by Joseph Shieber

One of the most highly publicized philosophy papers of the 2000s was a paper that was actually written almost two decades earlier. Harry Frankfurt’s paper “On Bullshit” was first published in 1986, but some astute editor at Princeton University Press, noting its aptness for the George W. Bush era, reprinted the paper as a slim book.

The effect was electric. Frankfurt’s essay appeared in January of 2005 and was on the New York Times bestseller list for almost half of the year. Among Frankfurt’s many media appearances was a notable interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart about the book’s subject matter and its unexpected success (success so surprising that the Daily Show also interviewed a representative of Princeton University Press to discuss it).

According to Frankfurt’s discussion, “bullshit” refers to intentionally misleading communication in which “the bullshitter hides … that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it. … the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how the things about which he speaks truly are.” Read more »

9-Lived Cat

where?

where are you,
……….. on the willow-hung swing
……….. in a field of golden grass?
where,
……….. in the hemlock
……….. straddling the limb at top
……….. hands sticky with sap?
are you
……….. sitting on the well-house step
……….. with the lake at your back
……….. remembering a future of
……….. yes! or collapse?
are you
……….. on the topmost deck above the bridge
……….. gripping the cable-rail fast
……….. exhilarated at how the bow’s pitch feels
……….. spearing a new wave’s gut
……….. as green water breaks over steel
……….. and you feel on your face
……….. the meaning of. Splash! ?
where,
……….. among zucchini
……….. grubbing for those green and fat
……….. or off on a high in a twelve-string cage
……….. trying to strum the truth in that?

where, where?
……….. still tumbling up a shaft
……….. like a 9-lived cat
……….. ?

Jim Culleny
6/18/18

by Robyn Repko Waller

We think of AI as the stuff of science, but AIs are born artists. Those artistic talents are the key to their scientific power and their limitations. 

We often seem to conceive of artificial intelligence (AI) as implementing an abstract, advanced version of the scientific method. Think, for instance, of recent successes in utilizing machine learning techniques to identify potential effective in-use drugs for combating severe COVID in the elderly. Here a machine learning technique, auto encoder, analyzed large data sets of genetic expression and how these genetic expression patterns were impacted by available drugs as well as by SARS-CoV-2. With AI, the pace of clinical trials, and so the timing of life-saving treatment, is quickened.

Or take the recent application of machine learning, specifically deep residual neural nets, in astrophysics to datasets of known gravitational lenses as a method of locating previously unknown galaxies exhibiting gravitational lensing. Gravitational lenses are observable warping of spacetime in images of distant galaxies. Observation of these gravitational lenses is critical for furthering understanding of the fundamental nature of the Universe, including black matter, but are not easily detected despite powerful observational telescopes and spectroscopic technology. Such discoveries, made possible via the coordination of machine learning and other tech-driven astrophysics, have doubled the number of known gravitational lenses, significantly advancing our ability to understand the fundamental properties of spacetime. 

These collaborations between machines and human scientists seem to be a good fit precisely because what the scientists aim to do — identify the underlying workings, patterns, and structures of observable phenomena of interest in our natural world. The power of human scientists, utilizing experimentation and sophisticated instrumentation, to fruitfully theorize about this underlying reality is great, but combined with the power of AI is exponentially greater. And faster. Read more »

Pati Hill. A Swan: An Opera in Nine Chapters, 1978 (detail from chapter 5).

More here, here, and here.

by Tamuira Reid

This is my son, Ollie.

This photo was taken five years ago. It’s one of my all-time favorites because of the look of absolute pride on his face. Hard-earned pride. I realize that pre-k graduation isn’t the most celebrated of milestones for a lot of families, but for us it was huge; Ollie was about to go mainstream.

Looking back at that little boy, and reflecting on the kid he is now, I feel lucky that we live in a city like New York. A city that has endless resources, creativity, spirit, hustle. The city that has taught us what it means to be humble, be grateful. A city that has afforded my disabled son access to an equal and appropriate education, and a public school with teachers who have loved and unconditionally supported him. A city that knows how to rally.

