The surprising roots of the mysterious Green Man

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190104-the-surprising-roots-of-the-mysterious-green-man

Farewell to Paddy Ashdown

You could never accuse Ashdown of being dull, but this was a life more interesting than I realised.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33440958

All places are one place, but...

Obligatory Discworld quote :

The astro-philosophers of Krull once succeeded in proving conclusively that all places are one place and that the distance between them is an illusion, and this news was an embarrassment to all thinking philosophers because it did not explain, among other things, signposts. After years of wrangling the whole thing was then turned over to Lyn Tin Wheedle, arguably the Disc’s greatest philosopher (he always argued that he was), who after some thought proclaimed that although it was indeed true that all places were one place, that place was very large.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQNvQt-y-9E

Cat + ducklings = ....

The cutest thing you'll see this month, via Tim Stoev.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=570khFoaE4s

How do plants think ?

Plants are weird.

Originally shared by Joe Carter

Plant Neurobiology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPql1VHbYl4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPql1VHbYl4

Beepocalypse Not Yet

https://youtu.be/DcbpjV1Imkc

This is all backwards

Bees that cook hornets, and wasps that hunt tarantulas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlIozdXmxQg

Modelling social conflict

I might have to try and read the original paper, time permitting.

A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Alexander Petukhov of the Institute of International Relations and World History at Lobachevsky University is developing social conflict models on the basis of nonlinear dynamics.

For mathematical modeling, an important feature of social and political processes is that they cannot be strictly defined. They are always subject to small changes and fluctuations. Quite often, social processes are compared to Brownian particles. These small changes (fluctuations) in their trajectory are explained by the chaotic motion of other molecules. In social processes, fluctuations can be regarded as manifestations of their individual participants' free will, as well as other random manifestations of the external environment.
https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-06/lu-lus062818.php

On the different kinds of infinities

Personally, I'm convinced this is an elaborate way of saying that infinity is silly and/or unpleasant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86-Z-CbaHA

Slime mould designing a rail network

Slime mould : it can design rail networks and doesn't taste very nice.

Slime mold is a single-celled bit of goo that you’d find under a log in the woods. It’s also a master decision-maker, capable of weighing risk and reward in ways that make scientists question what intelligence really is. We grew slime mold of our own, and watched it tackle some amazingly complicated problems that could even help create better algorithms for self-driving cars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40f7_93NIgA

Crows don't hold funerals, they perform criminal investigations

Fascinating stuff. Not exactly a funeral - more like CCSI : Crow Crime Scene Investigators.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=243&v=QMLKx6Pviq4

Evolving intelligence in order to beat the bullies

Originally shared by Lilith Dawn

Low-ranking meerkats can solve puzzles to gain food because higher-ranking meerkats will steal food from them and thus the low-ranking meerkats have to work harder and smarter to survive.

I really don't care for the philosophical implications. Not before bed at least.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdlEPF_6Pd8

Beyond falsifiability

I agree with all of this.

Originally shared by Lilith Dawn

This sort of frank discussion is part of why I tend to give scientific reports the benefit of the doubt, in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG3-_tgDE0k

The basic assumptions of science

What's it all about, I mean really, when you get right down to it ?

Everyone should stop to question their own most basic assumptions from time to time, and if they did, the world would be a happier place. In this post I look at what assumptions have to be made for scientific conclusions to hold true : that the world is objective, measurable, real, logical, and finite. If any of these were shown to be false, science would disprove itself. Something might be salvaged from the wreckage, but whatever would emerge would look substantially different from what we think of as science today - just as science and philosophy are not the same thing. I examine how it might be possible to disprove these assumptions, but not to prove them : they are unavoidably actually assumptions. The world might not make much rational sense without them, but they cannot be proven. Maybe the world just is irrational.

I also look at how to relate to people who fundamentally challenge these assumptions. Not everyone with a crazy idea is a crazy person, but some are. Those who can admit they're being irrational are generally fine - it's the ones who aren't even aware of what science assumes that are the problem. Getting everyone to recognise and admit their assumptions can, if you're lucky, frame the debate in a much more productive way. It's not a guarantee, but it is a good guideline. Likewise there are different debating strategies to employ, but one has to understand the opposing position. You cannot possibly fight a non-scientific belief with scientific methods, any more than you'd expect a scientist to be persuaded by emotion-driven woo. Avoiding personal attacks does not mean one should avoid trying to understand opposing viewpoints.

