“For every observable property”

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Originally posted February 2018. Do try the exercise. It’s fun!

For every observable property φ conceived by us to be an objective feature of the world, we must concede the possibility that φ be sensorily detected by means other than the particular means used by us.

Paul Churchland, Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind, Cambridge University Press, London, 1979.

Looking for something completely different, I stumbled upon this– a note I must have written nearly 20 years ago. Which led me to this, from the same crappy old book.

The book is a classic in the philosophy of mind, but we’ll set aside its grander– and finer– points to focus on a little exercise you can do just after sundown on a starry night.

The premise is that, if asked, each of us could draw out and explain the organization of our solar system– as in Fig. 2. But,

when actually confronted with the night sky, most of us have only the vaguest idea of how to relate what we have drawn to what we can see.

see Fig. 1

One only need do two things in order to experience this “gestalt shift,” which Churchland calls, “rather striking.”

Rather striking is an understatement. For me– and I done this many times and it’s always the same– a knee buckles, and I spontaneously shift my weight. The Girls and everyone else I know who have done this experience something similar.

So what must one do? 1) Become familiar with what a few of the planets look like in the night sky, as compared to the stars. This is easy. “They stand out like beacons.” Their colors and intensities make them readily recognizable (see Fig.1). 2) Change– or be prepared to change– your conception of what your horizontal plane of reference is. In other words, be prepared to think not of our earthly, local horizon, but of that of the ellipses of the plants revolving around the sun (Fig. 3 below).

In order “to see the situation as it really is” (as it appears not as you look at the earth’s horizon but of the ellipse) simply tilt your head to the right and line up those planets on an imaginary horizontal line.

I swear to the Good Lord Almighty, you will feel as if you are falling off the planet!

Dyed & Co | Not just T-shirts

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Golf Shirt by Dyed & Co. See more views of this one.

See more– including Ice Dye in progress– at Dyed and Company.

Did you know many of our pieces are ice dyed? Each one takes over 36 hours to make. But your #newfavoriteshirt is totally worth the time.

They do beautiful work.

“How John Quit the Farm”

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Next to “The Girl I loved”– a book length poem– “How John Quit the Farm” is my very favorite James Whitcomb Riley poem. Enjoy!

Riley Farm-Rhymes with Country Pictures (1905).

Amazon tells me I have to disclose that I’m an Amazon Associate and I get a small (and thus far by small, I mean next to nothing) commission if you hit the link and buy something. Technically, you don’t have to buy the thing I link to. You just have to buy something after you get to Amazon via a link I post.

Outstanding Engineer

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The beaver is the outstanding engineer of the wild. Next to man it is the mammal that alters the environment most to suit its needs.

Complete Field Guide to American Wildlife, Henry Hill Collins, Jr. (1959)

Read that just now.

Document created September 11, 2020.

What more can I say?

The amount of stuff that’s stored in my head amazes even me sometimes.

Of course, I cannot take credit for it all. It was The J-Man who set up the trail cam so we could watch the engineer in his natural habitat.

Being a Boy | The Grindstone of Life

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“If there is one thing more than another that hardens the lot of the farmer-boy, it is the grindstone. Turning grindstones to grind scythes is one of those heroic but unobtrusive occupations for which one gets no credit. It is a hopeless kind of task, and, however faithfully the crank is turned, it is one that brings little reputation. There is a great deal of poetry about haying—I mean for those not engaged in it. One likes to hear the whetting of the scythes on a fresh morning and the response of the noisy bobolink, who always sits upon the fence and superintends the cutting of the dew-laden grass. There is a sort of music in the “swish” and a rhythm in the swing of the scythes in concert. The boy has not much time to attend to it, for it is lively business “spreading” after half a dozen men who have only to walk along and lay the grass low, while the boy has the whole hay-field on his hands. He has little time for the poetry of haying, as he struggles along, filling the air with the wet mass which he shakes over his head, and picking his way with short legs and bare feet amid the short and freshly cut stubble.”

Being a Boy, Charles Dudley Warner (1877). $0.00 Kindle, $4.99 paperback, $23.95 hardback. [I’m an Amazon Associate and I earn from qualifying purchases.]

