A terrific discussion of computationalism by the very excellent Marcin Miłkowski, freely available in Minds and Machines.
[i]t is less misleading to think of computationalism as a diverse research tradition composed of multiple, historically variable computational theories of mind (or brain). By conflating the research tradition with one of the early theories, one could be tempted to reject the whole tradition.
To commemorate Canada Day and exactly 50 years since the release of this all-time classic album on July 1, 1968: i.e. Canada Day. To my mind, The Band stand as the greatest “beat combo” of them all with roots extending from Acadia down to Acadiana and back again with so much more in-between — thereby hitting the sweetest musical spot in post-War North American music.
Jesse Norman in the FT. Look out for the forthcoming symposium on Jesse’s soon-to-be released book in C+T.
The real Adam Smith is a vastly wiser and more subtle thinker. He forces us to discard the usual simplistic slogans and tired clichés. But more than this: he still has a vast amount to teach us, not merely about economics and markets and trade, but about the deepest issues of inequality, culture and human society facing us today. Far from attacking Smith, we must turn to him again. For we cannot understand, or address, the problems of the modern world without him.
This is the first time I’ve come across discussion of stigmergy in a fluid (water) context. Check out this freely available paper here.
Stigmergy is a biological phenomenon that has been adopted by robotics, referring to environmentally mediated communication where information about building actions is encoded in the partially built structure. For example, beavers build in response to the sound of moving water. This cue is directly tied to the function of a dam, which should stop water from moving. The simple linking of build actions to the function of the resulting structure results in adaptive and robust building behavior.
Five years ago my chum Ken got on a plane after a MPS meeting in the Galapagos and never awoke. What a way to go! Read his work.
An exciting 18 months of symposia in the offing with top-notch contributors and with replies by each author. See the C+T website and FB page. In no particular order:
Which I guess means that it’s my all-time favourite bar. Here’s an excellent write-up in OffBeat on Snake And Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge.
I think what our strength is, is that we don’t have a demographic
Forthcoming: Walker Percy, Philosopher.
That Mystery Category “Fourthness” and Its Relationship to the Work of C. S. Peirce
C. S. Peirce posits that the self is known only through negation—by the knower finding out that he or she is wrong. Even more importantly he considers a man to be nothing more than a sign. This is existentially inadequate. In this chapter, Stacey Ake shows the shortcomings of Peirce’s Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness in creating human identity by utilizing and developing Walker Percy’s notion of Fourthness in order to show that there is a positive way to create identity and, more importantly, community.
It’s been long overdue but Chris now has representation with the top-notch A Gallery for Fine Photography. Not only has Chris had access to the “who’s who” of the NOLA arts scene (Clementine Hunter, Tennessee Williams, Walker Percy, Thelma Toole, Professor Longhair) but Chris has shown me images not in the gallery (James Booker, Gatemouth, Charles Neville & Bros., a whole series shot in Angola). Of course, given Chris’ status he also documented out-of-town mega-names such as McCartney, Elton John, Steve Jobs and the like which I’ve had the privilege to view. Chris’ unintrusive (but not overly distant or hagiographical) modus operandi has served him well — his talk as “Walker Percy’s photographer” at a Walker Percy Weekend was fascinating.
manwithoutqualities 