Daily Office:
Friday
¶ Matins: The frontier of modern humanist research lies in neurobiology, not philosophy. The days of armchair speculation are over: we’re not interested in what ought to be the case (which is all you’ll get out of Plato). Even so, sometimes I think that the researchers don’t quite understand the parameters. In a study announced today, blah blah blah (see below). The part that captured my eye was this:
Experts said the study had all but closed the case: For the brain, remembering is a lot like doing (at least in the short term, as the research says nothing about more distant memories).
How is it possible that anyone, in the age of the computer, doesn’t know that everything is memory. There is no difference between what happened last year and what happened last nanosecond. There is no “other” kind of neural activity, that does not involve remembering.
¶ Lauds: I wish that Jason Kottke had explained a bit after saying that “I could read about con men and tricksters all day.” I believe that he shares my interest in the phenomenon of the con, and is not planning to take up the practice; but it would be nice to be sure, especially as I do rely on kottke.org for a great deal of “my news.”
¶ Tierce: The first paragraph of Stephanie Strom’s story announces Eli Broad’s $400 million gift. The second paragraph outlines what the Broad Institute intends to do in the way of research. Here’s the third paragraph:
The money will be managed by Harvard University’s vaunted investment unit with the goal of turning it into a $1 billion endowment that will ensure the institute’s future and make it one of the wealthiest scientific research centers in the world.
¶ Sext: “All dressed up and nothing to say” — The Telegraph on Keira Knightley in The Duchess. Sukhdev Sandhu’s review. “Knightley looks woefully, painfully thin throughout. It’s hard to listen to what she’s saying when all you want to do is feed her chips.”
Oremus…§
Matins. The study involved threading electrodes through the brains of epileptics — SOP, it seems. Big surprise: remembering Homer Simpson involves the same neurons that registered Home Simpson in the first place. There is no brain archive, because the brain is nothing but an archive.
§ Lauds. The take-away gem from the cited article has to be this:
At this point in the game he reveals that he is, in fact, a professional card cheat. A smart man will run in the other direction, but most are seduced. People love the idea of a professional swindler–they find it glamorous. They figure the world is full of suckers, but of course they are not among them. They are in on the game.
I’m not claiming to be smarter than the next sucker, but I do know that I am one. I should run in the other direction. I try not to put my money where my vice is.
§ Tierce. Obscene, grotesque, or just plain childish, there’s something decidedly “off” about the interest in money that runs through this entire story, which concerns what is fundamentally a way to make everyone connected with genetic research richer.
The death, yesterday, of crane rigger Anthony Esposito — he was wearing a harness, but the harness wasn’t attached to anything but him, when the platform on which he was standing tilted, and he lost his footing — makes me wonder how important genetic research really is in a world so crazed to get things done chop chop that it ignores good old common sense.
§ Sext. I myself am off to see Transsiberian, because it happens to be the only interesting show playing the neighborhood that I haven’t yet seen. I’d really like to see a trio of foreign movies, including The Secret, which opened today, but it’s too hot to leave Yorkville. (Actually, it’s cooling off a bit; but I haven’t slept well in several nights, thanks to the oppressive humidity, or at least the very low pressure, which air-conditioning is powerless to alleviate.)