Christmas Gift Exchange

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I figured it out

The dilemma was that the Mass Organization Meeting for Miss Missy’s School takes place on December 8th. School starts the second week of January.

One cannot have a Farm filled with talking Animals and ignore Christmas.

I don’t know how guys like Tolkein and Lewis did this. There’s a lot of stuff to keep track of.

One more line to draw! John is going to give Marica the 10-volume set of Toynbee’s Study of History!

He gives Rocky a first edition of Principia Mathamatica.

Civilization is Memory

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From the Introduction to Mary Emogene Hazeltine’s Anniversaries and Holidays: A Calendar of Days and How to Observe Them (1928).

“The Calendar seeks to create an appreciation of the importance of all the factors of permanent character which we have inherited from customs, traditions, great lives, and events as they were set forth day by day. To this end, it is a good thing to keeps holidays and anniversaries because they make us remember. And civilization is memory– the memory of what men have learned before us, that we may learn more.”

Columbus Day

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I did my usual stroll around the world wide web this morning and saw nothing of Columbus Day or Columbus himself. IMHO that’s too bad.

Interestingly, my calendar tells me that Columbus Day “is not a nation-wide holiday,” though it is a Federal Holiday:

Columbus Day is one of ten federal holidays recognized nationwide by the United States Government. All non-essential federal government offices are closed on Columbus Day, and all federal employees are paid even if they receive the day off. Many private-sector employees will also receive paid time off or special holiday pay on Columbus Day.

Columbus day commemorates the arrival of the Christopher Columbus in the Americas. It is celebrated every second Monday of October, and has been a federal holiday since 1937.

You will not be getting any mail today.

Christoforo Colombo, son of a Genoese weaver

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Originally published on October 12, 2015 

The Portuguese, at the time, had the reputation of being the most expert seamen in Europe. … These hardy mariners had pushed boldly out, as early as we have any records,into the enticing and yet forbidding Sea of Darkness, not often perhaps willingly out of sight of land; but storms not infrequently gave them the experience of sea and sky and nothing else.

“The great ocean was an untried waste for cartography.”

It is into this Portugal that Christoforo Colombo, age 20, arrived in 1470.

[From Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery (orig. 1892)]

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Christóbal Colón Part 3

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Again– reposting from October, 2013


The picture book is for the children.

In reading about Columbus over the last few days, I’ve come across this sentiment more than once: Every school kid knows the story of Columbus. That got me to wondering what school children might really have known about Columbus back in the crappy olden days.

The Book of Knowledge: The Children’s Encyclopedia was first published by The Grolier Society, Inc. in 1923. I have 19 of the 20 volumes in the 1954 edition. (Sadly, I am missing volume 20, the Index.) It is not organized as a grown up encyclopedia. Rather, each volume has the same major sections– “The Earth,” “Wonder Questions,” “All Countries,” “The United States” (or Wells’s ‘nationalist blinkers‘), “Famous Books,” “Men and Women” and so forth.  Within each volume, the section articles revolve– as much as is possible– around a theme(s). For example, the “Men and Women” section of Volume 1 is sub-titled “Men Who Made the World Known,” and “The Earth” section contains articles on “The Big Ball We Live On,’ etc. All in all, it seems to me that The Book of Knowledge is the sort of thing a kid– not a little kid, but a kid who could read reasonably well by 5th grade or so– could sit down with on a rainy Saturday and amuse him or herself  exploring the world.

I found “Men Who Made the World Known”engaging. (And I am smarter than a 5th grader!) It tells the story beginning with Leif Ericson, 

and does not leave out the unpleasantries of Columbus’s later life:

It was well that Columbus had his hour of glory and triumph then, for he was to have many unhappy hours and many misfortunes later on. Some people became jealous of him, and plotted against him. Sometimes, he made mistakes which brought trouble upon himself and others.

What great stuff!

Christoforo Colombo Part 2

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Originally posted 10/14/2013 and reposted 10/8/2018. Cannot remember if the lizard guy’s 10 minutes of fame were in ’13 or ’18.


That’s correct. Herbert George Wells, the “Father of Science Fiction.”

The Outline of History Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind was first published in 1920. (This is the revised edition of 1961. Both sub-titles are correct.) Reviews were mixed, but it sold well!

