Monday, July 23, 2007

Assorted Points of Immense Importance

1)Two people have now emailed to say they saw me on TV on Sunday. They saw me with an ironic grin wading behind David Cameron in flooded Witney. It was not me, I have a cast-iron alibi and, anyway, this character was wearing a duffle coat. As if.
2)Read this as a follow-up to this. Fodor is a class act and here he outlines with style and charm the whole consciousness problem.
3) Read this and this and this as a follow-up to this. Roger Scruton in the thick of it.
Posted by Bryan Appleyard at 5:58 pm

12 comments:

  1. NigeJuly 23, 2007 7:42 pm

    Well me I remain mystified by the Bryan doppelganger with the duffel coat and the trussed llama in his bag... The Fodor piece is superb.

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  2. AndrewJuly 23, 2007 9:03 pm

    Even the position of ideological/philosophical being where consciousness is 'a problem' is comical. How did we get to this schizophrenic point? Perhaps the real issue is not the nature of consciousness- which is in need of no external knowledge of itself(how could there be external knowledge of consciousness?), but the question of the entity that has managed to sustain the delusion of its own separation from the consciousness or mind of which it is an emanation, & from which imaginary vantage point life is to be analyzed & hopefully solved in a manner that sustains the reality of this supposed point of certainty.

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  3. AnonymousJuly 23, 2007 10:27 pm

    Bryan, I had always pegged you as post-ironic, but I suppose that's difficult to maintain in a duffle coat. With accoutrements. Which I now recognise as a set of albino bagpipes. Is there no end to your talents?

    Nige - if I am to avoid confusing you with the zeitgeist, perhaps you should use a new font. Perhaps you could both use one. Appleyard. That has gravitas (aka Sunday Times New Roman). Nige. Hmmm. I struggle to picture that one but I dare say there is a budding font designer out there looking for a name for the latest creation. A Font Called Nige...

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  4. AnonymousJuly 23, 2007 10:46 pm

    The reality, Mr Appleyard, is that we are all fucked.

    Consider Scruton's career. Astonishing range and penetration - from politics to aesthetics to sex to music to sociology - all beautifully consistent, and - unlike all those tedious continentals - all framed in arguments that admit of acceptance or rejection.

    And where is he now? Some bog in Wiltshire. Why? Precisely because the culture he speaks of is no longer. Dead, gone, and forgotten. No-one can tell him apart from non-entities such as Grayling (to whom even you, inexplicably, kowtow).

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  5. AndrewJuly 23, 2007 11:16 pm

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. Bryan AppleyardJuly 24, 2007 5:53 am

    Can't remember a Grayling kowtow. I have quoted him.

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  7. AnonymousJuly 24, 2007 12:21 pm

    from the Dark Age blog:
    http://www.darkage.ca/blog/_archives/2007/7/22/3111479.html?message=

    "The essence of the pessimism about the prospects for scientia is this -- the fear that we cannot complete our consciousness and therefore we cannot know the whole. As one theoretical physicist informed me, the mood today in physics especially is "shut up and calculate" -- the avoidance of the ultimate question of scientia and a slide into narrow methodism."

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  8. AnonymousJuly 24, 2007 2:57 pm

    "Can't remember a Grayling kowtow. I have quoted him."

    You could not have quoted him because of what he thinks because he doesn't even begin to understand what thinking is. A neutral quote is thus implicitly reverential.

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  9. Bryan AppleyardJuly 24, 2007 3:11 pm

    You are a harsh taskmaster, glassdarkly, I am not sure I could continue with my journalism were I to adhere to such standards. That might be a good thing of course....

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  10. AnonymousJuly 24, 2007 3:56 pm

    glassdarkly, you are an out & out nutter: you belong behind a cash till in Safeway's, where you can do no harm. You could be one of those people who are extremely good at counting change, because they're so precise. The blue-haired old ladies would love you, and bring you Bovril to beef you up.

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  11. AnonymousJuly 24, 2007 4:03 pm

    "...I am not sure I could continue with my journalism were I to adhere to such standards..."


    Yes, that is the tragic truth. Fortunately, easy enough to forget given enough sex, drugs, and alcohol.

    False solace is no less consoling for being imaginary - did Scruton not say that somewhere?

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  12. AnonymousJuly 24, 2007 4:15 pm

    elberry, did I fuck you and forget? If so you have my apologies.

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