Huenemanniac

Getting distracted by ideas

January 2016

  • Natural and agreeable fools

    Methinks I am like a man, who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escaped shipwreck in passing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances.… Continue reading

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  • The 3QD experience

    I’ve contributed essays to the aggregator site 3quarksdaily.com for two years, and have just decided to bring that relationship to a close. Nothing went wrong – no falling out, no throwing of lamps, no screaming fits of “I just don’t love you anymore!” I just decided that I’d had my run, and it was time to free… Continue reading

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  • Experiencing the moment

    David Hume, that most sly student of human experience, declared he couldn’t find himself anywhere. As he gazed inward, he came across sensations, feelings, passions, and moods, but he had never come across aself in the way one might come across a vivid shade of turquoise or a lampshade or a heartbeat. He could find… Continue reading

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  • On knowledge regimes

    Yesterday I came across the phrase “early modern knowledge regime,” and it teased my curiosity. What could this term mean? [I already have a short list of books to start reading, but I’ll begin first with what’s in reach and on top of my neck.] It probably comes from Foucault: “Truth is a thing of… Continue reading

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  • What are libraries?

    [Currently reading: The Meaning of the Library, Princeton University Press, 2015.] When I went to college, I had a part-time job reshelving books in the library. I really liked it: I was on my own, rolling a little wooden cart through a quiet place, placing things where they belong. It felt serene and meditative. I… Continue reading

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  • Brainwashing, the Red Scare, and the Turing Test

    I just came across this brilliant lecture, “Imitation Games: Conspiratorial Sciences and Intelligent Machines,” given recently by Simon Schaffer. I’ve noted Schaffer’s work before on early automata. Here he extends his interest in our fascination with automata to post-WWII paranoia. Schaffer illustrates the intelligence backdrop to Turing’s work, and particularly the paranoia among communists and… Continue reading

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