Lindsay Beyerstein interviews Steven Pinker, over at CFI's Point of Inquiry:

Listen here.

James Gorman in The New York Times:

So many large and small questions remain unanswered. How is information encoded and transferred from cell to cell or from network to network of cells? Science found a genetic code but there is no brain-wide neural code; no electrical or chemical alphabet exists that can be recombined to say “red” or “fear” or “wink” or “run.” And no one knows whether information is encoded differently in various parts of the brain. Brain scientists may speculate on a grand scale, but they work on a small scale. Sebastian Seung at Princeton, author of “Connectome: How the Brain’s Wiring Makes Us Who We Are,” speaks in sweeping terms of how identity, personality, memory — all the things that define a human being — grow out of the way brain cells and regions are connected to each other. But in the lab, his most recent work involves the connections and structure of motion-detecting neurons in the retinas of mice. Larry Abbott, 64, a former theoretical physicist who is now co-director, with Kenneth Miller, of the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University, is one of the field’s most prominent theorists, and the person whose name invariably comes up when discussions turn to brain theory.

…The question now on his mind, and that of many neuroscientists, is how larger groups, thousands of neurons, work together — whether to produce an action, like reaching for a cup, or to perceive something, like a flower. There are ways to record the electrical activity of neurons in a brain, and those methods are improving fast. But, he said, “If I give you a picture of a thousand neurons firing, it’s not going to tell you anything.” Computer analysis helps to reduce and simplify such a picture but, he says, the goal is to discover the physiological mechanism in the data. For example, he asks why does one pattern of neurons firing “make you jump off the couch and run out the door and others make you just sit there and do nothing?” It could be, Dr. Abbott says, that simultaneous firing of all the neurons causes you to take action. Or it could be that it is the number of neurons firing that prompts an action. His tools are computers and equations, but he collaborates on all kinds of experimental work on neuroscientific problems in animals and humans.

More here.

Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone:

She tried to stay quiet, she really did. But after eight years of keeping a heavy secret, the day came when Alayne Fleischmann couldn't take it anymore.

“It was like watching an old lady get mugged on the street,” she says. “I thought, 'I can't sit by any longer.'”

Fleischmann is a tall, thin, quick-witted securities lawyer in her late thirties, with long blond hair, pale-blue eyes and an infectious sense of humor that has survived some very tough times. She's had to struggle to find work despite some striking skills and qualifications, a common symptom of a not-so-common condition called being a whistle-blower.

Fleischmann is the central witness in one of the biggest cases of white-collar crime in American history, possessing secrets that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon late last year paid $9 billion (not $13 billion as regularly reported – more on that later) to keep the public from hearing.

Back in 2006, as a deal manager at the gigantic bank, Fleischmann first witnessed, then tried to stop, what she describes as “massive criminal securities fraud” in the bank's mortgage operations.

More here.

Mike Konczal in Boston Review (image by Jason Hales):

Adam Smith was not the first, but he was certainly one of the most eloquent defenders of justice delivered according to the profit motive. In The Wealth of Nations, he wrote that since courts could charge fees for conducting a trial, each court would endeavor, “by superior dispatch and impartiality, to draw to itself as many causes as it could.” Competition meant a judge would try “to give, in his own court, the speediest and most effectual remedy which the law would admit, for every sort of injustice.” Left unsaid is what this system does to those who can’t afford to pay up.

Our government is being remade in this mold—the mold of a business. The past thirty years have seen massive, outright privatization of government services. Meanwhile the logic of business, competition, and the profit motive has been introduced into what remains.

But for those with a long enough historical memory, this is nothing new. Through the first half of our country’s history, public officials were paid according to the profit motive, and it was only through the failures of that system that a fragile accountability was put into place during the Progressive Era. One of the key sources of this accountability was the establishment of salaries for public officials who previously had been paid on commission.

As this professionalized system is dismantled, once-antique notions are becoming relevant again. Consider merit pay schemes whereby teachers are now meant to compete with each other for bonuses. This mirrors the 1770 Maryland assembly’s argument that public officials “would not perform their duties with as much diligence when paid a fixed salary as when paid for each particular service.” And note that the criminal justice system now profits from forfeiture of property and court fees levied on offenders, recalling Thomas Brackett Reed, the House Republican leader who, in 1887, argued, “In order to bring your criminals against the United States laws to detection” you “need to have the officials stimulated by a similar self-interest to that which excites and supports and sustains the criminal.”