From the Introduction, “The Story and Aim of the Outline of History”:

“How had these things come about?”

In the next paragraph Wells continues, 

Men and women tried to recall the narrow history teaching of their brief schooldays and found an uninspiring and partially forgotten list of national kings or presidents. They tried to read about these matters, and found an endless wilderness of books. They had been taught history, they found, in nationalist blinkers, ignoring every country but their own, and now they were turned out into a blaze. It was extraordinarily difficult for them to determine the relative values of the matters under discussion. Multitudes of people … were seeking more or less consciously to “get the hang” of world affairs as a whole. They were, in fact, improvising “Outlines of History” in their minds for their own use.

According the experts at Wikipedia, Wells develops several themes in the 1000+ page history. I’ll enjoy picking this crappy old book up from time to time.

Turning now to 1492, I did not know that only one of the ships, the Santa Maria, “was decked; the other two were open boats.” Holy cow.

About Columbus, Wells writes:

The story of that momentous voyage of two months and nine days must be read in detail to be appreciated. 

He then provides some detail, largely leaves out the part about Columbus being a terrible governor, and being sent back to Spain in chains– “We cannot tell of his experiences of governor…”– and reminds us that “… Columbus died ignorant of the fact that he had discovered a new continent.”

Jumping ahead 521 years and two days… .

Today we celebrate the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus and 87 other men, some of whom spent more than 70 days on little open boats heading west across an ocean full of sea monsters. And we celebrate some hunter dude who was lost in a California park for 18 days and had to eat lizards to survive. I’m glad he’s safe & sound but that I even heard about this on a national news station is pathetic, don’t you think?

Christoforo Colombo Part 1

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10/8/2018: Here’s the first of a series from 2013. Bigfoodetc.com was still on the Blogger platform so I’ve cleaned it up a bit.


At the time, I captioned this thusly: “No. It’s not an obsession. It’s a mission.” 

Michael H. Hart’s The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History has good ole’ Christopher Columbus as the ninth most influential person in history behind Muhammad, Isaac Newton, Jesus Christ, Budda, Confucius, St. Paul, Ts’ai Lun, and Johann Gutenberg.

The 100 was published in 1978 by Hart Publishing Company. The book and its author were– and are– controversial for a number of reasons, not the least of which are the ranking of Muhammad higher than Christ, and the author’s view that the United States should be “partitioned” into three nations.

Setting those issues aside, here’s what Hart says about Columbus:

It is obvious that Columbus’s first trip had a revolutionary impact upon European history, and an even greater effect of the Americas. The one date that every schoolchild knows is 1492. Still, there are several possible objections to ranking Columbus so high on the list.

(Is it still true that every schoolchild knows the significance of 1492?)

Objection The First: “Columbus was not the first European to discover the New World.” Lief Ericson (among others, I’ll add) had long before. Hart counters that Ericson was historically unimportant. News of his discovery was not widespread but “within a few years of [Columbus’s] return … many additional expeditions to the New World were made and conquest and colonization of the new territories began.”

Objection The Second: Someone was bound to discover America someday, what’s so great about Columbus? Hart argues true enough but 1) “subsequent developments” in the New World would have taken a different trajectory had the Americas been discovered by, for example, the French and 2) Columbus actually “did discover America.”

Objection The Third: Every educated European already knew the Earth was round– Aristotle said so. Hart gets around this objection by asserting that may well be, but Columbus didn’t show the Earth was round, he discover America and no 15th century Europeans– and certainly not Aristotle– “had any knowledge of the existence of the American continents.”

Hart’s concluding remarks about Columbus:

Columbus’s character was not entirely admirable. He was exceptionally avaricious; in fact, one important reason that Columbus encountered difficulties in persuading Isabella to finance him was that he drove an extremely greedy bargain. Also, though it may not be fair to judge him by today’s ethical standards, he treated the Indians with shocking cruelty. This is not, however, a list of the noblest characters in history, but rather of the most influential ones, and by that criterion Columbus deserves a place near the top of the list.

“Come, here’s the map.”

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Originally posted October 12, 2015

The Toscanelli map, believed to have been carried by Columbus on his first journey.

