05.02.13

Fifty Shades of Late Capitalism

Posted in economics, internet at 12:40 am by nogre

Something fun to read:

“…What Fifty Shades of Grey offers is an extreme vision of late-capitalist deliverance, the American (wet) dream on performance-enhancing drugs. Just as magazines such as Penthouse, Playboy, Chic, and Oui (speaking of aspirational names) have effectively equated the moment of erotic indulgence with the ultimate consumer release, a totem of the final elevation into amoral privilege, James’s trilogy represents the latest installment in the commodified sex genre. The money shot is just that: the moment when our heroine realizes she’s been ushered into the hallowed realm of the 1 percent, once and for all.”

http://www.thebaffler.com/past/fifty_shades_of_late_capitalism

via http://critical-theory.com/read-me-fifty-shades-of-late-capitalism/

Permalink Comments

04.23.12

Philosophy Carnival #141

Posted in fun, internet, philosophy at 2:04 am by nogre

Welcome to the one hundred forty first philosophy carnival. In my internet travels I found some really cool philosophy inspired posters by Genis Carreras, which I have paired with the links to pretty up the carnival.

Zombies, because philosophers like zombies. An introduction to the philosophical discussion of zombies and dualism by Tom B. over at Philosophy of… which looks like a promising new blog contributing “in some humble way to this movement of the popularizing of philosophy, and try to convince a few of you that it’s not so boring, obscure and irrelevant as many assume.” Jason Zarri at Philosophical Pontifications posts a more in depth post on the consciousness of a scattered zombie brain. See what happens if at first we have zombie brain, except that this brain is made of people working all over China to simulate brain activity. What happens if parts of the brain (people) are replaced by neurons, ending up with a normal (if scattered) brain? Professional level zombie discussion! Richard Brown vs. Dave Chalmers, with Dr. Brown discussing the use modal operators when arguing for the conceivability of shombies (a subspecies of zombie). This discussion goes from possible worlds to identities, and leads to a revised argument which concludes that non-materialism is false. Go check out the argument!

Dogma This is my favorite post of the carnival: U-Phil: Deconstructing Dynamic Dutch-Books? by Deborah G. Mayo. It is about dogmatism in Bayesian epistemology when considering Dutch Book arguments, as viewed by a frequentist. This is great stuff. Is There a Difference Between Memory and Imagination? Ok, this has little to do with dogma, but I had nowhere else to put it. Greg argues that remembering is closer to imagination since it is a reconstruction.

Experimental Issues Tomkow proposes that philosophical experimenters need to take more care in separating their philosophical intuitions from biasing their results. This makes me wonder if there are further chances for a philosopher to bias their test subjects beyond psychological factors– can philosophical opinions be projected in new and unusual ways beyond what we account for? What happens when people are placed under linguistic constraints and need to communicate? Experimental semiotics provides some insight with combinatoriality (recurrence of basic forms), but Gualtiero Piccinini argues that natural language is more complex. He says it requires potential infinite complexity, which may not occur with only combinatoriality. Still, ES leads him to hypothesize the “Gavagai Game” of language generation, which could provide insight into language.

Ethics Two different ethical views are propounded this carnival: James Armstrong discusses a humanistic approach to the basis of certain rights, namely the right to freedom of movement. The argument is grounded in “the right of individuals to live a minimally decent life,” justifying a strong position on immigration.

Richard Chappell, however, outlines a position where acts are evaluated on utility, not the character of the person doing them. By evaluating acts and not the person’s character, individual accidents of psychology which may make one person much more (in)sensitive to certain issues than others may be separated from their moral will. He argues that this position is highly practical.

The Business of Philosophy Gregory Wheeler has an interesting set of posts about sampling problems in our favorite school ranking system, the Philosophical Gourmet Report: The Sampling Problem and Educational Imbalance. Secondly the smokers have posted and been discussing some cool research done in the area of tenure-track philosophy hiring by Carolyn Dicey Jennings. So you want a philosophy job? Take a gander and these numbers! [Go BU!]

Two takes on Rule Following Murali at the Leage of Ordinary Gentlemen argues for a basis of law on a two tier system, the distinction between habit and rule following, and an internal point of view. Dave Maier discusses semantic rule following in Wittgenstein. This is actually a really good discussion of how we get caught in a bind of wanting both definitions and revisability when it comes to identifying fundamental measures, but I’m actually posting this because I want to point out that my duckrabbit is better (and more stylish) than his duckrabbit. My duckrabbit should be the standard duckrabbit. And what if my duckrabbit were to significantly change? Would we have to revise all other duckrabbits to account for the change? Of course not. Since it is so inconceivable that my duckrabbit should become fundamentally different, if it were to change, it would signify that we had lost our minds. So there is no problem here at all.

But What is Philosophy Another article by Dave Maier, What is philosophy, again?, but this one over at 3 Quarks Daily. My contribution to the carnival is that I am starting a new blog, The Road to Sippy Cups. My inaugural post is I Sneeze, Therefore I Am. I say on the about page, “Philosophy’s goal is to wean us off ideas — even if they had sustained us — because those ideas no longer provide us with what we need, and, hopefully, onto better ones.” And I will be writing, “metaphysics with an eye towards values, humans and society.” So I encourage you to go check it out.

