https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democritus
Was the epithet "laughing philosopher" used as a mnemonic device for Democritus?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democritus
Was the epithet "laughing philosopher" used as a mnemonic device for Democritus?
<div style="background-color: silver; color: black; font-weight: bold;"> Nearly 2 000 years after the Rosetta stone decree was written, the French military engineer Pierre Francois Bouchard was repairing the defenses of an Arab Fort strengthening it against the ottoman Fleet that's expected to arrive within a short time. Only a year ago the French army had invaded Egypt and attempted to set up a colony but that increasingly looked doomed to failure as both the Ottomans and British were mustering to attack the French and the Army has to consistently battle internal revolts. </div>
<div style="background-color: DarkCyan; color: white; font-weight: bold;"> During the repair work the engineers find the stone seemingly used as scrap construction material in an old wall. They immediately brought it to Bouchard's attention as they're supposed to do with any artifact. Seeing the script on the broken Stone Bouchard immediately realized the implications of this find as this inscription was in three different languages and it could be the key to finally deciphering Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics. so he sends out a message saying he's found a curious artifact near Rosetta the French name for Rasheed. </div>
<div style="background-color: LightCyan; color: black; font-weight: bold;"> Bouchard sent out a message saying he's found a curious artifact near Rosetta, the French name for Rasheed. He then passed the stone to General Mano transferring it to his tent to be cleaned and the Greek to be translated while they dug in hopes of finding its missing pieces but then as the French army fought off an Ottoman landing at Abu kirbei Bouchard accompanied the 1700 pound Stone to the savants headquarters at Cairo. It arrived just in time for Napoleon to see it before he ditched the Expedition and sailed back to France. In doing so he left the savants with a deteriorating military situation alongside a Priceless but extremely heavy artifact that they had no way of getting back to France. </div>
Note:The French Expedition also had an academic component of over 150 so-called savants - scientists, writers, linguists and other academics who had come along setting up a research institute in Cairo where they studied everything from local Wildlife to ancient artifacts.
Rosetta Stone changes hands from French to the British:
It became soon obvious that the mysterious third language was not Syriac as originally thought but the Demotic mentioned in classical sources. At first they tried copying it by hand but it proved too intricate. Then they just smeared ink on the front and then pressed it with paper like it was a printing press. It worked ! All the while the French army hauled the stone around even to battlefields unwilling to leave it unguarded. Prints of the inscription had already reached Paris which was good because the Rosetta Stone could not be transported there.
in 1801 General Menou, now in charge of the Expedition, signed a surrender agreement with the British and the Ottomans and one of the provisions was that all of the artifacts retrieved during the French expedition to Egypt were now Spoils of War and the personal property of King George III, especially the Rosetta Stone. In fact, the British were so pleased with its acquisition that they actually painted on the side "captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801".
Click Captured-by-British-Rosetta-Stone
A year later when King George donated it to the British museum
As the men tore down a wall that had been built using the detritus of nearby ancient Egyptian sites, they discovered a large stone fragment covered in three types of writing, including ancient Greek.
(...on July 15, 1799, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, a French soldier Pierre Bouchard discovered a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles east of Alexandria. The irregularly shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in three different scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic. The ancient Greek on the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests honoring the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, in the second century B.C. More startlingly, the Greek passage announced that the three scripts were all of identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics, a written language that had been “dead” for nearly 2,000 years.) For rest of the article click Rosetta Stone Found
Why is Rosetta Stone important? Click Importance of Rosetta Stone
Josh Bongard's lab at UVM
for - Josh Bongard - collaborator of Micheal Levin
they don't age. So asexual strains of planaria, which basically reproduce by cutting themselves in half and regenerating, there is no evidence of aging. They go on forever. The worms that we have in our lab are in physical continuity with worms that were here 400 million years ago.
for - planaria - don't age - life of same individual is 400 million years old - don't age
you chop off their head, which contains their brain, you chop off their head, the tail will regrow a new head, and that new worm will remember the original training.
for - planaria - chop of head - tail will regenerate head
Trump Widens the Breach - The Atlantic<br /> by [[John Dickerson]]<br /> accessed on 2025-12-17T23:02:59
13" (33 cm.) case. Petite-sized cream enamel-framed typewriter with chrome-framed ebony keys is labeled Underwood Classic and includes its original carrying case. A silver plaque on the front is inscribed "To ïAmerica's Pet' Shirley Temple". Circa 1935. Included is a photograph showing Shirley at the typewriter.

lots of people are very mindful what they feed their body. We should be equally mindful about what we feed our mind.
for - quote - be mindful of what you feed your mind - Yuval Noah Harari - lots of people are very mindful what they feed their body. We should be equally mindful about what we feed our mind.
how much truth do you need in order to construct the Soviet Union and how much fiction and delusions do you need in order to construct the Soviet Union? You need a little truth and a lot of fiction. And this is true of most of the large scale political systems that existed throughout human history,
for - totalitarian systems - a little truth plus a lot of fiction
The biggest misconception about information is that information is truth and information isn't truth. Most information is not truth. The truth is a very rare and costly and expensive type of information.
for - comparison - information and truth - truth is a very special type of information
The miracle of nationalism and patriotism is that it makes us scare about millions of strangers that we have never met in our lives.
for - nationalism - role of - makes us care beyond a small dunbar number
Every large scale human system is based on an unlikely marriage between mythology and bureaucracy.
for - large scale human systems - are a combination of - mythology and bureaucracy
the US legal system allows is for these legal persons to make political donations because it's considered part of freedom of speech. So now this, the richest person in the US is giving billions of dollars to candidates in exchange for these candidates broadening the rights of AIs,
for - progress trap - AI can become political lobbyist for increasing rights of AI
what we are facing is not, you know, like a Hollywood science fiction scenario of one big evil computer trying to take over the world. No, it's nothing like that. It's more like millions and millions of AI bureaucrats that are given more and more authority to make decisions about us
for - futures - AI - millions of AI bots making decisions about us
he counted examples of violence done by an indigenous group in I believe Uruguay uh as an example of violence of prehistoric primitive societies. Uh >> even though >> the the actual violence that was reported was done by colonists against those indigenous people but he counted it as the opposite as violence done by the indigenous people
for - progress champion - Steven Pinker - discredited - one example of many - outright lie - he says violence committed BY indigenous Uruguay people but it was colonialist violence done TO THEM!
