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Slavoj Zizek has talked a lot about the missing term in Rumsfeld's taxonomy.
I don't understand.
| rich people have to buy sculptures made of human dung just to keep up.
This explanation of modern art seems incomplete. For many artists now, bleeding edge art is an exercise in "conceptual" problem solving and game-playing. (For discussion see, e.g., Kosuth 1969.) The economic forces described by Bell/Pinker do put selection pressure on which art gets distributed, displayed and, to a small extent, produced. But to describe these pressures without some reference to the noble and useful productions behind them seems to imply the common error of dismissing modern art as a bluff, a bullshit or some other mostly-useless activity.
since most of them have incoherent explicit metaethics
Is there a coherent metaethical theory specified in a single document somewhere on the Internet? Or does the theory have to be compiled from multiple blog posts? I guess I'm not sure what you're talking about...
thanks for the link to videolectures.net
It should probably be attributed to 'Max Power' too--not 'Homer'.
Would you all please recommend books on many-worlds? I liked The End of Time but I thought the treatment of MWI was too cursory.
Andrew W.K. (musician)
He's outside of your field but is a breakout in his own field. He's open minded and sensitive to argument. But he seems to believe in some kind of weird solipsism. Talking with Andrew W.K. would let you expound upon your materialism and reductionism. You would also reach well beyond your geek readership to the armies of slightly confused, self-conscious, college educated Americans called 'hipsters'---a lot of these people are standing around waiting for the next movement to happen, and your ideas could be very seductive to them.
Finally, Andrew W.K. would probably do it. Despite acting like a badass, he is fundamentally a nerd (a music nerd) and I think he would respect you and try hard to understand you. He also seems to have the intelligence and honesty for arguments about future technologies.
isn't he religious?
I haven't read Stumbling but i really enjoyed his essay in
Heuristics and biases: the psychology of intuitive judgement
Daniel Gilbert
I think it can be difficult to bracket derivative texts when thinking about biblical texts. E.g., most people's understanding of Genesis is heavily influenced by Milton, so it seems reasonable to think that their evaluation of Genesis is confounded by their evaluation of Paradise Lost. Some of the poetic value of Paradise Lost redounds back to Genesis.
I think that a lot of the value that people assign to the bible exists in derivative texts (or memes) that are located outside of the bible---I submit that this is the elusive sacred quantity that Adam Frank is talking about. A poetic analysis of the string of characters comprising the Book of Job will turn up little, if any, of this external value. So of course the Bible has a greater sacred quantity than Lord of the Rings...it's got a several-thousand-year head start in generating derivative works.
definitely "materialism"...especially the idea that there are no ontologically basic mental entities.
Two influential contemporary poets:
Christian Bök: "We are probably the first generation of poets who can reasonably expect to write literature for a machinic audience of artificially intellectual peers." (from "The Piecemeal Bard Is Deconstructed: Notes Toward a Potential Robopoetics" - http://www.ubu.com/papers/object/03_bok.pdf )
Kenneth Goldsmith: "[Barry] Bonds just points to the fact that being human has ceased to be enough: we demand the precision and complexity of machines, in athletes, in politicians, in business and in the arts. And what we demand, we now have." (from "In Barry Bonds I See The Future of Poetry" - http://poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/11/repost_in_barry_bonds_i_see_th.html)
Sample their stuff: http://www.ubu.com/sound/bok.html http://www.ubu.com/contemp/goldsmith/index.html