The Valve2012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00ExpressionEngineAll posts and comments Copyright (c) their respective authorsBill Benzon on: The Sins of Steven Pinker: Or, Let’s Get on with Ittag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.26402012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00Pinker has created a FAQ about the book & the response to it:
http://stevenpinker.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions-about-better-angels-our-nature-why-violence-has-declined2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Bill Benzon{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}Robert Sheppard on: Occupy Wall Street: America HAS a Ruling Classtag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.26512012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00With regard to Occupy Wall Street books, the novel Spiritus Mundi, by Robert Sheppard is already being serialized every week on the website of the Arts & Culture Working Group Occupy Wall Street movement as a contribution to the movement and reading resource for the occupiers, see: http://www.nycga.net/groups/arts-and-culture/forum/topic/introducing-the-new-novel-spiritus-mundi-by-robert-sheppard-featuring-the-occupy-movement-in-support-of-the-cause-and-for-the-enjoyment-of-those-in-the-movement/ This is the Occupy Wall Street novel, Spiritus Mundi, by Robert Sheppard. The novel also contains the Occupy Earth Manifesto, a key document of the OWS movement: http://occupytogether.com/forum/discussion/1293/the-occupy-earth-manifesto-from-the-general-assembly-ows-website-a-program-of-demands-#Item_2
The following is an introduction to this first Occupy Wall Street novel:
This is to introduce the new novel, Spiritus Mundi, by Robert Sheppard, which features the events of the Occupy Movement and the “People’s Power” movement in support of establishing a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. It is reccomended as part of the common struggle. You can check it out at the following websites:
Spiritus Mundi, Novel by Robert Sheppard
For Introduction and Overview of the Novel: https://spiritusmundinovel.wordpress.com/
For Updates on the Upcoming Movie Version of the Novel, Spiritus Mundi & Casting of Actors and Actresses for Leading Roles See: http://robertalexandersheppard.wordpress.com/
For Author’s Blog: https://robertalexandersheppard.wordpress.com/
To Read a Sample Chapter from Spiritus Mundi: https://spiritusmundisamplechapters.wordpress.com/
To Read Fantasy, Myth and Magical Realism Excerpts from Spiritus Mundi: https://spiritusmundifantasymythandmagicalrealism.wordpress.com/
To Read Spy, Espionage and Counter-terrorism Thriller Excerpts from Spiritus Mundi: http://spiritusmundispyespionagecounterterrorism.wordpress.com/
To Read Geopolitical and World War Three Excerpts from Spiritus Mundi: https://spiritusmundigeopoliticalworldwar3.wordpress.com/
To Read Spiritual and Religious Excerpts from Spiritus Mundi: https://spiritusmundionspiritualityandreligion.wordpress.com/
To Read about the Global Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly in Spiritus Mundi: https://spiritusmundiunitednationsparliamentaryassembly.wordpress.com/
To Read Poetry from Spiritus Mundi：https://spiritusmundipoetry.wordpress.com/
For Discussions on World Literature and Literary Criticism in Spiritus Mundi: http://worldliteratureandliterarycriticism.wordpress.com/
For Discussions of World History and World Civilization in Spiritus Mundi: https://worldhistoryandcivilizationspiritusmundi.wordpress.com/
To Read the Blog of Eva Strong from Spiritus Mundi: https://evasblogfromspiritusmundi.wordpress.com/
To Read the Blog of Andreas Sarkozy from Spiritus Mundi: http://andreasblogfromspiritusmundi.wordpress.com/
To Read the Blog of Yoriko Oe from Spiritus Mundi: http://yorikosblogfromspiritusmundi.wordpress.com/
To Read the Blog of Robert Sartorius from Spiritus Mundi: http://sartoriusblogfromspiritusmundi.wordpress.com/
I write to introduce to your attention the double novel Spiritus Mundi, consisting of Spiritus Mundi, the Novel—Book I, and Spiritus Mundi, the Romance—Book II. Book I’s espionage-terror-political-religious thriller-action criss-crosses the globe from Beijing to London to Washington, Mexico City and Jerusalem presenting a vast panorama of the contemporary international world, including compelling action, deep and realistic characters and surreal adventures, while Book II dialates the setting and scope into a fantasy (though still rooted in the real) adventure where the protagonists embark on a quest to the realms of Middle Earth and its Crystal Bead Game and through a wormhole to the Council of the Immortals in the Amphitheater in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy in search of the crucial Silmaril Crystal, and to plead for the continuance of the human race in the face of threatened extinction from a nuclear World War III, all followed by a triple-somersault thriller ending in which a common garden-variety terrorist attack is first uncovered by MI6 and the CIA as the opening gambit a Greatpower Game of States threatening World War III and then, incredibly, as the nexus of a Time Travel conspiracy involving an attempt by fascist forces of the 23rd Century to alter a benign World History by a time-travelling raid on their past and our present to provoke that World War III, foiled by the heroic efforts of the democratic 23rd Century world government, the Senate of the United States of Earth, to hunt down the fascist interlopers before their history is irrevocably altered for evil.
