Are locutions such as "torture is bad" truth-apt? — SophistiCat

Of course not. — Vera Mont

Well, that's one long-standing philosophical debate closed!

So the OP question is not about truth anymore again? — Vera Mont

It is hard to tell, to be frank. The OP insists that it is, but then when philosophers discourse about truth (or anything else for that matter) things get complicated. Are locutions such as "torture is bad" truth-apt? Controversy! I am with @Banno on this: I am happy to count as "true" any statement that I would endorse.

Does the OP endorse the statement "torture is bad"? I should hope so.

There are no such things as regards physics. There are such things as regards biology. For biology to operate, life is a necessity and the sustenance of life is therefore inherently good. A moral claim based on that premise may not universally true, since much of the universe is non-living, but it is true for a class of material entities known as organisms. — Vera Mont

I don't mean to stick up for error theorists, but I am with them (and with Humeans) on this one. One shouldn't confuse explanations for morality being the way it is, and reasons for acting morally - that would be a naturalistic fallacy. Explanations can be biological, anthropological, social, or perhaps even physical. Motivations ultimately require value judgements. The gap cannot be bridged.

If nothing can be good, or bad, how can anything ever be good, or bad? — Leftist

Your question is (perhaps deliberately) unclear. If you are bothered by the apparent tension between moral talk (locutions such as "torture is bad") and the ontology that denies moral properties, then there are several ways out of this conundrum: fix the language, reconsider the argument about the language (perhaps embrace non-cognitivism instead), reconsider ontology (perhaps abandon moral realism).

What should not be in question is what we actually mean when we say things like "torture is bad." What we care about when we say these things (@Moliere) is neither language nor ontology - only metaethicists care about that.

What if the moral claims are simply not truth-apt? — Moliere

And so it seems to me that you've missed the point of morality. Who cares that it's not "true"? — Moliere

When I want to make safe meta-ethical claims, error theory is home base. — Moliere

If you are referring to the above (moral claims are not truth-apt), that is non-cognitivism, rather than error theory. Error theorists (and Leftist, if I am not mistaken) maintain that moral claims have the grammatical structure and the apparent intention of saying something true about the world (the real world, not a fictional universe of Star Trek, for example). But that (they argue) is a mistake, because for a moral claim to be true, there ultimately needs to be something out in the (real) world that has the property of being good or bad or otherwise morally flavored, and there are no such things.

However, when error theorists say that it is not true that "torture is bad," they do not therefore mean to say that "torture is fine": that would be repeating the same mistake. Indeed, all this theorizing does not necessarily imply anything about common morality. All it means (if you accept their arguments) is that moral talk is confused. But you don't have to change your moral attitudes on that account. The appropriate therapy would be to fix the philosophical language, rather than behavior.

@Leftist seems to be reasoning from the error theory, except that Leftist doesn't quite get it. Leftist doesn't get that the error theory is a metaethical position: it is concerned with the nature of moral talk. It doesn't, for example, conclude that "torture is fine," nor does it conclude that "torture is wrong." It concludes that both statements are false - more or less for the reasons that Leftist gives: because they lack truthmakers. There is nothing in the world that could make something good, bad, or even morally neutral. That doesn't imply moral nihilism though.

I love that knifepoint between late romanticism and early modernism. I'd like to live there. — Noble Dust

At about the same time (1900s) Ives asked a question that is now stuck in my head. Does anyone know the answer? ;)

I've been thinking about this since you wrote it.
I woke up this morning with an earworm but not any dangling from the Prophet Bird.
And I wondered what is it about music that has that effect on our brain or mind.
I guess it's the recurrence of a motif. Is that all? Why does some music resonate more than others?
Does the impression depend on the listener's mental state or brain rhythm already going on?
What do you hear that I can't? — Amity

Earworms are funny things. Often after listening to a number of pieces, such as Schumann's Waldszenen, what gets into my head is not what drew me most while I was listening. Other times I am only semi-aware of the music in my ears while I am occupied with something else. But then, after an incubation period of about 8-16 hours, some "little phrase" or entire pages worth of music hatch in my head and won't quiet down for the rest of the day (or night).

