solipsism or monkey see, monkey do

One of the more compelling ideas that I’ve encountered lately supposes that humans have developed such a relatively advanced range of expression over other animals—not that other creatures are silent and without cognition and we are constantly underestimating the mental worlds of our close and more distant relations—due to the limiting factor of solipsism. Metaphysics usually does not rear itself in the study of biology and evolution, but perhaps this position, which is one of the hallmarks of Cartesian philosophy and refers to a mode of thought where only one’s own mind can be accorded absolute surety and trust and there are impressions out there whose essence and depth is unknowable and might not exist at all.
Apes might not wonder if they are brains in vat or regard their fellow primates as philosophical zombie—possibly but we are not privy of course to those thoughts, and do display a limited sense of collaboration when it comes to things like bonding or child-rearing and can learn. A test that’s always interesting for all sorts of species is how they react to their reflection in a mirror. One does not see evidence, however, of the kind of advanced cooperation and planning dependent on others that might prompt the cultivation of vocabulary and language. In colonial species, like bees, ants and mole-rats we see apparently the opposite extreme, where there is no self, only the hive. I wonder if it’s in the human psyche to transcend that doubt in order to get along yet retain and be able to articulate those nagging concerns—whether our world is a delusion crafted by an Evil Genius and we are in the Matrix—that endowed and nurtured communication and abstraction. Following the old regime of esteeming animals as dumb and insensitive and without souls, humans did not see any value in reaching out to them and similarly, if one was unable to escape (even provisionally) his or her epistemological prisons, there would be little need to communicate beyond the most basic level. What do you think? Given the near gentic and physiological sameness, could origins of language lie in this skepticism and dissociation?

6x6

à louer: after profiling ghost malls, Messy Nessy Chic ventures out on to the high streets of Paris to document its vacant boutiques and digs deeper into their past

cro-magnon: the dexterity and cleverness of these birds might only be rivalled by humans

posh frock: stellar cosplay costumes of the 1920s Bauhaus collective

going dutch: the Netherlands and Belgium sensible swap territory and other recent land trades

philately: US postal service to issue Star Trek and planetary stamps

national nothing day: in addition to this “free-parking” space, seventeen other holidays, projects that one can honour this month

mmxvi

Happy New Year, Turophiles! Best wishes to you and yours as we welcome 2016 and we have a quick survey of designated, predicted and scheduled events and commemorations for the upcoming time.
To recognise their nutritional significance, the United Nations has declared this year the international year of pulses—that is, your beans, black-eyed peas and other legumes. The Summer Games will be held in Brazil. The Orthodox Church will convene a Holy Synod. Most of the world will be treated to Venus transiting the Sun and the Juno space probe will arrive at Jupiter. Russia is planning to launch an orbiting hotel for space-tourists. Not so many bold assertions or much commitment there. It seems that only astronomical matters are the only safe-call for the world’s reluctant and conservative Nostradamuses, citing the inevitable march of time. There’s that which is called self-fulfilling prophesy. Maybe resolutions are for, after all. What are some of your forecasts?