Copyright Robert Sheppard 2011
When activist Robert Sartorius, leading a global campaign to create a European Parliament-style world-wide United Nations Parliamentary Assembly presses the proposal in New York on his old friend the UN Secretary-General and is rebuffed due to the hostile pressure of the conservative American administration, his Committee resolves to fight back by launching a celebrity-driven Bono-Geldof-Band Aid/Live 8-style “People Power” media campaign and telethon spearheaded by rock superstars Isis and Osiris and former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to mobilize global public support and pressure. In New York he participates as part of the Occupy Wall Street Movement in its earliest days, joining the broader fight for social justice.The Blogs of Sartorius, activist Eva Strong and Committee Chairman Andreas Sarkozy reveal the campaign’s working struggle, their tangled love affairs, a loss of faith, attempted suicide, reconciliation of father and son after divorce, and recovery of personal love and faith.
Things fall apart as the idealists’ global crusade is infiltrated by a cell of jihadist terrorists using it as a cover, then counter-infiltrated by CIA agent Jack McKinsey and British MI6 agent Etienne Dearlove. A cat-and-mouse game of espionage and intrigue ensues pitting them against the Chinese MSS espionage network allied with the Iranian Quds Force crossing Beijing, London, Moscow, Washington and Jerusalem unleashing an uncontrollable series of events which sees the American Olympic Track and Field Team bombed on an airplane in London, uncovers a secret conspiracy of China, Russia and Iran to jointly seize the oil reserves of the Middle-East, and witnesses Presidents Clinton and Carter taken hostage with Sartorius, McKinsey, Eva and other activists at a Jerusalem telethon rally cut short by the explosion of a concealed atomic device in a loaned Chinese Terracotta Warrior, then flown by capturing terrorists to Qom, Iran as “human shields” to deter a retaliatory nuclear attack.
In Book II, Spiritus Mundi, the Romance they encounter Iran’s Supreme Leader in Qom as the world teeters on the brink of nuclear confrontation and World War III, while mysterious events unfold leading Sartorius and McKinsey from their captivity in the underground nuclear facilities of Qom into a hidden neo-mythic dimension that takes them to a vast ocean and land at the center of the world, Middle Earth, Inner Shambhala, and to involvement in a mysterious Castalian “Crystal Bead Game” linked to the destiny of the human race on earth. They then embark on a quest for the Silmaril, or Missing Seed Crystal to the central island of Omphalos in the Great Central Sea in the middle of the globe, aided by Goethe, the Chinese Monkey King, Captain Nemo, the African God-Hero Ogun, and a Sufi mystic they traverse a ‘wormhole’ at the center of the earth guarded by ‘The Mothers’ and the fallen angel tribe of the Grigori (Genesis 6:1-4) which leads the way to critical meeting of the “Council of the Immortals” at the Black Hole in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy to determine the final fate of the human species. The heroes battle and overcome the treacherous opposition of Mephisto and his satanic subaltern Mundus through their Underworld and Otherworld adventures and successfully plead the cause of the continuation of the human species before the Immortals, returning with the critical Silmaril Crystal. resolving the Crystal Bead Game and thereby inspiring through the Archangel Gabriel a dream in the mind of Iran’s Supreme Leader which brings a new Revelation causing him to release the hostages and an end the crisis. China and Russia stand down from aiding Iran in seizing the Mid-East oil reserves, but in a treacherous blow the Chinese instead utilize their forward-positioned armies to attack their former ally Russia and seize Siberia with its large oil and gas reserves instead. President Barret Osama, America’s newly-elected first black President then invites Russia, Japan and South Korea to join NATO and together they succeed in expelling the Chinese from Siberia and usher in a new Eurasian and global balance of power and a New World Order.
