“But, sir, you wrote many things in—”
“In the first place I didn’t write them to you. In the second place I no longer believe a word of it. Did you ever read the great philosopher Wittgenstein?”
“No sir,” said the other gloomily.
“After his last work he announced the dictum which summarized his philosophy. He said: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one should keep silent. And he did. He stopped teaching and went to live in a hut and said no more.”
“And you believe that?”
“No, I don’t even believe that.”
. . .
“Which is the best course for a man: to live like a Swede, vote for the candidate of your choice, be a good fellow, healthy and generous, do a bit of science as if the world made sense, enjoy a beer and a good piece (not a bad life!). Or: to live as a Christian among Christians in Alabama? Or to die like an honest man?”
The Prisoner
Numbered Man – An Analysis of The Prisoner
Number Six: Where am I?
Number Two: In the Village.
Number Six: What do you want?
Number Two: Information.
Number Six: Whose side are you on?
Number Two: That would be telling. We want information… information… in formation.
Number Six: You won’t get it.
Number Two: By hook or by crook, we will.
Number Six: Who are you?
Number Two: The new Number Two.
Number Six: Who is Number One?
Number Two: You are(,) Number Six.
Number Six: I am not a number! I am a free man!
Number Six: I will not make any deals with you. I’ve resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!
Hayek’s Capital and Interest
Coming in November.
Walter Anderson: Realizations of an Artist
A terrific documentary on the life and times of Walter Anderson. A most philosophical, mystical and literary mind. Check out the trailer.
Riopelle and LA LEYENDA cheese
With friends of mine posting reports of their gastronomic adventures in Montreal I thought I’d begin to counter with this wonderful cheese. I will be reporting back from Montreal with my own food porn in a few weeks. Followed up by La Leyenda, Spain being the other perhaps most important gastromic destination on my bucket list.
Who’s Next
One of the great albums of the R+R era released on this day in ’71. Rather than posting the usual, I’ve gone for this very tongue in cheek Entwhistle song — knowing what I do about Entwhistle the song must have some basis in his own marital problems. Much like John Paul Jones’s contribution to Led Zep, one cannot over-estimate the value of the “Ox”: his bass playing of course was one of the best in the business and his vital contribution of the brass really lifted so many of the band’s songs, fully realized in Quarophenia — the one album that tops even Who’s Next. Check out the best documentary on The Who (trailer below) — very frank, very articulate with great info about the “fifth” band member (and character) Kit Lambert and very early footage that Daltrey had found some 50 years on.
Philosophical Approaches to Social Neuroscience
Phil Robbins and I are the action editors for the following “in Press” papers.
Will Retributivism Die and Will Neuroscience Kill It?
Iskra Fileva, Jonathan Tresan
Reuse and body-formatted representations in simulation theory
Shaun Gallagher
Would a Neuroscience of Violence Aid in Understanding Legal Culpability?
Valerie Gray Hardcastle
Beyond sensorimotor segregation: On mirror neurons and social affordance space tracking
Maria Brincker
Looking beyond the brain: Social neuroscience meets narrative practice
Daniel D. Hutto, Michael D. Kirchhoff
Can you really upload your mind?
Radio discussion on ABC’s The Philosopher’s Zone
Self/less— a film currently doing the rounds—entertains the idea of digital immortality. It might be a work of science fiction but what it portrays is gaining serious traction in the real world. A number of philosophers, neuroscientists, and assorted futurists believe that by mid century a safe form of mind transfer will be achieved. But beware: there might a fly in the grey matter. In fact you’d want to be sure of your assumptions about brain, mind and consciousness before you throw the switch.