Finally I look at why conceding that science does have these implicit assumptions is a fundamentally good thing, which does not weaken scientific achievements in the slightest. Quite the reverse : it provides a defence against dogma (the very thing anti-scientific beliefs are most prone to), prevents science from becoming another potentially oppressive belief system, and frees disciplines which require rational and irrational techniques from otherwise inevitable conflicts. There's nothing that can be done about the extremists or the extremely stupid, but the majority of people are neither. What we should be encouraging is curiosity : show people the advantages of science without robbing or attempting to cure them of their ideologies. You have to get them to embrace the scientific method before you stand a chance of getting them to agree to its conclusions.

Meet the exploding ants

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06535qf

Plato on education as improvement or discovery

Building Better Worlds, part 3/3

Final part in my extremely long trilogy on Plato's fictional demi-paradise of Magnesia. I examine Magnesian culture and daily life in much more detail than in the other posts, looking at what the citizens are supposed to enjoy doing rather than what crimes they should be punished for. I also try and look at what we can still learn from Laws today, both from its failures and successes. Which, if I'm doing it right, ought to annoy a lot of people.

While I cover just about everything to some degree, including gender equality, meritocracy, the importance and subtleties of excessive wealth and poverty (Did Plato believe in an UBI ? Sort of but not really; Did he hate the very rich ? Yes but with some extremely important caveats), and the need for everyone over 30 to get drunk regularly (damn straight), I concentrate mainly of the two key themes of freedom and education. How is it that a man who devotes himself to exploring complex and controversial issues should propose a state based on extensive censorship ?

The answer, I suggest, lies in earlier dialogues where Plato considers education. Clearly it's possible to change people's opinions and beliefs, and maybe it's even possible to make them morally better. But in terms of raw abilities, it's vital to understand if education is just a good way of finding who's innately good at learning what, or if it actually does bestow new, fundamental abilities such as wisdom and critical thinking.

For a variety of (not implausible) reasons, Plato seems to have decided it's the former - and his resulting conclusions are therefore not as ironic or hypocritical as they appear. If people cannot be changed by education, and only a small fraction have the combination of skills and virtue necessary for good leadership, then giving everyone an equal say in how things are run makes absolutely no dang sense at all. Plato recognises that they must, however, be given some genuine say in political affairs - and institutes something not too dissimilar to a representative democracy as a result. Had he concluded that education does in fact change people, then a more direct democratic system would be more sensible. But since you can - simplifying - only find philosophers rather than make them, his proposed system allows people to make real choices but attempts to limit the damage they can do. Equally, power among the governing is divided (imperfectly in some ways, but in others to a greater degree than in modern Western countries) to prevent tyranny. Plato seems to see despotism and populist mob rule as equal vices, and in this I think he may be on to something. Any system of government needs to account for both the potential malevolence of the elite and the stupidity of the masses : failing to do so on either count leads to disaster.

The problem with rule by the masses seems to be one of stupidity : they lack the skills necessary to govern, but cannot bring themselves to admit it. Presently the tide of evidence is waxing towards the conclusion that people are indeed extremely vulnerable to various forms of manipulation; doubtless a better education system could be constructed, but the magnitude of the stupidity of the choices of the masses beggars belief. When a world leader habitually talks in word salad, it becomes very difficult indeed to give his electorate much intellectual credit - the finer details of critical thinking do need to be taught, but the absolute basics ought to be obvious just from living in the world. The majority of people are perhaps not innately unethical, but their susceptibility to manipulation leads them to immoral beliefs and ignoble acts.

