Psybertron Asks

I linked earlier to the BBC resources aimed at celebrating the 200 and 150 year annivesaries of Darwin and the Origin.

When I saw the “In Our Time” schedule for Darwin last week I had to yawn however. So I also had to smile also when Melvyn in his own newsletter decided not to mention the subject of the series at all, or only in passing in the newsletter about the subsequent week’s subject – Thoreau.

I didn’t think that I needed to write newsletters about Darwin, … there seemed not a lot else to say.

Why oh why did the BBC miss a chance to contribute to the value of Darwin in the evolving world of here and now by going back to the history of his life and times – again ?

OK so it is amazing how much Victorian gentlemen really were working on the right stuff (despite the conservative image of their day) and how the rise in the dominance of science and technology through 20th century wars and economics almost totally obscured that view. Evolution as the most important natural process in human progress was true then, as before and even more so now. The resources of education must be focussed on explaining that point. Contributing to the fluff that takes our eye off that ball was a major gaff by the Beeb.

Still at least Melvyn noticed the real topic, when linking the contemporay rise of US Pragmatism from Darwin, through Thoreau …

I’m always astonished by the range of these great Victorian men.

So come on Melvyn and the Beeb, join up the dots, and stop falling down into the tried and tested silos of subject matter.

Debating the legal niceties never helped anyone but lawyers.

Glad to see the Israel Gaza conflict back in proper focus after the inordinate coverage of the feel-good Hudson Hero story over two days.

Of course phosphorus weapons are legal battlefield weapons, but that gives Israel absolutely no moral right to use them in the densely populated Gaza. Criminal. And they’ve been doing it continuously since December. Criminally cynical too for Israel to launch this offensive over Christmas and New Year and whilst the US administration is in limbo. The UN effectiveness must be strengthened to balance these Christian / US weaknesses.

How does Israel expect any case it has for Levantine lands to be taken seriously when it acts like this ?

Sign this petition at No.10 Downing Street if you want live music to continue at venues in the UK.

Direct intervention by fitting technology based control is rarely the best solution to any human problem.

[Post note – and as Tom pointed out something like a non-amplified brass-band concert can be as loud as an amplified gig, so having the technology-based limiter simply discriminates against musical genres.]

Two excellent articles by Danny Postel, one the last interview with Rorty before his death in 2007, and one shortly after on his brand of atheism.

Links from Steve Peterson commenting on a great thread on Dewey and Hildebrand on MoQ-Discuss, posted by Dave Buchannan and debated again with Matt Kundert.

{Post Note :

Hildebrand’s “The Neopragmatist Turn” on Hildebrand’s web site.

The original post thread has links to Hildebrand’s books on Amazon as of course does his own web site above. Some specific quotes from Hildebrand on Dewey, from the JohnDewey.org web-site that he edits.

Dewey’s entreaties�”that philosophy start from lived experience (practically), motivated by moral ends (meliorism)�”are prescriptive but necessarily vague. They pose a challenge to professionalized philosophers, who tend to respond by demanding specifics

… [but, rather than to look for absolute value or reality per se, should instead] …

… have the courage and emotional intelligence to trade certain answers for questions which aim to make life better.

Can’t argue with that – “trading answers for questions”. 

So,
so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field
from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade
your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
a walk on part in the war
for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish
how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found ?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

(Waters / Gilmour)

Well, did they get you to trade ?
Ever wish you were here ?
Did Wittgenstein, Dewey, Pirsig or Rorty show you the way out of that fly-bottle, or are you a lost soul still running over that same old ground ?}

Interesting reporting on this campaign, on the use of the word “probably”.

Some implying Dawkins was against it in his quip “about as likely as the tooth fairy” and suggesting the word was enforced by advertising regulations against Dawkins wishes, whereas others indicate that the campaign organiser (not Dawkins) had no intention of being dogmatic. I guess the dogmatic Dawkins invites this kind of trouble, even though quip and dogma are miles apart.

This is back to the agnostic / atheist definitional – cup half-full / half-empty – problem. To a theist a non-theist seems to have to be either agnostic or atheist so they can choose the right argument. But to a non-theist the distinction only matters if they are also being dogmatic. “Probably no god” (in the sense the public would understand a theist believes in a god, as a opposed to a sophisticated theologian) is exactly right to any pragmatist who sees no reason to invoke a god – a non-theist. It’s not agnostic; the pragmatist cares about the question, and has decided the answer on balance of evidence, probabilities, etc, like any rational (scientific) pragmatist. A non-theist is a non-dogmatic atheist, a concept that is tough for a dogmatically “faithful” theist to comprehend. Dawkins speaks to people he wants to pick a fight with.

I guess this kind of cynical PR use of TV images of war arose first in the Gulf War and then the post 9/11 assault on Bagdhad, but YouTube extends its reach and potency, though I would guess (hope) a greater proportion of consumers are now educated to interpreting this kinda stuff.

Interested previously in Arabic philosophy (Averroes / ibn Rushd and Avicennes) between the Greeks and the Western moderns, and now find Arabic science in the same window. Must check the alchemists and Bronowski’s Ascent of Man.

Just a hold that thought link. Prompted by another link from Thinking Meat to a paper at PhysOrg.com on the origins of life.

The one thing it sparked was this increasing / decreasing entropy paradox. Many people talk of life (and intelligence) as a reversal of the inexorable entropy gradient – creating order out of disorder. Of course the wider long-run entropy gradient is always smoothing out energy differences, so the reversed gradient is always a local effect. Someone (Island ?) suggested that the local decreases were just part of the universe’s most efficient (teleological) way of increasing the overall entropy faster – engineering a “good trick”.  Anyway the specific technical debate aside ….

… the thought that ocurred to me was the size of the control volume that was seen as “local” must be very closely analogous to Dennett’s maxim “you can externalize anything if you shrink yourself small enough.”

Been browsing around the  BBC and its links concerned with Darwin and the forthcoming anniversary year – 2009 is 200 years since his birth 150 years since publication of the Origin.

This  BBC / Open University forum Open2.Net has been around a while.

Nothing new to say yet, just capturing the links for upcoming use.

Interesting post from Ben Goertzel back in November recognizing that rationality is a weird thing in times of interconnected complexity, and that being rational (in any simple reductive objective sense anyway) is effectively impossible.

“Autistic Economics” it’s called when otherwise rational people think economics is about numbers and logical calculations – the wider and more complex the field of play the closer it comes to pure psychology and wise judgement.

Interestingly, one of Ben’s key points is that even if genuinely “expert explainers” could cut through the undoubted real complexity of a global economy and present simplified models against which (traditionally) rational agents could act, in fact in these times of mass communications there is no reason why their views should prevail through the noise of all the other memes of received wisdom out there clamouring for attention.

… increasing [ICT] technology seems to be increasing “market incomprehensibility” and hence, in at least some important cases, making markets LESS efficient …

We’re on the same page. And remember all of evolution is about “markets”, so as Ben says, interesting times ahead.