Steven Pinker
for - progress - Steven Pinker - cheerleader of
we are now back in this sort of age of religiosity, particularly with the Trump administration, him claiming that he has essentially been anointed anointed by God in order to do whatever he wants.
for - history - Trump - back into age of religosity. He claims, like former kings, he was anointed by god!
hat the book is is kind of trying to do is trace that lineage from that initial uh you know the the very first kind of literary endeavors um through uh you know uh Judaism and and through the classical Greek uh thinkers
for - book - tracing history of progress / Growthist political economy narrative from Vikings to Mesopotamia to Judaism to Greeks to Islam to Enlightenment to US
what progress should be, why it is so vital, and how little time we really have to achieve it.
for - youtube - Planet Critical interview - Samuel Miller MacDonald - The Myth of Progress
rogress: A History of Humankind's Worst Idea
for - progress trap - book - to - book - Progress: A History of Humankind's Worst Idea - https://hyp.is/cMyt5tjMEfCGz9-Edzp-hA/harpercollins.co.uk/products/progress-a-history-of-humanitys-worst-idea-samuel-miller-mcdonald - author Samuel Miller McDonald
SRG comment - interview - book on Progress - see other references: - to - book - A Short History of Progress (2004) - https://hyp.is/93k5CtjLEfC1UpPEi59BHA/archive.org/details/shorthistoryofpr0000wrig - to - movie - Surviving Progress (2011) - https://hyp.is/sRPYJtjLEfCwuDdwG2xNnw/www.nfb.ca/film/surviving-progress/ - SRG article - Cogress
Samuel traces this narrative all the way back to 5,000 years ago
for - progress - myth of - 5000 years ago
for - Medium article - cogress - Part 1 - progress trap - James Gien Wong - definition - cogress - to - Medium article cogress - Part 2 - progress trap - James Gien Wong - https://hyp.is/t8FhpDGAEfC4J7f0NEFujg/medium.com/@gien_SRG/human-cogress-part-2-d6fd075a55c7 - to - Stop Reset Go hypothesis annotations - progress trap - Ronald Wright - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=ronald+wright - General - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=progress+trap - from - youtube - Planet Critical interview - Samuel Miller MacDonald - The Myth of Progress - https://hyp.is/r-hmFtjKEfCd8odATbINbA/www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEhmWEDkZUQ
for - book - A Short History of Progress (2004) - author - Ronald Wright - progress trap - Ronald Wright - A Short History of Progress (2004) - to - movie - Surviving Progress (2011) - https://hyp.is/sRPYJtjLEfCwuDdwG2xNnw/www.nfb.ca/film/surviving-progress/ - to - book - Progress: A History of Humanity's Worst Idea - from - youtube - Planet Critical interview - Samuel Miller MacDonald - The Myth of Progress - https://hyp.is/r-hmFtjKEfCd8odATbINbA/www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEhmWEDkZUQ
for - progress traps - movie - Surviving Progress (2011) - from - book - A Short History of Progress (2004) - https://hyp.is/93k5CtjLEfC1UpPEi59BHA/archive.org/details/shorthistoryofpr0000wrig - from - youtube - Planet Critical interview - Samuel Miller MacDonald - The Myth of Progress - https://hyp.is/r-hmFtjKEfCd8odATbINbA/www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEhmWEDkZUQ
for - youtube - How the rich took over the economy - from - youtube - interview - Thomas Piketty - can't blame the top, so demonize the bottom - https://hyp.is/10dTvtheEfC_-8OXfzSTJA/www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeZoNTJgBZs
Paul Fulker was appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve, essentially the head of the United States Central Bank. in 1979 and his appointment signaled a dramatic shift in US economic governance
for - economic history - 1979 - Paul. A. Volcker appointed chairman of Federal Reserve - Volcker Shock - shift - from employment to inflation - raised interest rates to an astounding 20%, intentionally causing a recession
from 60,000 businesses in 1972 to over a quarter million just 10 years later
for stats - economic history - corporate power - 10 years - American Chamber of Commerce - from 60,000 to 250,000 members
for - paper - The emergence of egalitarianism in a model of early human societies (2017) - author - Guillaume Calmettes - James N. Weiss
for - paper - Major transitions in sociocultural evolution (2025) - author - Arsham Nejad kourki - criitque of sociocultural systems as ETI
for - paper - Characteristic processes of human evolution caused the Anthropocene and may obstruct its global solutions (2023) - author - Timothy M. Waring - Zachary T. Wood - Eörs Szathmáry
SRG comment - validation that cultural evolution must make a dramatic shift because - the patterns of cultural evolution that brought human civilization to modernity and the Anthropocene - could end up destroying it - progress trap - cultural evolution - patterns of existing cultural evolution and progress could be our ultimate progress trap
for - ACE Lab - Applied Cultural Evolution Laboratory - from - article - University of Maine - Culture is driving a major shift in human evolution, new theory proposes - https://hyp.is/S1QxRtf2EfCxxAP798Jrpw/umaine.edu/news/blog/2025/09/15/culture-is-driving-a-major-shift-in-human-evolution-new-theory-proposes/
Applied Cultural Evolution Laboratory at the University of Maine
for - to - Applied Cultural Evolution Laboratory - University of Maine - https://hyp.is/aVSgkNf2EfChbceMGSBicA/timwaring.info/
for - paper - 2025 - Cultural inheritance is driving a transition in human evolution - author<br /> - Timothy M Waring - from - U of Maine News - Culture is driving a major shift in human evolution, new theory proposeshttps://hyp.is/7sMSFteXEfC_tNvhW0UTPA/umaine.edu/news/blog/2025/09/15/culture-is-driving-a-major-shift-in-human-evolution-new-theory-proposes/ - Zarchary T Wood
for - progress traps - speed of cultural vs genetic evolution
SRG comment - As Ronald Wright pointed out, it is the speed of our cultural evolution that creates a gap between the evolutionary "hardware" we are equipped with and the novel phenomena that we have never encountered before
Because one human lifetime may encompass a million bacterial generations, individual species and the microbiome itself can evolve within a single host.
for - quote - one human lifetime - evolution of a million generations of bacteria - Because one human lifetime may encompass a million bacterial generations, individual species and the microbiome itself can evolve within a single host.