Rock Superstar Osiris meanwhile, after undertaking a narcissistic Messianic mission in the wake of the Jerusalem atomic blast is dramatically assassinated on live world-wide television on Jerusalem’s Via Dolorosa by a disillusioned follower. His wife and rock-star partner Isis then leads a spiritual movement to reconcile and unite the clashing religions and catalyze a common global spiritual Renaissance through a Global Progressive Spiritual Alliance which seeks to construct an Inter-faith Temple on the ruins of the atomic blast in Jerusalem. In counter-reaction to the cataclysmic events the world finally implements Sartorius’ crusade for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, but not before Sartorius has himself has died, Moses-like of a heart attack while helping to foil a metaconspiracy mediated by Time Travel in which a fascist agent from the 23rd Century who has time-transited back to our time to alter a benign history by causing WWIII and thus preventing the evolution of a democratic world government, the United States of Earth, which follows him through time and nabs him just in the “nick of time” to prevent Aramgeddon. The book ends with the opening ceremony of the UN Parliamentary Assembly which is attended in Sartorius’ name by his widow Eva Strong, whom Sartorius had fallen in love with and married in the course of the novel, and by their son Euphy, newborn after Sartorius’ death. They are joined in cinematic climax at the ceremony by newly chosen UN Secretary-General Clinton, President Osama and UN Parliamentary Assembly Committee Chairman Andreas Sarkozy who have just received the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in creation of the world’s first world parliamentary assembly within the United Nations, bringing together the representative voices of the peoples of the world in face-to-face assembly and dialogue for the first time in world history.
Highlights:
All the Highlights of the novel cannot be contained in such a short Introduction, but a few of them would include:
1. Spiritus Mundi is the first novel in world history to portray the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assemblyon the working model, inter alia, of the European Parliament and to portray the Occupy Wall Street Movement an the Occupy Movement worldwide;
2.Spiritus Mundi is a prophetic geo-political WWIII novel of the near future forseeing a conflict and conspiratorial surprise attack by a resurgent “Axis” of China, Russia and Iran seeking by a decisive blow in jointly seizing the Middle-East oil fields to radically alter the global balance of power vis-a-vis the West in the world and Eurasia. Like Clancy’s The Bear and the Dragon, it forsees the inclusion of Russia in NATO, and goes far beyond in forseeing the inclusion of South Korea and Japan, following a joint Chinese-Russian occupation of a collapsing North Korea and the Axis strike at the Middle-Eastern oil fields;
3. Spiritus Mundi is an exciting espionage thriller involving the American CIA. British MI6, the Chinese MSS, or Ministry of State Security and the Russian SVR contending in a deul of intrigue and espionage;
4. Spiritus Mundi is a Spellbinding Terrorism/Counterterrorism novel involving a global plot to conceal an atomic bomb in a Chinese Teracotta Warrior to be detonated in Jerusalem;
5. Features the romantic and sexual searching and encounters of dozens of idealist activists, rock-stars, CIA and MI6 agents, public-relations spinmeisters and billionaires with a detour into the bi-sexual and gay scenes of Beijing, New York, California, London and Tokyo:
6. Establishes and grounds the new genre of the Global Novel written in Global English, the international language of the world,
7. Spiritus Mundi is a novel of Spiritual Searching featuring the religious searching of Sufi mystic Mohammad ala Rushdie, as well as the loss of faith, depression, attempted suicide and recovery of faith in life of protagonist Sartorius. Follows bogus religious cult leaders and the Messiah-Complex megalomanic-narcissistic mission of rock superstar Osiris that leads to his dramatic assassination on worldwide television in Jerusalem, followed by the religious conversion of his wife and rock-star parner Isis;
8.Features the search for love and sexual fulfillment of Eva Strong, a deeply and realistically portrayed divorced single mother involved in the United Nations campaign, who reveals her tortured heart and soul in her Blog throughout several disastrous sexual affairs and ultimately through her final attainment of love and marriage to Sartorius;