[From Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery (orig. 1892) which includes the quote from Shakespeare, “Come, here’s the map,” from Henry IV Part 1]

Columbus’ Map

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Originally posted October 12, 2015.

“No other than Christopher Columbus himself.”


[image downloaded from cartographic-images]

A small map of the world showing Africa as far south as the Cape of Buena Esperansa, and a large map of Europe and Africa as far south as the Congo.

The map is neither signed nor dated. But because it shows the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by Diaz, “it must have been made subsequent to his return to Lisbon in December 1488.” However, it does not show the discoveries of Columbus’ first voyage. Therefore, it was drawn some time between 1488 and 1493.

Because Genoa is conspicuously depicted, we can surmise the map’s author was Genoese. In addition to other evidence, comparisons between inscriptions on the map, and Columbus’ writings– including those he made on his first voyage– lead many to suspect that the map was drawn by “no other than Christopher Columbus himself.”

Think about this next time you ask Siri to find you a parking place.

[From A Book of Old Maps Delineating American History from the Earliest Days Down to the Close of the Revolutionary War (1926).]

“Normal”

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Yeah, right. All normal Mondays begin with the lights flickering off and on for an hour or so. To their credit, the electricity guys were out here no more than 10 minutes after I called. And it’s back on now. Bad connector in the transformer. Dude went up in the bucket and fixed it.

Just so you know, I had the internet up and running without a hitch.

What a dumb ending

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“I can remember Bertrand Russell telling me of a horrible dream. He was in the top floor of the University Library, about A.D. 2100 . A library assistant was going round the shelves carrying an enormous bucket, taking down books, glancing at them, restoring them to the shelves or dumping them into the bucket. At last he came to three large volumes which Russell could recognize as the last surviving copy of Principia Mathematica. He took down one of the volumes, turned over a few pages, seemed puzzled for a moment by the curious symbolism, closed the volume, balanced it in his hand and hesitated… .”

G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology (1940) quoted in the entry for Principia Mathamatic at that infallible source.

And yes. If you are wondering, I do have A Mathematician’s Apology in the crappy old book, The World of Mathematics Volume Four: A small library of the literature of mathematics from A’h-mose the Scribe to Albert Einstein… (1956). It is, however and excerpt and does not include that passage.

That is not a typo.

I bring this up because there is a character, named “John,” in Miss Missy’s School who gives Rocky a first edition of Principia Mathamatica for Christmas, and I was curious to discover how much a first edition might be going for these days. Fortunately, John and his wife, Marica, like to go rummaging around used book stores and library sales. Never know what you might turn up.

“Does anybody care?”

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The U.S. Gulf Coast is no stranger to hurricanes, and its people are resilient, Lake Charles resident Katie Prejean McGrady said. But the double punch of the back-to-back storms — on top of the pandemic — has left many in the community reeling, she said.

“I’m taxed out. And I think that’s most people in town,” she said. “There’s a mental exhaustion that sets in and then there’s a fear of ‘Does anybody outside this region care?’” she said. “The reality is our town won’t be the same for a year, if not longer.”

McGrady and her family had just returned to their home for the first time since evacuating ahead of Hurricane Laura when she was nine months pregnant. They arrived back in Lake Charles last weekend, got a new roof on Monday and had to evacuate again Thursday.

“My husband hadn’t even unpacked his suitcase,” McGrady said, who works for a Catholic publisher. “I had just put away my daughter’s toys.”

‘Does anybody outside this region care?’

Not that you could tell by looking.

Read the whole thing.

We now resume regular programming

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The Deep South Philosophy and Neuroscience Workshop III has concluded.

“Life returns to normal,” she said rolling on the floor and laughing her a*^ off.

Fun & Games

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So the Workshop has been fun, but I’m really looking forward to getting back to Miss Missy’s School. I have a lot of stuff written in my head that needs to be typed out. Most especially, Christmas Day.

By maybe the end of the month, I will be asking for volunteers. After my editor, Miss M, has been brutal, and it’s past muster w/ Daughter C, the J-Man, Kat & Tony, there will be a draft. (Miss M is me on style & grammar steroids.) But there will be a draft. And I’ll be asking for volunteers to read it.