For many if not all members of the human microbial fauna, generation times are measured in hours or even minutes. These short generation times, coupled with the large population sizes of many bacteria, effectively elide the boundary between ecological and evolutionary time
for - microbiome - blurs ecological and evolutionary time - due to short generation time of microfauna
In contrast to the traditional focus on the individual organism as the target of selection and the unit of evolution, the genetic information embodied by each of our microbiomes may itself be the target for and the product of the evolutionary process.
for - unpack - microbiome as the target for / product of evolution
The collective microbial genome in our gut may include 100-fold more genetic information than what can be found in our own eukaryotic cells.
for - trivia - microbiome - 100x more genetic information here than our other body cells -meme - most of the genetic information inside you is not really you
nstead, such perturbed ecosystems may settle on a new composition that includes different species, many of them resistant to antibiotic treatment.
for - progress trap - long term antibiotic use - can create new composition of microbiome with species resistant to antibiotic treatment
both replication is dependent on the living cell and the function of the proteins is dependent on the living cell. Neither automatically follow from the DNA alone
for - key insight - cell replication AND function of proteins are both dependent on the living cell. Neither follow from DNA alone - Denis Noble
about dozen years ago, chemists actually checked if you unravel the DNA in a dish without a cell, how does it replicate?
for - DNA replication experiment - in vitro - lots of errors - 1/10,000 pairs error rate - our genomes 3 billion base pairs long each - so 300,000 errors - would be fatal to any cell
It was actually Shreddinger who formulated that idea way back in 1942 when he wrote a book called what is life?
for - book - What is Life? Schrodinger - formulated the idea behind the central dogma of molecular biology
Francis Crick had formulated what he called the central dogma of molecular biology
for - definition - The central dogma of molecular biology \ - our genes generate proteins - proteins form bodily structures - everything within our body can therefore be predicted from the level of the DNA
I was faced in 1958 when I started graduate study at University College London with that extraordinary fact. Nobody knew how it could be that a muscle could excite itself to be rhythmic.
for - history - Denis Noble - 1958 - question - heartbeat of embryo - how? no nervous system yet.
Let me reiterate, global capitalism is the legacy of the agricultural system.
for - relationship - agriculture - is the parent - of global capitalism - It (global capitalism) is an elaboration of the agricultural system. - Surplus and expansion and - profound, almost mechanistic, interdependency in material life, and - duality in the human relationship to the more-than-human world - became the order of the day beginning with grain agriculture. - The basic structure and dynamic of the agricultural system were subsequently extended with elaborations that have eventually led to global capitalism.
division of labour creates ‘a built-in enforcer for cooperation
for - agriculture - division of labor - enforcer of cooperation
James C. Scott tell us that humans were ‘disciplined and subordinated to the metronome of our own crops …. Once Homo sapiens took that fateful step into agriculture, our species entered an austere monastery whose task master was mostly the genetic clockwork of a few plants
for - origins - agriculture - beautiful description - our dependency on agriculture changed our sense of time!
he basic elements of the superorganism are not cells and tissues but closely cooperating animals
for - quote - the basic elements of the superorganism are not cells and tissues but closely cooperating animals - E.O. Wilson & Holldobler
Christopher Broom's work on in hierarchy in the forest
for - book - Hierarchy in the Forest - shared struggle against inequality - the most important part of human heritage, intelligence and history - SRG comment - recognizing the sacred in all beings - adjacent to Michel Bauwens and the oscillation of the commons - to - book - publisher's page - Hierarchy in the Forest - The Evolution of Egalitarianism - 2001 - Christopher Boehm - https://hyp.is/_w4TEtZoEfCcjmPIvOEOaQ/www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674006911
book Goliath's Curse, the history and future of societal collapse
for - to - book - Goliath's Curse: the History and Future of Societal Collapse - Luke Kemp
boardrooms and parliaments, it's somewhere between 3 to 21%. Now, again, numbers are very disputed
for - stats - psychopathy - 3 to 21% in boardrooms and parliaments - more likely to find psychopath in boardroom and parliament than grocery store - SRG comment - stats- shadow side of leadership - high percentage of leaders have dark triad
one of the things that I find really interesting that's not talked about very much is the impacts of nitrogen fixing and the production of artificial fertilizers which contributed to the number one issue which is human population growth
for - progress trap - nitrogen for fertilizers - anthropocene research - releases lots of methane - climate crisis - leverage point - replacing nitrogen fertilizers
there's still so many people outside who just don't know or it's so abstract to them this big dimension. I'm and in the I'm working in a museum
for - climate communications - difficulty of communicating anthropocene - SRG comment - climate crisis as hyperobject - apply Deep Humanity for impactful climate education
we don't have leverage to uh counter what um John Baptist was and talking about at the end the more and more and more
for - infinite economic growth - more more more - climate crisis - infinite growth of capitalism problem - antidote - targeted degrowth
Now compare that for instance with another kind of biologically built structure where we're getting comparable amounts of morphological change of morphos species or technos species uh uh you know which have developed just over a few decades
for - stats - speed - cultural (technological) evolution - cell phone - 35 years to touchscreen phones - comparison - speed of cultural vs biological evolution - progress trap
Why is accumulation linked to success and power? And will there be ways to escape that vicious circle?
for - greed - game A - linked to success - can we escape from game A? - SRG comment - accumulation perspective of capitalism - climate crisis - Deep Humanity interventions
post-growth and degrowth econ e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e economies are part of this shared struggle for well-being within planetary boundaries
for - anthropocene - shared struggle - post-growth and degrowth is part of it
I'm doing most of this work um in Randa because that's a country where it's relatively relatively easy to um access these populations they're still alive
for - neuroscience - of obedience - study - Rawanda - existing populations of perpetrators and those who refused to participate
when we experience pain or where we when we see someone else in pain, our brain activates similar brain regions and that's how we refer to empathy.
for - empathy - neuroscience of - observing pain in others - triggers activations in same brain region as when we experience pain ourselves - observed across species
Most of the time categorization process, discrimination process, dehumanization processes
for - genocide - preceded by 10 preliminary stages - 1. classification - 2. symbolization - 3. discrmination - 4. dehumanization - 5. organization - 6. polarization - 7. preparation - 8. persecution - 9. extermination - 10. denial
Following Orders: The Neuroscience of Obedience
for - neuroscience - of obedience - Emily Casper - book - the neuroscience of (dis)obedience
It's what my favorite archaeologist Bruce Trigger calls a thermodynamic explanation of symbolic behavior
for - paper - Monumental architecture: A thermodynamic explanation of symbolic behavior - Bruce Trigger
historically if you look at a history textbook, it's essentially a role called mass murderers.
for - explanation - why leaders are often psychopaths - history book is full of mass murderers
for men, there's rough agreement that amongst the general population, 1% of people would pass the clinical threshold for psychopathy
for - stats - psychopathy - 1% of male population
we can think of this as a long-term process going all the way from a thin and slow amphine to a thick and fast one, but one that happens over thousands of years
for - anthropocene - evolution of
destructive potential weapons over history, you see a very similar spike, very similar exponential curve as we've seen over and over again today
for - greal acceleration - exponential growth of destructiveness of weapons (in joules)
I personally feel the decision was made in 2014 before we'd even put forward proposal. So it was already decided um by those with with power within ICS and IUGS where the where the where it was going because the actual data behind the submission wasn't the reason for rejection.