This is my son, Ollie.

Currently a proud in-coming fourth-grader, but with the same coke-bottle glasses and wide, generous smile. His backpack is usually absent-mindedly left open, and is stuffed with graphic novels, half-eaten bags of flaming hot Cheetos, a stress ball, and various contraband (slime, hotwheels cars, Skittles to share on the bus with potential friends, Pokemon cards to trade although he hasn’t figured out exactly how). As he passes you during drop-off, he will greet you with a “Good morning!”, maintaining direct eye contact, something that still feels, at times, unnatural to him.

Ollie Duffy doesn’t really walk from point A to point B, because the “electricity” running through his body, as he’d tell you, is hard to control. His movements are a little bit “more slippery” and unpredictable, like a sideways skip/grapevine type of thing, until he inevitably trips over his own feet. And even though he knows where he’s supposed to go, he often forgets mid-journey.

If Ollie sees your child crying, he will try to comfort them. Usually with a hug, sometimes with a Skittle. If that doesn’t work, he’ll sit nearby so they don’t feel alone. If Ollie is in class with a bully, he’ll feel sorry for them because being angry can mean you’re just frustrated, and he knows how that feels.

This is my son, Ollie.

Heart as big as the planet. Read more »

by Brooks Riley

by Eric Miller

Discovery

Conditions on the ground, if you want the moral of a garden or this excursion right away, are widely discrepant from what they look like from afar. In this respect, naturalists concur with soldiers.

Linnaeus’s Philosophia Botanica, a manual for those with some interest in plant life, tells the eighteenth-century traveller to attend to everything, etiam tritissima, even the tritest, the most well worn, entirely commonplace things. Nowadays we use the word “non-descript” when we want to avoid talking about what is so boring there are no words for it but that adjective. Yet in Linnaeus’s day “non-descript” meant something no one had ever said a word about, in a particular way—a naturalist’s way. Times change but a botanical garden is about philosophy still, it is about discovery don’t you think? Discovery, collection, not to say exclusion are obvious topics once we consent to enter the precincts. How does discovery differ from inventing? Who discovered what? How we discover is naturally a dimension of what we discover. That revelation goes on. We discover meanwhile what we can, there is much we cannot, such is our constitution. Or we discover it, and we forget it. I could not even recount this experience had I not already substantially forgotten it. Obliviousness is the prerequisite of any chronicle. So welcome to Van Dusen Gardens, Vancouver.

Rules for visitors

Do you hear that, too? Could I be right? Yes, it is the voice of a daemon—the Genius of the Place. What could this Spirit be saying? Read more »

by Jackson Arn

They marched us to a room with yellow walls
and tables painted pink, like our uniforms
so we could sit and disappear. We wandered
by tiles and corners, carrying the stink
of desperation. A chair caught me,
because it thought I needed something old
to steady me, and it had the canniness
to offer me a book I used to read
before I got lost. Everything had changed
except the picture on page four, a trout
about to feed a mad king in a bath.
We’d stayed the same size: fish soon to be food,
globe-eyed babyish unthinking gusto,
and me, reading myself back to the flood.

At the deserted millennium-old abbey at Neustift in the South Tyrol a couple of days ago.

by Alexander C. Kafka

Covid has killed two and a half million people worldwide. A conspiracy-embracing, white-supremacist, fascist cohort of Americans are represented by opportunistic enablers in Congress. Texas diverts attention from its fatal mishandling of a winter storm by prematurely and irresponsibly declaring the end of the pandemic. And after a year, we’re all mostly still isolated at home — that is those fortunate enough to have a home in the wake of financial chaos.

I don’t know about you, but I could use a laugh. 

Thus I was looking forward, beyond all measure, to the sequel to Coming to America (1988), that whimsical, goofy, good-hearted John Landis-helmed star vehicle for Eddie Murphy in his prime. 

