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2003-10-24 13:20 (UTC+1)
Norman Hampson's historical study
The
Enlightenment, currently in Penguin, had a previous life as a
Pelican book (Pelican was essentially Penguin's self-improving
non-fiction brand way back when) and yesterday I finally ran across a
copy in Oxfam at a sensible price.
Since I also woke up (due to the cold, I suspect) at 4 o'clock this
morning, I'm already about a third of the way in, and you can expect a
review on Monday. I had forgotten just how fast I can read in English.
One curiosity is that it sets itself the task of an overview of the
period, sneaking back into the 17th century and peeking into the
romanticism of the 19th century at the other end, covering literature,
philosophy, social and economic history and the whole
Weltanschauungerama and the Geist of the Zeit,
all on the
grounds that the Englightenment (Upplysning) was fermented in a
pre-Lapserian Ur-Interdiscipline at a time when science and the arts
had yet to split asunder.
And yet somehow J.S. Bach (1685-1750) doesn't even make the index.
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2003-10-24 11:21
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
[From Mr Shakespeare's Twelfth Night]
Can one really tire of prinsessgossip, though?
Apparently so:
Det er slut med at spinde guld p� historier om kongehuset, kronprins
Frederik og Mary. Nyheden om forlovelsen har v�ret en stor nedtur for
b�de Billed-Bladet, Se og H�r samt B.T.
Den danske befolkning er i de seneste �r blevet s� stopfodret med
historier om kronprins Frederik og Mary, at nyheden om forlovelsen og
kongestof i det hele taget ikke l�ngere kan s�lge.
[The days of spinning gold from tales of Kronprinsfred and Knudella
("Mary") are over. The news of their engagement has been a big
downturn for both Billed-Bladet, Se og H�r and BT.
The Danish population has been saturated with stories of kronprinsfred
and Knudella ("Mary") that news of the engagement and royalstuff in
general isn't selling anymore.]
Good heavens, what is the world coming to? It is all the more
important, therefore, that this bladet should stand beside
Kronprinsessfred and his Knudella in this, their hour of need. And we
will, you may be sure of that!
[Tack to Birgitte for the link]
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2003-10-23 15:09
No, but how can you tell if it's winter in Sweden? 28 centimetres of
sn� do you, Sir or Madam?
Men �n �r det f�r tidigt att s�ga att vintern har kommit.
- Nej, d� ska dygnsmedeltemperaturen ligga under noll grader i en
vecka och det har den inte gjort utom m�jligen i v�stra och norra
Norrland, s�ger Sune Samuelsson.
[But it's too early to say that winter has come.
"No, you can't be sure in west and north Norrland until it's been
under zero [Celsius, bien entendu] day and night for a week"
says Sune Samuelsson.
Such exquisitely refined sensibilities they have up there, is it not?
("What did happen to your great uncle G�ran, then?"
"Ah, got trapped in a sn�drift, poor bugger."
"Oh. The winter's get pretty severe up here, then?"
"Winter? This was midsommar!")
We note with no little impatience that even with 28 cm of sn�, there
has been no sign of any kaos.
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2003-10-23 12:02 (UTC+1)
The Vlobs's
spirituality special turned out to be every bit as depressing as you
would expect - a bunch of losers, wasters, chancers and nutters pick
'n' mixing homeopathy, astrology, neoshamanism, buddhism, kabbalism,
and even sodding crystals for the purpose of self-delusion. Stand-out
quote:
Sur l'ensemble de l'Europe, environ 30% des habitents pratiquent
assid�ment une religion et 7% sont ath�es. Le reste, c'est-�-dire
pr�s des deux tiers des europ�ens, les non-pratiquants et les
sans-religion, sont le laboratoire vivant des nouvelles formes de
croire.
[Across the whole of Yoorp, about 30% of the population actively
practices a religion and 7% are atheists. The rest, that's to say
nearly two thirds of Yoorpeans, the non-practising and unreligious,
form a living laboratory of new forms of belief.]
The sarcastic claim of the Brights that the God question is
of comparable epistemological status with the Tooth Fairy question
won't help here - this lot could blithely accept the Tooth Fairy as a
Jungian archetype associated with a long and spiritually enriching
tradition of Dental Remuneration practices without skipping a beat.
"Living laboratory" my arse - I'd say the results are unequivocally
in, myself. Crystals, indeed.
[Permalink]
2003-10-23 09:20 (UTC+1)
In fact, I didn't do anything to camera; I just served as a
prop in scenes in which Deep Thoughts Are Clearly Being Thunk.
Although, since I haven't had my hair cut for a couple of years and my
bosses hair is longer than mine, and they shot a bunch of stuff of us
discussing our fairly lurid oceanographic animations, it's just as
likely to come over like a couple of Pink Floyd roadies fine-tuning
the psychedelic light show.