The dissolution of the old system, and its return with a vengeance, are the subjects of three recent books on the everyday lives of our front-line public employees.

More here.

Licia Galizia – Michelangelo Lupone.

” … a unique installation that combines sculpture and music thanks to the collaboration between artist Licia Galizia and composer Michelangelo Lupone. The work is the result of an artistic research project entitled ADAMO for Adaptive Art and Music Opera.”

More here, here and here.

From The Economist:

By law, all public buildings in Iran must have prayer rooms. But travelling around the country you will find few shoes at prayer time outside these rooms in bus stations, office buildings and shopping centres. “We nap in ours after lunch,” says an office manager. Calls to prayer have become rare, too. Officials have silenced muezzins to appease citizens angered by the noise. The state broadcaster used to interrupt football matches with live sermons at prayer time; now only a small prayer symbol appears in a corner of the screen.

Iran is the modern world’s first and only constitutional theocracy. It is also one of the least religious countries in the Middle East. Islam plays a smaller role in public life today than it did a decade ago. The daughter of a high cleric contends that “religious belief is mostly gone. Faith has been replaced by disgust.” Whereas secular Arab leaders suppressed Islam for decades and thus created a rallying point for political grievances, in Iran the opposite happened.

More here.

Bayer and Figdor in Salon:

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” — Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

We begin by suggesting a framework of secular belief. It begins with the simple question, How can I justify any of my beliefs? When thinking about why we believe in anything, we quickly realize that every belief is based on other preexisting beliefs. Consider, for example, the belief that brushing our teeth keeps them healthy. Why do we believe this? Because brushing helps removes plaque buildup that causes teeth to decay. But why do we believe plaque causes decay? Because our dentists, teachers, and parents told us so. Why do we trust what our dentist says? Because other dentists and articles and books we’ve read confirmed it. Why do we believe those accounts? Because they presented many more pieces of information confirming the link between plaque, bacterial growth, and tooth decay. And why do we believe those pieces of information?

There seems to be no end. It’s like the old story of a learned man giving a public lecture in which he mentions that the earth orbits the sun. At the end of the lecture an elderly lady approaches the lectern and sternly informs him that he is wrong: The world, she says, is actually resting on the back of a giant turtle. The learned man smiles and asks, “What is the turtle standing on?” The old lady doesn’t even blink and replies, “Another turtle, of course!” When the learned man starts to respond, “And what is that turtle—” she interrupts him: “You’re very clever, young man . . . but it’s turtles all the way down!” Just like that cosmic stack of turtles, the process of justifying beliefs based on other beliefs never ends—unless at some point we manage to arrive at a belief that doesn’t rely on justification from any prior belief. That would be a foundational source of belief.

More here.

Sue Halpern in the NYRB (Penelope Umbrico/Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles):

Every day a piece of computer code is sent to me by e-mail from a website to which I subscribe called IFTTT. Those letters stand for the phrase “if this then that,” and the code is in the form of a “recipe” that has the power to animate it. Recently, for instance, I chose to enable an IFTTT recipe that read, “if the temperature in my house falls below 45 degrees Fahrenheit, then send me a text message.” It’s a simple command that heralds a significant change in how we will be living our lives when much of the material world is connected—like my thermostat—to the Internet.

It is already possible to buy Internet-enabled light bulbs that turn on when your car signals your home that you are a certain distance away and coffeemakers that sync to the alarm on your phone, as well as WiFi washer-dryers that know you are away and periodically fluff your clothes until you return, and Internet-connected slow cookers, vacuums, and refrigerators. “Check the morning weather, browse the web for recipes, explore your social networks or leave notes for your family—all from the refrigerator door,” reads the ad for one.