9.Features Sartorius’ experience of a bitter divorce, alienation and reconciliation with his son, his loss of faith and attempted suicide, his battle against drugs and alcoholism, his surreal and sexual adventures in Mexico City, and his subsequent redeeming love and marriage to Eva Strong;
10.Contains the in–depth literary conversations of Sartorius and his best friend, Literature Nobel Laureate Günther Gross, as they conduct worldwide interviews and research for at book they are jointly writing on the emergence of the new institution of World Literature, building on Goethe’s original concept of “Weltliteratur” and its foundations and contributions from all the world’s traditions and cultures;
11.Predicts the emergence of the institution and quest of “The Great Global Novel” as a successor to the prior quest after “The Great American Novel” in the newer age of the globalization of literature in Global English and generally;
12.Features the cross-cultural experiences and search for roots, sexual and spiritual fulfillment and authenticity of Asian-American character Jennie Zheng, and Pari Kasiwar of India;
13.For the first time incorporates in the dramatic narrative flow of action the mythic traditions of all the cultures and literatures of the world, including such figures as Goethe, The Chinese Monkey King, the African God-Hero Ogun, surreal adventures in the ‘Theatro Magico’ in Mexico City bringing to life figures from the Mayan-Aztec Popul Vuh, Hanuman from the Indian classic the Ramayana, and many more;
14. Book Two, Spiritus Mundi, the Romance is a fantastic Fantasy, Myth and Magical Realism Rollercoaster Ride: The more mythic Book Two utilizes a Wellsian motif of Time Travel to explore the making of history and its attempted unmaking (a la Terminator) by a hositile raid from the future on the past, our present, and the foiling of the fascist attempt by an alliance of men and women of goodwill and courage from past, present and future generations united in a Commonwealth of Human Destiny; Like Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day and Welles’ Journey to the Center of the Earth it involves a journey to an interior realm of the “Middle Earth;” it also contains a futuristic travel through a wormhole to the center of our Milky Way Galaxy for a meeting with the “Council of the Immortals” where the fate of the human race will be decided;
15.Is a fantastic read on a roller-coaster ride of high adventure and self-exploration!2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Robert Sheppard{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}John S Wilkins on: Occupy Wall Street: America HAS a Ruling Classtag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.26512012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00To be honest, the bigness is the most interesting question to me. We live now in a time of corporateness - big government, big business and big unions (in Australia, anyway). All these go to form oligarchies. The rest of us are locked into fixed structures and exploited more or less as serfs.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00John S Wilkins{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}William Ray on: That Shakespeare Thingtag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.24872012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00Time will tell
Who has fell
And who’s been left behind
When you go your way
And I go MINE2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00William Ray{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}GeoX on: That Shakespeare Thingtag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.24872012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00No, Dan’s right. Shakespeare conspiracy theorists are all very, very stupid.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00GeoX{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}Bill Benzon on: The Sins of Steven Pinker: Or, Let’s Get on with Ittag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.26402012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00Actually, it was a post about an interview that Pinker gave about the book, which is definitely fair game, plus a number of reviews . . .
But it was the BOOK itself, and all the work in it, that was criticized on the basis of that interview and those reviews.