In any case, now that I'm an actual world-famous celebrity and that
I'm going to outsource the content-development part of my blogging
enterprise to India - we've put together a highly-qualified team of
prinsessgossipspecialistes over there at a very competitive price -
while I concentrate on adding value to the 'bladet brandname through
proactively focussing on positioning ourselves within the blogosphere.
(Synergies are being leveraged as we speak, Varied Reader; as we
speak.)
Must dash - some persons' persons are meeting our persons about the
film rights and I have to brief them...
[Permalink]
2003-10-22 13:05 (UTC+1)
(Or: The endless return of the endless decline, declined: Please to
return to sender.)
It is widely, if bafflingly, accepted that:
- Language change is universal in all societies, and that is of course
just fine and dandy.
- Complaints about language change from partisans of conservative
forms are also universal in all societies, and that is of course an
outrage of immense proportions against which [grammar] we must
unceasingly rail.
My suggestion that we inaugurate a discipline called "folk
linguistics" (parallel to "folk psychology") to study the random
nonsense persons are apt to believe about language have so fallen on
stony ground, but it would surely be more interesting than the usual
counterdenunciations - and what better way to thwart Language Mavens
than to stop trying to counter their "arguments" and start classifying
them instead? It would drive them apoplectic with rage, I promise
you!
If you're still unconvinced, then perhaps meditating on the irony of an
impassioned defence ("defense") of the inevitable might help?
(Jim is
suffering from usage mavens. Poor Jim!)
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2003-10-22 11:40 (UTC+1)
The Nouvel Obs is having one of its Cosmic Quest For Spiritual Truth
specials, whereof:
La neuroth�ologie fait fureur aux Etats-Unis. Derni�re-n�e des
neurosciences, elle consiste, gr�ce aux techniques d'imagerie m�dicale,
� traquer en direct, dans les r�seaux neuronaux des moines chr�tiens
ou bouddhistes, l'�mergence du sentiment religieux. Ces travaux
r�v�lent que, toutes confessions confondues, c'est la m�me petite zone
vers le haut et l'arri�re du cerveau qui s'�teint � l'acm� de la pri�re
ou de la m�ditation. Or cette zone est charg�e de traiter les
informations sur l'espace et le temps.
[Neurotheology is all the rage in the US. Last-born of neuroscience,
it consists, thanks to medical imagining techniques, of tracking down
the emergence of religious feelings in the neural networks of
Christian and Buddhist monks. These studies have shown that,
regardless of denomination, it's the same small zone at the top and
back of the brain that switches off at the peak of prayer or
meditation. Now, this zone is in charge of processing information on
space and time.]
It is important not to make the mistake of dismissing things as "just"
a state of spicy brain - if you take the brain seriously (which I do,
since I employ a unrepentently dualist perspective which yokes
together a rigourous insistence on materialism with an incompatible
but no less firm insistence on ph�nom�nologie. Since you asked) then
you should expect all subjective experience, emotions and the
like to have neurological (and endocrinological) correlates.
As for the rest of the Gooey New Age Goo that they have thoughtfully
included for Chewy New Age Chewing, I was all planning to denounce
this kind of sm�rg�sbord of spirituality (neoshamanistic Kabbaliste
rebirthing therapy, anyone?) as yet more of modern society's
pernicious Bourgeois Individualism - to strip religion of all its
social functions certainly changes things - but this is the Nouvel Obs
(hurrah!) and therefore written by and for French intellectuals
(hurrah again!) they get their retaliation in first by quoting
Nietzsche (from The Will to Power):
�Ce n'est qu'apr�s la mort de la religion que l'invention du divin pourra
reprendre toute sa luxuriance.�
[It is only after the death of religion that the invention of the
divine will be able achieve its full luxuriance.]
Pre-empted! You can say what you like about Nietzsche, Varied Reader -
and knowing you, you probably have - but he makesyerthink, innit?
[Permalink]
2003-10-22 09:36 (UTC+1)
Kronprinsess-elect Knudella is inaugurated
as a feature of Danish state occasions, hurrah! And she also went to
concert! We
wonder how long it will take for the Danish taxpayers to figure out who
is paying for Knudella's wardrobe, and how happy about it they'll be
about it when they do. The Norwegians, bless 'em, were astonished at
just how much shopping their Kronprinsess was able to fit into her
busy schedule. Speaking of which:
Norges statsminister Kjell Magne Bondevik tycker kronprisessan
Mette-Marit �r en f�rebild f�r norska kvinnor. Anledningen: Hon jobbar deltid och kan i st�llet �gna sig �t "barn, familj och n�rmilj�".
Norwegian prime minister Kjell Magne Farmerbay thinks kronprinsess
Mette-Marit is a model for Norwegish women.
The reason?
She works part-time and can instead devote herself to "children,
family and the local environment".
