The so-called détentes and reconciliations between “Science” and “Religion” are even more boring. What is more boring than hearing Heisenberg’s uncertainty relations enlisted in support of the freedom of the will? The traditional scientific model of man is clearly inadequate, for a man can go to heroic lengths to identify and satisfy his needs and…
Question (I): Are people depressed despite unprecedented opportunities for education, vocations, self-growth, cultural enrichment, travel, and recreation (a) Because modern life is more difficult, complex, and stressful than it has ever been before? (b) Because, for men, competition in the marketplace is fiercer than ever? (c) Because, for women, life as a housewife is lonelier than…
Obit here. Reports of my demise are not exaggerated. — Hubert Dreyfus (@hubertdreyfus) April 22, 2017 AICognitive sciencedistributed cognitionEmbodied cognitive scienceexistentialismHubert DreyfusMartin HeideggerphenomenologyPhilosophy of mindsituated cognition
I would urge Walker Percy aficionados (and indeed Confederacy of Dunces fans) to view this series (only three seasons) so there’s no “jumping the shark” moment. (Do not bother with the remake). The protagonist’s life is the most Percyean character I’ve come across outside of Percy’s own novels. Even though Simon Heffer doesn’t reference Percy,…
The word boredom did not enter the language until the eighteenth century. No one knows its etymology. One guess is that bore may derive from the French verb bourrer, to stuff. Question: Why was there no such word before the eighteenth century? (a) Was it because people were not bored before the eighteenth century? (But wasn’t…
Question: During the week following Pearl Harbor, the incidence of suicide declined dramatically across the nation. Was this decline a consequence of (1) A rise in patriotic fervor and a sense of purpose? (2) A new sense of interest (e.g., something, even war, is better than nothing. Peace in the 1930s was like nothing)? 00000…
It hasn’t gone unnoticed, at least to me, the similar thematic device deployed both by Percy (Lost in the Cosmos) and David Bowie — i.e. the alienated individual with existential concerns. For Bowie there was the recurrent space traveller — “Space Oddity” to “The Man Who Sold the World” to “Ziggy”, through to revisiting Major Tom (“Ashes to…
THE LAST DONAHUE SHOW The Donahue Show is in progress on what appears at first to be an ordinary weekday morning. The theme of this morning’s show is Donahue’s favorite, sex, the extraordinary variety of sexual behavior—“sexual preference,” as Donahue would call it—in the country and the embattled attitudes toward it. Although Donahue has been…
THERE IS NO FASHION so absurd, even grotesque, that it cannot be adopted, given two things: the authority of the fashion-setter (Dior, Jackie Onassis) and the vacuity or noughtness of the consumer. E.g., bustles in the West, bound feet in the East. 00000 The efficacy of fashion turns on the self’s perception of itself either…
Question: Is amnesia a favorite device in fiction and especially soap operas because (a) The character in the soap opera is sick and tired of himself and his life and wants a change. (b) The writer is sick and tired of his character and wants a change. (c) The writer is sick and tired of…
manwithoutqualities 