First of all Happy New Year to all my readers. Thanks to you for your real contributions to making this blog moderately interesting! Let's have another of my intermittent public service announcements.
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If you are thinking of relocating to Canada, maybe think twice. Canada has for a long time had an excellent reputation in many areas: healthcare, friendliness, developed economy, weather---no, wait, not weather! There is an Australian economist who calculates that Canada is a very successful highly developed nation and maybe that is still true. But Canada has a whole set of worsening problems--not including weather, that's always been bad! Here is one Ottawa resident that gives his perspective:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZC8LyUQiyc
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He doesn't explain why these things are happening, just how bad it has become and that he is fed up. So ok, why is it that so many things are bad and getting worse? And by the way, it is not just Canada, other highly-developed nations, like Germany, are also getting worse in multiple ways. I think the one person who does have a handle on these processes and what generates them is Thomas Sowell who has many books on this and other matters. Trained as an economist, he has branched out into social policy. One outstanding book is The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. I mentioned I was reading it a week or so ago. I have finished and it is a brilliant account of a very difficult problem that threatens advanced societies.
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On to more practical matters: I have discovered the perfect breakfast. This comes from Japan and Korea and it is so simple it requires no recipe. You need to cook some rice--preferably Japanese-type rice. Put some in a shallow bowl. On top of this put two fried eggs, sunny side up, cooked on low heat (yes, salt and pepper). Sprinkle over top soy sauce and sesame oil to taste. Finally, sprinkle on top a finely-sliced green onion. That's it!
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We live in an internet environment where everything is dumbed down to achieve the maximum possible traffic. The thing is that this is not good for higher brain functions like creativity. Paradoxically I find reading things that are so difficult I only understand one sentence per page actually stimulates creativity because my mind is struggling to understand and in the process things get stirred up and little creative thoughts pop up. I'm not the only one to discover this... Here is what I am reading:
The whole theory of propositions is, then, on this view, a merely external combination of two theories: a 'picture theory' of elementary propositions (viz. that they have meaning by being 'logical pictures' of elementary states of affairs), and the theory of truth-functions as an account of non-elementary propositions; this latter theory breaks down rather easily, because it is impossible to regard generalized propositions that relate to an infinitely numerous universe as truth-functions of elementary propositions.
Well, of course!
The Dismal Science, Economics, has a surprising number of good jokes. One is from Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck: "Next to bombing, rent control seems in many cases to be the most efficient technique so far known for destroying cities." Another is quoted in this clip:* * *
The joke is from economist Simon Kuznets who said there were four types of economy: the Developed, the Underdeveloped, Japan and Argentina.
Now for a musical sorbet: Les Soupirs by Rameau played by Joyce Chen:* * *
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And that's all for today.
I'm often in the same situation lately, reading books very carefully and repeating pages several times but missing most of it. Lately I bought about 15 books on cosmology and physics and I can't do the calculus to truly comprehend it. But I sometimes drift back into my staples of history and other plain-language non-fiction. In music, in the sciences, and really in every field, I feel like an imposter, because I'm a generalist who reads whatever I want without the discipline of a university or expert-mentored plan of study. Decades ago I got degrees in history, and a few years ago a certificate in Finance and Deployment of Clean Energy, but in everything I feel to be an amateur reaching in too many directions to get very far. Yet I think I'm happy enough, grateful for every book and for every other thing in my life.
ReplyDeleteAnd I know that a school is not necessary for disciplined study, especially at my age and reading background. But I am a physical laborer sometimes tired and sore, and surrounded by coworkers many of whom may have never read a book in their lives. So I'm a generalist meandering reader with limited people to talk with about serious things. My brother (Doctor of Astronomy) on the phone sometimes, especially about physics and astronomy; my Dad (mostly for his excellent ethic and practical philosophy), and a friend who is deep into European classical music and opera, though as a pianist he's not so interested in my 16th and 17th century musical focus. But I read a lot of things that I never discuss with anyone, and I might be over-read for my level of intelligence and especially (weak) memory. But hey, most of humanity are ordinary people, the greats who really give us science and philosophy and technology and art are ultimately unusual people. It's okay to be an ordinary person, humanity is a beautiful thing across its whole range of minds, although there are some malignancies among us.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I mentioned that reading Wittgenstein and books about Wittgenstein, I often feel that I understand about one sentence per page! But I am attracted to stuff that is difficult because I sense that that is where the really interesting thought is locked up. And it is worth it to invest your time to try and unlock some of it. That's way better than reading the newspaper where you are never going to run into anything interesting!
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure. I think many academics and intellectuals are bad writers, and sometimes make things more obtuse or incomprehensible than they need to be. Although I think I'm humble enough about not being in the class of geniuses, I also tend to blame the writer if my careful reading still doesn't bring me to comprehension. Even the calculus-laden cosmology I think could be made comprehensible in words if the writer would only describe the essence of the relationships he has quantified. When I had my own company, I paid a lawyer to draft our standard contract. It was 8 pages of unnecessarily bad writing. After the painful experiences of walking a few customers through it paragraph by paragraph, I threw it away and wrote my own that was just over 2 pages and covered everything in plain language. Or do you think I'm just turning into a grumpy and small-minded anti-intellectual? At least I still entertain self-doubt!
ReplyDeleteOh, god yes, Will. I'm sure that the great majority of current academic writing is very bad indeed because it is stuffed full of the necessary shibboleths of progressive doctrine. Sad situation, but it won't go on forever. What we encounter in people like Wittgenstein is something quite different. He is writing on an extreme level of abstraction and it demands an astonishing amount of effort on the part of the reader. Not because it is poorly written, but because it is at the limit of what can be thought. There are very few writers/thinkers in this category.
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