Welcome to the beginning of what is being touted as the Internet’s next wave by technologists, investment bankers, research organizations, and the companies that stand to rake in some of an estimated $14.4 trillion by 2022—what they call the Internet of Things (IoT). Cisco Systems, which is one of those companies, and whose CEO came up with that multitrillion-dollar figure, takes it a step further and calls this wave “the Internet of Everything,” which is both aspirational and telling.

More here.

Vladimir Yermakov in Eurozine:

In the Soviet Union I was not a dissident. (Being a drunk doesn't count.) All I did was write stories that were ideological strangers. And I had to leave. It was in America that I became a dissident.
Sergei Dovlatov

Central to the primary meaning of a work of art is the person of the artist, especially if the work contains autobiographical material. Sergei Dovlatov (1941-1990) is a special case in this respect. The writer Dovlatov, and his character Dovlatov, are as dependent on one another as the two hands simultaneously drawing one another in Maurits Cornelis Escher's mysterious drawing. This interdependence doesn't imply anything definite about their identity, however. Those who knew Dovlatov from his works merely imagined they knew the man. Those who knew him personally realized they didn't know him very well. The facts of his biography are all blurred, ambiguous, vague. This should be kept in mind when reading his books. Almost confessionary in form, their content is largely invented. As a great mystifier, he was able to unsettle his surroundings. In the field of gravitation surrounding Dovlatov, reality is distorted and loses its plausibility.

But before focusing on the man himself, we should decide on our criteria. The pathos typical of world literature can be seen as a defence of the human being. How do we evaluate a person? Every one of us has a scale according to which we weigh the social significance of a person. This scale runs between two generalizing definitions, namely “the great man” and “the small man”. The megalomania inherent in Russian autocratic rule would acknowledge only statesmen-heroes as great men. Therefore Tsarist censorship was nettled by the entirely inappropriate respect shown for the person of Pushkin in his obituary: what value could there be in a poet, let alone one who, instead of praising absolute power, endorsed mercy toward the fallen? As for the place of the human being in Russian reality, government and society were far from seeing eye-to-eye. Russian literature turned its face from the mighty of this world and gave its heart to the poor, the luckless, penniless outsiders, whom it saw through the magic crystal of art. They were seen as true, genuine people, whereas the lords of life proved to be the charlatans of existence.

The central character in Sergei Dovlatov's prose, the author's alter ego, is a small person. A small man in a great country built by dwarfs. Here is the first confusing point: a great small person.

More here.

From the Heyman Center:

In his recent book “The Revolt Against the Masses,” Fred Siegel indicts modern American liberalism for elitism toward ordinary Americans, their values and culture, and blames liberals for many of the problems plaguing American Society today. Taking off from Siegel's book, the panelists will respond to his critique, discuss liberalism's history, and evaluate its future prospects.

Panelists include Fred Siegel, Scholar in Residence at St. Francis College in Brooklyn; Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University; Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University; Anne Kornhauser, Assistant Professor of History at City College of New York, City University of New York; and Judith Stein, Distinguished Professor of History, The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Liberalism and Its Critics from Heyman Center/Society of Fellows on Vimeo.

Tariq Ali in Counterpunch:

Historians of Islam, following Muhammad’s lead, would come to refer to the pre-Islamic period as the jahiliyya (‘the time of ignorance’), but the influence of its traditions should not be underestimated. For the pre-Islamic tribes, the past was the preserve of poets, who also served as historians, blending myth and fact in odes designed to heighten tribal feeling. The future was considered irrelevant, the present all-important. One reason for the tribes’ inability to unite was that the profusion of their gods and goddesses helped to perpetuate divisions and disputes whose real origins often lay in commercial rivalries. Muhammad fully understood this world. He belonged to the Quraysh, a tribe that prided itself on its genealogy and claimed descent from Ishmael. Before his marriage, he had worked as one of Khadija’s employees on a merchant caravan. He travelled a great deal in the region, coming into contact with Christians, Jews, Magians and pagans of every stripe. He would have had dealings with two important neighbours: Byzantine Christians and the fire-worshipping Zoroastrians of Persia. Muhammad’s spiritual drive was fuelled by socio-economic ambitions: by the need to strengthen the commercial standing of the Arabs, and to impose a set of common rules. He envisioned a tribal confederation united by common goals and loyal to a single faith which, of necessity, had to be new and universal. Islam was the cement he used to unite the Arab tribes; commerce was to be the only noble occupation.

