This is perhaps a little lazy of me to just post a youtube video – but this is truly worth seeing. My good friend Hamish got me onto these guys and I generally go to their gigs now whenever I get the chance. Everytime I see Jess play I’m absolutely in awe of her violin skills. The crooked fiddle band sure knows how to put the rock into folk rock. Trust me, this vid will blow you away.
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In my last post on the topic of names, I examined the referential theory and explained some of the classic difficulties that it has faced. The descriptivist theory of names attempts to avoid these difficulties by denying that the semantic content of a name is the object to which it refers. Instead the theory claims that some kind of description of the object is included in the semantic content of the name. The first person to propose this kind of theory was Frege – and the descriptivist theory was to remain the dominant view up until the second half of the twentieth century. It was displaced as the dominant theory and replaced once again by the referentialist view, thanks largely to the criticisms of Saul Kripke. Given the failure of the descriptivist theory, we are left in a somewhat baffling position, with no theory being entirely satisfactory. We are left in the position where the process of reference, something as familiar to us as eating, remains an unsolved part of larger mystery concerning how we use language.
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Most of us wouldn’t think there was anything problematic about the meaning of names. When I use the name ‘Brad’ to talk about my good friend, we wouldn’t think to question what I actually meant by the name ‘Brad’. After all, I just mean Brad – that guy who pops up on MSN chat to distract me from my studies. But it turns out that a workable semantics of names is one of the most elusive goals of the philosophy of language today. In a very real sense, we still don’t know what names mean. There is still no agreement on how it is that we manage to use names as we do, or even how it is that we can refer to objects at all. At this point, your commonsense ideas are probably causing you to scoff. Of course we know what names mean – they mean whatever object they stand for! And maybe they do. By the end of this article, you might still think as you did at the beginning – but I doubt you’ll remain so confident.
One can learn a great deal about a society by understanding its literature – especially its popular literature, and of the Victorian Era, one could argue that this book was perhaps one of the most popular. It was written at the height of empire – imperialism was not a dirty word, but was felt by all to be spreading modernity and civilisation across the globe. It was this sentiment that stood at the heart of the Victorian sensibility. King Solomon’s Mines similarly has this sentiment at its core. Despite the fairly blatant imperialist actions of our leaders – it can hardly be said to be the spirit of our contemporary society. This is what makes reading this book so fascinating. While it is an entertaining read in its own right – still I couldn’t help but cringe at the overt racism, sexism and uncritical moral superiority of the white men as they adventure across the African continent. This is an astonishing fact when you consider that this was the Harry Potter of its day – in popularity – that its ideals were shared by an entire generation. This books represents how the average person thought and felt about their world, and as a portrait of a culture, it is very interesting indeed.
I’ve long been fascinated by the means by which the marketers so effectively manage to determine our choices in the marketplace.? This effectiveness has long been appreciated by the corporations who spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year in marketing their services and products.? While information about how these techniques work, and the reasons for their success, are starting to filter down to ordinary people (empowering their choices and to some degree liberating them from the malaise) – still many are unaware of their implicit involvement in marketing processes.? ? We are helping the marketers and? we don’t even know it.? What I’ll attempt to demonstrate is the degree to which classic marketing techniques rely on the competitive and combative elements of human nature to re-inforce the individual marketing message.? Once it is seen just how involved we all are, the insidious nature of corporate marketing becomes stark.? We begin to realise just how much we help the marketers to do what they do.
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Half Life 2? has been on the market now for several years, but still I feel a sense of awe whenever I step into that terrifying universe.? The scope of the story, the immersive visuals, the characters – all of it combining to form an incredible gaming experience.? But its as a narrative that I find the game most interesting.? I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Dr Breen’s rants against the “dangers of magical thinking” – a rich allusion to the struggle between rationalist and romantic ideologies.? Beyond this, I find it fascinating the way they resolve the natural tension that exists between gaming as a narrative medium – and the exigencies of narrative structure itself.? ? In? most cases they limit the choice of the character so that there is? one and only one path to? follow at any given time.? This allows? Valve, the game’s creators, to guide the player through their carefully crafted narrative – at the expense of player freedom.? ? Nevertheless, I was able to find one part of the game,? where they allowed the player more choice than even they suspected. The result is a scene that they didn’t intend for you to see.
Given how many seemed to enjoy the great puzzles I wrote about in a previous post, I thought I would write about some more.? So here are? a couple? more great puzzles and paradoxes: Searle’s Chinese Room and the Monty Hall Problem.
In my previous post on revenue sharing, I claimed that the model would provide an income stream to the general public that has never previously been accessible before. The central idea behind this claim was that many common activities on the internet, such as posting links, and embedding videos, serve as distribution points for content. As this process replaces (at least in part) the traditional role of distribution, it provides real value to those that produce the content. Hence, there exists a natural rationale for the content producers to provide a monetary reward for this act of distribution. In this post, I want to examine some of the possible effects the involvement of the general public in this kind of process may have. While the benefits of this revolutionary change will be enormous, the potential cost will probably be just as profound. The language of the debate elevates quickly into that of hyperbole – where some are quick to claim that the very thing at stake is the human soul itself. What it certainly does point to is the very conflicted relationship we all have as individuals to the capitalistic system that determines the substances of our lives. The thesis I propose is this: that for the first time in the history of capitalism people will have the choice to either opt in, or out of one of the fundamental processes that drives it – resolving the conflict one way or the other for that individual. We will see how this will come about in the sections below.
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| Eepybird – the two man team behind the diet coke and mentos viral videos claim they lost tens of thousands of dollars in revenue due to their videos being posted on Youtube and other sites. |
We are on the precipice of a revolution – though it’s something of which we are scarcely aware. Part of our ignorance stems from its obscure potential, but revenue sharing will be something that will come to dominate the very minutiae of our lives -whether we like it or not. The idea, in a nutshell, is that all parties involved in shuffling traffic around this grand internet highway of ours will be given a cut in the revenue. At first glance this doesn’t seem like much of a big deal – but it will be the catalyst for massive social change. It will be the enabling condition for millions of ordinary people who suddenly gain access to an income stream that never existed before. But it will also be the cause of great social alienation – the likes of which we’ve never seen before. The question then, is how will we deal with it once it comes? How can we make the most of it as an opportunity – without selling our souls in the process? This will be the first in a two part post that examines first the nature of the revolution, and secondly the potential impact this will have on us as a society.
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