Its successor, Coming 2 America, is, alas, a forced, lavishly produced clunker that tries to make up in guest stars what it lacks in purpose. Directed by Craig Brewer, it has a few chuckles, eye-popping costumes by Ruth E. Carter, some moments of nostalgic glow around its multi-generational cast, and a reprise of amusing prosthetic-job character bits for Murphy and Arsenio Hall. But it mostly wastes its stars’ talents in an overworked and uninspired script. Read more »

by Martin Butler

For many years I taught ethics to 16-19 year olds, and was often struck not only by how strongly certain ideas resonated with the students, but how unfamiliar they were with these big ideas, the product of hundreds of years of western culture.  Kant and virtue ethics in particular seemed to chime with them. It made me think that these ideas should not be restricted to the narrow group of individuals who happen to have chosen to study philosophy. They are not academic curios but immensely influential and should surely be part of any ethical education. I believe that a knowledge of virtue ethics in particular could help today’s young people navigate the complex and often frightening world that they face.

Traditionally religious education has been the arena where ethical topics are covered, usually with the focus on ethical dilemmas such as euthanasia, abortion, and the status of animals. These are important and interesting topics that need to be discussed but they don’t provide the kind of ethical framework I have in mind. The treatment of ethics at this level can often produce a kind of paralysis of neutralism, a kind of ‘some people say this and others say that – take your pick’ approach, though there are areas where a more assertive line is taken.

No one denies, for example, that we really do have certain rights, this is beyond opinion.  In the UK recently there has also been a push to include in the curriculum what are described as ‘British values’ (I have never been quite sure why they are distinctly British.)  These comprise the rule of law, tolerance, democracy, and individual liberty. Other values such as equality, respect, diversity, inclusivity are also often given prominence.  All of this is important but not enough. It is quite impersonal and abstract and hardly helpful to someone seeking a more direct guide on how their lives might be led. These ethical ideas are also quite static. You either accept them or you don’t, and there is no developmental dimension that could connect with someone wanting to improve their life both ethically and psychologically. Religious belief can give this more personal kind of guidance but there should surely be something that fills this role for those who are not religious. Read more »

by Ruchira Paul

Travelers to India came from all corners of the world through the ages for different reasons. The very first modern humans probably came there in order to escape harsh climate conditions elsewhere in the world. Latter day visitors arrived with varied objectives in mind. Some came seeking material fortune, some for spiritual enlightenment and others merely out of curiosity. A few who came, took what they wanted and left. Others came to conquer and decided to stay and make India their home. Then there were mercenary visitors who looked at India as a vast revenues source for enriching themselves and their own native lands while also seeing an opportunity to instill their religious and “civilizing” values on a foreign nation. They too decided to stay but never thought of India as home. India still attracts visitors from across the world. Most come as tourists to check out its numerous and varied natural and historical vistas (there is always the Taj Mahal). Some may be enticed by more quirky and personal adventures such as chasing the monsoon or seeking the ever elusive spiritual and emotional fulfillment. Scholarly pursuits and business opportunities attract others to the second most populous nation in the world which defines itself as a multi-cultural modern day free market democracy with an ancient checkered past that is a palimpsest of layers upon layers of human foot print left by visitors who crisscrossed its landscape in all directions for many thousands of years.

The author of “Indians…” Namit Arora is a visitor in his own land. Born and educated in India, Arora left for foreign shores to pursue higher education and later a career as an engineer in Silicon Valley. After two decades of living abroad, in 2013 he returned to India to settle there permanently. This book is the record of his travels through India to the same places first in 2006 and a return visit in 2019. The author speaks both as an insider familiar with India as also an outsider who can examine the country of his birth through the lens of a global perspective. Arora is an enthusiastic and informed world traveler and photographer who periodically took time off from work to visit many far corners of the world. Read more »

