sides.......................

 Whenever there is an argument between two sides, find the third side.

-Kevin Kelly

provinces.....................

      It is not only in science that this attitude of critical reflection is maintained.  Matthew Arnold famously described culture as "a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thoughts upon our stock notions and habits."  Like so many people wedded to the nineteenth-century view of science, Dawkins overlooks the nineteenth-century reaction—which said, "Wait a minute: science is not the only way to pursue knowledge.  There is moral knowledge too, which is the province of practical reason; there is emotional knowledge, which is the province of art, literature, and music.  And just possibly there is a transcendental knowledge, which is the province of religion.  Why privilege science, just because it sets out to explain the world?  Why not give weight to the disciplines that interpret the world and so help us to be at home in it?"

-Roger Scruton, On Human Nature

If Roger Scruton was a blog.....................

 ....................methinks he would be a lot like this.

"a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic"

 The best reading strategy I’ve come across is the idea of a wide funnel and tight filter. Be willing to read anything that looks even a little interesting, but abandon it quickly and without mercy if it’s not working for you.

Be choosy about what you let into your attic.

-Morgan Housel, from this post, Paying Attention

Never a time machine when you need one....

 Amsterdam in the seventeenth century was a city of bookshops.  There were at the time as many as four hundred establishments dedicated to spreading the printed word.  Under the tolerant eye of the civil authorities, authors from across Europe sent their wares to Holland for publication, and, as a result, Dutch publishers outproduced their continental rivals in several languages.  An important part of the Amsterdam adventure for intellectual visitors as diverse as Leibniz and John Locke, was a visit to one or more of the city's bookshops, where one had the opportunity not just to browse the aisles for contraband literature, but also to sniff out new ideas among the freewheeling bibliophiles, who with the stimulus of coffee and Dutch-made pipes—for smoking had become a national sport— would while the afternoon away discussing novel theories, plotting revolution, and bantering about the latest developments in the republic of letter.

-Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic:  Leibniz, Spinoza, and the fate of God in the Modern World

entertaining..................

 It is one of the distinguishing characteristics of human beings, however, that they can distinguish an idea from the reality represented in it, can entertain propositions from which they withhold their assent, and can move judge-like in the realm of ideas, calling each before the bar of rational argument, accepting them and rejecting them regardless of the reproductive cost.

-Roger Scruton, On Human Nature

Wisdom...................

 Do not rely on the cooperation of those who will rarely give it. Search for a solution that is apart from such cooperation. You may be surprised by how easily such solutions can be found.

-Michael Wade

Be...................

 Pay attention to who you are around when you feel your best.  Be with them more often.

-Kevin Kelly

fifty years ago...........................

Pink Floyd..............The Dark Side of the Moon

 

Opening paragraphs............

 It is our good fortune to live in an age when philosophy is thought to be a harmless affair.  As the autumn of 1676 approached, however, Baruch de Spinoza had ample reason to fear for his safety.  One of his friends had recently been executed, and another had died in prison.  His efforts to publish his definitive work, the Ethics, had come to an end amid threats of criminal prosecution.  A leading French theologian named him "the most impious and the most dangerous man of the century."  A powerful bishop denounced him as "that insane and evil man, who deserves to be covered with chains and whipped with a rod."  To the general public, he was known simply as "the atheist Jew."

-Matthew Stewart, Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World

a prey.........................

 Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage: for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.

-Baruch de Spinoza

telling ourselves stories...............

      We are territorial creatures, just like chimpanzees, wolves, and tigers.  We claim our territory and fight for it, and our genes, which require just such an exclusive claim over habitat if their replication is to be guaranteed, depend on our success.  Yet when we fight it is, as a rule, in the name of some high ideal: justice, liberation, national sovereignty, even God Himself.  Once again, it seems that we are in the habit of telling ourselves stories that make no reference to the biological realities in which they are rooted.

-Roger Scruton, On Human Nature

Calming down about GPT-4................

 . . . that one of the deadly sins was how we humans mistake performance for competence.

-Rodney Brooks, from this article

Field trip..........................

 My Sweetie and I visited the world-class Dawes Arboretum in suburban Newark this afternoon.  A good time was had:

No sads here...........................

