#death makes philosophers, #dying makes heroes, #civilrights makes sages.
Search
34 results for “philosopher”
-
#Yankees make philosophers, brass makes heroes, array makes sages.
-
Well worth reading
"Native American philosopher Vine Deloria Jr., in his fine book 'God Is Red', argues that the modern Western world is almost uniquely blind to the spiritual importance of place.
[ ... ]
Las Vegas is proof that you can take a barren, sun-scorched wasteland infested with scorpions and rattlesnakes, and make it into something much worse." -
Kings and philosophers shit; and so do ladies.
[Les rois et les philosophes fientent, et les dames aussi.]Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 3, ch. 13 (3.13), “Of Experience [De l’Experience]” (1588) [tr. Screech (1987)]More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/montaigne-michel-de/…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #montaigne #micheldemontaine #bodilyfunctions #defecation #equality #everyone #genderequality #humancondition #humanity #nobility #philosophers #physiology #shit
-
12th and final chapter quote from The Last Philosopher: Part Two 😁
I was hoping to make Part Two available this week, but I've been having some health issues again.
Still, I'm still aiming to make it available by next Wednesday.1€ ebook of Part One: https://payhip.com/NickEastIndieWriter
@reading @books @fantasy @bookstodon
#WIPWednesday
#Quote #Quotes #BookQuote
#AmWriting #Indie #IndieAuthor #eBook #Fantasy #Satire
#Reading #Readers #ReadingCommunity
#ChronicIllness #ChronicPain -
🛡️ #Cybersecurity news & tips across the #fediverse
“Why Are AI Companies Hiring Philosophers?
What happens to philosophy when it is bought by Big Tech? linkedin․com/article/edit/7508825256959242242/ ⌗AIethics ⌗ArtificialIntelligence ⌗DigitalPolicy ⌗TechG…”https://eupolicy.social/@netopia/117389244022511914
🤖 via RSS feed. Not an endorsement.
-
The practice of terror serves the true believer not only to cow and crush his opponents but also to invigorate and intensify his own faith.
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 85 (3.14.85) (1951)More about this quote: wist.info/hoffer-eric/35938/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #hoffer #erichoffer #truebeliever #belief #brutality #crusader #faith #fanaticism #ideologue #ideology #terror #terrorism #violence
-
Words may shew a man’s Wit, but Actions his Meaning.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard Improved (1749 ed.)More about this quote: wist.info/franklin-benjamin/86…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #franklin #benfranklin #benjaminfranklin #poorrichard #poorrichardsalmanac #action #bigtalk #fasttalker #intentions #meaning #speaking #wit #wordsanddeeds
-
The greatest shift in production AI isn't prompt engineering—it's Unix philosophy.
Instead of forcing a single monolithic LLM to act as philosopher, coder, and accountant, resilient architectures decompose tasks into lightweight local agent pipelines. One handles structured ingestion, one validates schemas, one executes within a deterministic Python sandbox.
Small tools connected by clean interfaces always win.
-
A quotation from Bertrand Russell
A life of uncertainty is nervously exhausting at all times, but especially in youth.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Social Order [Education and the Modern World], ch. 2 “The Negative Theory of Education” (1932)More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/863…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #uncertainty #childraising #childrearing #children #expectations #routine #security #structure
-
A note on green growth and degrowth.
Imre Lakatos, British-based Hungarian philosopher of science developed, in the 1970s) a way of distinguishing between theoretical orientations (research programmes in his terminology).
He distinguished between progressive theory, which generates new insights and findings, and degenerating theory which continually patches up the core theory with a 'protective belt' of ad hoc sub-theories.
/cont'd
-
[OPINYON] Para sa iyo, estudyanteng Inglesero
Kailangan natin ang mas maraming magtataguyod ng Filipino hindi lámang sa malikhaing pagsulat at sining. Kailangan natin ng mahuhusay na engineer, mathematician, philosopher, chemist, physicist, at iba pang mga propesyonal na gagamitin ang ating wikang pambans…
https://justpaste.in/news/learn-intellectualize-filipino-language/
#Language #Philippinelanguages #EditorsPick #ThoughtLeaders #Voices
-
The greatest shift in production AI isn't prompt engineering—it's Unix philosophy.