for - definition - anthropocene - rejection of the term - it was rejected on dogmatic grounds, not on the evidence provided
I was referring back to uh the original uh definition by Walsh which was not the anthroposine at all it was the anthrop era and maybe that what we actually need to be thinking about is is this an era is this the anthroposic era rather than the anthroposine
for - question - anthropocene - era instead of epoch? - professor Alasdair Skelton, Stockholm University - great presentation comparing anthropocene vs other eras in the past 66 million years
we used a number of different proxies at 12 different sites, and they all recorded very clearly the effects of the great acceleration. And with that midpoint of about 1952.9 years, it all makes perfect sense. So it's not just the site at Crawford Lake, but all of the sites that we looked at showed a very very similar signal.
for - definition - anthropocene - synchronized signals of great acceleration at all 12 sites, not just Crawford Lake - Francine McCarthy, Brock University
half a million years there or thereabouts you know as far as we can judge you know and that is you know probably the the fastest rate of morphological evolution I know you know of that scale and range in a fossil species
for - stats - speed of biological evolution - half million years
techno species individual types of objects created by us uh then the number is again orders of magnitude greater than biological diversity
for - stats - estimate - technodiversity - orders of magnitude more than biodiversity
a metalrich surface to the planet which is something quite new
for - stats - metal rich surface of planet is novel
I think modernity also had or even have these super synchronizers. And I think the strongest candidate is the concept of progress that synchronized this idea of progressive linear time that synchronize all other processes in politics, technology, science etc.
for - claim - progress - super synchronizer of modernity
the climate of history
for - social sciences paper - The Climate of History - 2009 - species wide perspective of writing history
for - Anthropocene - Johan Rockstrom - 2025 - plastic pollution - Sarah Gabbott, prof of paleiobiology
for - book - Hierarchy in the Forest - The Evolution of Egaliterian Behavior - author - Christopher Boehm - from - youtube - The Anthropocene Paradigm Shift
the recent ruling by the international court of justice last month that basically said two things. That nations absolutely have an obligation to address climate change
for - climate crisis - International Court of Justice ruling - climate change
for - climate crisis - youtube - James Hansen 2025 October 24 - Climate Reckoning
SRG comment - to - Climate Emergency Forum - analysis of Hansen's paper - https://hyp.is/8JdPEtTqEfCjYTMZfYavLA/www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVw6gIP7JUw
we have to have a party that takes no money by definition. And the thing about young people is they communicate with social media. They don't need billions of dollars for a campaign. They can do it completely free of charge.
for - climate crisis - power of young people to affect politics - create party which takes no money - young people don't need - opinion - James Hansen
SRG comment - James Hansen - youth and politics -TPF - cISTP -TPF as a vehicle
young people have tremendous potential to affect the political system, but they have to know what needs to get done
for - climate crisis - politics - the power of young people - James Hansen
here's another case that happened again where Bernie Sanders who could never get elected, but young people at all the campuses on the country almost got him to get a nomination
for - example - power of young people - in voting - Bernie Sanders - cited by - James Hansen
young people were campaigning started to like Barack Obama and they managed to get him to get the nomination.
for - example - power of young people - in voting - Obama - cited by - James Hansen
you have to get the role of money out of government.
for - quote - young people - need to get money out of politics - James Hansen
for - planetary tipping points - social tipping points - positive tipping points
SRG Comment - 2025 summary of current state of tipping points - good summary of current state of planetary and social and positive tipping points - crossed our first tipping point - positive one - renewable energy - but it's still too slow, carbon emissions are still too high - comparison - irony - China will become world's first electrostate while the US doubles down as a leading petrostate
we think we're so clever that what dominates our lives today is economics
for - quote - illusion of economics - David Suzuki - We live in a human created environment where - it's easy to adopt the illusion that we're different from the rest of life on Earth - we're so smart we create our own habitat - Who needs nature? and - I think this is where we get to where we think we're so clever that what dominates our lives today is economics
for - David Suzuki - talk - argon gas - connects all life through time - David Suzuki - interconnectedness- example - air - SRG comment - David - Suzuki - air example of interconnectedness - individual/collective gestalt
defeats the purpose
Does it defeat the purpose, or is it a form of redundancy?
connect together the 1000 pairs of junction boxes which are closest together
The input file contains 1000 boxes. If I connect together 1000 (or as few as 999) pairs following the procedure described above, I end up with one circuit connecting all boxes.
I should actually count the connection within components towards the total of 1000.
Of space, time, and typewriters<br /> by [[Rebecca Ritzel]] for the JHU Hub<br /> accessed on 2025-12-06T20:51:49
“Ginny!" said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. "Haven't I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain?” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Tao, Terence. “What Is Good Mathematics?,” February 13, 2007. http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0702396.
Variations of this can also be applied to other fields, like history. What makes good history, good historians, good history teachers, etc.?
Intertwined with its concern over ethnicity and religion, the Orange Order presented an ideal of nationalism that differed from the conceptions being presented by other competing forces in Canada. While other Canadian thinkers of the early-twentieth century began to conceive of the Canadian nation as part of a North American tradition, along with the United States, or as a “northern nation” that, through the crucible of Arctic winters, broke with both the United States and Europe, the Orange Order celebrated Canada’s past and highlighted the accomplishments of the British in North America. As the Order saw it, the devotion of the Loyalists and the rise of an Anglophone hegemony in North America were foundational to Canada’s existence, and both owed their authority to British identity. Indeed, as Scott See points out with regard to the Orange Order’s Loyalism of the nineteenth century, The Orange Order served as a form of connective tissue to link the Old World with the New. It was a complex blend of full-throated dedication to the Empire and unswerving support for Britain’s imperial endeavors, as well as an indigenous pronouncement of colonial identity in North America that applauded the British connection, yet strove to articulate a distinct identity of Britishness. (See Citation2014, 182)
"Intertwined with its concern over ethnicity and religion, the Orange Order presented an ideal of nationalism that differed from the conceptions being presented by other competing forces in Canada. While other Canadian thinkers of the early-twentieth century began to conceive of the Canadian nation as part of a North American tradition, along with the United States, or as a “northern nation” that, through the crucible of Arctic winters, broke with both the United States and Europe, the Orange Order celebrated Canada’s past and highlighted the accomplishments of the British in North America. As the Order saw it, the devotion of the Loyalists and the rise of an Anglophone hegemony in North America were foundational to Canada’s existence, and both owed their authority to British identity. Indeed, as Scott See points out with regard to the Orange Order’s Loyalism of the nineteenth century,
The Orange Order served as a form of connective tissue to link the Old World with the New. It was a complex blend of full-throated dedication to the Empire and unswerving support for Britain’s imperial endeavors, as well as an indigenous pronouncement of colonial identity in North America that applauded the British connection, yet strove to articulate a distinct identity of Britishness. (See Citation2014, 182)"
SPECIFIC BRITISH IDENTITY -> EMPHASIZES THIS AS OPPOSED TO NORTH AMERICAN IDENTITY CURRENTS LIKE AMERICANISM
Flag is connection between Canadians and the British Empire. Again, empty identity though. " “the Flag of our Empire, upon which the sun never sets is the outward and visible emblem of our loyalty to the great British Commonwealth, of which Canada is an integral part” (“Forms” Citation1937). This strain of thought resembled the ideas of imperialists like Stephen Leacock, who before World War I had advocated for greater Canadian participation in British imperial ventures as a means of sharing in the military victories won overseas and the spread of Anglo-Saxon civilization."