 As I reflected on this subtle change, it occurred to me that after suffering a loss so enormous, and surviving it, Charlie decided he could get through anything. Brought face to face with the limits of his ability, of anyone’s ability, to master fate or turn back time, Charlie began reaching for the things he could control — his own actions, his own emotions, his outlook, his grit. As he put it: “We didn’t have time to be sad.”

     Charlie was not a student of philosophy. Yet in those words, I recognized the essence of a credo that has served human beings for centuries: Stoicism, one of the most durable and useful schools of thought ever devised. It has spoken to paupers and presidents, to emperors and the enslaved. It’s the philosophy of freedom and self-determination, one that seeks to erase envy, resentment, neediness and anxiety. Its pillars are wisdom, courage, temperance and justice. It is a philosophy of radical equality and mutual respect.

-As redirected by this David Kanigan post.  Book now residing in my B & N shopping cart.

Highly recommended...................

 

      To go from strength to strength requires learning a new set of life skills.  We need to adopt a new formula, which I have laid out in detail in this book, chapter by chapter.  But of course you are unlikely to memorize the last sixty thousand words.  So let me summarize the whole book in seven—a formula that encapsulates all the lessons I have learned and now strive to live:  Use things.  Love people.  Worship the divine.

my research librarian..................

      Another skill is the recall of names and facts.  By the time you are fifty, your brain is as crowded with information as the New York Public Library.  Meanwhile, your personal research librarian is creaky, slow, and easily distracted.  When you send him to get some information you need—say, someone's name—he takes a minute to stand up, stops for coffee, talks to an old friend in the periodicals, and then forgets where he was going in the first place.  Meanwhile, you are kicking yourself for forgetting something you have known for years.  When the librarian finally shows back up and says, "That guy's name is Mike," Mike is long gone and you are doing something else.

-Arthur C. Brooks,  From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

About your prefrontal cortex...........

 For most people, decline is just not an unwelcome surprise, it is also a huge mystery.  We learn early on that practice makes perfect; there is plenty of research telling us that mastery comes from ten thousand hours of work, or some really high number like that.  In other words, life has a formula: the more you do something, the better at it you become.

     But then you don't.  Progress isn't a straight line upward, . . . So what explains the downward portion? . . . 

     A better explanation involved structural changes in the brain—specifically, the changing performance of the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain behind your forehead).  This is the last part of the brain to develop in childhood and the first to exhibit decline in adulthood.  It is primarily responsible for working memory, executive function, and inhibitory mechanisms—that is, the ability to block out information extraneous to the task at hand, so we can focus and imp[orve our core skill.  A big, strong prefrontal cortex makes it possible for you to get better and better at your specialty, whether it is making a legal case, doing surgery, or driving a bus.

      In middle age, the prefrontal cortex degrades in effectiveness . . .

-Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

On striverly instincts......................

 In my field of economics, we have something called "Stein's Law," named after the famous economist Herbert Stein from the 1970s: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."  Obvious, right?  Well, when it comes to their own lives, people ignore it all the time.  But you ignore this about your professional success at your peril.  It will leave you falling further and further behind, shaking your fist at the heavens.

     There is another path, though, instead of denying change in your abilities, you can make the change itself a source of strength.  Instead of trying to avoid decline, you can transcend it by finding a new kind of success, better than what the world promises and not a source of neurosis and addiction: a deeper form of happiness than what you had before; and in the process, true meaning in life—maybe for the first time. . . .

     A word of caution, though: This path means going against many of your striverly instincts.  I'm going to ask you not to deny your weaknesses but rather to embrace them defenselessly.  To let go of some things in your life that you worked hard for—but that are now holding you back.  To adopt parts of life that will make you happy, even if they don't make you special.  To face decline—and even death—with courage and confidence.  To rebuild relationships you neglected on the long road to worldly success.  And to dive into the uncertainty of a transition you have worked so hard to evade.

-Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

the "striver's curse".............

      What I found was a hidden source of anguish that wasn't just widespread but nearly universal among people who have done well in their careers.  I came to call this the "striver's curse": people who strive to be excellent at what they do often wind up finding their inevitable decline terrifying, their successes increasingly unsatisfying, and their relationships lacking.

-Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life