Thoughts and links, 3-4/2017

See all the links for March and April. (See April 2016’s post for an explanation of the organization.) Here are some highlights.

Books

• The Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand: Discusses the evolution of American philosophy in the 19th and early 20th century in response to the Civil War and scientific progress (ex. Darwin’s theory of evolution), through the story of 4 American philosphers (William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Peirce, and John Dewey). Notes
• Introduction to classical Chinese philosophy, Bryan Van Norden, notes
• Blindsight, Peter Watts asks the question: what if the correlation of consciousness and intelligence on Earth is just an accident - and the universe is filled with intelligent but nonconscious beings? It makes a strong (scientific, non-dualistic) argument for the possibility that intelligence need not be correlated with consciousness.
• China: A History, John Keay: in progress, notes

Comics

A free trial of Comixology was very much worth it. Some of my picks:

• Trees
• reMIND
• Adventure time
  • Fiona and Cake
• Pretty deadly

Podcast Picks

• The Allusionist
  • 33 Please: Differences in the usage of “please” in the US and UK.
  • 50-51 Under the Covers 1 and 2: On romance novels and the language of sex.
  • 54 The Authority: The role of the dictionary.
• Radiolab Extra: Henrietta Lacks: On one woman’s medically miraculous cancer cells.
• Imaginary Worlds: Beyond the Iron Curtain: Science fiction from the Soviet Union tends to be more subtle.
• The Memory Palace: 105, Amok: when animals escape the Central Park Zoo.
• On being: Richard Rohr — Living in Deep Time (highlights): “Chronos is chronological time, time as duration, one moment after another, and that’s what most of us think of as time… But there was another word in Greek, kairos. And kairos was deep time. It was when you have those moments where you say, ‘Oh my god, this is it.’”
• Philosophy Bites: Andy Clark on The Extended Mind
• Quanta: To live your best life, do mathematics: Interview with Francis Su.
• TED radio hour
  • The spirit of inquiry
  • Decisions
• The Truth
  • Miracle on the L train
• This American Life:
  • 611 Vague and confused including a story on who gets to stay on a private Hawaiian island.
  • 614 The other Mr. President (Vladimir Putin)
• 99 percent invisible
  • 250 State (Sanctuary Part 2): The role of churches as sanctuary in the refugee crisis.
  • 254 Containers: The change brought by the invention of containers

Articles

• Map and territory:
  • Need dynamics: “Coference” seems like a useful concept.
  • Narrativemancy 101: The power of narrative comes from how it references your most vivid feelings.
• Slatestarcodex: Is everything a religion?
• The AI box experiment
• Evolutionary strategies as an alternative to reinforcement learning (h)

An amazing piece of My Little Pony Fanfiction

Friendship is optimal