And on the other side, the problem of the elites is not their intelligence, but their virtue. Experts do indeed make the best liars, as Plato said, and the ruling elites hardly seem to have the interests of the masses at heart. Rather they seem determined to keep the mob down, to provide them with enough to subsist and service their so-called superiors but not enough to ever improve themselves. They seek, not always successfully, the fawning stupidity of the great unwashed, realising that their goals are achievable not by the impossibility of fooling all of the people all of the time but by the far easier method of fooling most of the people most of the time. Their success ends on those occasions when the masses, always rendered sufficiently but not entirely idiotic, find a populist candidate able to persuade them of the misdeeds of their rulers. And now the trap shuts : a bunch of credulous morons, long kept ignorant by a corrupt elite, suddenly believe themselves capable of acts of which they have not the slightest apprehension.

Also I look at how Plato would have reacted to the Lego movie theme song, because why not.

Building Better Worlds With Statistics

Building Better Worlds With Statistics

Second part of my analysis of Plato's fictional pseudo-utopia, Magnesia. In this one I concentrate more heavily on Magnesia itself with less commentary on how the ideas and ideals apply to the modern world. Anyone else out there with a fetish for statistical analysis of Platonic dialogues ? Then you're in for a treat ! As for everyone else, well, what have you been doing with your life ?

Lots of statistical analysis with graphs coming out of every one of Justice's orifices. Was Plato applying his own rules consistently ? In terms of the punishment fitting the crime, this seems to be the case. But with regards to the punishment fitting the criminal, it appears he was just making stuff up as he went along and I can show you this with numbers because numbers are the shizzle.

What if you don't like graphs ? Then fear not. Here I also examine Plato's theology and the use of religion as a carefully-planned means to control the population - a seemingly sinister intent, yet with an absolutely beautiful, meaning-of-life stuff destruction of the notion of the Universe as being in any sense designed for us. I also look at the state's use of violence as a legitimate tool, various areas where Plato got it wrong, and why Batman would get along just fine in Magnesia.

Next time, in the third and final part, I'll look at the key linked themes of freedom and education and see what lessons from this the modern world has adopted, debunked, and might still have left to learn.

Plato's Magnesia explained : part 1

After a gap of over six months (!), I'm at last ready to complete my series of posts examining the lessons and mistakes of Plato. This is the first in a three-part series examining Magnesia, the fictional state proposed in Laws. It tends to get a lot less attention than the much more famous Republic, and initially I was inclined to see why. But something kept nagging at me, and after months (quite literally) of reading, re-reading, and - yes really - statistical analyses, this one evolved into what I'm quite sure will be the sequence of posts with the highest effort/reward ratio. Doesn't really bother me. Like photographing a famous landmark, no amateur scholar should expect to find anything that professionals haven't done better a thousand times before : that's not the point. The point is self-examination and expression. Laws, I think, is one of the most fascinating of all Plato's dialogues, but not in the more immediately obvious ways of some of the others.

In this first part, I look at the purpose of the law according to Plato. I look at the flaws and glaring inconsistencies that point, I think, to an unresolved paradox : laws must be unchanging, says Plato, but they must deal with changing conditions. I discuss how the relation of the law with respect to society, and why Plato seems to conclude reluctantly that you can neither have good laws to guarantee good citizens, nor good citizens to guarantee good laws - both must be established simultaneously. The system and the people are dependent on each other for survival and prosperity.

In part two I look at Magnesia from a statistical analysis of its laws, revealing which parts Plato deals with consistently and which appear to have been made up on the spot because he got bored (there's only so many laws you need about bees and fruit, after all). I also look at the role of religion and suggest what kind of theological beliefs Plato may have really had, and how he had no scruples about the state behaving as an interfering busybody. Finally in part three I look at the philosophical basis for Magnesia, and how the nature of a state's political system is strongly dependent on whether intelligence depends on nature or nurture and also there's that song from the Lego movie and everyone gets drunk.

Dunning-Kruger and the imposter effects are two sides of the same coint

Dunning-Kruger, stupid people being too stupid to realise they're stupid (https://decoherency.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-dunning-kruger-effect-has-been.html), has the interesting flip side of clever people not realising that everyone else is stupid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOLmD_WVY-E

Fantasy maps of reality

... but, where's the more detailed one of Britain ???

[Link has died, need to find a replacement. Maps of the real world in the style of Lord of the Rings.]

https://imgur.com/gallery/mRP1F