Latour and the pill or "Facing Gaia" and Matrix

I am reading Latour's "Facing Gaia". (I do not know why I did not really wanted to read it.  Perhaps I am fed up listening about the environment. Or perhaps it is the akward feeling that all this is a way for moderns ending to "there are too many humans in this planet and most of their brains smell bad", which can lead to some kind of economic euthanasia that will make nature solid again for the elect. But Tim Howles's enthousiasm I guess convinced me and now I am reading it, going uphill, and it is worth it)

I'll speak about my impression thus far (somewhere in the fourth chapter, having also read bits and peaces from further chapters).

Between the land and the Globe. Tsing's vision

I learned about  Anna Tsing's book "The Mushroom at the End of the World" (http://seminarnyc.com/sites/default/files/temp/mushroom.pdf) from AIME's twitter (https://twitter.com/AIMEproject), a good source of reading suggestions. It is a great book for many reasons (or so I felt about it). But among the many other things I read there, the chapter "Interlude, Tracking" (pg 138) stuck to me as a powerful image. Indeed an image that offers a certain answer to Latour's question: "If we cannot land neither on the Globe nor on the old territory, where are we going to land to?"

Thoughts on a film

I am grateful about AIME.
Still our souls are drums and their beat is to be heard

Ενας Ουγγρος σκεφτεται το μελλον

Συζητηση με μια κορη

Γυρω απο τη διαιρεση

Πού καταλήξαμε

1. Γιατι άραγε αυτος ο τροπος με τον οποιο κανουμε διαιρεση ("καθετη" διαιρεση πχ 47 δια 3) να λειτουργει; (να δινει το σωστο αποτέλεσμα)
2. Γιατι άραγε οταν κανουμε κάθετη διαιρεση, σε καποιο σημείο κάνουμε και πολλαπλασιασμό, ενω ο πολλαπλασιασμός ειναι το αναποδο της διαιρεσης; (πχ 1 επι 3 = 3)

Και ενα ερωτημα που προεκυψε στο πλαι που μου φερνει στο νου μια πολυ απλή περιπτωση ασκησης σε αποδειξεις: Αν δυο αριθμοι ειναι πρώτοι τότε το κλάσμα που φτιαχνουμε δεν μπορει να απλοποιηθει (πάντα οταν ειναι πρωτοι). Μπορει ενα παιδι Ε Δημοτικου να δηλωσει πολυ καθαρά τα βηματα μιας τετοιας "μικρης" αποδειξης;


3.αλλο ενα ερωτημα:

Πώς και "δουλευει" ο Κινεζικος τροπος πολλαπλασιασμου;

A very interesting project

In China Europeans and Chinese meet in front of the ecological mutation

http://modesofexistence.org/reset-modernity-a-shanghai-perspective-4-7-may-2017/

This is the image that comes to my mind:

(A way of cooking meat in Crete)

AIME and mathematics (2)

"Correlations without correlata" is a phrase by David Mermin that captures some of the sense that some people get out of Quantum mechanics. (https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9801057.pdf%3E and then goes on to http://www.nature.com/news/physics-qbism-puts-the-scientist-back-into-science-1.14912) This expression resonates in me when thinking about the modes of existence that the book Inquiry into the Modes of Existence presents. I would try to think of some definite entities, delineated, described, projected in some space of features, flowing along these different lines that [REP] or [REL] or [FIC] present. But then it was like a flow that leaves you with an after-effect. Something passed but one cannot really say what it was. Or perhaps one mode needs to cooperate with another (or others) so that some account of what went on to be felt (felt by whom? By a community of conversants I guess,  a group of people communicating with one another: so the passage of the beings of each mode has similarity with the passage of signs among discussants -these too disappear when one tries to focus straight on them)

How cold is it to do mathematics?

I thought of a story

Somebody comes to a place where civilized people live. There is respect and concern and all this leads to an elaborate protocol (perhpas in a similar sense that the need of maximum generativity leads to the simple forms of Tangram). Being a base person the newcomer finds in these peope the operation of cold and unflinching rationality and uses her intellectual power to make the system bend towards her own base goal setting.

Are the people cold calculators, or is she just projecting whatever she carries in her heart?

On Models and Myths, on Latour and Vygotsky and Voegelin, and on Mathematics

Για τον Αντώνη Σμυρναιο, πολλές απο τις σκεψεις του οποίου εμφωλεύουν εδω

1. Suppose I say

• When people talk to me about the long history of life in earth, they are presenting me with a myth (I do not say this in order to say it is a lie. I say it in the sense that some important truth is hidden in this story. It is a story worthy to consider). Many people would be very unhappy about this. "It is not a myth. It is a model. Indeed it is a model that when strongly verified can guide us in imagining the past. It can be the secure base for any other speculation with respect to the past"
• When people talk to me about the 3 spatial and the one temporal dimension of the world (I leave the thing simple), they are presenting me with a myth (Again, I do not say this in order to say it is a lie. I say it in the sense that some important truth is hidden in this story. It is a story worthy to consider) . Once more many people would be very unhappy about this. "It is not a myth. It is a model. Indeed it is a model that when strongly verified can guide us in imagining space and time. It can be the secure base for any other speculation with respect to the matrix where all things abide"

Thoughts on Obama's farewell talk and the construction of a common world

Obama's farewell talk

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/us/obama-farewell-address-president.html

This is a talk for the USA audience but it had so many things for a non USAan to think about.