It occurred to me this evening (after a particularly wine-laced meal) that one of the powerful contributions of the de-coherence of cafeteria style spirituality is the way it inoculates on against having one's religious beliefs manipulated for political agendas by others ( Read more... )

I have had Heinz von Foerster rumaging around in the back of my mind since I read some of his stuff over the Christmas break (though predominantly presentations and interviews, none of his works proper ( Read more... )

Having read the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Charles Sanders Peirce, I now understand why amyceleste recommended I take a better look at Norwood Russell Hanson, which I did and now should do again.

Thanks amyceleste, good recommendation!

Why is being drunk so much fun? Because we are endlessly fascinated by the problems of our own epistemology.

The best way to test a piece of equipment is to use it. So I downloaded a copy of Miyamoto Musashi's Five Rings, a Japanese book on strategy and swordsmanship from the mid 17th century ( Read more... )

I have been following academy ward winning documentary film maker Errol Morris' three-part blog journey (Part 1, Addendum, Part 2, Part 3) on the epistomological aspects of picture interpretations (here, Roger Fenton's Valley of Death from the Crimean War) for the last weekends in the New York Times sub-region of the blog-sphere.

Among the many ( Read more... )

This month is my anniversary at the company; on October 18th I will be starting my first decade tenth year there. Unfortunately, the last nine months have been very spotty in the enjoyment department, and since I use my emotional reactions to things as a heuristic device to deal with the intractability of thinking about things, this has left me ( Read more... )

Some notes from a discussion with JonnyDeftone and SheepHerder.

• The key advantage of general laws is to keep the theories small, which simplifies inference for man and machine.
• Occam's razor has a metaphysical and an epistolmological interpretation: Either the universe loves simplicity or the simpler theory is easier to work with.
• Given that any ( Read more... )

amyceleste and ProfessorK had accepted the challenge of treating me to a day of cultural overdrive in the nation's capital. I prepared by intently studying the subway map on my way in from liedowndog's house, since river settlements have been rather compelling for me for some time now, and wondering about the location of the navy yard [when was the last time DC had a ( Read more... )