Found this. The Schumann piece comes in just after rapturous applause at 11:00. (if I hear right!)

Wilhelm Backhaus at age 72 in splendid form, giving four encores during a Carnegie Hall recital in New York in 1956. Starting with some preluding to establish the key of the next piece, he plays:
- Schubert's Impromptu in B flat major Opus 142 no. 3, D935;
- Chopin's Etude Opus 25 no. 2 in F minor;
- Schumann's "Vogel als Prophet", from his Waldszenen Opus 82;
- Mozart's Rondo alla Turca from his Sonata no. 11 in A major, KV331 — Amity

Thanks for this, I loved it! (Interesting how he improvises little transitions between the pieces, as if walking from one to the next.)

Truly unhinged: — Noble Dust

LOL, yeah!

Ah, there you go, thanks. For some reason I thought the Rain King in Bellow was an interpolation from Frazer, not a literal reference. In hindsight, Dugin is much likelier to have read Frazer than Bellow.

The Russians are actually digging fortifications in Crimea - something that would have been unthinkable even a year ago. Of course, such moves aren't always what they seem. Prigozhin's much-advertised "Wagner Lines" are pure theater, for example.

Huh. So much for Dugin. (I think he is mixing up Frazer's The Golden Bough with Bellow's Henderson the Rain King - not that it matters in this context.)

Russian official media has been pretty tight-lipped about the "Kherson maneuver", as it is described by the MoD. In sharp contrast with Kharkiv retreat, most milbloggers and nationalists, as well as public figures like Kadyrov and Prigozhin stick to the party line this time around. Looks like they finally got the message.

There have been mixed messages coming in about the retreat. Many expected this to be a bloody rout, and there were early reports to that effect. Some experts asserted that it would be impossible for the Russians to pull out in anything less than a week. Others describe it as a well-organized retreat. We'll know more in the coming days, but on balance so far it looks more like the latter. Apparently, they had been preparing this for weeks before the official announcement, and managed to pull out most of their working equipment in the meanwhile. (Also, they looted everything they could from the city, from museum collections to toilets and sinks, and trashed what they couldn't take - but that's nothing new.) Their best fighting units withdrew as well, but there have also been reports about some units that were told to change into civvies and piss off any way they can.

This changing into civvies trick had been reported by locals many times, even before the retreat. I am not sure what's up with that. Perhaps the military were mixing with civilian evacuees in order to avoid becoming targets for Ukrainian strikes when they crossed the river?

I woke up this morning with this playing in my head... and it still is.

Russia has a long history of similar views of Putin and Patrushev (or Dugin). We often forget that either the Mensheviks or the Bolsheviks weren't the only play around in Russia when it had it's Revolution and especially before the revolutions. For example, the Chornaya sotnya, the Black Hundreds, promoted an ultra-conservative right-wing idealism which supported the House of Romanov, was against any reforms to the autocracy of the Tzar and favoured ultra-nationalism and anti-semitism. Some of the sycophants of Putin's regime seem like them. And of course, in today's Russia the movement has been refounded. And btw. the movement participated in the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian War on the side of pro-Russian separatists. — ssu

Fun fact: Drya Platonova/Dugina - Dugin's daughter who was car-bombed, allegedly by the Ukrainian intelligence - closely cooperated with the present-day Black Hundreds publishing company, and knew its founders well. One of her texts was to be included in "Book Z", a collection of texts about the invasion that the publisher is planning to release later this year.

I have discounted Dugin's influence on Putin here, but lately there have been rumors that since Darya's death, Putin, or at least his administration, have taken a greater interest in Dugin. Dugin, along with another odious ultra-nationalist figure, Alexander Prokhanov, have reportedly been invited for consultations to Kremlin, and their idioms have been cropping up in, e.g., Medvedev's ridiculously ferocious social media posts.

