Chinahand

I have to admit that Daniel Dennett is one of my intellectual heroes. When I was at University I read Doug Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach and that made me curious to learn more about our understanding of consciousness and one time in some bookshop I picked up a book called The Mind's I which was co-written by Hofstadter and Dennett and started reading Dennett's introduction (you can read it here). It was the first time I'd come across Dennett's ideas and I'd never thought about teleporters in the way Dennett introduced them and the realisation that you can not only swap bodies but brains intrigued me. Later I read Consciousness Explained and then Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Now that was a book to make your brain ache and I loved that Dennett would use the words of a creationist critique to sum up just how dangerous Darwin's idea was: In the theory with which we have to deal, Absolute Ignorance is the artificer; so that we may enunciate as the fundamental principle of the whole system, that, IN ORDER TO MAKE A PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL MACHINE, IT IS NOT REQUISITE TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE IT. This proposition will be found, on careful examination, to express, in condensed form, the essential purport of the Theory, and to express in a few words all Mr. Darwin's meaning; who, by a strange inversion of reasoning, seems to think Absolute Ignorance fully qualified to take the place of Absolute Wisdom in all of the achievements of creative skill. He also used this quote from Darwin himself, to explain how natural selection is an algorithm, a universal solvent to melt any barriers to life doing what it does - because if it cannot it dies and if it can it does: If during the long course of ages and under varying conditions of life, organic beings vary at all in the several parts of their organisations, and I think this cannot be disputed, if there be, owing to the high geometric powers of increase of each species, at some age, season, or year, a severe struggle for life, and this certainly cannot be disputed; … [and] if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterised will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle of life; and from this strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offspring similarly characterised. This is the principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection. Dennett was one of the 'four horsemen' but I found his approach very different from the others who tended to highlight (and sneer) at the wrongs of religion. Dennett saw it as a natural phenomenon spread not necessarily because a particular theology was good or even useful, but simply because it readily infected human minds. I've heard him speak just once - raising concerns about Artificial Intelligence and how it is dangerous as it is highly likely to erode trust and that in some ways may be one of his most important warnings. Here he's summing up his views on philosophy:

Further to this, Manxman1980 would you have described the assault on Berlin in 1945 as "measured"? It was a city assault with, in the order of, 44 thousand zealous defenders embedded in a city where 100,000 civilians died in the fighting.

Just to clarify the only thing which has been found plausible are the right of South Africa to bring a case. https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/lawyers-letter-based-on-error The words “plausible risk” appear nowhere in the court’s order. They are a misrepresentation of what the court concluded in paragraph 54 of its judgment: In the court’s view, the facts and circumstances mentioned above are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible.

I would suggest a more measured campaign that would not have been described as possible genocide by the ICJ. Be very careful here. This isn't what the ICJ has said.

One of Helix's fireworks Now what was Lenin's term?

For fuck sake Helix. There were 30,000 Hamas fighters in a population of 2 million. This compares to 80,000 troops for the entire UK. The entire infrastructure of Gaza is geared to embed Hamas. You are in cloud cuckoo land pretending these are boy scouts with fireworks.

Duh ... Yes an armed conflict exists between Hamas & Israel. The bigger point is this is just one element of Iran's larger proxy war against Israel & surprise surprise Israel is taking action against Iran's increasingly open coordination of the hostilities. Iran spreads terrorism across the world. It has attacked a journalist in London just recently.

International law is very clear. If you face a clear and present danger from the plans and orders an enemy is sending from a place then you can take action against the people in that place to stop them. Hezbollah is armed and coordinated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force. They have fired 1000s of rockets into Northern Israel since October 7th causing the evacuation of over 100,000 Israelis. It is entirely within Israel's right to self-defence to take out the people arming, planning an coordinating those attacks.

I've always found the attitude expressed above so defeatist. The adoption of anything new basically starts one person at a time. Change comes when people see and understand the benefits of a new technology. The UK actually has quite a good record of doing that. I realise all the moaners want to emphasize how shit everything is, but by understanding and adopting new technologies the UK is one of the most successful societies on earth. Putting energy usage on a sustainable footing has huge benefits and first mover advantage is a real thing.

A violent double murderer whose trial exposed the incompetence and racism of the LA police. These two things are distinct and America has a big problem when violence, race & racism become entwined.

Continuing my fascination with optical illusions.

Elon Musk isn't a particularly good public speaker but my goodness the ambition of the man is pretty incredible.

The Sun. On Netflix. It's a Mandarin language Taiwanese film. Quite brilliant. Understated. A bit of a violent beginning as someone has their hand cut off. The rest of the story follows the consequences of this for a son, his brother, mother and father. It is brilliantly acted. Inarticulate, struggling people trying to comprehend and just carry on as consequences build.