(I have a feeling I have somehow been suckered into covering a
political controversy. Gah!)
"Local environment" is a bit stilted, and I would imagine "hearth" is
probably better, but the dictionary
won't say. Under "n�r", though, it offers the expression
"du f�r ingen bulle n�r du �r s� dum" (="you won't get a bun when you
are as silly as that") and that's certainly something we should all
(are you listening, Mr Farmerbay?) bear in mind.
[Tack once again to Birgitte and Anna Louise, prinsessspotters
extraodinaires.]
[Permalink]
2003-10-21 15:49 (UTC+1)
Give us blood and give us guts,
that's what it takes to please us -
We're the Jackbooted
Gibberers for Jesus!
- "Pious" Peter A. Pocalypse and the O'Blivion Boys
Wailing and gnashing of teeth, for sure, and not in a good
way:
The general leading the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein
has publicly declared that the Christian God is "bigger" than Allah,
who is a false "idol", and believes the war on terrorism is a fight
with Satan, it emerged yesterday.
Oh dear.
[Permalink]
2003-10-21 13:40 (UTC+1)
England's finest take on the mighty Bangles (AKA Bangladesh, very much
the minnows of the world of Test cricket) but the weather isn't
playing
ball:
Well, this is baffling. They're playing under floodlights, yet the
umpires have just offered the batsmen the light! They've taken it, and
that, I'm afraid, could be that for the day. At the risk of sounding
like a hybrid of Fred Trueman and Ian Botham, what's the point of
having floodlights if they're not good enough? Oh well. The situation
at the close is that Bangladesh are 24 for 2 off 15 overs, with both
wickets for Harmison - a useful little session for England, but they
need the sun to shine tomorrow.
In honour ("honor") of the concurrency of the "World" Series (yes I
know) of baseball, though, I will declare that there is
cricket on, even if it isn't actually happening or anything. (Cricket
is, after all, a state of mind.)
[Permalink]
2003-10-21 11:28
It is sn�ing in Stockholm, hoorah!
(Den sn�ar p� Stockholm, hurra!)
But where are the kaoses?
(Men var �r kaoset?)
Perhaps it will be in the newspapers tomorrow.
(Kanske blir det i tidningarna i morgon.)
[Permalink]
2003-10-21 19:40 (UTC+1)
We have established that Kronprinsess Vickan is herself
dyslexic and you probably won't be
surprised to learn she does a lot of work for charidee,
so:
S� f�r kronprinsessan har det varit ett naturligt steg att engagera
sig i kampen mot l�s- och skrivsv�righeter - dyslexi.
I g�r bes�kte hon Brunns-�ngsskolan i S�dert�lje. D�r har man valt att
h�rdsatsa p� extra undervisning f�r elever som lider av dyslexi.
[So for the kronprinsess has it been a natural step to engage herself
in the fight against reading- and writingdifficulties - dyslexia.
Yesterday visited she Brunns-meadowschool in S�dert�lje. There has
one chosen to back heavily extra tuition for pupils who suffer from
dyslexia.]
I have really quite severe writing difficulties in Swedish, by the way,
Vickan, if you happen to be at a loose end..?
[Permalink]
2003-10-20 18:36 (UTC+1)
Your tears they tell me
There's really no way
Of ending your troubles
With things you can say.
"Time has told me"
- Nick Drake
Lib�ration, France's leading quotidien leftbladet, has its books thing
on Tuesday, which is Wednesday in the UK. From
last week's
review of Fran�ois Hartog's R�gimes d'historicit�. Pr�sentisme
et exp�riences du temps:
La d�marche de Fran�ois Hartog est dans un premier temps de partir �
la recherche d'autres r�gimes d'historicit� afin d'�chapper �
l'europ�ocentrisme. Il aurait pu regarder du c�t� de l'Inde et de ses
temps cycliques, il a pr�f�r� s'int�resser aux habitants des Fidji au
moment de leur rencontre avec les Europ�ens, dans le sillage des
travaux de l'anthropologue Marshall Sahlins.
[Hartog's approach starts from an initial investigation of other
regimes of historicity in order to escape from eurocentrism. He could
have looked at India and cyclic model of time that prevails there, but
he's preferred instead to investigate the inhabitants of Fiji at the
time they first encountered Europeans, in the wake of the work of the
anthropologist Marshall Sahlins.
Predecessors in this enterprise are L�vi-Strauss (I've finished La
Pens�e sauvage, hoorah!, and some remarks on it will be along in
due course) and Koselleck, who doesn't seem to have made it into cheap
paperback in French, annoyingly, so he may have to wait until I've
learned enough German.
(Previously on this 'bladet: Fijians
encounter Europeans, proclaim them "yummy"; Marshall "Snoozer" Sahlins on daytime sleep
and mongomongo nuts.)