Epistemia
for - definition - epistemia - when linguistic plausibility starts replacing verification and the form of knowledge substitutes for the labor of knowing - to - paper - The simulation of judgment in LLMs - https://hyp.is/2DatBM05EfCy-DM_S__1kg/www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2518443122
Eio Wilson this Harvard sociologist said the fundamental problem of humanity is we have paleolithic brains and emotions. We have medieval institutions that operate at a medieval clock rate and we have godlike technology that's moving at now 21st to 24th century speed when AI self improves
for - quote - EO Wilson - pace of technology - compare - quotes - EO Wilson - Ronald Wright
you should be way more worried about AI because it's like a flood of millions of new digital immigrants that are Nobel Prize level
for - quote - millions of Nobel Prize level digital immigrants
I could become a god.
for - ai tech leaders - immortality projects - denial of death
Fn Eraise of qcribes
for - book - In Praise of Scribes - Author Johannes Trithemius - history - progress - technology - printing press
verily
"Verily" means a matter of truth. In this line, Guenevere is asserting her honestly to Sir Gauwaine, yet he still continues to doubt his queen's statement. Afterword, Guenevere's tone has then shifted from firm and confident to resigned.
All good knights held it after, saw: Yea, sirs, by cursed unknightly outrage; though You, Gauwaine, held his word without a flaw, This Mellyagraunce saw blood upon my bed: Whose blood then pray you? is there any law To make a queen say why some spots of red
This refers to the mannerisms and politeness that men in the Victorian era must uphold towards women. Victorian men must be pleasant and pleased women; however, at this scene, Morris uses Sir Guawaine and Mellyagraunce as a contrast to that ideal. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/427127
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring, Through the coal-dark, underground —
This article has photos of the book, the poem, and images from the survey of children working in mines relating to "Cry of The Children".
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YdWLxoHYR1E
This video shows how close, cramp, and claustrophobic the mines would be. Also, the ground is sometimes lined with rails, other times consists purely of mud and even imbedded with large rocks. This little clip is an attempt to let the readers see the harsh conditions the children working in mines had to deal with daily.
Elizabeth Browning was friends and frequent correspondent with Richard Hengist Horne. RH Horne was the assistant commissioner to an inquiry that reported the "Physical & Moral Conditions of the Children and Young Persons Employed in Mines and Manufacture." The horrific conditions that Horne related to EBB spurred her to write "Cry of the Children" (Robertson).
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ; The young birds are chirping in the nest; The young fawns are playing with the shadows; The young flowers are blowing toward the west— But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly!
The deliberate refrain of "young" nature and the emphasized double "young, young children" point out the irony and tragedy of how life shouldn't be for these children. While nature frolic and play, the human children are weeping bitterly. In fact, some poems in the Victorian period use this juxtaposition of the free natural world versus the state of the oppressive poor. Thomas Hood's "Song of the Shirt" has these lines: "Oh! but to breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweet--- With the sky above my head, And the grass beneath my feet". Gerald Massey wrote in "Cry of the Unemployed": "Heaven droppeth down with manna still in many a golden shower, And feeds the leaves with fragrant breath, with silver dew, the flower; There's honeyed fruit for bee and bird, with bloom laughs out the tree". Nature is plentiful, beautiful, and free while humans suffer from hunger and fetters of their working class.
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —
Although the working class had very little of worldly goods, its family unit was quite close. One main reason was they had to share a small space as living quarters. Another reason was children often working alongside their parents. All the children were viewed as a potential source of income so the family strived together as a unit to make ends meet. The close knit working class family was a sharp contrast to the wealthy Victorians. Usually their children were left in care of nannies or governesses. The higher echelon of society had little time to spare for their kids yet had high expectations of them. Even Winston Churchill said he could recall every hug he ever had from his mother.
The difference between the classes here is not immediately discernible for modern readers with just the line describing children leaning on their mothers. In Victorian England, the rich and middle-class did not handle their own children.
Check out https://victorianchildren.org/victorian-child-labor/ for more interesting facts.
their multilingual texts and diverse perspectives were viewed as meaningful contributions to the "fanon" or collective body of fan knowledge (Black, 2005). As ELLs, this acceptance was important to focal participants' literacy and language socialization for several reasons
Those European crops failed during long droughts while the tery could have kept them alive.
for - progress trap - colonialism - wheat instead of tepary beans
150
for - stats - water footprint - cup of coffee - 150 litres of water
Royal KMM basic introduction
Looks like a post-war standard Royal KMM, sometimes best known as the machine used by Jessica Fletcher in the TV show Murder She Wrote (as well as the upcoming Jamie Lee Curtis reboot.)
Richard Polt has you covered for the manual and some repair manuals/information.
Some contemporaneous videos on use and maintenance may help.
As for ribbon replacement, try this video. The spools for the standard Royal typewriters (Ten, H, KH, KHM, KMM, KMG, RP, HH, FP, Empress, 440, 660, etc.) have a custom metal mechanism for their auto-reverse. The spools are known as the T1 (which is the same as General Ribbon part # T1-77B , T1-77BR, and Nu-Kote B64.) If winding on 1/2 inch wide universal ribbon onto them, remove the eyelette which isn't needed and may interfere with the auto reverse. If necessary, Ribbons Unlimited carries these spools or you can get them (and ribbon) from a local typewriter repair shop.
Ribbon purveyors: https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-faq.html#q1. I prefer Baco and Fine Line for their spectacular pricing and quality.
Other known historical users of the Royal KMM:
The problem with this page is that the author is playing fast and loose with the words "parser" and "parsing". It's also not totally honest (or is yet again confused) about e.g. what the IETF RFCs say about parsing high precision numbers.
mmediate Relative of a U.S. Citizen (Spouses, Unmarried Children Under 21 Years of Age, and Parents (if the U.S.Citizen is 21 Years of Age or Older)) (Form I-130
The dissimilarities between the girls' fanfics and English language arts practice essays might have offered an interesting entry point for discussion about how different communicative contexts can narrow the range of Available Designs to draw on.
