thecroaker

— I proved I can do this and I'm doing this.
— Ok.
— Ok? Just like that?
— Can I give my resons later? Or... never?
— Three days ago you said "no".
— Three days ago you asked me. Now you told me. I can't say "no" if that's not a question.

This is the latest House episode. In-fucking-genious. Love House! Love Hugh Laurie! And, above all — love the writers!

Услышал фразу в лекциях Марка Стейнберга, привязалось и не отвязывается. Надо куда-то написать. Переводить это конечно же бесполезно, если вы не читаете по-английски — просто поверьте: это смешно. И грустно, конечно, тоже.

The peculiar position of attempting an objective, scientific description of subjective conscious events continues to be the source of much confusion. Various authors have proposed an ‘explanatory gap’ between scientific theory and subjective experience (Block & Stalnaker 1999; Levine 1983; Rowlands 2001). Sometimes this is referred to as the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness, to be distinguished from the ‘easy problem’ of describing exactly how the brain functions, during both conscious and unconscious states (Chalmers 1995).

Edelman suggests that this reflects a misunderstanding of science, saying: “A scientific theory cannot presume to replicate the experience that it describes or explains … to experience the discriminations of an individual, it is necessary to be that individual” (Edelman 2003). In other words, coming up with a scientific theory that explicitly solved the ‘hard problem’ would be like developing a theory of hurricanes that was actually windy.

Could it be the Holiest of the Grails?

Отличный слайд, черт возьми. Как по форме, так и по содержанию.

***

Excellent slide, both form and content.

One of the most difficult aspects of Gravesian theory for me is that one has to constantly remember: it does not matter what people value or believe in. What matters is WHY they do so. It does not matter if they believe that men are born equal and have free will to choose or that everyone has their own destined place in life and no free will. It's WHY they think so. It does confuse the heck out of me. All the time.

***

Один из самых сложных для меня аспектов теории Грэйвса – постоянно помнить о том, что не имеет практически никакого значения во что люди верят или что они ценят. Важно ПОЧЕМУ они верят и ценят именно это. Не важно, считает ли человек, что все люди родились равными со свободной волей или у всех есть заранее предназначенное место и никакой свободы выбирать. Важно ПОЧЕМУ он так считает. Это невероятно меня путает. Постоянно.

I have a vision of every organization, business, governmental and not-for-profit having a gym on their premises. Maybe the right word is not a gym but a Dojo – which literally means "a place for seeking the path". The place to find one's Esprit de Corps, to promote creativity and passion.

There's this argument going on about whether you should be youself, natural and so on, or whether you should be somebody better than youself. Become a better person, you know? If think you should be yourself, you should be natural. I just don't believe that being an asshole is natural for anybody.

In reply to this and this.

"Human potential movement" is the term which springs into my mind when I read this. "You can be whoever you want to be!"... Yeah. Of course you can! Apparently, it does not help all that much. Why? Because there aren't that many things you actually WANT to be. In fact, most of the time you don't know who you want to be. This is the real problem.

At some point you may decide to be somebody but over a certain period of time you realise that you want to be somebody else. If you are lucky enough you realise that you just don't want to be anybody other than yourself. Which means employing YOUR unique personal history and your unique genetics - think "natural talents" at this point.

It is exeptionally hard (and therefore useless) to motivate yourself to study financial statements if you are not enjoying it. And you can not like anything. Humans don't work that way. You have certain flexibility but not all that much. So if you don't like - or even LOVE doing something you will never be able to compete with people who do. And using talents FEELS GOOD. Gifted people just LIKE what they do. Period.

So the bad news is that the only way to be successful and ultimately happy is to use your natural talents. The good news is that using your talents actually makes you happy. So the real question is - what are your talents? But that's a whole different issue which still has to be addressed.

We are still in Philly, yesterday I went to a contact class to Headlong dance theater (www.headlong.org). I would say that I ain't never been to a class like this. In effect, we did 1 (one) excercise for two hours, which resulted in many people who never danced before dancing. We did a lot of release techniques, aimed to turn your partner into a soft dummy. A dummy you can dance with. Interesting!

The teacher, David Brick is one of the three co-founders of the theater. He moved to Philly from NY because he thought that founding a dance company would be much easier here. After six years, he says, the three founders don't do any other job apart from dancing, which is a huge success. David is a charming guy and a beautiful mover. Yet another person to tell me I should teach contact. Ok, we are out to do some shopping, see you people.

We are in Philly staying with a close friend of mine. Yesterday we went to one of the best museums in the world - the Barnes collection (www.barnesfoundation.org). This is a gallery founded by one of the Philadelphia's dentists (no kidding) who traveled to France many-many times and bought propably one third of the impressionistic art ever existed. Apart from the great content, it is most certainly the best museum in the world I ever saw in terms of selection and arrangement. It was done so carefully and lovingly you would not believe me. I highly recommend you visiting the place if you happen to be in Philly, just keep in mind that you will have to book online in advance (maybe several weeks in advance depending on season).

The Rodin museum is also quite impressive. Did you ever know than the Thinker's statue sits on top of the Gates of Hell? Rodin makes stunning hands for his statues, they probably do half of the job as far as his art is concerned. We will be seeing some more museums today, will pay a visit to the Atlantic City and probably leaving towards New York tomorrow to do some shopping in Woodbury common outlets, then we move to Maine for ski and lobsters.