…The military successes of the first Muslim armies were remarkable. The speed of their advance startled the Mediterranean world, and the contrast with early Christianity could not have been more pronounced. Within twenty years of Muhammad’s death in 632, his followers had laid the foundations of the first Islamic empire in the Fertile Crescent. Impressed by these successes, whole tribes embraced the new religion. Mosques began to appear in the desert, and the army expanded. Its swift triumphs were seen as a sign that Allah was both omnipotent and on the side of the Believers. These victories were no doubt possible only because the Persian and Byzantine Empires had been engaged for almost a hundred years in a war that had enfeebled both sides, alienated their populations and created an opening for the new conquerors. Syria and Egypt were part of the Byzantine Empire; Iraq was ruled by Sassanid Persia. All three now fell to the might and fervour of a unified tribal force.

More here.

Written for Old Friends in Yang-jou City While
Spending the Night on the Tung-lu River
.

I hear the apes howl sadly
In dark mountains.
The blue river
Flows swiftly through the night.

The wind cries
In the leaves on either bank.
The moon shines
On a solitary boat.

These wild hills
are not my country.
I think of past ramblings
in the city with you.

I will take
These two lines of tears
And send them to you
Far away
At the western reach of the sea.
.

by Meng Hua-Ran
Tang Dynasty
Early 730s A.D.
from The Heart of Chinese Poetry
Edited and translated by Greg Whincup
Anchor Books, 1987
.
.

Arif Akbar in The Independent:

Joy Williams at The New York Times:

Denis Johnson is closest in sensibility to the great Robert Stone, though he lacks that writer’s command of plot and structure. Yet we don’t read Johnson for methodology but for troubled effect and bright astonishments. A writer should write in such a way that nobody can be ignorant of the world and that nobody may say that he is innocent of what it is all about. Sartre says this, more or less, in “What Is Literature?” Johnson writes in just such a way. Life is ludicrous and full of cruel and selfish distractions. Honor is elusive and many find the copious ingestion of drugs necessary. Our ignorance is infinite and our sorrows fearful. We have made an unutterable waste of this world, and our passage through it is bitter and unheroic. Still, the horror can at times be illuminating, and it is necessary that the impossible be addressed. Here is the hapless murderer Bill Houston at the end of Johnson’s first novel, “Angels,” strapped down in the gas chamber, listening to the sound of his heart:

“Boom. . . . Boom! Was there ever anything as pretty as that one? Another coming . . . boom! Beautiful! They just don’t come any better than that. He was in the middle of taking the last breath of his life before he realized he was taking it. But it was all right. Boom! Unbelievable! And anothercoming? How many of these things do you mean to give away? He got right in the dark between heartbeats, and rested there. And then he saw that another one wasn’t going to come.”

Writing, like old age and Wyoming, is not for sissies.

more here.

Jacob Siefring at The Quarterly Conversation:

However much the Formalists and New Critics insisted on maintaining an analytic gap between the work of literary interpretation and the life circumstances of authors, readers and reviewers generally expect a modicum of information about the author to come along with a book. Where such information is counterfactual, as in the case of pseudonymity or heteronymity, the situation is a little different, but fundamentally the same. The impulse toward biographical candor is not wholly dodged, as one might first think, but rather reinforced through a teasing gesture that only appears to oppose it. Pseudonymity calls attention to authorship and identity in ways that more conventional forms of attribution do not, and it generally has the effect of intensifying the curiosity and mystique which sometimes surrounds literary authorship.

In other words, textual signification is never only intrinsic to the text, but on the contrary always also framed by what information is known about its composition and provenance. A famous Borges story, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” pivots on this interplay between authorship/attribution and signification. The central character, a writer called Pierre Menard, develops an ambition to “produce a number of pages which coincided—word for word and line for line—with those of Miguel de Cervantes.” When the narrator of the story compares Menard’s fragments with the corresponding passages from Cervantes, he is awestruck by the differences of style that arise from attributing the text to either Cervantes or Menard.

more here.