If you have made it this far… … you might be an internet philosopher! So go over to the philosophy carnival page and sign up to host or submit your work!

Permalink 12 Comments

04.11.12

Carnival 141 Here

Posted in fun, internet, philosophy at 10:49 am by nogre

I’ll be hosting the next philosophy carnival, so please submit some fun links over at http://philosophycarnival.blogspot.com/.

Permalink Comments off

10.14.10

Water Water Everywhere

Posted in internet at 9:43 pm by nogre

Running water is one of the most amazing things in this world. Turn a knob, water flows.

But even here in America we are starting to have problems:

Soon enough we are all going to have to decide between water and power. What really worries me is I have no idea who is going to make that decision.

blogactionday.change.org

Permalink Comments off

08.24.10

$1000 Philosophy Blogging Prize

Posted in internet, news, philosophy at 11:43 pm by nogre

3 Quarks Daily is putting up a grand for the best philosophy blog post of the last year; $300 and $200 for 2nd and 3rd places respectively.  If any of you out there have written something good, or there is something you read that you really like, nominate it! [philosophy of science needs a better representation people]

Permalink Comments off

06.26.10

bah humbug

Posted in fun, internet at 4:45 pm by nogre

I haven’t done a link roundup in a while, so be assured that all these links are awesome.

[via information aesthetics]

.

Animal of the Month: Immortal Jellyfish

‘Immortal’ jellyfish swarming across the world – Telegraph

.

In second place is: Giant meat-eating plants prefer to eat tree shrew poo - BBC – Earth News

.

A Softer World: 395

.

[via Don't Panic > Magazine > Desire > THE BLACK HEART GANG]

.

Beautiful and depraved: “Absolutely amazing.  Welcome back Massive Attack. And Mazzy Star. Two of the most iconic performers I’ve ever experienced.  And then this woman.  Wow.” Not safe for work. [if that link isn't working, the video is here too.]

.

[via Whitezine]

.

“Perhaps nothing has been more influential in determining the popular perception of the Italian game than furbizia, the art of guile… The word ‘furbizia’ itself means guile, cunning or astuteness. It refers to a method which is often (and admittedly) rather sly, a not particularly by-the-book approach to the performative, tactical and psychological part of the game. Core to furbizia is that it is executed by means of stratagems which are available to all players on the pitch, not only to one team. What are these stratagems? Here are a few: tactical fouls, taking free kicks before the goalkeeper has finished positioning himself, time-wasting, physical or verbal provocation and all related psychological games, arguably even diving… Anyone can provoke an adversary, but it takes real guile (real furbizia) to find the weakest links in the other team’s psychology, then wear them out and bite them until something or someone gives in – all without ever breaking a single rule in the book of football.

…

Ultimately, these differences come from two irreconcilable visions of the game. The Spanish style understands football as something like a fencing match, a rapid and meticulous art of noble origins where honour is the brand of valour. To the Italians, football is more like an ancient battle, a primal and inclement bronze-age scenario where survival rules over honour.

But this just begs the question: why are the visions of the game so different in nations that are geographically and culturally so close?

Rajiv Sethi: Gamesmanship and Collective Reputation [via]

[via Core77]

Permalink Comments off

10.15.09

Climate Change

Posted in internet, philosophy at 12:31 am by nogre

This is a post for Blog Action Day 09!

If the climate changes rapidly enough, the human race is finished.  If the climate does not change quite that rapidly, we’ve got other problems.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that we are not beings in some religious pantheon, but are merely biological organisms of this Earth.  If the climate changes, i.e. if nature as we know it no longer exists, then how are we to think of ourselves?

For our entire history we have lived within a climate that is amenable to us.  Living in a new climate would be like living on an alien planet, without hope of returning to Earth.  The problem is:  we are not aliens, we’re Earthlings.  If we are not Earthlings, what are we?  Hence the problem of climate change is more than a problem of our survival, it is an existential problem of our species.

We don’t need any more existential problems, and since this is one preventable, lets do something about it.

Permalink 2 Comments

09.14.09

Not quite Skynet

Posted in biology, evolution, game theory, internet, news, NYC, philosophy, products, random idiocy, technology at 10:33 pm by nogre

For those readers of mine, I’d like to open up a small opportunity.  Quite a bit of my time and effort has gone into revamping parts of the theory of evolution and I have previously mentioned here that I’ve taught myself to program and created a simulation.  Well, this isn’t completely true.

The short version is that I’ve made computers try to survive the real world.  By real world, I mean my program contains lots of little files that make decisions, and these decisions are about buying and selling stocks, based upon actual real-time data available on the internet.  The decision engines (or ‘orgs’, as I like to call them) that correctly predict the movement of the stocks make money and eventually replicate.  Those orgs that are unsuccessful at predicting stock movements lose money and die off.  The replication process is governed by genetic algorithms that include various mutations.