Flight and Gravity

a story,
a recollection
of 79 summer solstices
bundled in one thought
of when I was young—a carpenter
with muscles, sweating,
lugging planks from lumber stacks 
to half-framed houses, stud walls
proud in sun, precise in ranks  
……………………………………….  a thought
that segues into a later solstice
down the line, along the way, a solstice
of love and its making, a tale
with science thrown in,
math and passion, geometry, physics—
stuff I’d read somewhere, sometime,
picked up or always known
in helical dreams, stuff that
fits and shifts, all true:
flight and gravity

Jim Culleny
5/13/19, rev:5/25/20

by Usha Alexander

[This is the ninth in a series of essays, On Climate Truth and Fiction, in which I raise questions about environmental distress, the human experience, and storytelling. All the articles in this series can be read here.]

—Change. Resilience. Where do we start? I’ve got no idea. What happens after this? Listen! The answer is here!—

These words, splashed on posters, jumped out at me from images sent by a friend. The posters were part of an exhibition called We Need To Talk About Fire, hosted at an artists’ gallery along the Nowra River, about halfway between Sydney and Canberra. The Nowra River region had been hard-hit by the catastrophic Australian bushfires of 2019–20, following an unprecedented drought. Fire season in Australia is worsening as the planet warms, just as it is in the western United States, the Amazon, and Siberia. And the 2019–20 Australian season was particularly horrific, igniting a follow-on spate of depression and suicides in the area. What struck me about these posters was the raw simplicity of their messages, which ranged from forceful platitudes to agonized queries.

In their talk about these bushfires of extraordinary fury, worsened by climate change, there’s no mention of technical solutions. No demand for new wind farms or lowered carbon intensity. Instead, the posters surface what so often gets buried beneath the statistics, acronyms, and cost-benefit analyses common in our dialogs on climate and environment. They voice the thoughts of people who narrowly escaped the flames as the sky burned. People who lost pieces of their lives in an incomprehensible inferno—loved ones or homes or a quietude of mind. For me, the posters recalled the millions more, elsewhere, who might also be expressing similar feelings: Survivors of entire towns leveled by fire in the western United States, from Paradise, California in 2018, to the several communities of Detroit, Blue River, Vida, Phoenix, and Talent, Oregon in 2020. Survivors of back-to-back typhoons Kenneth and Idai, the two most powerful cyclones ever to strike Mozambique, which hit within six weeks of one another, in March and April of 2019, fueled by rising sea surface temperatures. Survivors of typhoon Goni, the strongest recorded cyclone ever to make landfall anywhere, which hit the Philippines just days after typhoon Molave had hammered the same region, during the Covid-19 pandemic in October and November of 2020. Others too, for whom the damages and dangers of our rapidly changing planet must already feel immediate, existential, and relentless, eclipsing hopes for a return to “normalcy.” Read more »

by Eric J. Weiner

In 1940, at the height of Hitler’s invasion of Western Europe, Walter Benjamin, from Vichy France wrote, “The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘emergency situation’ in which we live is the rule. We must arrive at a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight.”[1] In our current historical context, his words are instructive for two reasons. First, they were written in the context of Nazi occupation with death breathing down his neck. In spite of these extreme conditions, Benjamin refused to see the emergency situation he was in as historically exceptional; his refusal to turn his back on the dialectic under these circumstances was extraordinary and, as we know now, at least in terms of ideology, prescient. Second, his theses about the concept of history, 80 years after he first conceived them, still resonate today. From the mismanaged pandemic and Trump’s fascistic incitement of a white supremacist insurrection at the Capitol to the continuing systemic assault and murder of African Americans by police, the failure of capitalism to eradicate poverty, growing economic inequality, deepening home and food insecurity, and the broken promise of public education to become the “great equalizer” of opportunity, the United States is struggling through what many people have mischaracterized as an unprecedented national crisis of existential proportions. It appears we have not learned what Benjamin suggested the tradition of the oppressed ought to have taught us: We have still not arrived at a conception of history that allows us to see the web of current crises as the rule, not the exception. Read more »