How Humans Select Particular Stories Over Reality

Posted on Monday 29 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

As I mentioned in Thursday’s post, I keep finding books in my library that could be considered straight-out philosophy (e.g. on ethics and morality) or at least philosophy-adjacent (some of the more abstruse physics and evolutionary texts, in the way they inform our apprehension of the nature of reality) than I’d thought to find. There is not a sharp division among these fields of thought. By the same token, it’s not that difficult to find correspondences, if not quite metaphorical alliances, between current news stories, and between them and the great philosophical concepts.

In modern parlance, these examples are about people in silos.

David French, NY Times Opinion, 28 Jan 2024: When the Right Ignores Its Sex Scandals

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Humans Live By Telling Stories That Privilege Themselves

Posted on Sunday 28 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • About Holocaust deniers;
  • About measles deniers;
  • About denial of sociology;
  • About the appeal of extinction panic.

Salon, Gary M. Kramer, 25 Jan 2024: “There will always be Holocaust deniers”: How “Zone of Interest” reveals unsettling truths about us, subtitled “The Oscar-nominated Johnnie Burn spoke to Salon about producing the sounds from the death camp next door”

This concerns a 2023 film I haven’t seen yet, though since it’s up for a bunch of Oscars, I might yet see it.

I’m mentioning it to make a broader point.

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Odds and Ends…

Posted on Saturday 27 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • How journalism may never again make money;
  • Keeping lists of books you’re read;
  • Decoding the Mandelbrot set.

More links collected the past week or so, today non-political ones.

Washington Post, Perry Bacon Jr., 27 Jan 2024: Opinion | Journalism may never again make money. So it should focus on mission.

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Dredging the Fringe

Posted on Friday 26 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

After two posts on intellectual topics, books, let’s check back in with the fringe, perhaps in a more condensed manner than I usually do.

I’ve said several times that Republicans are interested only in solving imaginary problems (wokeness, CRT), not real ones (climate change). This latest example (about the border crisis), already noted, has reached the front page of the New York Times. That and other links: the story is told in the headlines and subtitles.

NY Times, 25 Jan 2024: Trump Strengthens Grip on Capitol Hill as He Presses Toward Nomination, subtitled “The former president’s opposition has all but killed the prospects for a bipartisan border deal, reflecting how his influence in Congress has grown as he gains ground in the Republican primary.”

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Edward Craig: PHILOSOPHY: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION

Posted on Thursday 25 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Proceeding with my foray into philosophy a bit discursively — not yet one of the big histories — I begin with the ‘very short introduction’ I displayed in my initial philosophy post back on 12 January. This is a volume in Oxford University Press’s huge library of “very short introductions” — they have a Wikipedia entry — that number over 700 now. Small paperbacks of 150 pages or less. Here’s the full list.

I have half a dozen of these, and have noticed that they vary in approach. Some are 10,000 foot overviews; some focus on specifics; some on general theory. E.g. you won’t brush up on your Greek mythology in the series’ mythology volume, which is more about the general idea of mythology and where myths come from.

I would call this philosophy volume more of a sampler, than a broad overview. The author is a professor at Cambridge. The volume I have is the second edition, published 2020; the first edition was published in 2002.

Herewith a summary, with [[ comments ]].

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Adam Frank, THE LITTLE BOOK OF ALIENS

Posted on Wednesday 24 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s what looked like a fun, occasional book: a popular summary of a popular topic that’s well-known among followers of science and of science fiction. I bought it to glance through, not necessarily read through. But then I heard the author do an interview on Science Friday a couple weeks ago – here’s the link — and heard him make a couple key points that I wasn’t aware of. So I picked up the book and read it after all.

(Harper, Oct 2023, xviii + 215pp including Notes, Recommended Reading, and Index)

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Healthy, Yet Furrowing My Eyebrows

Posted on Tuesday 23 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Today, another trip into the city, to CMPC, to see one of the cardiologists and status my health, two years and eight months after my heart transplant. Had bloodwork done last Friday, and chest X-ray, and echo-cardiogram done today just before cardiologist visit.

Everything’s fine: blood, x-ray, echo. Earlier symptoms have almost all gone away. We didn’t have any issues to discuss except the precise amounts of two blood pressure meds I’ve been taking, and we decided to make no change. Then we went to Mel’s Diner and I had huevos rancheros for lunch.

Today, two items that caused me to furrow my brow. Then some fringe topics.

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Late Afternoon and the House is Warm

Posted on Monday 22 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Another storm blowing through the Bay Area today. Jets are flying into SFO from the north, a rare circumstance. (I can see them from our balcony.) Our three kitties lie near me in my living room office, to be near the gas fireplace. It’s cold and wet outside, but the gas fireplace keeps the living room warm.

  • How solving the climate crisis will challenge human nature;
  • Short items about Republican hypocrisy, about the stock market, and infrastructure votes;
  • How the media isn’t focusing on Trump’s mental acuity;
  • Robert Reich discusses Trump’s Brownshirts.
  • R.E.M.’s “Sad Professor”

Is this restating the obvious, or is there something new here?

The Guardian, Rachel Donald, 13 Jan 2024: Human ‘behavioural crisis’ at root of climate breakdown, say scientists, subtitled “New paper claims unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plaster”

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Tribal Psychology and Racism

Posted on Sunday 21 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • What evolutionary psychology reveals about American politics — nothing new here, except to note that these ideas have reached the mainstream press;
  • A former Republican speechwriter summarizes Trump’s vile racist remarks;
  • Short items about Trump’s confusion of Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi; a gay couple’s caving to torture from a Christian MAGA neighbor; and how conservatives don’t see diversity as a strength;
  • R.E.M.’s “Bang and Blame.”

First let’s visit the article I noted yesterday, about what “science” is revealing about American politics.

Washington Post, Joel Achenbach, 20 Jan 2024: Science is revealing why American politics are so intensely polarized, subtitled “Political psychologists say they see tribalism intensifying, fueled by contempt for the other side”

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Killers and EvoPsych

Posted on Saturday 20 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Quick post.

We spent all afternoon watching Killers of the Flower Moon — a very good film, worth the 3 1/2 hours — so I only have a moment to post something before dinner.

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Washington Post, Joel Achenbach, 20 Jan 2024: Science is revealing why American politics are so intensely polarized, subtitled “Political psychologists say they see tribalism intensifying, fueled by contempt for the other side”

Joel Achenbach has written at least one book that I have (Captured by Aliens, from 1999). Haven’t read this piece yet, but it’s notable for how the whole field of evolutionary psychology and its understanding of tribal forces that rule basic (dare I say, conservative) politics is rising into the common parlance of ordinary journalism, rather than being confined to books only science nerds would read. Something similar has happened with the related field of psychological biases — motivated reasoning and so on — terms once confined to textbooks. Will read the article and comment tomorrow.

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