Putin's regime has an ideology problem. It was never really ideological, as I have previously said. What could pass for ideological messaging from the top was amorphous, inconstant and uninspiring, for the most part. As in the late Soviet era, there was an unofficial social contract where the populace was discouraged from participation in politics and activism, and in exchange those in power would leave them be, provide safety from wars and major upheavals, as well as some basic prosperity. Keep your head down, and you'll be fine.

That contract was already fraying before the invasion: prosperity was declining and the future didn't look promising. And then the contract was shattered entirely. The unthinkable happened, and then again and again: an invasion into Ukraine that turned into a protracted war that isn't going well, sanctions and isolation that ordinary people are beginning to feel, and then the ultimate blow: mobilization. The authorities are asking a lot from the populace, but have nothing to give in return. So they feel like they have to come up with some inspiring ideology at last. Or at least they feel like this is what Putin expects of them. Dugin, Prokhanov, etc. - they sound like they are in tune with Papa (as they call Putin among themselves), so they may finally find some use.

It will probably come as no surprise that Isaac is playing fast and loose with the truth in saying that Ukraine banned opposition parties. Only one of the main opposition parties was banned (Opposition Platform). It was an openly pro-Russian party that maintained close ties with Russian officials and Russian ruling party before the invasion. (One of its leaders, Viktor Medvedchuk, has longstanding personal ties to Vladimir Putin. After he was arrested on treason charges, Putin had him exchanged for over 200 Ukrainian prisoners, including all of Azov commanders, as well as foreign prisoners who were sentenced to death in Donbass. That provoked a lot of anger among Russian war hawks.)

It should also be noted that although the parties themselves were banned, their elected representatives were not ejected from legislatures, and members of local governments from those parties continued in their capacities. (Unlike, for example, members of the banned British Fascist party, who were interned until the end of the war.) The Opposition Platform simply renamed its faction in Ukraine's parliament.

Who cares? The Russian economy is rather small. You think the world economy will tank if we boycott Portugal? — Olivier5

It is true though that Russia (unlike Portugal) is an important source of energy and raw materials for other countries, and cutting out that dependency will be difficult - for those who even wish to do that: unlike Europe and the US (which had a small exposure), the rest of the world, Asia in particular, is gladly lapping up the spoils.

Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at the Center for Naval Analyses, posted a thread on the current course of the war.

There might be differences, yet I’m not sure if they are enough to support your claim. The expression “Putinism” would be more insightful if it referred to distinctive/identifiable Putin’s ideological beliefs that he promotes and make a difference with his socio-cultural environment’s, but your claim that Putinism consists in “mining old tropes for ready appeal” doesn’t seem to support that, it simply suggests that Putin’s not an original ideologue. And even if, as you suggest, Putin’s motivations were cynical and not genuine by exploiting the nationalist/imperialist tropes, I wouldn’t qualify a regime “ideological” based on the honesty of its leader (and assumed it's clear what "ideological regime" is as opposed to "non-ideological regime"). — neomac

By "Putinism" I meant, for lack of a better term, the regime that has formed in Russia during Putin's rule. We don't really know what's in Putin's head, and ultimately, that's not what matters most (excepting Putin's biographers). What matters is the character of the regime, and that we can see without the benefit of mindreading.

Is he banned from Russian television?

I'm not so sure how much Dugin's star has faded as his speeches is quite well taken now as there is a war between Russia and Ukraine. — ssu

Yeah, I think Dugin is still in the doghouse for whatever reason. He used to have his own program, appeared on panel discussions and such. Not any more. Doesn't hold any prominent academic positions either.

And let's not forget that his daughter (presumable killed by the Ukrainian intelligence services trying to kill him) is now a martyr for the Russian side in this war. Obviously not the smartest moves that Ukrainians have done as Dugin is a civilian. But I guess an easier target than lawful targets as military commanders. — ssu

That was a very strange affair.