[Permalink]
2003-10-20 13:20 (UTC+1)
(White light) White light goin' messin' up my brain
(White light) Aww white light its gonna drive me insane
(White heat) Aww white heat it tickle me down to my toes
(White light) Aww white light I said now goodness knows, do it
"White Light/White Heat" The Velvet Underground
(My book "reviews" are of course usually just a pretext to continue the
ongoing seminar on the contents of my head, and this one will prove to be
no exception.)
At the heart of this book is the concept of a selection system,
of which Darwin's natural selection was the first to be studied. The
essential ingredients, suitably abstracted, are:
- A population made up of individuals with variations between them
- An environment, which excerts a selectional pressure on said
population, leading to:
- Differential rates of reproduction for the individuals of the
population
- Some element of variation in the reproduction process, so that
the population as a whole stays heterogeneous
Anyone outside the FDRUSA will immediately recognise that this is
Darwin's correct model for evolution; Edelman won the Nobel Prize for
Biology or Physiology or Cookery or Whatever for his discovery that
the immune system works in much the same way - there's a population of
antibodies (or antigens or something - I'm busking the details which
are, after all, in the book) matching just about any foreign body that
may try to invade an organism, and those that do bind on to
intruders are reproduced on a massive scale.
His new theory, which is his, is about the brain and consciousness and
stuff and you should not be surprised to discover that it is more of
the same. The theory is called "neural Darwinism" or "the theory of
neuronal group selection" and holds that groups of neurones are
configured by a similar selectional process during the development of
the brain during ontogeny. To give an account of this, he needs to
explain the topobiology of ontogeny and a high level overview of how
(he thinks) consciousness arises from the mutual interplay of neural
maps formed by such groups under the influence of an embodied (we are
very embodied here) organism.
It gets pretty dense, in other words, and I wouldn't claim I
completely mastered his argument, but it's certainly intruiging and I
will certainly take the second and third looks that will be required
to get the hang of it.
One annoying thing he trails throughout the book is that AI is
wrong/misguided/impossible because of the nature of Turing machines -
the only throwing-across-the-room moment came when he then exhibited a
computer simulated toy organism as an illustration of his account.
Eventually he deals (entirely unconvincingly) with the contradtiction
by claiming that a simulation that involves both an environment and an
organism, each with some (pseudo-)random jigglings is OK, especially
since the concepts acquired by the organism are emergent under a
development process and not coded in. It turns out later that the AI
he's at pains to debunk is one in which I have nothing invested anyway:
Thought is not the manipulation of abstract symbols whose semantics
are justified by unambiguous reference to things in the world.
Classical categories do not serve in most cases of conceptual
categorization and they do not satisfactorily account for the actual
assignment of categories by human beings. (p. 237)
So let's not use that model, then! (I did enjoy his swipe at neural
networks, though.) Throughout the book he lays great stress on the
need for consciousness studies to be driven by detailed brain studies,
which is both reasonable enough and, I happen to think, completely wrong.
Edelman himself points out that there are far too many neurones - and
especially interconnections between them - for the wiring to be
specified in the DNA, and his selectional theory is needed to explain
how divergent wirings end up being robustly successful (we all seem to
see and use language OK, however our heads got wired) and that's fine
by me. But the principles of selection systems are pretty abstract
(and he put the abstraction in, not me) and the robustness of neural
mappings strongly suggests (to me) that you could replace many of the
details with a higher level (only a bit higher, mind) description than
one with neurones and have selection operate on that.
Edelman vigorously denigrates the idea that you can ignore any part of
the low-level wetware details, but his conception of the alternative
is the Prolog-flavoured caricature above so that doesn't bother me much.
In any case, we'll see. Overall, it's a fascinating, difficult,
and brilliant book which inspires, exhilarates and exasperates by
turns. If you're reading along with the 'bladet's spicy brain track
then you will certainly want to read this, but it is only fair to
point out that there are no prinsessor in it anywhere.
[Permalink]
2003-10-20 09:49 (UTC+1)
Who'da thunk? Mette-Marit turns out to be camera shy:
�Jeg f�ler, at al intelligens l�ber ud af mig, ordforr�det ryger,
mimikken stivner�, siger den norske kronprinsesse Mette-Marit. Hun er
r�dselsslagen for at optr�de p� TV.
["I feel that all the intelligence runs out of me, my vocabulary goes
up in smoke and my facial expression stiffens," said the Norwegish kronprinsess
Mette-Marit. She is terror-stricken at the thought of TV appearances.]
On Wednesday, meanwhile, I shall be pretending to be myself (in
humble-sidekick mode) for the benefit of BBC TV cameras which are
apparently doing a documentary on this here university for eventual
screening on BBC 4 (whatever that is). I suspect my robustly
proletarian instincts and lack of a TV will prevent any comparable
meltdown in my case.
[Linkage via Birgitte, tack]
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