Creative writing can be incredibly important for self-expression and emotional intelligence. Without properly exploring different ways to write creatively, students may struggle to properly express such things.
Instead of writing Eileen and Rhiannon's texts off as derivative, we began to see them as contributions to an ongoing, intertextual conversation about such issues as friendship, loyalty, power, and sexuality.
At times, however, it appears that both gifts could have benefited from the assistance that contact with their teachers or classmates might have provided.
We hope that insights about out-of-school literacy practices that deeply absorb adolescents may help us devise new ways to make school literacy more meaningful and engaging.
More studies into modern adolescent literacy practices can lead to higher engagement and appreciation within literary contexts and motivate students to properly and effectively apply the knowledge they gain inside and outside of academic spaces.
As a form, fanfictions make intertextuality visible because they rely on readers' ability to see relationships between the fan-writer's stories and the original media sources.
What many people who brush fan fiction off as irrelevant tend to ignore is the vast understanding of a pre-existing setting needed to contextualize the writings made, as well as the effort and organization required to properly build off of such settings.
What they were less likely to say explicitly, but what seemed clear to us, was that fanfiction writing also helped to develop and solidify relationships with various friends, online or otherwise.
Writing, for many, tends to be most rewarding when you can share it with someone. To show others your ability to express thoughts, emotions, and ideas through your use of language is helpful in gaining confidence and experience, and this is even more true when you receive direct criticism as well.
Rhiannon herself showed ambivalence about bringing her personal writing into school when we asked if she had ever shown her stories to one of her teachers: "[No, and] I don't think I'd want her to read them anyway," she replied, "because they're in a fashion that she probably wouldn't understand even if I tried to explain it to her. I just think that she isn't open-minded."
fanfictions could be included in the range of texts teachers consider for diagnostic purposes in order to get a sense of what individuals can do as readers and writers, as well as what they value.
While the counters on these sites indicate that they did not receive many visits, Rhiannon did report that they were visited by friends she met online who lived as far away as North Carolina and New Mexico in the United States.
Writing was seen as a way to have fun, exercise one's imagination, and avoid boredom.
What is surprising, however, is the scarcity of research that examines the potential of new tools for showing and telling in the school curriculum.
See Adolescents' Anime Inspired "Fanfiction" for more in depth explanation. Much of the current school curriculum does not include more creative, personal subject matter, which has the possibility to make students feel less interested in class.
new tools for working with various modes of communication are producing a change in the way that young people are choosing to construct meaningful texts for themselves and others in their affinity spaces.
As more young people spend more time online, they are developing new ways to express themselves linguistically.
I propose that young people's engagement with these kinds of ideological messages and materials is central to their becoming the critical readers and writers we say we value.
When school work is deemed relevant and worthwhile, when opportunities exist for students to reinvent themselves as competent learners (even rewrite their social identities), then literacy instruction is both possible and welcomed.
Content area teachers and teacher educators who are open to considering the implications of this finding could incorporate into their regular class assignments opportunities for students to integrate subject matter texts with available online texts.
Because many young people growing up in a digital world will find their own reasons for becoming literate--reasons that go beyond reading and writing to acquire academic knowledge-it is important to remain open to changes in subject matter learning that will invite and extend the literacy practices they already possess and value.
In sum, these young people's penchant for creating online content that was easily distributed and used by others with similar interests was facilitated in part by their ability to remix multimodal texts, use new tools to show and tell, and rewrite their social identities.
The storylines through which young people exist in online spaces are highly social as are the literacy skills they employ.
English-language learners (ELLs) who affiliated around a common interest in fanfiction--a term for stories that fans of an original work (e.g., Harry Potter) write by using the settings, characters, and plot from the original to imagine and create different situations that sometimes include curious mixes across genres and media.
for - urban metabolism - open source - urban metabolism - metabolism of cities
Vietnamization.
to appease antiwar sentiment by promising to phase out the draft, train South Vietnamese forces to assume more responsibility for the war effort, and gradually withdraw American troops.
My Lai.
Location > Name of Village > U.S. troops had raped and/or massacred hundreds of civilians
USS Maddox
reported incoming fire from North Vietnamese ships in the Gulf of Tonkin
South Vietnam,
The US established the Republic of Vietnam > Vietnam divided into North and South
for - Degrees of Urbanization - definition - city
for - definition - city - degree of urbanization
for - paper - The 2025 state of the climate report: a planet on the brink - from - LinkedIn post - The 2025 state of the climate report - https://hyp.is/lPJTusSfEfCeLIMW445BRg/www.linkedin.com/posts/drscottkelly_climatechange-sustainability-energy-activity-7391036539549409280-K2Fa/?rcm=ACoAACc5MHMBii80wYJJmFqll3Aw-nvAjvI52uI
The 2025 state of the climate report: a planet on the brink
for - paper - The 2025 state of the climate report: a planet on the brink - from - LinkedIn post -
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝘂𝘁,
for - LinkedIn post - 2025 State of the Climate Report - to - The 2025 State of the Climate Report - https://hyp.is/fFyTOMSfEfC2PIPR2ti4gg/academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biaf149/8303627
Reflecting on writing with an AI/LLM
Classroom Application
Practicing writing with an AI/LLM
Classroom Application
Modeling writing with an AI/LLM
Classroom Application
for - 6 degrees of separation - interbrain - missed this one in Fellowship group, but found it anyways! - adjacency - Nick - Interbrain
when that base looks for solutions, they can't find a bunch of glib corporatists in fancy suits with flashy smiles. They have to see authentic hardcrable defenders of the working class and hear ideas that speak to them, not at them.
for - MAGA base - when the old economy dies, they will be looking for defenders of the working class - adjacency - corporation to cooperation - MAGA base
civilian labor corps
for - definition - civilian labor corp - future of work - there will have to be new labor pools in the economy that free market has ignored to date - caretakers for the elderly - climate adaptation - affordable housing
Even before this Trump administration, the top 10% of the country is responsible for 50%
for - stats - elites - top 10% - responsible for 50% of consumer spending
for - Trump - Venuzuela invasion - President of Colombia response
I don't usually use these terms. It is evil. It's an evil world
for - indictment of a world run by evil
I think it runs the world right now or it's on the brink of running the world because I think you see these kinds of characters elsewhere. This is not a simply an American phenomena.
for - indictment of a world run by evil
for - ecology - red crabs of Christmas island - progress trap - invasive species - biocontrol - ecological engineering - wasps - ants
Museum of Printing in Haverhill, MA has a section of typewriters.
