Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Adler Yacht, a Switzerland based company with its construction sites in Italy, recently unveiled the Suprema 76 foot motor yacht, a landmark move of the hybrid technology into yachting. The Suprema’s propulsion system consists of two Caterpillar C18 1,150 hp diesel engines, a 170 kWh lithium polymer battery, and two ATE 100 kW e-Units used to control operations and the transitions between the electric motor and the combustion engine. Those are specs I've lifted from ad copy. It sounds like an impressive piece of work. There have always been electric boats afloat [well, "always' here means since Edison's day]. It's one classic way of keeping a propeller turning. But the so-called "battery on board" systems have generally been limited to rivers and harbors. Battery tech historically hasn't generated the oomph necessary to take a vessel out into the open sea. That is changing, as the Suprema's hybrid system shows. The Suprema can t...

In a philosophy group to which I belong, a fellow calling himself Barleycorn posted the following thought: People like to think of the universe as some magical godly force of creation but really it's just the earth that houses life. The universe for the most part is death. Put anything living up in space and the universe instantly kills it. The universe is not your loving friend. This little bubble on earth called an atmosphere is the only thing stopping the universe from instantly murdering you. So why all the memes about the magical mystical universe and all this spirit science crap? And why do so many people feel like the universe will absorb or save your soul at death. No it won't. That's a very romantic idealistic view of the universe. Life struggles AGAINST the universe. My reply was, and is, as follows: First, the "little bubble" of life on earth is only possible because of a continuous stream of energy from the nearest star, and because we are held...

If crude oil isn't going to make its way across the interior of North America by pipeline, it will do so by rail. And in fact that is the recent trend. Someday soon I may work on a detailed statement of the pros and cons of these two methods of transporting the stuff. For the moment, though, I'll just collect some potentially useful links here. I'll make a related observation, though one on a higher plane of abstraction, tomorrow. Here's an article from the early days of oil pipelines, when they were considered "marvels." A 1937 issue of Popular Science.  Each of the following links is a good deal more recent than that. From an oil-industry trade journal, more than a year ago.  Each of the following links is a good deal more recent than that, too. Safety issues with pipelines. For the basics on TransCanada's Keystone Pipeline System, start here. For a discussion of the proposed extension, the Keystone XL, start here. For criti...

Continuing yesterday's thoughts. Back in 1989, two chemists claimed to have created a simple table top apparatus that would work at room temperatures and that would create excess energy in amounts that, the chemists contended, had no explanation other than the incredible one: atoms were fusing. The scientists were: Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann. They were both sufficiently distinguished that the claim could not be dismissed lightly. Pons had a Ph.D. from the University of Southampton; Fleischmann from the Imperial College, London. That's Fleischmann in the photo that goes with this text, holding part of the apparatus, which was a little more complicated than Dogbert's. Their claims set off a frenzy of speculation about what this would mean. Some thought it would be bad news -- that the human race could not be trusted with the prospect of unlimited energy this implied. The more usual view was that this was great good news -- an apparently insatiable hunger ...

A couple of classic DILBERT strips spoke to the long-ago fuss over cold fusion. At the center of thee strips is Dilbert's dog, who is a confidence artist, always scheming to separate  dopes, at Dilbert's work place and elsewhere, from their money. In the first of the two strips I have in mind, Dogbert is showing Dilbert the invention involved in his latest plan, a shining glass jar. "I'm ready to hold a press conference to introduce my cold fusion breakthrough." Dilbert responds, "All you did is put a light bulb in a jar. I can see the wires plugged into the outlet." "I considered using a jar with frosted glass, but it seemed like overkill." "You have a low opinion of people." In the second strip, the plan has gotten to the next phase. There is a reporter and a cameraman standing in front of the table where Dogbert's apparatus is set up. D: "As you clearly see, I have created cold fusion." C...

In yesterday's entry , I discussed a recent proof devised by a professor at the University of New Hampshire that there are "bounded gaps" between prime numbers. Specifically, Yitang Zhang has established that there are infinitely many pairs of primes that differ by 70 million or less. There are two fascinating things about this tidbit about which I wish to comment today. First, who the heck is Yitang Zhang? Second, infinity and size. Who the heck? One might naively expect the burning questions of a recondite field to be settled by the elites of the relevant expertise.  Andrew Wiles, the fellow who proved Fermat's Last Theorem correct (though in a way that can't "fit into a margin") was a Royal Society Research Professor at Oxford University, specializing in number theory. Before that, he had been a professor at Princeton University in the early 1980s and a Guggenheim Fellow at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in France in the late 1...

Koksvik is especially concerned with the argument that interactionist dualism can't work because for it to do so would violation the law of the conservation of energy (supplemented perhaps by the law of the conservation of angular momentum). The idea behind this argument is that IF my thoughts cause me to do something I wouldn't otherwise do, then they must do so by exerting energy. Energy after all  is that which does work, that which which moves matter around. Thus, if interactionism is true, energy is leaking into the phenomenal world from some trans-phenomenal source. Surely this would violate that law. If we're going to say, "so much the worse for the law then!" we can do so. Laws sometimes have to be modified and sometimes abandoned. Still, these leaks of energy into the phenomenal world should be in principle detectable, and anyone arguing for interaction should be able to make a case that they exist, that the law is violated, before arguing for ...