. . . that had remarked upon Pinker’s insane scale of violent events, in which one of the parameters - time - was so flexible that a period of 1000 years and a period of 3 years were treated as comparables.
That’s one table that was reproduced for the interview. I agree, the radically different time scale make comparisons problematic. But, do you really think that one table is the only evidence offered in an 800 page book?
He has a right to create a universal history, the same as anybody else, but he can’t expect his reputation in linguistics to shield him from criticism.
What universal history? This is, at best, a history of violence, not a history of everything. And I’m sure he doesn’t expect his reputation in linguistics or anything else to shield him from criticism. I’m sure he expeccts and wants criticism. But what happened at Crooked Timber was not criticism. It was people using Pinker as a scapegoat . . . but for what, that’s not at all clear.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Bill Benzon{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}roger on: The Sins of Steven Pinker: Or, Let’s Get on with Ittag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.26402012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00Actually, it was a post about an interview that Pinker gave about the book, which is definitely fair game, plus a number of reviews that had remarked upon Pinker’s insane scale of violent events, in which one of the parameters - time - was so flexible that a period of 1000 years and a period of 3 years were treated as comparables.
And of course, Pinker is not a historian. He has a right to create a universal history, the same as anybody else, but he can’t expect his reputation in linguistics to shield him from criticism.
Plus - and this is just a guess - we are so so not going to begin rethinking history with Pinker’s book. Here’s a bet: in two years time, Pinker’s book will be as forgotten as any mixture of polemic and history - like, say, Niel Ferguson’s book, Colossus - and in the field that studies violence, he will have no presence whatsoever. Even those who agree with Pinker’s general point won’t quote him, or use his diagram, or even read him. He will, in other words, have no effect whatsoever, in contrast with the effect he visibly does have in his own field.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00roger{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}Joe Black on: One Candle, a Thousand Points of Light: Moretti and the Individual Texttag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.5972012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00This detailed article on ‘One Candle, a Thousand Points of Light: Moretti and the Individual Text’ is amazing. The writer also touches on poems in the article. I too like poems and can recall reading poems under the lighting of my room. I feel poems can sell as well as other books. Poetry book suppliers could be happy when they know the books are sold well.
I let this through on chutzpah & ingenuity. But I nixed the URL.—BB2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Joe Black{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}Bill Benzon on: Vitalism, Computation, and Mechanismtag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.26272012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00I don’t think chaos theory itself requires discrete time steps, but simulating it on a digital computer does, because that’s how digital computers work. This means that any digital simulation will, sooner or later, go ‘off’ because of rounding errors which get magnified during the simulation.
Glad you like the blog.
At the moment I’m thinking of objects as having many properties, some of the amenable to characterization by classical mechanics, some not. The fact that an object has classical properties should not, however, be taken to imply that those exhaust the object’s properties.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Bill Benzon{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}CT on: Vitalism, Computation, and Mechanismtag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.26272012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00Chaos theory is pretty far out of my depth, but the way you’re describing it here, in terms of discrete, though probably infinitesimal “moments”, kind of reminds me of Zeno’s paradoxes, which Bergson argued against in _Time and Free Will_ on the basis that they subtracted from time its essential feature of duration.
As far as life and machine goes, it seems to me that at least in _The Two Sources of Morality and Religion_ (which concludes that the universe is some kind of self-organizing god factory), but also maybe in earlier works despite how much he appeared to rail against the mechanistic view, that Bergson treats the distinction as merely conceptual and not particularly useful, a “pseudo-problem” (I think that might be Deleuze’s term), not just something more but something too much.
I guess I’ll have to get my hands on Bennett’s book. Sounds like something I’d be into.
And thanks, by the way, for posting on such diverse and interesting topics.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00CT{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}Bill Benzon on: Disney Agonistes: Night on Bald Mountaintag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.26072012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00Think of resignation as ‘cover’ for relief.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Bill Benzon{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}Nate Whilk on: Disney Agonistes: Night on Bald Mountaintag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.26072012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00I don’t see relief in Chernobog at the end at all. At most, I see defeated resignation.
