Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

I just find this odd: Well, there's much that I find odd in the news about James Gunn, but it starts with the popularity of the two G of the G movies.  Marvel seemed to be scrapping the bottom of its barrel of comic book titles to greenlight them in the first place. This is a group of superheroes that includes one vaguely humanoid tree (or vaguely tree-like humanoid) and one talking squirrel. Anyway, they are a huge hit. The director, Peter Gunn, has been working on a third movie in the series. Somehow, some non-entities desiring entity-ness searched Gunn's old twitter feeds and found tweets (from years ago) about how great it is or would be to have sex with children. The conservatives who recently came to embrace Roseanne (Barr and Connor) as one, or two, of their own wanted to have a tweet-storm scalp to balance out her loss, so Gunn became It. Sample awful tweet, Gunn suggested a Hardy Boys mystery, "The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of What it Feels like when ...

A “long short-term memory neural network” is apparently an important and recent advance in artificial intelligence research, even though it sounds a bit like "jumbo shrimp." The term refers to a neural network devised with “forget gates” attached to cells of memory, originally in order to model human short-term memory. But the “forget gate” can be set for any length of time, so the researchers can make this “short-term memory” last as long as they want it to, hence the oxymoronic name, "long short-term memory." The Vanishing Gradient Networks that have these LSTM units as their components have certain advantages over the “vanilla version” of recurrent neural networks (RNNs). In particular, they can overcome what is known as the “vanishing gradient” problem. That is, vanilla RNNs were built to learn from new data, but to give that data a weight that depended on the amount of already -stored data on the same subject a network already possess; ...

The NDPR reports on an "incredibly ambitious attempt to show not just that Absolute Idealism has been roundly misunderstood, but also that such a view is the only coherent form that philosophy can take." One of the great themes of James' existence was opposition to exactly that argument as it came to him from Hegel, through Bradley, and Royce: from Germany, through England, to the US.  This is what James and Royce were arguing about while seated on a certain stone fence, where they were captured by a famous photograph I will not show here. And obviously some such view still walks amongst us. No stake is big enough to be driven through its heart and do the job. Gack.  https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/self-consciousness-and-objectivity-an-introduction-to-absolute-idealism/ Aside from that general "Gack," my only comment here is on the cover art.  We're shown a photo that appears to have been taken from inside a cave near a beach, looking at the ocean. I wo...

Nietzsche was thinking, I submit, of the whole line of canonical classical Greek philosophers from Thales to Epicurus when he wrote as follows: "What gives these men the right to be considered philosophers, unlike the other astronomers, geographers and doctors who were active especially in the latter half of the period, was their common assumption that the world possessed some kind of integral unity and determinability which could be understood and explained in rational terms. "

Discussing the late sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison a couple of weeks ago got me to thinking about one of the best known facts about his life, one which may not be true at all. The fact, or factoid, is: The Schwarzenegger movie, Terminator, was plagiarized from a scenario that Ellison wrote for the television program Outer Limits. If anyone ever tells you this, they'll probably tell it in the tone of someone retailing a deep dark secret. Something that was hushed up, but that the cognoscenti are aware of nonetheless. If this ever happens to you, please answer: "Oh, really? Which episode was that?" The truth is that Ellison wrote two such scenarios, both variations of the same general idea but very different from each other. Terminator is generally described as a rip-off of one. Or the other. Or it doesn't really matter. But it does matter. Because one is not entitled to a property interest in one's broad thematic ideas. Neither Ellison nor anyone else eve...

Cezary Cieslinski has written a new book about the place of the concept of truth within epistemology, and the history of questions about that place. Its title? THE EPISTEMIC LIGHTNESS OF TRUTH. Obviously this touches on matter central to the concerns of this blog. And it has nothing at all to do with the horror film "Truth or Dare?" whence comes this illustration. For now, though, all I will do is refer you, dear reader, to a discussion of this column in Notre Dame Philosophical Review.  Here is the link: https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-epistemic-lightness-of-truth-deflationism-and-its-logic/ Unfortunately, I am not sufficiently up on the argumentative context to make sense of that review, so I doubt I'd be able to make sense of the book. Consider this claim, from the reviewer: "Cieslinski does not accept semantic conservativeness as a precondition for an axiomatic truth theory being deflationist." If your response to that sentence is "gee why ...

The Trump administration is forfeiting a great US asset. The US has long been at the center of world trade, and the US dollar has become the currency-of-currencies, the numeraire.  That fact has worked in our national favor in countless ways. Now, some of my readers might say that it is "about time the US lose this privileged position." But of course the Trumpets won't say that. They're the "America First" administration after all. Yet their actions will remove American firstness in one very important respect. How? Well, one object of Chinese policy for a long time has been to rebuild the famed "Silk Road," the trade route leading from China through the Middle East, to Ottoman lands and northeastern Africa. Marco Polo tapped into it when he wasn't too busy inventing swimming pool games. China wants to revive that route, and wants it emphatically to include all of Europe this time, not just for an occasional traveler, and ideally it woul...

I've recently read a book about the rise and fall of Theranos, the privately held Silicon Valley firm headed by Elizabeth Holmes. The story that author John Carryrou tells in his book, BAD BLOOD, spans the period from the company's founding in 2003 to the lab inspection failures in 2016 that finally broke the back of investor patience with Holmes. As the title of Carryrou's book hints, the story is about blood testing. Theranos sold itself to investors, and in time to retailers, as the manufacturer of a brilliant new machine that was small and simple enough for ordinary people to have in their own homes and use on themselves, that was capable of doing a wide range of blood tests from very small quantities of the vital liquid. It would have been a great medical breakthrough. If it had been real. It was all -- or nearly all -- a sham. At the company's peak, two giant retail chains contracted to sell the miraculous mini-labs: Safeway and Walgreen's. I recomme...

