Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

I discussed Quantum Bayesian theory here about three weeks ago. But now that I know what to look for, it has become easier to find more about it, so I come back to it. Early this year, the William & Mary blog ran an interview with Hans Christian von Baeyer, who believes that QB-ism (which he pronounces "cubism" as in Picasso) is nothing less than the "future of physics." He regrets that advocates of QBism have yet to get it into physics textbooks. But there are "hundreds of articles and conference proceedings" that deal with it, so he is hoping admission into the canon, with the dozen or so older interpretations of quantum mechanics, will come soon. Von Baeyer also makes reference to "an excellent article" that was added to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in December 2016. So, after finishing up the interview, I went there. The actual title of that article is evidence that this is an appropriate thing to be discussing in a blo...

It is easy to fall into thinking about inherited traits in a very reductionist way: to mentally assign to each trait a gene of its own along that famous double helix. Thus, the gene for blue eyes may lie next to the gene for left handedness, and then there's the gene for brown hair, for a large nose, and so forth. But it doesn't work that way. You aren't a bundle of atomistic traits. You are a whole, and the genome that produces you, produces you as a whole. Much of what you inherit, then, you inherit only through patterns that one can only 'see' if one zooms out from such a gene-by-gene look, to look at the whole genome. Here's a relevant story from CELL. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867417310061?via%3Dihub I learned of this indirectly. I became aware a couple of weeks ago that there exists a suspicion in some quarters that Jeremy Bentham, the notorious inventor of utilitarian ethics and the Panopticon, may have been on the au...

The Las Vegas Convention Center will host an MJBizCon in the middle of next month. I've received a brochure, and I mention this just in case you, dear reader, are not on the same mailing lists I am. These things seem like they'd be a blast, but they aren't.  In my experience, these aren't conventions of stoners sharing their really good stuff in the hallways. From the page listing "featured sessions," I give you this: Cultivation Applying Big Ag Techniques to Cannabis Cultivation Cultivation Deep Dive: Economic Impact of Light Intensity on Yield and Secondary Metabolites Retail Packaging Considerations: Choosing the Right Materials and Machinery Retail Tutorial: Boosting Dispensary Revenues Through Patient and Physician Education. There's much more like that, but you probably get the idea. It ain't pass-the-bong fun.  But that is as it should be. The state-legal MJ industry in the US is a wide and deep one now: and I am ...

On Tuesday, October 10 (yes, I know, that's a while back -- this is a philosophy blog, not your daily news, bro) The Secretary General of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries asked for help from US based shale producers. The SG in question is Mohammed Barkindo, and he is about 1 year into a 3 year term in that post. He's a western educated fellow , with a degree from Southwestern University in Washington DC who did PhD work at Oxford.  On petroleum economics, natch. I'd love to see a copy of his doctoral dissertation. It may be available on line, but I'm too indolent to go searching for it right now. But: what about shale producers? These are the infamous "frackers," folks.Here's what Reuters has to say:  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-energy/opec-secretary-general-urges-u-s-shale-oil-producers-to-help-cap-global-supply-idUSKBN1CF0C4 He wants the frackers to cut back production because OPEC is doing so, and all producers of...

It would have been better had the accident been more dramatic, had it been such that he could tell it as a story whenever anyone asked him about the cast on his arm. But there was no drama to it. He had clambered over that low fence a hundred times without incident. Sometimes the gate stuck, and rather than spend a couple of minutes messing with it ... why not just climb over and be out? Well, this is why not. On the day of the accident the chain links were still wet from the previous evening's rain. He lost his footing at just the wrong moment, slipped head first. His left arm reacted instinctively, grabbing on to a post and refusing to let go as the rest of the body's mass fell, then letting go after all only when the shooting pain overrode instinct. That was the story such as it was. Nothing you can tell friends and laugh about. ...

"To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances for which you were not to blame. That says something very important about the condition of the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertain and on a willingness to be exposed; it's based on being more like a plant than like a jewel, something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility." The book this is from is, unsurprisingly, named THE FRAGILITY OF GOODNESS. It's subtitle is perhaps a little less predictable: LUCK AND ETHICS IN GREEK TRAGEDY AND PHILOSOPHY. Publication year, 1986.

Some random web surfing one morning discovered the story to which I link you below. It was posted almost exactly two years ago now, but it's new to me, and I find it very affecting. The story of a young man who thought he had everything Figured Out -- a Christian fundamentalist planning on full time ministry, and attending a college that seems to have been designed NOT to challenge such as him. But he decided he didn't have everything figured out after all.  He encountered philosophy and with it ... real questioning. I leave you to discover the specifics. http://www.philosophynews.com/post/2015/09/01/When-a-Fundamentalist-Finds-Philosophy.aspx

I read a fascinating Reuters piece recently (one of a genre they call their "backstory" pieces, offering the world glimpses into how news is manufactured.) This one involved news photography, and the framing of photos, including the photo of the genial gentleman above, which went  viral not long ago. Without further ado, the link: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-backstory-photos-vegas-nobel/joy-and-tragedy-a-tale-of-two-photos-idUSKBN1CB2EF

On a recent visit to a neighborhood barbershop -- one of those places that don't accept credit cards because they don't want to create records that'll make things too easy for the tax authorities -- I learned that the price of a haircut had gone up from $15 to $16. That fact has no impact for me as a consumer. And I suspect many of the other patrons will find the news similarly un-newsworthy. After all, I simply sat for the cut as usual, and handed the barber a $20 bill, telling him to keep the change. That is exactly what I would have done if the price of the service has still been $15.  At $15, I feel a bit generous giving him a $5 tip, but that is balanced by the fact that I would feel like a tightwad asking for any change back. At $16, I don't feel generous, but $4 is still a perfectly good tip, 25% of the listed value of the service.  So: generalizing from my own case to the customer base in general, I doubt the total revenue rises much with thi...