this is what's gotten us into into well let's just call it the metac crisis
for - adjacency - language of separation - root of metacrisis
we needed uh a different like a different underlying structure for language itself to be able to speak from the the Assumption of of our connectedness
for - key insight - language - need new language structure - to speak from connectedness - instead of separateness
there's a lot of people talk talking about you know Oneness and interconnectedness um however the underlying cognitive structure and therefore um linguistic structure that we use is based in separation
for - language - speaking of non-duality - is itself dualistic
when you try to go for disambiguation like in scientific language that's when that richness gets lost
for - insight - language - disambiguation of scientific language - loses richness
we can’t recapture the same processes we used to learn to speak for the very first time
for - unlearning language - key insight - language - cannot recapture same process we used as child - cannot recapture the same processes we used to learn to speak language for the very first time - basically, we lose access to that original vocal learning circuit as an adult - question - language learning - what is this vocal learning circuit of an infant? - why do we lost access to the vocal learning circuit we had as a child? - observation - clue - language - accidental world recall and substitution - a clue to how we remember words - I wrote the above sentence "why do we lost access to the vocal learning circuit we had as a child?" when I meant to write: - "why do we LOSE access to the vocal learning circuit we had as a child?' - This very observation also has the same mistake: - "observation - clue - language - accidental world" instead of: - observation - clue - language - accidental WORD"! - I've noticed this accidental word substitution when we are in the midst of automatically composing sentences quite often and have also wondered about it often. - I think it offers an important clue about how we remember words, and that is critical for recall for using language itself. - We must store words in clusters that are indicated by the accidental recall
Icono: a universal language that shows what it says
for - iconography - a language of icons - icono - a language of icons
10 tests that are grounded in decades of psychology and neuroscience research
for - neuroscience - 10 tests - LinkedIn post - Beau Lotto - 10 tests - neuroscience - to - Lab of Misfits - 10 tests - Lab of Misfits - neuroscience - Beau Lotto
for - Lab of Misfits - neuroscience - Beau Lotto - from - Linkedin post - Beau Lotto - 10 tests - https://hyp.is/7YqrerxxEfCuEIeI8IcHTg/www.linkedin.com/posts/beau-lotto_who-am-i-humans-have-probably-been-asking-activity-7232008275641163779--zxp/?rcm=ACoAACc5MHMBii80wYJJmFqll3Aw-nvAjvI52uI
Katherine Hayles' concept of "distributed cognition"
for - definition - distributed cognition - to - article - N. Katherine Hayles: “We need a more comprehensive view of cognition” - https://hyp.is/Jc98ArsHEfClKP-8MkzNoA/lab.cccb.org/en/katherine-hayles-we-need-a-more-comprehensive-view-of-cognition/ -
Lord of the Flies
for - book - Lord of the Flies - The Inheritors - William Golding
It is a tragic tale about the death of an older species. But it is also an incipient tale about those who survive them, those who inherit the earth.
for - mortality salience - of a species! - adjacency - novel - The Inheritors - mortality salience - birth of language - BEing journey - Gosh, a movie should be made of this!
Strange things happen to your sense of reality as you read.
for - BEing journey - novel - The Inheritors - novel - The Inheritors - strange things happen to your sense of reality as you read
it is important to ask where we have come from. But to understand how we got here, it is important to understand the thinking that has led us here, the deep roots of our nature.
for - quote - deep roots of human nature
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)
for - book - The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)
It is however not being done as an open source project & there are other options out there if that's something you need your software to be. It does rely on open source libraries & a number of modified plug-ins for which their changes are being provided to comply with their code licensing requirements. Ultimately I don't want to spend the time to run a properly done open source project when there's no guarantee of any assistance vs the overhead involved & my time management isn't great so spending more time on project management isn't imho a good use of my time.
The pages of Great BooJ(s of the Western World are printed in either one or two columns. The upper and lower halves of a one-column page are indicated by the letters a and b. When the text is printed in two columns, the letters a and b refer to the upper and lower halves of the lefthand column, the letters c and d to the upper and lower halves of the right-hand column. These half and quarter page sections are based on divisions of a full text page.
Page xxxv (b), Section 5: Page Sections
for - definition - city - definition degree of urbanization - UN Statistical Commission report 2020 - from - there are 10,000 cities on planet Earth - https://hyp.is/91Rx7LgAEfCT6ytaqg9C9Q/nextcity.org/urbanist-news/there-are-10000-cities-on-planet-earth-half-didnt-exist-40-years-ago
summary - This 2020 report was commissioned by the UN Statisticial Commission to develop a robust, standardized definition of cities, towns and rural communities (villages) to aid in international comparison of human settlements
Grid cell classification
for - definition - degree of urbanization - definition - grid cell classification - definition - urban centre - definition - dense urban cluster - definition - semi-dense urban cluster - definition suburban or peri-urban cells - definition - rural cluster - definition - low density rural grid cells - definition - very low density rural grid cells
Schematic overview of the degree of urbanisation classification
for - degree of urbanization - diagram
The degree of urbanisationclassification defines cities, towns and semi-dense areas, and rural areas.
for - definition - degree of urbanization - a UN Statistical Commission classification that standardizes the definition of city, town and semi-dense areas, and rural areas - definition - city - definition - town - definition - rural area
roughly 20 percent of cities in the world are shrinking
for - stats - cities - 20% of cities are shrinking
new definition, which defines a city as a contiguous geographic area with at least 50,000 inhabitants at an average population density of 1,500 people per square kilometer
for - definition - city - a geographic area with - at least 50,000 inhabitants - an average population density of 1,500 people/square kilometer - stats - 25% of people live in towns - 48 % of people live in cities - 25% of people live in villages - towns and cities
We need to be sure employee ownership becomes a movement
for - Apis & Heritage - champions of worker-owned cooperative movement
Katie Nolan Destroys UNC’S Mike Lombardi Over His 'Cute' Typewriter Video<br /> by [[Stephen Douglas]] for Sports Illustrated<br /> accessed on 2025-10-30T13:53:59
Most complex software ships with a few bugs. Obviously, we want to avoid them, but the more complex a feature is, the harder it is to cover all the use-cases. As we get closer to our RC date, do we feel confident that what we're shipping has as few blocking bugs as possible? I would like to say we're close, but the truth is I have no idea. It feels like we'll have to keep trying the features for a bit until we don't run into anything - but we have less than 3 weeks before the RC ships. Here's a few surprising bugs that need to get fixed before I would feel comfortable shipping node12 in stable.
You may have noticed that these two properties do not have the word "snap" in them. This is intentional as they actually modify the box for all relevant scroll operations and are not just scroll snapping.
