Notebook
For a while I didn't know what to call this; maybe I'm still not sure. It's not a diary. It's not a blog. It's not a column. Words, ideas, images worth keeping. Stories that might not have happened, but are true nonetheless. In any case, here's some stuff I like. Perhaps you'll like it, too.
Archive
Thursday, 30 August 2007
Howick, Northumberland, England. Where the stone shelves down towards the sea. Fish/rock? Rock/fish?
posted at 13:10
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Friday, 10 August 2007
An Old English riddle from the Exeter Book, ca 1000 AD. From a new edition of Michael Alexander's translation, first published in 1980.
My home is not silent: I myself am not loud.
The Lord has provided for the pair of us
A joint expedition. I am speedier than he
And sometimes stronger; he stays the course better.
Sometimes I rest, but he runs on.
For as long as I live I live in him;
If we leave one another it is I who must die.
Answers on a postcard -- oh, okay, an e-mail -- please. Buy the book.
My home is not silent: I myself am not loud.
The Lord has provided for the pair of us
A joint expedition. I am speedier than he
And sometimes stronger; he stays the course better.
Sometimes I rest, but he runs on.
For as long as I live I live in him;
If we leave one another it is I who must die.
Answers on a postcard -- oh, okay, an e-mail -- please. Buy the book.
posted at 13:42
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Wednesday, 8 August 2007
There are things out there I don't understand and yet, when I see them, I become certain that if I did understand them my life would improve. Opening the latest batch of books I'd been sent by every publisher under the sun, I read the back of Physical Realization by Sydney Shoemaker, which is published by Oxford University Press. Here's what I found:
"In Physical Realization, Sydney Shoemaker considers the question of how physicalism can be true: how can all facts about the world, including mental ones, be constituted by facts about the distribution in the world of physical properties? Physicalism requires that the mental properties of a person are ‘realized in’ the physical properties of that person, and that all instantiations of properties in macroscopic objects are realized in microphysical states of affairs. Shoemaker offers an account of both these sorts of realization, one which allows the realized properties to be causally efficacious. He also explores the implication of this account for a wide range of metaphysical issues including the nature of persistence through time, the problem of material constitution, the possibility of emergent properties, and the nature of phenomenal consciousness."
Really, I am intersted in the nature of persistence through time (if I weren't, would I be a fan of Dr Who?). Help.
"In Physical Realization, Sydney Shoemaker considers the question of how physicalism can be true: how can all facts about the world, including mental ones, be constituted by facts about the distribution in the world of physical properties? Physicalism requires that the mental properties of a person are ‘realized in’ the physical properties of that person, and that all instantiations of properties in macroscopic objects are realized in microphysical states of affairs. Shoemaker offers an account of both these sorts of realization, one which allows the realized properties to be causally efficacious. He also explores the implication of this account for a wide range of metaphysical issues including the nature of persistence through time, the problem of material constitution, the possibility of emergent properties, and the nature of phenomenal consciousness."
Really, I am intersted in the nature of persistence through time (if I weren't, would I be a fan of Dr Who?). Help.
posted at 14:38
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