Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

  The origin of life on earth -- a lasting scientific mystery -- may have a lot to do with alkaline hydrothermal vents.  These are geysers - like vents found in the ocean floor. Marine biologists have long noted that they create the sort of  chemically rich and energy intensive environment around them that mimics the electrochemical conditions found in cells.  So ... maybe (thinking that thought in reverse) the cells of the world are indeed to this day mimicking that sea floor environment.  In this context, with the vents themselves offering abundant energy, scientists can model the creation of RNA molecules, some of which prove to be self-replicating, although in a highly imperfect fashion.  Does it make sense to call this already "life"? Probably not.  Call it "proto-life" if you will. There is some irony here, though. We often think of life as paradigmatically bound up with the absorption of sunlight. Light, through photosynthesis, becomes plant mat...

Moving from the lofty epistemologyical/metaphysical realm of yesterday's quote to the  questions of national character. A thought from a wise French observer of our country.   I  accost an American sailor and inquire why the ships of his country are built so as to last but for a short time; he answers without hesitation that the art of navigation is every day making such rapid progress that the finest vessel would become almost useless if it lasted beyond a few years. In these words, which fell accidentally, and on a particular subject, from an uninstructed man, I recognize the general and systematic idea upon which a great people direct all their concerns. [ Democracy in America Vol. II, Part One, Chap. 8.]

The philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe once wrote the following: F or years, I would spend time, in cafés, for example, staring at objects saying to myself: 'I see a packet. But what do I really see? How can I say that I see here anything more than a yellow expanse?' ... I always hated phenomanlism and felt trapped by it. I couldn't see my way out of it but I didn't believe it. It was no good pointing to difficulties about it, things which Russell found wrong with it, for example. The strength, the central nerve of it remained alive and raged achingly. It was only in Wittgenstein's classes in 1944 that I saw the nerve being extracted, the central thought "I have got this, and I define 'yellow' (say) as this" being effectively attacked. Phenominalism is in essence, George Berkeley without the God. The tree was not there in the Quad yesterday, except in some hypothetical sense -- if some perfceiving being HAD been there, he/she would have seen.... What e...

Today's random memory takes us back to October 1974, when I turned 16.  As was then the rite of passage, [maybe not so much now?], Mom and Dad instructed me in a period of weeks on the basics of driving a car.  My chief memory of this involves the signal lights, and how utterly unperceptive on the subject I had been in my 16 years of life.  Adding up my time in cars would surely have summed to a plural number of those sixteen years.  I might have paid a bit of attention. But I hadn't. I knew that drivers did something involving a lever that turned on a light telling other drivers where you were turning. I also was sort-of-aware going in that this lever did not have to be used a second time to turn the light back off. But I suspected there was a timer involved. Signal left, then turn left and after X seconds, the light will go off ... no?  Oh, wait, you mean there is no timer, the light goes off when and because I turn the wheel the other way?  Who knew?...

Whitney Houston's ballad, "The Greatest Love of All" has never received the parody it deserves.  I am not up to the job, but this first verse might suggest the parody-able to a greater artist than myself.  I believe cliches belong together -- String them up and let them lead the way Don’t force sense upon them like a ball and chaaaaain. Let your ears feel bromides to make it easier Empty words will lap up all our sense inside Everybody’s searching for their devo People need cha-os to revert to I never sunk quite so low as a raw cliche -- cannot depend on "darns" When I must hit the broad siiiide of barns.

In QUORA, I found this question,  What's the historical significance of Peter Abelard’s treatise "Sic et Non," and why is it often translated as "Yes and No"? It is an odd question, worth the expressive tilt of a yorkie's head, since there is nothing ambiguous or difficult about the translation.  "Yes and No" is simply what "Sic et Non" means. I wrote a brief reply while under the impression that the querant who has asked was a confused human being.  I there acknowledged another possible translation, "Thus and Not Thus," but said that was awkward as a matter of idiomatic English. I have since realized that this silly question was from an algorithm, not a confused person.  QUORA relies ever more on unintelligent algorithmically generated "questions" designed to spark controversy and hits.    I will note here, dear human readers, that I was influenced in this answer by the common use of "sic" as a way of ackno...