Instead of forcing a single monolithic LLM to act as philosopher, coder, and accountant, resilient architectures decompose tasks into lightweight local agent pipelines. One handles structured ingestion, one validates schemas, one executes within a deterministic Python sandbox.
Small tools connected by clean interfaces always win.
-
A quotation from Hannah Arendt
Look here, tyranny was discovered very early in human history, and identified very early as inimical to political life. Still, it has never in any way prevented any tyrant from becoming a tyrant. It did not prevent Nero, and it did not prevent Caligula. And the cases of Nero and Caligula have not prevented a much nearer example of what the massive intrusion of criminality into political processes means for human life.
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Interview (1973-10) with Roger Errera, Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF)More about this quote: wist.info/arendt-hannah/76008/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #hannaharendt #arendt #autocracy #criminality #history #politicalprocess #politics #tyranny #despotism #lessonslearned #repetition
-
A quotation from Hannah Arendt
Look here, tyranny was discovered very early in human history, and identified very early as inimical to political life. Still, it has never in any way prevented any tyrant from becoming a tyrant. It did not prevent Nero, and it did not prevent Caligula. And the cases of Nero and Caligula have not prevented a much nearer example of what the massive intrusion of criminality into political processes means for human life.
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Interview (1973-10) with Roger Errera, Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF)More about this quote: wist.info/arendt-hannah/76008/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #hannaharendt #arendt #autocracy #criminality #history #politicalprocess #politics #tyranny #despotism #lessonslearned #repetition
-
“Unless you strip bodies of their corporeal nature and impart corporeal nature to incorporeal beings, nothing you expect will take place”*…
The Alchemist, Philip Galle (after Pieter Bruegel the Elder) c. 1558 (source)In 1965, Hubert Dreyfus wrote the first widely-considered critique of artificial intelligence, Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence, a report for RAND. He updated and expanded the work for broad publication in 1972 as What Computers Can’t Do (which was further updated and revised for two subsequent reissues) and a “sequel,” Mind Over Machine (in 1986). For a precis of Dreyfus’ views on AI, see here.
His invocation of alchemy resonates still, for example in the estimable Henry Farrell‘s consideration of Adam Becker‘s (great) recent book More Everything Forever…
Adam Becker’s “More Everything Forever” begins by describing the ideas of Eliezer Yudkowsky, an AI guru who Sam Altman thinks deserves a Nobel Prize. Yudkowsky’s ambitions for humanity include “[p]erfect health, immortality,” and a future in which “[i]f you imagine something that’s worse than mansions with robotic servants for everyone, you are not being ambitious enough.” According to Yudkowsky and his peers, a “glorious transhumanist future” awaits us if we get AI right, although we face extinction if we get it wrong.
“AI” and “transhumanist” are new terms for rather older ambitions. As the seedy occultist Dr. Trelawney remarks in Anthony Powell’s 1962 novel, “The Kindly Ones,” “[t]o be forever rich, forever young, never to die … Such was in every age the dream of the alchemist.” Renaissance alchemists won the support of monarchs like Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor who squandered his realm’s money on a futile quest to discover the Philosopher’s Stone. Now, as Becker explains, AGI, or artificial general intelligence, has become the means through which philosophers might transubstantiate our mundane reality into a realm in which the apparently impossible becomes possible: living forever, raising the dead, and remaking the universe in the shape of humanity.
These ideas would be a curiosity, if they weren’t reshaping the world, and policymakers’ understanding of national security…
[Farrell explains, elaborating on the beliefs in play and explaining how they played in the Biden Administration (which, he argues, largely internalized them) and now in Trump’s…]
… The Biden administration’s policies rested on risky bets. AI may not be the universal solvent for vexing and complex technological problems promised by Altman, Amodei, and their peers. Some (including most members of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, as well as myself and colleagues) believe that current approaches will not lead to anything like self-improving AGI anytime soon. As DeepSeek’s success in building AI models suggests, semiconductors may not provide the chokehold on AI that American policymakers believed.
In any event, the Trump administration has seemingly opted for a different approach, replacing a grand plan for a global AI order with a loose approach based on the ever-shifting convergence between notions of American greatness and the particular interests of well-connected companies. This currently involves leveraging control of technology to maintain American domination, cutting deals with Gulf states, while trying to cut China out. When Trump toured the Gulf states with an entourage of tech CEOs, he offered access to top-end semiconductors in exchange for promises of massive investment, graciously accepting a jet plane, and a large-scale money transfer routed, with fees, through his family stablecoin.
This emerging blend of imperium, magical technology, and self-dealing too is reminiscent of the Renaissance. The English wizard John Dee, who claimed to have turned mercury into gold in the presence of Rudolf II, is also credited with coining the term “British Empire.” As a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I, he combined alchemical experiment and indirect conversation with angels with more mundane plans to extend British power across the Atlantic and enrich himself.
The alchemists’ quest for immortality and universal transformation is again entangled with the struggle among empires. The dreams of perfect health, the conquest of death, and mansions with robot servants that Becker describes inspire visions of a radically transformed far future and a near present in which America can use advanced technologies to bolster its power. Such visions stem from an ideology of salvation that has indeed fueled important technological advances but may be quite wrong about where those advances will bring us.
We are being ushered into a world where AI models offer new and useful means to summarize the information of the world and draw nonobvious connections across it, but can also weave new syncretic religious beliefs together from the myriad human sources that they summarize. In the early 20th century, Weber argued that rationalized Calvinism had led to the defeat of the old gods and the inexorable disenchantment of a world dominated by bureaucracy and organized capitalism. In the early 21st, just the opposite is happening as AI draws open the gate for the return of the fantastical. Yudkowsky’s eschatology is just one of the prophetic visions attendant on AI. The practical changes that AI will bring to bureaucracy and markets will go hand in hand with religious ecstasy and fervor, as some people come to believe that they can speak to God through the machine, while others use it to elaborate their own extended fantasies about politics. As Becker’s book shows, technology is not just an abstract force changing the world, but a mirror in which human beings see their dreams and ambitions made manifest. We’re starting to discover what that looks like at scale.
Eminently worth reading full: “What AI debates have to do with alchemy,” from @himself.bsky.social.
Then consider this, from Nicklas Lundblad, a senior exec at Deep Mind, Google, Stripe, and elsewhere, recently turned public policy Fellow. In a piece adapted from a lecture in a series of talks on the philosophy of artificial intelligence that he gave at Mid-Sweden University), he puts Dreyfus’s thought into context, tracing the history of arguments with/against it over the years, as both technology and thinking about technology advanced. He concludes…
… So, we may say, what is Dreyfus answer?… That he is obsessed with showing that machines are incapable of being human?
In fact, his conclusion, already in 1965 – and then repeated in the 1972 book – is much more interesting. Here is how Dreyfus concludes his critique:
If the alchemist had stopped poring over his retorts and pentagrams and had spent his time looking for the deeper structure of the problem, as primitive man took his eyes of the moon, came out of the trees, and discovered fire and the wheel, things would have been set moving in a more promising direction. After all, three hundred years after the alchemists we did get gold from lead (and we have landed on the moon), but only after we abandoned work on the alchemic level, and worked to understand the chemical level and the even deeper nuclear level instead.
Dreyfus’ answer is not to get stuck in the question of what computers can’t do – but to reject even that last piece of thick ontology and ask if we are making a fundamental conceptual mistake. He suggests that we find what is to intelligence as chemistry is to alchemy and look for another set of concepts, another language, to describe what we are doing.
We would, in Dreyfus view, be much better of trying to build alien intelligence or replicate animal intelligence or even jettisoning the idea of intelligence entirely in favour of a new concept – perhaps something like cognicity – that removes the Difference from the research program.
Dreyfus recommendations would imply that we should drop the benchmarks that distract us and instead focus on simpler, thinner ontologies around tasks and interactions. What we need, he would suggest, is a conceptual shift into that simpler ontology – at least if we want to make real progress.
The shift into modern machine learning seems to prove that when the thicker ontology was abandoned we did discovered things obscured by the idea of man as a symbolic animal.
What if we abandon both the idea of man and machine?…
Also worthy of a full review: “Reading Dreyfus,” from @nicklaslundblad.
* Zosimos of Panopolis, an alchemist (and Gnostic mystic)
###
As we think about transmutation, we might recall that it was on this date in 1954 (only 11 years before Dreyfus wrote Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence) that IBM introduced the “IBM 608,” the first calculating machine to use only solid-state transistors instead of vacuum tubes (thus needing only about 5% of the power to perform the same operations). The machine was housed in several large cabinets and could be purchased for $83,210 (or rented for $1,760 per month)… that’s just over $1,000,000 on an inflation-adjusted basis (or about $22,000 per month). It used more than 3,000 germanium transistors and could store 40 nine-digit numbers and perform 4,500 additions per second, among other operations.
#AI #alchemy #artificialIntelligence #culture #HenryFarrell #history #HubertDreyfus #NicklasLundblad #philosophy #politics #publicPolicy #Science #Technology #Zosimos -
#RevueDePressive
#Santé #Capitalisme #Féminisme
> Dans Nos Corps politiques, la médecin-philosophe détricote les injonctions permanentes « pour notre bonne santé », et défend une médecine plus collective, empathique et consciente que nous vivons toutes et tous dans un monde contaminé.
https://www.politis.fr/articles/2026/10/entretien-amelie-cadier-loriaud-le-mythe-de-la-responsabilite-individuelle-est-le-moteur-du-capitalisme-sanitaire/ -
🕸glané sur le net🕸 L'écosyndicalisme : quand travailleur·euses et habitant·es font la révolution ensemble: Comment redéfinir les besoins et le travail à l'intérieur des limites écologiques ? Le philosophe Alexis Cukier raconte les alliances… #Écosyndicalisme #RévolutionEnsemble #Écologie #Travail
L'écosyndicalisme : quand trav... -
Attention au personnage que vous vous créez, dit Alain
Dans une note qui commence mal sur l’ivrognerie, le philosophe termine bien. Il déclare que c’est l’usage de l’alcool qui en fait le besoin, car « boire ce qu’il boit donne soif et enlève la raison », dit il. Ce qui me parait assez stupide, car l’alcool, hors l’effet de donner soif, induit une accoutumance, devient une drogue dont il est difficile de se défaire. Aussi l’affirmation d’Alain selon laquelle « la première cause de boire est bien faible ; un serment peut l’annuler » me paraît une ineptie.
En revanche, il poursuit en disant qu’« il y a de l’entêtement dans les passions et peut-être surtout une erreur démesurée ; nous nous croyons pris ». Là, il dit vrai. « Ceux qui n’aiment pas le fromage n’en veulent point goûter, parce qu’ils croient qu’ils ne l’aimeront point ». Ce qui est révisable s’ils réussissent à en goûter. Je l’ai vécu avec certaines viandes, qu’il suffisait de dire du bœuf pour que le convive apprécie, alors que c’était du cerf ou du cheval, dont il avait soi-disant horreur. C’est une donnée d’expérience que chacun peut faire.
On s’est créé un personnage, des habitudes, des goûts et des dégoûts – et l’on n’en veut point changer. Par routine confortable, par souci du regard des autres, par orgueil envers soi de contester ce qu’on croit. Or, dit Alain, l’oubli est très courant dans la vie. Lorsque vous déménagez, vous avez déjà oublié l’autre logement avant d’entrer dans le nouveau. « Le présent a sa force et sa jeunesse, toujours, et l’on s’y accommode d’un mouvement sûr. »
C’est donc la pensée qui nous trompe, car ce qui nous est impossible à penser nous semble aussi impossible à faire. Or l’imagination ne sait pas inventer ; « c‘est l’action qui invente », dit Alain. Il faut braver l’opinion, ou plutôt l’opinion que l’on a de l’opinion, et aussi l’opinion que l’on a de soi. Chacun suit trop volontiers son personnage, construit avec le temps pour se représenter soi devant les autres. Et ce n’est pas une bonne chose que de rester rigide. Il faut en sortir, s’assouplir.
Se remettre en question n’est pas se renier, mais évoluer. Tout change, le monde « est une branloire pérenne » disait Montaigne. Adoptons aussi pour nous le changement.
Alain, Propos tome 1, Gallimard Pléiade 1956, 1370 pages, €70,50
(mon commentaire est libre, seuls les liens sont sponsorisés par amazon.fr)
Alain (Émile Chartier), déjà chroniqué sur ce blog
#action #Alain #branloire #changer #entêtement #goût #habitude #imagination #ivrogne #opinion #orgueil #oubli #passions #personnage #présent #regardDesAutres #seRemettreEnQuestion -
#Philosoph #Robin_Celikates - Jung & Naiv: Folge 855
Zu Gast im Studio: #Philosoph und #Sozialwissenschaftler Robin Celicaktes. Er ist Professor für Praktische Philosophie mit den Schwerpunkten #Sozialphilosophie und #Anthropologie am Institut für Philosophie an der #FU #Berlin. Celikates beschäftigt sich mit der Erforschung des Zivilen Ungehorsams und ist an einer Weiterentwicklung von Kritischer Theorie und Pragmatismus interessiert.
-
A Philosophical Handbook for Pain Medicine Practice by Milton Cohen & John Quintner, 2026
This book shares a number of novel perspectives on the intricate subject of pain in the clinical setting, offering a comprehensive examination of its multifaceted nature and the challenges it presents to both clinicians and patients.
-
News: Italian post-punk trio La Mano Sinistra soon to release debut album, inspired by philosophical work by Ursula K. Le Guin
-
The Physics of Emergence (Second Edition) by Robert C Bishop, 2024
This book explores whether physics points to a reductive or an emergent structure of the world and proposes a physics-motivated conception of emergence that leaves behind many of the problematic intuitions shaping the philosophical conceptions. It would be suitable for physicists, scientists, undergraduate and postgraduate science students interested in reduction and emergence debates.
-
🌎 [EN] 🌍✊ «Eco-Nihilism», by Wendy Lynne Lee, offers a philosophical view of geopolitics through the climate crisis. Power, capitalism, inequality and planetary limits beyond territory.
🌐 +info https://url.ecoarglobal.org/veFw4g
💪 https://pepaloba.org/?lang=en#asociate
✊ https://ecoarglobal.org/en/activist-space -
...it was nevertheless a real conference vote rather than a decision taken by only a handful of individuals.
#Legal questions remain unsettled. Recent #UK employment-law decisions indicate that particular Zionist or anti-Zionist beliefs may qualify as protected philosophical beliefs under the Equality Act 2010. That protection is fact-specific, however, and does not immunise harassment, threats or disproportionate conduct.
👉Zack Polanski, the party’s Jewish leader,👈 has attempted to
-
🤖🕵️♂️ The latest breakthrough in AI: language models now ponder the #ethics of malicious code, as if #malware needed a moral compass! 🙄 Apparently, asking a model about malware is akin to offering it a philosophical dilemma, because, clearly, what we need is more confused #AI trying to be #Socrates. 🧠💥
https://www.manifold.security/blog/do-models-consider-morality-malware #LanguageModels #Philosophy #HackerNews #ngated -
Using Star Trek as a curriculum guide introducing fans to the subject of Philosophy: https://www.adastrasf.com/philosophical-concepts-in-star-trek/ #philosophy #StartTrek #SF
-
I just realised that I never shared this anecdote online before -
One time, I got locked-in at the V&A Museum after closing-time. I'd been there for a museums & cultural institutions event and I'd probably had a few too many glasses of champagne before I excused myself to return to my hotel. Unfortunately in my inebriated state I failed to find the exit I was supposed to use and I was soon wandering the (unlit!) galleries in the dead of night, totally lost.
Security found me... after I accidentally triggered a silent alarm.
"You can't be in here!" they said.
"And yet somehow," I replied, drunkenly thinking myself somewhere between funny and philosophical while in fact I was neither, "I am."
#note #museum #museums #london #exhibitions #libraries #bodleian #drinking #security
-
I was inspired by @theloopfarm to make a video tour of our home garden. I like watching him roam his property while sharing his thoughts. I mostly just shared what we've got growing at the moment and talk about using cover crops & green manure. Maybe in the future, I'll get more philosophical like Loop Farmer. Enjoy!
https://makertube.net/w/cpWjwxM6sLFRX2R8FsDKZb
#Florida #Zone10 #permaculture #soil #gardening @gardening #MakerTube #GrowYourOwn #EdibleLandscape
-
Developer David Bushell says he moved his static site generator from Deno to Node v26.10.0 with small changes, swapping Deno's file system and server APIs for node:fs and Hono's Node adapter, and reports 15% faster builds (his own measurement). He pairs Node with pnpm, which since v10 disables dependency postinstall scripts by default, plus a one day delay on new package releases as protection against freshly published malware. Node's docs say it refuses to handle TypeScript files under node_modules "to discourage package authors from publishing packages written in TypeScript," which Bushell calls a philosophical rather than technical restriction. He cites broken ZSH integration, JSR rate limit errors and concurrent HTTP request bugs as what finally pushed him off Deno.