Polly Wants a Better Argument
The “Stochastic Parrot” Argument is Both Wrong and Actively Harmful
REVIEW: Pauline Hopkins' Contending Forces should be leading the literary canon - The Maroon
Contending Forces tells the story of a Black family both before and after slavery ended in the United States.
Parmenides
Parmenides of Elea, active in the earlier part of the 5th c. BCE,authored a difficult metaphysical poem that has earned him areputation as early Greek philosophy’s most profound andchallenging thinker. His philosophical stance has typically beenunderstood as at once extremely paradoxical and yet crucial for thebroader development of Greek natural philosophy and metaphysics. Hehas been seen as a metaphysical monist (of one stripe or another) whoso challenged the naïve cosmological theories of his predecessorsthat his major successors among the Presocratics were all driven todevelop more sophisticated physical theories in response to hisarguments. The difficulties involved in the interpretation of his poemhave resulted in disagreement about many fundamental questionsconcerning his philosophical views, such as: whether he actually was amonist and, if so, what kind of monist he was; whether his systemreflects a critical attitude toward earlier thinkers such as theMilesians, Pythagoreans, and Heraclitus, or whether he was motivatedsimply by more strictly logical concerns, such as the paradox ofnegative existentials that Bertrand Russell detected at the heart ofhis thought; whether he considered the world of our everydayawareness, with its vast population of entities changing and affectingone another in all manner of ways, to be simply an illusion, and thuswhether the lengthy cosmological portion of his poem represented agenuine attempt to understand this world at all. This entry aims toprovide an overview of Parmenides’ work and of some of the majorinterpretive approaches advanced over the past few decades. Itconcludes by suggesting that understanding his thought and his placein the development of early Greek philosophy requires taking dueaccount of the fundamental modal distinctions that he was the first toarticulate and explore with any precision.
Pappus of Alexandria Book 7 of the Collection
The seventh book of Pappus's Collection, his commentary on the Domain (or Treasury) of Analysis, figures prominently in the history of both ancient and modern mathematics: as our chief source of information concerning several lost works of the Greek geometers Euclid and Apollonius, and as a book that inspired later mathematicians, among them Viete, Newton, and Chasles, to original discoveries in their pursuit of the lost science of antiquity. This presentation of it is concerned solely with recovering what can be learned from Pappus about Greek mathematics. The main part of it comprises a new edition of Book 7; a literal translation; and a commentary on textual, historical, and mathematical aspects of the book. It proved to be convenient to divide the commentary into two parts, the notes to the text and translation, and essays about the lost works that Pappus discusses. The first function of an edition of this kind is, not to expose new discoveries, but to present a reliable text and organize the accumulated knowledge about it for the reader's convenience. Nevertheless there are novelties here. The text is based on a fresh transcription of Vat. gr. 218, the archetype of all extant manuscripts, and in it I have adopted numerous readings, on manuscript authority or by emendation, that differ from those of the old edition of Hultsch. Moreover, many difficult parts of the work have received little or no commentary hitherto.
My Objections to "We’re All Gonna Die with Eliezer Yudkowsky" — LessWrong
Introduction I recently watched Eliezer Yudkowsky's appearance on the Bankless podcast, where he argued that AI was nigh-certain to end humanity. Sin…
Parmenides: Pre-Socratic Philosophy
Heraclitus
A Greek philosopher of Ephesus (near modern Kuşadası,Turkey) who was active around 500 BCE, Heraclitus propounded adistinctive theory which he expressed in oracular language. He is bestknown for his doctrines that things are constantly changing (universalflux), that opposites coincide (unity of opposites), and that fire isthe basic material of the world. The exact interpretation of thesedoctrines is controversial, as is the inference often drawn from thistheory that in the world as Heraclitus conceives it contradictorypropositions must be true.
The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession
Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They’ve been a road map for the billionaire ever since.
What Theory is Not, Theorizing Is
everything is a nail, or at least it ought to be
“the irrational decision” by Ben Recht
Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come
Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come
Jason Arday: We Must Rage – Rage Against the Journalism of Cruelty
The death of the academic shows the casual conversion of humiliation into entertainment by a media running on monetised hate and cruelty
On Enchanted Flatland: Iain McGilchrist & the Problem of Romantic Liberalism
A follow-up to my contribution to Rosy Cross: Question of Right & Truth of Christianity
The Daily Planet #118: On Contradiction - The Daily Planet