Not sure what you mean by "ideological regime", but I might disagree on that one. Putin's speeches are replete of myth-building claims, philosophical references, and civilization clash rhetoric — neomac

I meant that Putin's regime doesn't have a founding ideology - the kind of ideology that animates the masses, at least in its early years. Such was the case with Communist, Fascist and Islamist regimes, but "Putinism" doesn't have this pedigree. The regime's control over mass media, for example, was always a sloppy, cynical affair, in which carefully curated news and propaganda shows went hand-in-hand with Western or Western-styled TV series and commercials for Western products. (To a large degree, that remains true even today.) Alternative media was marginalized but not entirely banned. Whatever ideology there is, it is ad hoc, tactical, often inconsistent. It is pandering, rather than revolutionary, mining old tropes for ready appeal.

The ultimate proof text of Putinist ideology is Putin himself - and yes, of course, Putin has his influences. He does like citing Ilyin - a Russian monarchist political thinker, who was sympathetic to Nazism and Fascism (like I said, there is a lot of cynicism, inconsistency and fakery in this ideology, if it can even be called such).

Alexandr Dugin is really a "Putin whisperer" in the way he has promoted this semi-fictional historical view of Russia and it's role in the World. — ssu

Dugin's influence is often overstated. His reputation as "Putin whisperer," "Putin's Rasputin" is largely self-created. He is a shrewd self-promoter, but he is probably better known in the West than at home. In Russia he is a fixture in the imperialist nationalist circles, and he has some influence among the siloviks, but Putin doesn't talk to him; they probably never even met. Nor is it likely that Putin reads Dugin: the latter once lamented that Putin doesn't read the right books.

Ironically, Dugin's star went into decline in 2014, during Maidan revolution in Ukraine. He was fired from his position as head of a department in Moscow State University and banned from TV after he called for killing of Ukrainians. Hard to imagine now, when exactly that is being put into practice, although there is an echo in the recent firing of the chief of RT's Russian language division after he called for drowning and burning of Ukrainian children. There have been various speculations as to exactly why Dugin fell from grace, but nothing is known for certain other than that he never quite recovered from that fall.

Putin's regime is not an ideological one, and Putin doesn't need some bearded philosopher to set the agenda for him. He needs flexible, undistinguished and, above all, loyal underlings. That today Dugin's ideology resonates with Putin's is probably more a coincidence than a causal link.

Most of Putin's Valdai speech was devoted to airing his grievances against the West. None of it was new.

• The West wants to rule the world unchecked. They want to impose their rules, their culture, their values upon everyone.
• They have no respect for cultural sovereignty.
• Cancel culture.
• Globalism.
• Liberal world order.
• How come the West can do whatever they like on the world stage, but not anyone else? There should be a "democracy" in international relations.
• Every civilization has the right to choose its own path. No one can tell us how we should live.
• Traditional values.
• Multipolarity.
• Two Wests: traditional, conservative West (good) and liberal, cosmopolitan, neocolonialist West (bad).
• The West was trying to undermine Russia (e.g., by supporting Chechen separatists), but we came out on top.
• We extended the hand of friendship to the West but were rebuffed and slapped with sanctions instead.
• The West is constantly creating sources of tension on our borders with the aim of making Russia more vulnerable and turning it into the instrument of its geopolitical ambitions. (This vague passage is as far as Putin went in articulating his threat perception - aside from all the culture wars stuff.)

In the end he aspirationally talked up autonomy, the end of Western hegemony and reorientation to the East (Belt and Road, etc.)

