there  could  be  snakes  in  here

Many of the points made in this book are probably wrong. It is also likely that there are considerations of critical importance that I fail to take into account, thereby invalidating some or all of my conclusions. I have gone to some length to indicate nuances and degrees of uncertainty throughout the text — encumbering it with an unsightly smudge of “possibly,” “might,” “may,” “could well,” “it seems,” “probably,” “very likely,” “almost certainly.” Each qualifier has been placed where it is carefully and deliberately. Yet these topical applications of epistemic modesty are not enough; they must be supplemented here by a systemic admission of uncertainty and fallibility. This is not false modesty: for while I believe that my book is likely to be seriously wrong and misleading, I think that the alternative views that have been presented in the literature are substantially worse - including the default view, according to which we can for the time being reasonably ignore the prospect...

nomothetic (adj.): "law-stating"; the mindset that prizes categorisation, hypothetical deduction and universalisation above all. E.g. science (and, of course, of conspiracy theorists like Carl Jung). A pejorative, to anthropologists. One of the more important totally obscure words I know, along with "apodicticity" and "pareidolia". And "philosophunculist". spaghettification (n.): Genuine technical term for what happens to you in a destructively steep gravity gradient: if the difference in field strength between your front and your back is greater than your tensile strength. value proposition (Corporatese n.): why to buy my shit. The lie, in short. tankie (n.): A modern day Leninist or Stalinist. Term originated for those who thought sending tanks to crush the Prague Spring was perfectly right for the greater good of Communist unity. tortfeasor (n.): Someone who has done a tort. abugida (n.): A script of the consonant-vowel pa...

From 2008: the first original philosophical argument I remember making: Searle: "all purely syntactic systems lack subjective experiences." Searle: "I have subjective experiences." So Searle: "I am not a purely syntactic system." (modus tollens, 1&2) The only system that Searle has knowledge about the subjective experiences of is himself. So if Searle is not a purely syntactic system, he has no knowledge of what it is like to be a purely syntactic system, He cannot therefore cannot assert premise 1. (5 & the knowledge account of assertion ). If Searle is a purely syntactic system, (1) is false. (by 2) Therefore premise (1) is either unwarranted or false. (by 6&7) (These days I wouldn't use infallibilist knowledge as the baseball bat I did; I'd go at him with probabilism instead. And I'd do something against Searle's odd dichotomy between representational machines who are 'pure' syntax vs those wh...

I reviewed Prévert, phenomenology of computing , and the New Testament in Scots. I reviewed Taleb as an evolutionary epistemologist and angry apolitician. I translated a Tang octave. I wrote a poem about the NHS. I again reflected on the awfulness of identity via a thought experiment. I translated a Golden Age Viennese lyric. I drew equivalences between key concepts in maths, object-oriented code, and metaphysics. I learned how to code out loud. I reviewed Putnam, Waugh and a sad Australian cynic. I reviewed an appalling academic paper I was made to read. I psychologised academics who cling to one method. I enjoyed Werner Herzog and listed casualties in his vicinity. I made an attempt to criticise our new century's zeitgeist. I pulled fragments from DFW's last nachlass. I reviewed the very best book on late-70s / early-80s pop music. I distinguished a toolchain from a stack. I reviewed lots of things I shouldn't have been reading and learned Javascript. I quoted Huxl...

A camera hung from every arm. And here I noticed first one of those small phenomena which (I thought fancifully) might unravel a whole society for me if I could only understand it: the flurry of Chinese snapshots was directed not at this beautiful and curious valley, but exclusively at one another. A place seemed to take its meaning only from a person's presence there. Sometimes I received the overwhelming impression that these snapshots were really statements of identity, that to be commemorated at a famous site was to be touched by its mana. 'You're travelling alone?' I was later asked, ' Then how do you manage to photograph? '       ...These ritual snapshots seemed the heart of their journey. They never stopped to read the ancient poems carved in the cliffs, or to look down at the mottled beauty of the lake. I could not tell whether they admired the scenery at all, or simply cherished the idea of themselves in it.       By nine...

customising bash and gitconfig for fun and profit Git is amazing but verbose. (The awkward length of its commands may well be a feature, since awkward things force us us think, and careful thinking kinda behooves nonlinear distributed development.) We are trying to balance two forces: 1) every increase in typing ease means an increase in the risk of typo error. 2) Every ounce of effort that source control takes is subtracted from actual development. The really terse aliases (one word, like "gits") require us to configure the bash shell rather than the git client running in it. First create a ".bashrc" file in your git bash current directory (i.e. in " ~ "): touch ~/.bashrc gedit ~/.bashrc [Enter aliases you want, save] source ~/.bashrc [Profit] For the git aliases just put em in here (starting with [alias] ) > gedit ~/.gitconfig If you want to keep Git's excellent branch-name auto-complete working on your aliases, you'll nee...

telematics (n.): Telecommunications informatics; that is, horrendous employee micromanagement via wireless reporting devices. scofflaw (n.): person who disrespects the law. Particularly of proud drinkers during Prohibition. havey-cavey (adj.): dubious, shady, 'the property of having hidden metaphorical caves'?. rive (v.): To split violently. See frost riving , the destruction of rock by repeated thermal contraction of water inside it. See also "reave". lookbook (n.): A model's or photographer's portfolio. Awful Ophiuchus (proper n.): A constellation and the 13th zodiac sign, excluded from the usual blah because astrology is a cold, dead system invented by people without a fraction of our information, maintained by people with no intellectual courage. Yet another world-cultural reference I received dimly and very indirectly from Final Fantasy . (see also Grendel, Behemoth, Leviathan, Gilgamesh, Quezacotl, Lamia, Wendigo, Sephirot , Heidegger, Bug...