Alexander Bogdanov’s Recovery?

I posted my interest in Bogdanov firstly arising out of Carlo Rovelli’s extended reference to him, and secondly arising from the conference in his name at the Hull Centre for Systems Studies (CSS) this time last year, and Paul Mason’s support of that. My links got a bit confused as proceedings of that conference were … Continue reading “Alexander Bogdanov’s Recovery?”

“The Science of Can and Can’t”

Preamble I’ve been following Chiara Marletto (and David Deutsch before her) for more than a decade as the idea of a “Universal Constructor” has become an even more generic concept than the “Universal Turing Machine”. A machine that can do arbitrarily creative stuff in the physical world as well as perform arbitrary information processing tasks. … Continue reading ““The Science of Can and Can’t””

Bogdanov – Catching-Up with Paul Mason

Mentioned in the recent Bogdanov post having missed the references in Paul Mason’s PostCapitalism, which was a little embarrassing given how thoroughly and positively I’d read and reviewed it. So, this afternoon, I re-read all the Bogdanov references in PostCapitalism. Strangely I did recognise all of it. The thought experiment of the “Martian” Marxism in … Continue reading “Bogdanov – Catching-Up with Paul Mason”

Bogdanov

Mentioned being impressed with Carlo Rovelli’s references in Helgoland to Aleksander Bogdanov. I considered Bogdanov an entirely new source to me just earlier this year. [Holding post – collecting links etc.] I’ve also mentioned previously, as a “social-democratic liberal” type myself, being very impressed with (Marxist) Paul Mason’s “Project Zero” in his Post Capitalism. What … Continue reading “Bogdanov”

Link Dump

A new overload of bookmarked pages to capture. Life remains complicated for reading and writing for domestic and work reasons, so I’ll dump most here without reading or reviewing in detail for now. Resources for later. Philip Goff on this old chestnut … Hacking, White and McGrath all referenced (but not Anthropics …) ‘Is the … Continue reading “Link Dump”

Classifying an Unread Book

Mentioned just a couple of days ago another addition to Eco’s library of unread books (Mark Solms’ “The Hidden Spring“). Also picked-up today, because it was in stock at our local bookshop, Carlo Rovelli’s latest “Helgoland“. I expected it to be in stock, as it’s gone straight onto the Time’s bestseller list, otherwise I wasn’t … Continue reading “Classifying an Unread Book”

A remarkable book. It changes everything.

Busy, Busy, Busy. Mentioned strange times regarding work-load and productivity a few posts ago; my pipeline stuffed with unread bookmarks and unresolved references, and a to-do-list with at least seven dimensions of priorities to juggle, personally and professionally. Not exactly “treading water”, but difficult to discern progress going anywhere. Ironic that the immediately previous Wittgensteinian … Continue reading “A remarkable book. It changes everything.”

Ramseyian Pragmatism

Nearing the end of my reading of Cheryl Misak’s biography of Frank Ramsey in the chapter Wittgenstein Comes Home [and below, the penultimate chapter on the necessary layering of philosophy]. Previously so far: “Ramseyian Pragmatism” (this post). “A Vienna Interlude“. “The Hypocrisy of Debate“. “Ramsey, Wittgenstein, Gödel and the rest.” Final round-up: “The Best Consequences … Continue reading “Ramseyian Pragmatism”

Dante. 2021 is Looking Up

Who knew 2021 was a year of celebration for Dante’s Comedia? Dante 2021 starts on BBC R4 tomorrow 1th Jan with an introduction from Katya Adler broadcast last week. Apparently there are many events planned in Florence and beyond in 2021, the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, having only just completed his magnum opus the previous … Continue reading “Dante. 2021 is Looking Up”

The Review at the End of the Universe

Preamble This is probably as close as I’ll get to an actual review of Tim Bollands “Life the Universe and Consciousness”.  I’ve made significant comments and references here three times already: Problems, Problems — Life, the Universe and Consciousness Life the Universe and Consciousness #2 Life, the Universe and Nothing New Under the Sun? And … Continue reading “The Review at the End of the Universe”