The short short version is that the program is a cross between a stock market program and a tomagotchi (digital pet).  You host a colony of organisms that survive by ‘eating’ (buy and selling) stocks; it acts as your own personal hedge fund.

Anyway, I could use a tester or two, so if anyone here wants to participate, send me an email.  I’ll get around to writing up more details about the program soon too.

—————————————————————–

In other news,  I’ve finally gotten around to updating the NYC Area Philosophy Calendar.  Someone even sent me a nice email asking if I was still going to do it (before I got around to it.. busy busy) and another person even asked if they could start adding events.

Hmmm, interest in the calendar (it only took 2 years).  An actual object (program) that came from studying philosophy (original theory of biology, 2004.).  It’s taken some time but I feel like I must be moving up in the world.

Permalink Comments off

03.02.09

the lowest desires of modern people

Posted in ethics, internet, philosophy, science, wittgenstein at 3:01 am by nogre

… Another alternative would have been to give you what’s called a popular scientific lecture, that is a lecture intended to make you believe that you understand a thing which actually you don’t understand, and to gratify what I believe to be one of the lowest desires of modern people, namely the superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science.

This quote is from the beginning of Wittgenstein’s “A Lecture on Ethics” or whatever the untitled transcript of the talk he gave to The Heretics Society is called.  I’ve seen this part of the lecture omitted; admittedly it has little to do with his later arguments.  However, I always felt that this barb was something interesting.

The quote has little force as an argument: it is merely his opinion that a superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science is bad.  No contradictions or other nonsense is pointed out, nor does it even evoke a parallel between those he is disparaging and some accepted foul thing.

But it is clear, concise and otherwise totally unlike everything else that Wittgenstein is known for, while touching upon the topics of belief, understanding, science, and desire.  Odd, no?

What the quote is, is a smear; it is an insult:  Calling something a lowest desire, without reason, is merely to insult it.  What’s going on here?

Say I have a superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science.  So what?  If the latest scientific research has little to do with my profession, say I’m a restaurateur, then what harm is there in having a passing interest in what other smart people do?  It might even be considered commendable that I make such an effort.

Now Wittgenstein is saying that my earnest effort is nowhere near commendable, but all the way at the bottom, the basest, of desire.  Since he accusing “modern people” it is not just ‘me’, but everyone.  This is insulting and unwarranted.

However, this isn’t exactly what Wittgenstein was after: he disliked superficial curiosity in scientific discoveries not because of the impulse of people to learn and take interest in others, but because it made people believe that they understood a thing which actually they didn’t understand.  Understanding difficult things is an accomplishment, and scientific research is difficult. In enjoying a superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science, he is accusing us of feeling a sense of accomplishment when we have done nothing to merit it: he is accusing us of mental masturbation.  Ouch.

We can also now understand why this criticism is “modern”.  Before  modern times, there was no way to have a “popular scientific lecture”: only in the last century or so have we had the communications technology and an available public which allows for such a thing.  You couldn’t expect feudal peasants to leave their farms or be educated enough to appreciate such a lecture.  But by November 1929, the date of this lecture, mass media was in full swing with the wide distribution of newspapers and books, and the start of national radio broadcasts.  Only with widespread media distribution did the danger of popular science becoming a narcotic exist.

Wittgenstein saw that with the modern increase in information distribution capability came a danger of intellectual drugging of the population.  It disgusted him that people would take pleasure from the feeling that they understood difficult theories with which they only had the most superficial engagement.  Unfortunately he had no argument or solution to prevent this, and so he resorted, as we all do when we are out of good arguments, to insults.

One can only think that the internet has made this an even more pervasive problem.  It blows our information distribution capability off the charts.  And we are, unsurprisingly, completely addicted to it.  It’s too bad dear Ludwig never really commented more on modernity, he seems to have been rather perceptive.

Permalink Comments off

02.14.09

phil sci interwebs goings on

Posted in internet, philosophy, science at 1:19 am by nogre

Although I seriously doubt anyone who reads this blog for philosophy of science doesn’t yet know about It’s Only a Theory, if this does apply to you, go check it out. It bills itself as “A Group Blog Devoted to General Philosophy of Science”.

Along the same lines Bryan over at Soul Physics has listed some of the few places to find philosophy of science on the net.  Yours truly was pleasantly surprised to make the list.

It’s Only a Theory just asked whether the pure philosopher of science is going the way of the dodo.  This question is of some interest to me because 1) I like philosophy of science but I have only a passing interest in any particular science,  and 2) I’ve gone the way of the dodo:

I never thought I was going to be an academic and it became painfully obvious after a short stint in grad school that being an academic wasn’t for me (or at least the normal academic route isn’t).  Now there are a few reasons for this, but one of them was that doing philosophy of science in the way I saw fit wasn’t going to happen.  The details of physics or biology just aren’t what interest me: I care about what makes theories work and then downwardly applying any results to the sciences.    So I could have been one of these pure phil-sci people, but from my perspective at the time, and apparently it still applies, this won’t get you ahead in academic philosophy.

… but at least my rss reader has some more interesting stuff nowadays, and hopefully yours will too.

Permalink Comments off