And the other creatures are cringing at the bell, too, and obviously (to me) retreating. That isn’t really “of their own accord”. The bell has ended the power and summons of Chernobog, and the creatures must return to where they came from.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Nate Whilk{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}Bill Benzon on: Q: Why is the Dawkins Meme Idea so Popular?tag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.26062012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00Well, if we really want to talk about the cultural analog of the gene, and I do, then practices and institutions are at the wrong level of granularity, way too large. And concepts, well, what ARE concepts anyhow? Physically, what do I look for, and where do I look?
As for Aunger’s book, it’s a disaster and an embarrassment, a real peacock’s tail of a handicap for the Dawkins/Dennett program. He’s my review:
http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/benzon.html2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Bill Benzon{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}John S Wilkins on: Q: Why is the Dawkins Meme Idea so Popular?tag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.26062012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00I published a review of Bob Aunger’s meme book in which I asked whether “meme” is just the new “idea” (cf. Locke’s “new way of ideas"). The problem with memes is that they are not something that can be defined noncircularly, in which case why not just talk about what anthropologists and sociologists have always talked about: practices, institutions, and concepts?2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00John S Wilkins{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}Russ on: Juggling: What to do?tag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.25972012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00More of everything please.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Russ{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}Alon Lischinsky on: Affectivity Rant Cancelledtag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.25902012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00Why do you assume ‘affectivity’ is ‘distancing’? I don’t think I had encountered the word before, but for me it conveys quite clearly ‘the capacity to experience or produce affect’, which is something quite different from affect itself, just as ‘hybridity’ conveys ‘the condition of being hybrid’. Neither word rolls easily off the tongue, but if we were to be serious about that standard, much of standard English should be excised (’procrastination’, anyone?).
Looking at COCA, there seem to be two main groups of ‘affectivity’ users: theologians (for whom ‘the ability to experience affect’ is one of the defining characteristics of the human soul), and psychologists (who mainly speak of ‘{negative|positive} affectivity’, a term of art for the ‘lasting disposition to experience {negative|positive} emotional states’).
@Shelley: try finding a definition of ‘good plain English’ that everyone can agree on. What is ‘plain’ depends on the audience, not the language.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Alon Lischinsky{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}Bill Benzon on: Why Facebook is Eviltag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.25932012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00You’re missing my point. I personally am very conservative about what I put on FB. I assume everyone can read it. What I’m complaining about is this mucking around with the interface and shoving it down our throats sucks! While that interface isn’t our mind, it’s how we ‘hook’ our mind to FB. When they muck with it so all of a sudden things don’t work, they’re doing a power number on you. That sucks.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Bill Benzon{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}CIngram on: Why Facebook is Eviltag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.25932012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00Facebook isn’t your mind, and it’s not the world. If you like using it, make sure you know who’s reading it, and carry on Facebooking.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00CIngram{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}Shelley on: Affectivity Rant Cancelledtag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.25902012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00As Marianne Moore famously said, we should be writing in good plain English that dogs and cats can read.
And she was a poet.2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Shelley{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}Bill Benzon on: Reading Changizi on Color Visiontag:thevalve.org,2012:go/valve/index/1.25752012-02-08T14:49:01-05:002012-02-08T14:50:04-05:00Changizi isn’t offering an account of why all species with color vision have it, but only why primates have it. Among primates, those with color vision ALSO have naked patches of skin on the face (Fig. 9). Those without color vision don’t have such patches.
Birds with color vision, presumably, have it for some other purpose.
p. 24: “...our color vision evolved in response to our skin’s natural properties. Our skin didn’t change to suit our eyes, but rather, our eyes changed in order to better see our skin.”
p. 26: “Skin color variations are visible on the darkest skin, and even Caucasians with less exposure to darker ranges of skin colors can notice the changes.”2012-02-08T14:49:01-05:00Bill Benzon{categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories}