A double offering this week. There’s a lot that’s extraordinary about the buildings and monuments in and around Liverpool’s St George’s Plateau, but these modernist bronzes on the sides of the Liverpool Cenotaph by Herbert Tyson Smith are pretty arresting.

Having taken some notes on ‘alien‘, let me make some on ‘galaxy’, which has had a longer shelf-life than you might think in English poetry.

Se yonder loo the Galoxie
Whiche men clepeth the melky weye
For hit ys white.

That’s Chaucer. It sounds incongruously scientific, doesn’t it? That’s us projecting our scientific sense back into a Greek name for that whitish light-y bit up there.

Our concept of galaxy needs telescopes. Galileo is first to see the Milky Way is made up of stars (1610) – although Democritus guessed it long ago. In 1750 Thomas Wright first theorizes the gravitational structure of the galaxy (and Kant thinks he was right.) The astronomer Herschel is first to star-map the shape of the Milky Way (1785).

You might think poetry and SF don’t go together especially. As Coleridge says: “There can be no galaxy in poetry.” (But he just meant you shouldn’t cram too many bright things close together – too many figures and metaphors and such. Don’t get fancy, eh!)

But galactic poetry, even in our post-Galilean sense, comes early.

A star thought by the erring passenger,
Which falling from its native orb dropped here,
And makes the earth (its centre) now its sphere.

Should many of these sparks together be,
He that the unknown light far off should see
Would think it a terrestrial galaxy.

That’s “The Glow-Worm”, by Thomas Stanley. I presume it appears in his 1649 Poems. Late Metaphysical Poetry, then, but pretty quick off the mark, poetizing cutting edge observational science.

OK, I’ll give you the full poem under the fold. It’s kind of a cheat quoting these stanzas in isolation because ‘star thought’ shouts out pretty cosmic, starting us out like that. (I thought I was clever to note this, but the editor of this standard anthology did, too. So I’m not such a special snowflake, after all.) In context, what is happening is that a glow-worm looks like a fallen star to an erring passenger (on the earth?) [click to continue…]

Yesterday, Prime Minister Theresa May gave a much-trailed speech purporting to flesh out some ‘detail’ – that most hated and troublesome concept for Brexiteers. On data protection law and institutions, she said:

“But the free flow of data is also critical for both sides in any modern trading relationship too. The UK has exceptionally high standards of data protection. And we want to secure an agreement with the EU that provides the stability and confidence for EU and UK business and individuals to achieve our aims in maintaining and developing the UK’s strong trading and economic links with the EU.

That is why we will be seeking more than just an adequacy arrangement and want to see an appropriate ongoing role for the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office. This will ensure UK businesses are effectively represented under the EU’s new ‘one stop shop’ mechanism for resolving data protection disputes.”

This basically summarises the UK’s position since last August:

“After the UK leaves the EU, new arrangements to govern the continued free flow of personal data between the EU and the UK will be needed, as part of the new, deep and special partnership. The UK starts from an unprecedented point of alignment with the EU. In recognition of this, the UK wants to explore a UK-EU model for exchanging and protecting personal data, which could build on the existing adequacy model, by providing sufficient stability for businesses, public authorities and individuals, and enabling the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and partner EU regulators to maintain effective regulatory cooperation and dialogue for the benefit of those living and working in the UK and the EU after the UK’s withdrawal.”

It is pretty straight down the line UK positioning.

So, ‘you need us at least as much as we need you?’ Tick. Though I’d be surprised if the data flow volume is symmetrical.

‘Believe us when we say we’ll have perfect regulatory alignment while also making the UK more innovative and flexible?’ Tick. Despite its dicking around with the GDPR implementation – especially the huge carve-out that slashes data protection for any non-UK citizens – UK will at least start with a more or less guaranteed adequacy finding that says its data protection regime is enough for transfers to continue.

And ‘We will of course leave the EU and all its institutions, but still expect an influential role in determining future policy and EU law.’ Tick. Magnificent cake-ism, really. Entirely consistent with the rest of the UK’s negotiating stance. Theresa May really believes the 27 member states need the UK’s input on data protection so much, that they’ll let its regulator, the ICO, continue to take part in coordination procedures, and also continue to water down data protection for everyone else. [click to continue…]

Thierry Ngosso, a Cameroon philosopher (PhD Louvain-la-Neuve, currently based in Sankt Gallen), together with some other philosophers based in Belgium and the Netherlands, are organising for the fifth year a summerschool in political philosophy in Yaoundé. The aim of the seminar is “a genuine and lasting North-South conversation, understanding and solidarity in academic philosophy.” The seminar is open for PhD-students in philosophy/political theory from the Global North (who have to pay their own way) as well as for PhD-students from countries in the global South. The Yaoundé seminar has always been able to count on the support of a great line-up of professors, who also pay their own way.

In order to be able to waive fees and financially support the students coming from the South, the organisers have set up a fundraiser. They need 4000 Euro for this year’s travel grants, but have stated that any additional support will go to the travel bursaries at next year’s event.

I think this is a wonderful initiative, and hope that some of our readers will be willing to make a donation – whether small or larger. The donations are handled by Leiden University, and the page where you can make a donation can be found here.

I’m going to try a series of posts in which I crowdsource, if I can, SF stories on highly specific philosophical themes. It seems appropriate that the first thing I should ask a crowd is: how many of you are solipsists? Which ones?

The SFE doesn’t have an entry on the subject. Seems worth drafting one.

I’m not looking for virtual reality Time Out of Joint, Truman Show stuff, although I guess I wouldn’t turn my nose up at it: stuff in which the theme is that only one person – the protagonist – matters. The world is focused on just this one soul.

There are also stories in which the continued existence of the whole universe depends on one person’s prolonged life, even if there are others in the universe. Sure, gimme that.

But gimme the hard stuff. True solipsism. The accidental god theme. I’m the only one! I made this! I’m in charge of the place. Or: I’m the only one in the place (and there is no sign of anyone outside the place.)

I’ll start us out. Theodore Sturgeon, “The Ultimate Egoist”, available inexpensively in an anthology of the same name [amazon]. Yep, that fits.

Heinlein “‘All you zombies’-”

Fredric Brown, “The Solipsist” [not very good, and not quite about solipsism, but short].

OK, I’ll accept stories in which there are fewer people than it looks, maybe not just one. Heinlein’s “They”, then. The thing is: a lot of these stories are ‘pocket universe’ stories, which is sort of its own thing. So don’t just gimme a pocket universe! I got a pocketful already. (Or I’ll make a post later if I want one.)

Gimme what you got! Solipsists of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but … oh, never mind.

A comment on my last post, about Chapter 2 of my book-in-progress, Economics in Two Lessons, convinced me that I needed to include something about bounded rationality. I shouldn’t have needed convincing, since this is my main area of theoretical research, but I hadn’t been able to work out where to work this into the book. I’m still not sure, but at least I’ve written something I’m reasonably happy with. Comments, praise and criticism welcome as usual.

[click to continue…]

I’m doing a lot of SF research these days. Specifically, I’m reading (takes a breath): The statesman’s manual: or, The Bible the best guide to political skill and foresight: a lay sermon, addressed to the higher classes of society, with an appendix, containing comments and essays connected with the study of the inspired writings, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1816).

It’s not really about science fiction. It’s best known, I guess, for Coleridge’s well-known distinction between allegory and symbol, drawn in these pages. But it’s fun! Remember when I had the great idea of reading all the Silmarillion in the voice of Lumpy Space Princess? Well, I would get behind a Kickstarter to record all of the Statesman in the voice of Monty Burns:

Yet this again – yet even Religion itself, if ever in its too exclusive devotion to the specific and individual it neglects to interpose the contemplation of the universal, changes its being into Superstition, and becoming more and more earthly and servile, as more and more estranged from the one in all, goes wandering at length with its pack of amulets, bead-rolls, periapts, fetisches, and the like pedlary, on pilgrimages to Loretto, Mecca, or the temple of Jaggernaut, arm in arm with sensuality on one side and self-torture on the other, followed by a motly group of friars, pardoners, faquirs, gamesters, flagellants, mountebanks, and harlots.

[click to continue…]

Thanks to everyone who commented on Chapter 1 my book, Economics in Two Lessons. I’ve benefited a lot from the comments and implemented quite a few changes.

The book so far is available
Table of Contents
Introduction.
Chapter 1
Feel free to make further comments on these chapters if you wish.

Moving along, here’s the draft of Chapter 2. Again, I welcome comments, criticism and encouragement.

My Erasmus Darwin post got such a huge response that a follow-up is in order!

Law-makers are responsible for the laws they make, and support, and do not repeal. They are responsible for the intended effects of their legislation, also for unintended but easily predicted effects. (They are even semi-responsible for less easily predicted bad effects – although the degree to which legislation should be a strict liability business is debatable.) None of this is mitigated if mediated through a causal chain that includes other actors besides the legislators.

If law-makers favor legislation that makes it easy for immigrants to enter the country illegally, they are faulted (or credited!) accordingly. It usually isn’t fair to say that legislators ‘favor’ or ‘like’ effects of legislation that are, most likely, regarded as costs, not benefits. But it’s fair to say that legislators are responsible for the costs. [click to continue…]

A couple weeks ago I was, as one does, declaiming selections from Erasmus Darwin’s poetry around the table, for the moral edification of the females present. I was explaining to the young daughters, in particular, how and why people were upset that Darwin poetized plants having sex all the time in The Botanic Garden, volumes 1 and 2. Especially volume 2.

The younger daughter: Oooh, fifty shades of green!

They grow up so fast. [click to continue…]

1) Obviously this arm-the-teachers idea is going nowhere.
2) Obviously this arm-the-teachers idea is nothing but a ball of unintended, flagrantly terrible consequences waiting to happen. And it would be incredibly costly and legally and administratively challenging just to get to the point of all those bad consequences actually coming about (but see 1).

No one will be talking arming the teachers in two weeks. [click to continue…]

A lot of conservatives are taking a ‘who will think of the children?’ approach to the aftermath of the most recent school shooting. As Erick Erickson writes: “I think putting them on television after a mass murder at their school is not caring about them. It is using them.” True, these kids have first-hand experience with guns that seems to qualify them to speak, but the truth is that they are too close to the issue. For them, this is their identity now. It’s existential. They aren’t prepared to debate policy, and the raw emotions behind their speech – even if they express themselves eloquently and apparently reasonably – are not conducive to level-headed policy debate. No one is allowed to question the authenticity of their experience with guns, so no one is allowed to suggest they are just wrong about policy.

Let it be so. In the aftermath of the next school shooting, no one for whom gun-ownership is a deeply-felt identity issue is allowed on TV. For their own good. [click to continue…]