So: someone created a website called "Nakamoto Family Foundation" only three days before posting there a 21 page essay that purports to be an excerpt from a forthcoming book, or series of books, to be called Duality.  It isn't obvious why that was the chosen frame for getting the message out. There were plenty of other ways in which he/she/they could have gone about this. Contacting Wired, for example. The folks at Wired have covered the whole Who-and-where-is-Satoshi question for a long time, with some intensity. They would have published this 'excerpt' in a heartbeat. In fact, somebody (an alleged "proxy" for the alleged Satoshi) did contact Wired around the time the publication appeared, apparently to make sure they knew about it and would spread the word. But if they had wanted Wired to publish it, then the editors might have had questions that the pseudo-Satoshi didn't want to answer. So: what IS the message? Apparently, the message is...

Those of us who care about the identity of the mysterious fellow, or combine, known as Satoshi Nakamoto have had something new to talk about in recent days. For those who don't care, you may be excused. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here are the basics in one graf: From October 2008 to December 2010 a person or persons calling himself/themselves Satoshi Nakamoto developed bitcoin, authored a paper explaining it to the world, and engaged in discussions about it with a (then small) circle of interested parties. This was the start of something big. Bitcoin gave rise to a slew of other cryptos, and the underlying tech, the blockchain, has found and is still finding uses far beyond the issue of cryptocurrency use or value. Some people believe that the creation of Bitcoin was and is as big a deal as, say, the creation of the worldwide web. So who is he? And might he be planning a comeback in some form? Or has the comeback itself already happened and fi...

I haven't done a lot of research into the particulars of his life and work. What I know, I know third hand. But I once did a fair amount of research into the history and politics of SCOTUS confirmations in general, and on that basis I have an opinion.  But I do hope that a majority can be found to vote against his confirmation to SCOTUS.  Why? Well, largely because intriguing things happen when a Republican POTUS gets rejected twice running in an effort to fill a SCOTUS spot. So I hope Kavanaugh is rejected, then whoever else is nominated is also rejected, then ... we'll see who number three is.  Intriguing things happen in that circumstance. Nixon tried Haynesworth. Didn't get confirmed. Tried Carswell, didn't get confirmed. Third try  ... Harry Blackmun. Reagan tried Robert Bork. No confirmation, Then tried Doug Ginsburg, No confirmation, Third try ... Anthony Kennedy. Hey, Dems, the goal isn't to imitate the obstructionism you (rightly) criticized in 20...

One of science fiction's greats passed away late last month. I refer of course to Harlan Ellison, the author of Web of the City (1958), Spider Kiss (1961), and A Boy and His Dog (1969). But Ellison worked best in forms that were not book length. Among his many published collections of short stories, Stalking the Nightmare (1982), Angry Candy (1988) and Mind Fields (1994). No, that isn't a photo of Ellison I've attached here. I'll tell you who the b-and-w photo is of in due course. Ellison was probably best known, though, for having written the screenplay for the greatest episode of the original Star Trek, "City on the Edge of Forever." Or, rather, he wrote the first draft of the screenplay. My understanding is that Roddenberry re-wrote it quite radically, in ways to which Ellison was never reconciled. Well, that's show biz. The basic plot involves a time machine that sends Captain Kirk back to the year 1930, a soup kitchen in Depression-stri...

Going in to this session, last October, it was perfectly reasonable to believe that we were close to something Big on the question of partisan gerrymandering. Justice Kennedy had established himself over a period of years as the swing vote here, he had also made it clear that he was looking for the right case, the right set of facts to allow him, and with him the court to say something definitive. There were at least three cases coming before him that gave him that chance. Fourteen years ago Kennedy wrote an opinion in VIETH v JUBELIRER, that set in motion this search for the holy grail, for the case that would get him to come off of this fence. This session, surely, the time had come! The result ... nothing. Kennedy, and with him the court, punted the ball on 4th and short. When I say there were "at least" three cases coming before him, I have in mind GILL v. WHITFORD, BENISEK v. LAMONE, and RUCHO v. COMMON CAUSE. GILL v. WHITFORD (June 18), unanimous decision writ...

Welcome back. We'll look at four cases, arranging in increasing order of the height of their media profile. Death with the Assistance of Counsel Diving right in there: in McCOY v. LOUISIANA (May 14)  the Court found that the "effective assistance of counsel" guaranteed by the 6th amendment to the Constitution requires that the defendant be able to choose the objective of his defense -- that is, whether the defense should be to concede the crime but plead mitigating circumstances, or whether it should deny guilt. In the case before the court, McCoy's attorney, Robert English, admitted to the jury repeatedly, and against his client's repeated instructions, that his client "committed three murders." Indeed, he told them there was "no way reasonably possible" that they could hear the case and come to any other conclusion than that McCoy was "the cause of these individuals' deaths." He tried to make the case for mercy, for seei...

As noted yesterday, today we'll discuss  Wisconsin Central v. US,  the  SAS Institute  case, and  Chavez-Meza v. US.  These deal, respectively, with the definition of "compensation" for tax purposes, patent law administrative challenges, and the use of the sentencing guidelines. Coming off of the dispute we discussed yesterday, which placed employees and management in stark opposition, Wisconsin Central may seem refreshing and even wholesome: a private company and its employees working together to oppose a government encroachment on their dealings (successfully, it turns out.) Actually, various subsidiaries of the Canadian National Railway Company sued the United States for a $13 million tax refund. Their attorneys argued on the basis of the language in the Railroad Retirement Tax Act, which says that the compensation to be taxed includes "any form of money remuneration paid to an individual for services rendered as an employee." The US has been tax...