How the Trump administration is dramatically reshaping education in America<br /> by [[John Yang]] of PBS at PBS News Weekend accessed on 2025-10-22T12:01:15
Interview with Jennifer Smith Richards of ProPublica
Anti-DEI, Anti-CRT bills
UPDATED Watch Woody Allen's Interview with Bill Maher: "Sunset Boulevard" (the Movie) is "Fun Junk," "Streetcar" is "Perfect" - Showbiz411<br /> by [[Roger Friedman]]<br /> accessed on 2025-10-22T10:20:51

The message is pretty clear: start with why A value proposition.
The amount of money you can ask for something is primarily a function of perception (perceived value), and relative availability.
As such, the optimal cost for something is more of a psychological subjective function than an objective algorithmic process.
This obviously leaves aside the philosophical dimension of ethics.
interior hippocampus was more active when people imagin their Futures relative to to when they were remembering their past
for - unexpected finding - hippocampus - active for imagining future instead of remembering past
MTT into the past and future are instantiations of one ‘simulation system
for - claim - Mental Time Travel into the past and future are instantiations of one simulation system
for - paper - title - Mental Time Travel? A Neurocognitive Model of Event Simulation - author - Donna Rose Addis - adjacency - memory - imagination - the same - from - paper - https://hyp.is/0Fb6NqdjEfCyTTddI20_aQ/www.dovepress.com/memory-sleep-dreams-and-consciousness-a-perspective-based-on-the-memor-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-NSS
summary - memory and imagination are proposed as fundamentally the same process. - It is the ‘mental’ rendering of experience that is the most fundamental function of this simulation system enabling humans to - re-experience the past, - pre-experience the future, and - comprehend the complexities of the present.
temporally extended, multimodal representations must be integrated within a unified subjectivity for experience to be coherent
for - Memory Theory of Consciousness - MToC - definition - Memory Theory of Consciousness - temporally extended, multimodal representations - must be integrated within a unified subjectivity for experience to be coherent - unapack - MToC - unpack - Memory Theory of Consciousness - temporally extended, multimodal representations - multiple sense inputs associated with an event - We could think about it from the perspective of Thousand Brain Theory and cortical columns integrating sense inputs - Do these create memory structures? - Those memory structures must be salient to goal-seeking activity, especially for fitness and survival of the organism
question - memory - evolution - goal-seeking - Is it possible that consciousness emerged early on in our species evolutionary history in the context of memories of multimodal sensory structures that help us achieve goal-seeking activity? - Then extra affordances of memory and consciousness could have evolved and diversified into a wide variety of non-traditional goal-seeking behaviors.
for - paper - title - Memory, Sleep, Dreams, and Consciousness: A Perspective Based on the Memory Theory of Consciousness - author - Andrew E. Budson, Ken A Paller - adjacency - memories - sleep - dreams - Memory Theory of Consciousness - MToC
summary - The authors present a theory of dreaming and sleep that I resonate with, that sleep is a time in which the brain performs unconscious processing of memories, consolidating them by taking advantage of consciousnesss down time to perform massive parallel processing to connect memories together. - dreams are seen as a small conscious byproduct of the massive parallel processing task, and their meaning may have value depending on how we interpret them.
How can wake experiences be direct reflections of the sensory world at that moment while comparable dream experiences are created by the brain based on novel combinations of fragments of memories from the past? The answer must be that our experiences are always constructed by the brain; the very same processing that gives us dreams gives us waking experiences of reality.
for - key insight - similarity of waking and dream state - How can - wake experiences be direct reflections of the sensory world at that moment while - comparable dream experiences are created by the brain based on novel combinations of fragments of memories from the past? - The answer must be that our experiences are always constructed by the brain; the very same processing that - gives us dreams - gives us waking experiences of reality. - In other words, our brains do not need incoming sensory input to produce realistic experiences. - Our waking experiences are the way that they are - not because of sensory input but - because of the functional capabilities of the human brain. -The MToC argues that the functional capability that produces our experience of reality, whether - we are awake - or asleep, - is the explicit memory system. - During sleep, we speculate that our brains are simply carrying on with functioning - akin to what happens when we are awake. - The typical modes of action of the human brain persist across wake and sleep. - While we are awake, our brains are producing a stream of experiences of being in the world, punctuated by thoughts. - While we are asleep, without the tremendous barrage of sensory input to constrain experience, perhaps our brains tend to return to these waking habits, - producing a stream of experiences in the world punctuated by thoughts.
Daniel Dennett’s Multiple Drafts theory of consciousness
for - definition - Multiple Drafts theory of consciousness - - Daniel Dennett
MToC suggests that consciousness developed as part of explicit memory, such that the purpose of consciousness aligns with the purpose of explicit memory
for - MToC claim - purpose of consciousness - same as - purpose of memory - understand the present - imagine possible futures - plan accordingly - adjacency - MToC - memory - consciousness
only the simulation is consciously experienced
for - like - Donald Hoffman's Interface Theory of Perception - ITP - to - Mental Time Travel (MTT) - https://hyp.is/wqV4gKdkEfCRZGPrIOjeOA/utoronto.scholaris.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/3232f1fb-ed19-4614-9dd5-648c4d443629/content
no natural boundary between perception and memory
for - adjacency - memory - perception - no boundary - Hinze Hogendoorn - to - - adjacency - Memory Theory of Consciousness - Donald Hoffman
the synthetic process described in the MToC is similar to an idea from the first edition of Kant’s 1781 Critique of Pure Reason,44
for - adjacency - Memory Theory of Consciousness - author's study of - Kant - Critique of Pure Reason
The front end-papers are, to me, themost important. Some people reservethem for a fancy bookplate. I reservethem for fancy thinking.
This poke at "fancy" bookplates is a rhetorical call back to those who would attempt to weakly show only physical and not intellectual ownership by "pasting his bookplate inside the cover."
Adler creates a very specific and subtle definition of ownership as it applies to books.
It's not too dissimilar to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's idea of ownership or love of people. "Unique to me in all the world"
There are two ways in which onecan own a book. The first is the prop-erty right you establish by paying forit, just as you pay for clothes and fur-niture. But this act of purchase is onlythe prelude to possession. Full owner-ship comes only when you have madeit a part of yourself, and the best wayto make yourself a part of it is bywriting in it.
Many have spoken of "books as wallpaper" or "intellectual furniture", but here Mortimer J. Adler goes beyond owning them solely as material culture, but turning them into intellectual and personal culture.
When they sit upon the shelf after being intellectually owned, they can serve as a mnemonic touchstone, which is a method of supercharging their value as lowly "decorative wallpaper", and instead making them living active, intellectual wallpaper.