Ukraine was barely mentioned in the main speech, but it came up in the subsequent Q&A. This is what he said about Ukraine:

• A "coup" in 2014 ultimately led to the "special military operation." (Putin still eschews the W-word, although other high-ranking officials and propagandists have broken the taboo on multiple occasions.) He claimed that a "bloody coup" was staged already after President Yanukovich effectively ceded power by agreeing to early elections, which, Putin candidly admitted, he had no chance of winning. (In actual fact, Yanukovich, together with his siloviks, secretly fled to Russia the day after he signed an accord with Euromaidan representatives, leaving the state legislature to fill the power vacuum.)
• The primary aim of the invasion was to secure Donbass. Also: NATO. But mainly, it's about Donbass.
• We had to attack when we did because Ukraine, with NATO help, was fortifying its defenses, and it would only get more difficult for us if we waited longer.
• Ukraine was originally that part of Russia which fell under foreign domination. People there wanted to reunite with Russia, which eventually happened when Ukraine was absorbed into the Russian Empire. In the 19th century Western powers encouraged Ukrainian nationalism as a divide and conquer strategy against Russia. This led to all sorts of bad things, such as Nazi collaboration. (That Ukrainian nation and Ukrainian language were originally a malicious Western project is a popular thesis among Russian nationalists, to Putin has appealed before.)
• Russians and Ukrainians are one people. And yes, the present war is basically a civil war.
• Modern Ukraine is an artificial state that was created by Soviet Russia.
• Only Russia can guarantee true sovereignty for Ukraine (as part of Russia?)

IEA's World Energy Outlook 2022 is out. A large part of it is about the outlook for clean energy and CO2 reduction. In that context the report notes that the energy crisis precipitated by the war in Ukraine will in the longer term hasten the transition to clean energy (although in the short term there has been some backsliding in Europe as it tries to compensate for energy shortages).

Russia's fossil fuel exports will decline, both in absolute and in relative terms. Russia used to export 75% of its gas and 55% of its oil to Europe. Asia will not make up for the loss of the highly lucrative European market. Russia's share in oil and gas exports will fall by half by 2030, and it will lose 1 trillion dollars in revenue.

The US has always maintained that there would be no American boots on the ground fighting in Ukraine, and to the best of our knowledge, that's still true. But what's the next best thing? US-trained elite foreign troops fighting in Ukraine! Only... they might be fighting for the other side this time.

Members of Afghanistan’s elite National Army Commando Corps, who were abandoned by the United States and Western allies when the country fell to the Taliban last year, say they are being contacted with offers to join the Russian military to fight in Ukraine. Multiple Afghan military and security sources say the U.S.-trained light infantry force, which fought alongside U.S. and other allied special forces for almost 20 years, could make the difference Russia needs on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Afghanistan’s 20,000 to 30,000 volunteer commandos were left behind when the United States ceded Afghanistan to the Taliban in August 2021 . Only a few hundred senior officers were evacuated when the republic collapsed. Thousands of soldiers escaped to regional neighbors as the Taliban hunted down and killed loyalists to the collapsed government. Many of the commandos who remain in Afghanistan are in hiding to avoid capture and execution.

The United States spent almost $90 billion building the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. Although the force as a whole was incompetent and handed the country over to the Taliban in a matter of weeks, the commandos were always held in high regard, having been schooled by U.S. Navy SEALs and the British Special Air Service...

Now, they are jobless and hopeless, many commandos still waiting for resettlement in the United States or Britain, making them easy targets for recruiters who understand the “band of brothers” mentality of highly skilled fighting men. This potentially makes them easy pickings for Russian recruiters, said Afghan security sources. A former senior Afghan security official, who requested anonymity, said their integration into the Russian military “would be a game-changer” on the Ukrainian battlefield, as Russian President Vladimir Putin struggles to recruit for his faltering war and is reportedly using the notorious mercenary Wagner Group to sign up prisoners. — Foreign Policy

The foresight and follow-through of US and British foreign military engagements never fails to disappoint...

Russian propaganda is lazily reusing old material in its latest campaign. "Russian propagandists can't even be bothered to put any effort into their propaganda anymore, they're just phoning it in." Well, why bother when they aren't trying to convince anyone? What they actually want to broadcast is: "We are going to use nukes in Ukraine! Yes we are! We really are that crazy, so you better back off!"

This is not the first such accusations in this war. Earlier they were announcing imminent chemical and biological attacks.

It looks like Russia is preparing information conditions for a nuclear attack in Ukraine - either with a dirty bomb (as they frame it) or a tactical nuke. At least that is what they want the world to think. They are climbing that escalation ladder.

This in addition to a likely destruction of the Kakhovka dam that would dump water from one of the largest reservoirs in Europe onto Kherson and other nearby settlements (presumably, after they vacate them).

In both cases this would be a false flag operation designed to fool no one who doesn't want to be fooled. This has become their signature move.

I also think that AI mishandled this case. On the one hand, their duty as a human rights advocate is to the people whose rights they seek to protect, not to countries and other such entities. But in view of the combined effect of this report, they failed badly. Their conclusions were overwhelmingly rejected and ignored (for mostly bad reasons, but that doesn't make any difference to the victims), and they have damaged their own standing, which will hurt their future work (including their reports on Russia's human rights abuses in Ukraine).

And, she told The Associated Press, even the most conservative model suggests 50,000 men dead in Ukraine. — Associated Press

I don't think this is accurate. I suspect that either de Bendern or the AP reporter makes the common mistake of conflating losses and deaths. The former also includes injured, captured and MIA, and it is usually 3-4 times the number of killed (in the case of Russia the ratio appears to be about 1:3).

At the time the Amnesty report on Ukraine came out I was dismayed by the reactions from Ukrainian officials and others. Here is Zelensky, for example (speaking in the aftermath of the latest Russian atrocity):



This statement contains at least two falsehoods. Amnesty has issued numerous reports, news items and statements regarding Russia's war crimes and human rights abuses in Ukraine. And the report does not excuse Russian war crimes - quite the opposite:

The Ukrainian military’s practice of locating military objectives within populated areas does not in any way justify indiscriminate Russian attacks. All parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects and take all feasible precautions, including in choice of weapons, to minimize civilian harm. Indiscriminate attacks which kill or injure civilians or damage civilian objects are war crimes. — Amnesty International

Nevertheless, these slanders have been endlessly reproduced online, such as in the comments to this Twitter post about an alleged Russian war atrocity:

According to @amnesty and @AgnesCallamard this is not happening.

It's OK, @AgnesCallamard says it's all fine.

A few critics have actually taken issue with the allegations in the report, but they tend to speak in generalities, giving the impression that they are reacting to headlines and media blurbs, rather than addressing anything in the report itself. Even Oksana Pokalchuk, former head of Amnesty's Ukrainian branch who resigned in protest over the report, misrepresents it in her criticism:

First of all, International Humanitarian Law does not impose a blanket prohibition on establishing military bases in proximity to civilian infrastructure. Instead, the military should, to the maximum extent possible, avoid locating military objectives near populated areas and should seek to protect civilians from the dangers resulting from military operations. This warrants an assessment of each situation on a case-by-case basis, not just from a legal perspective, but also in terms of the military realities on the ground. — Oksana Pokalchuk

Here is what the report actually says:

Most residential areas where soldiers located themselves were kilometres away from front lines. Viable alternatives were available that would not endanger civilians – such as military bases or densely wooded areas nearby, or other structures further away from residential areas. In the cases it documented, Amnesty International is not aware that the Ukrainian military who located themselves in civilian structures in residential areas asked or assisted civilians to evacuate nearby buildings – a failure to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians.

It should be said, however, that the report - a press release, really - is brief and presents only the conclusions of an investigation. As far as I know, Amnesty does not make its data, methods and analysis public, which makes it difficult to verify the accuracy of its conclusions.

That aspect of their work can be problematic: the accused side can (and usually does) deny the accusations, and the only thing weighing on the opposite scale is the authority of the organization releasing the report. When the public opinion is on the side of the accused (and every side enjoys at least some public support) it becomes a popularity contest.

Russia already moved to drive The Jewish Agency for Israel out of Russia. This is Israel's outreach organization that assists Jewish immigration. It has maintained its presence in Russia since the Perestroika. Court hearings on the case have repeatedly been postponed. Perhaps this is just Russia's way of applying pressure to Israel, or perhaps they are worried about immigration that has sharply accelerated since the announcement of the mobilization.

What a tangled web is weaved:

Russia's help in fighting Assad in Syria versus stopping Iran from becoming a go to arms dealer and producer. — Paine

Russia isn't helping Israel fight Assad - Russia is supporting Assad. Rather, Russia has allowed Israel to conduct its operations against Iranian proxies in Syria - even though Russia and Iran are on the same side there. It's a tangled web indeed.

I'll listen to any version of this and other pieces as I like multiple interpretations - even 'wrong' ones — Tom Storm

Have listen at Dan Tepfer's "upside-down" version then :)

I listened to the All of Bach recording - it's beautiful. Now of course I have an earworm or three. Oh well, it was worth it.

I remember listening to the first movement of Barbirolli's slow Mahler 6th from 1967 and thinking this is way too slow - I love it! — Tom Storm

I got my introduction to Schubert's great B-flat major sonata from Richter's classic recording, and instantly fell in love with it. I didn't know at the time how unusual that interpretation was in terms of tempo. Later a friend gave me Schnabel's recording of the same sonata - which goes about twice as fast. My first reaction was: How dare he! It sounded like a disrespectful parody. In time I learned to appreciate other interpretations, especially Clara Haskil's

I was asking because I found two recordings: one released in 2017 for the Netherlands Bach Society's All of Bach series, and another released on Erato label a few years later. The Aria on the latter recording seemed much too slow for me; the earlier one's tempo is about right. I have to admit, though this is not to my credit as a listener, that hearing a beloved work in an unaccustomed tempo seems almost as wrong as hearing a false note.

JS Bach: Goldberg Variations - Jean Rondeau (harpsichord) — Tom Storm

Gotta listen to that. Which recording were you listening to?

A while ago I came across this interesting project: #BachUpsideDown

Regarding the Schubert, is there a particular recording that rises above the others? — ThinkOfOne

Well, you can't go wrong with the Oistrakh / Knushevitsky / Oborin classic recording that I linked in my post (it is old, but very good sound quality). There are others of course.

No, I was thinking more of the Chinese Room and extended cognition. In order to play pong the dishbrain had to be wired up to a screen that did a fair amount of interpretation for the neural signals to play pong. — Banno

Well, the real brain is also "wired up" to the screen - just not in the same manner. But that doesn't even begin to describe the differences between the two cases.

The dish brain experiment was meant to isolate one basic mechanism of brain function - it wasn't meant to simulate the entire complexity of the brain, nor even that minuscule part of it that would be called upon to play Pong.

Sellars has that just-so story in "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man" in which he derives the idea of natural law from the observation that some of the persons in nature (old man river, old man mountain, that sort of thing) are set in their ways, the way people get, and thus predictable, the way some people are. (Big Lake is freezing over again, like he always does this time of year.) He suggests we recognized the efficacy of habit first and derived the idea of mechanical determination from that. (A sort of corollary to the 'theory' that we derive the idea of force from our own efficacious action.) — Srap Tasmaner

For us, children of the scientific revolution, such anthropomorphic inversion would seem odd: we expect simple natural systems to exhibit simpler and more consistent regularities than human minds. And yet, this just-so-story has a ring of... plausibility to it.

For a start, the brain cells did not "learn to play pong", they just avoided "a chaotic stream of white noise". That is, the dishbrain had no intent to play pong. — Banno

The dishbrain was not a simulation (or even an approximation) of what the actual brain does when you learn to play pong, although the article might suggest that. Is this your objection?

Dishbrain. That should be a good insult - it's all the better for its obscurity.

Thus we witness just yesterday, a joint announcement by Erdogan and Putin to build a another pipeline thru Turkey — yebiga

Was there another meeting between Putin and Erdogan? Where was this reported?

Putin and Erdogan met on Thursday. Putin floated an idea of a gas distribution hub in Turkey that would allow exporting more gas to Europe through the existing TurkStream pipeline. Erdogan said that they would conduct a study. Everyone else said that Putin must be living in his own alternative reality.