hagiography or quid pro quo

Despite having presided over the Church at a very foundational time, which saw the endorsement—not just tolerance—of Christianity by Constantine the Great after the purges and persecution of the emperor’s predecessor, Diocletian, the rather strenuous and politically-taxing Council of Nicaea that sought to define the nature of God and what constituted heresy, and the great building campaign that produced the Lateran palace, Santa Croce and the original Saint Peter’s Basilica, very little can be said about Pope Silvester (whose Saint Day is New Year’s Eve) with much confidence. Silvester apparently does not even enjoy a special patronage, while I expected him minimum to share some degree of conflation with Janus, the two-faced Roman god that looks ahead to the future and behind to the past (hence, January) or Father Time.  Patron of pyrotechnic artists? Champagne-bottlers?  We get nothing.
Though Emperor Constantine’s conversion to the Christian faith is usually attributed to his victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on the outskirts of Rome while marching under a “heavenly divine symbol,” another story is told that as pontiff, Silvester healed a impenitent emperor of his leprosy, not wanting to listen to any spiritual counsel on why he ought not to take a second wife. Supposedly, out of gratitude, Constantine accorded the papacy with ecclesiastic power over all of Christendom and secular authority in the Western Empire. The so called Donation of Constantine, however, that records this agreement is universally acknowledged as a medieval forgery, crafted some five centuries later when the Church was the only vestige of Roman institutions in order to bolster legitimacy for Church’s supremacy and independence (and wealth) from the crown of state. No one is certain, but the document seems to have been produced and cited for the first time in the eight century, when Pope Stephen II crossed the Alps to crown Charlemagne’s father as Franconian king—to say thanks for the granting of lands that became known as the Papal States and for his help in stopping the Muslim invasion of France via Catalonia—and thus extinguishing the dynasty of those pesky Merovingians. The thirty-first of December preceded the beginning of the New Year in the Roman calendar since a thousand years before Silvester’s time, but curiously the celebration for New Year’s only was shifted around during those high middle ages until the introduction of the Gregorian calendar around the time that officials admitted that the Donation of Constantine was a hoax, with some locations observing the change-over in late March, when Mary was visited by the Angel Gabriel and told she was with child. Those malingerers who did not readily accept the new date-structure, which cost the world two weeks, were referred to as April Fools.

cheers, darlings!

Happy New Year everyone and thanks for visiting. While you’re getting ready for your own count-down and celebrations, check out these veritable rodeos of this past year’s superlatives, expertly compiled and curated by Miss Cellania—first, the media, second humanity and then third, the virtual domain. One thing that’s for certain for next year is that we will be seeing a return of Eurydice Colette Clytemnestra Dido Bathsheba Rabelais Patricia Cocteau Stone—Patsy, Patsy Stone.

fermi’s paradox or good fences make good neighbours

In the 1950s astrophysicist and futurist Enrico Fermi posed the question that encapsulated not whether we were alone in the Universe but rather where is everybody, and given his lack of the cosmological observations of the present, put forward a pretty stupendous conjecture that’s but puzzled over since. Granted that at the time, many of the important criteria were know—the extreme old age of the Universe, its size, the commonality of stars but significantly, the commonality of stars harbouring planets, approaching one hundred percent and it would probably be more unusual for a star not to have a solar system, still the expectation remained that there ought to be alien life out there in abundance. This postulate has inspired a lot of debate by individuals with far superior credentials but I think it’s a very worthwhile exercise to try to imagine the counterintuitive:

• Intelligent life is something rare or unique—seemingly unlikely across the eons and vast distances, populated with stellar and planetary bodies, though natural cataclysm might account for relatively short-lived civilizations
• It’s in the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself and others—more likely given our track record (seminal events like harnessing the destructive power of atom or bad environmental stewardship) and the fittest life forms to evolve would force out the weaker
• We’re listening but not too chatty ourselves—the totem space-invaders depiction of the Arecibo Message represents one of the few times humans have intentionally reached out
• The Earth is dismissed as something too exposed—hardy humans don’t hide within Dyson spheres and those with more delicate constitutions could not imagine that place being hospitable or like us, they’re turning in on themselves, content with virtual reality, fantasy and vicarious living or worried about economic and social disruption as exploitative schemes become unsustainable
• Humans are intentional kept at bay—we are excluded as inmates of an alien zoo, they fear us given that our imagined portrayals of contact are often brutal, xenophobic and catastrophic
• Aliens are too alien—their sense of timing or scale may be totally out of sync with ours or our symbols, glyphs and patterns go unrecognised like theirs do for us

What do you think? Do you have any theories? We don’t have any basis of comparison of course, except ourselves and though unlikely to disburden ourselves from esteem and bias, it is rather extraordinary that in the time that humans have existed, physiologically and intellectually recognisable as humans, all of recorded history—rounding it off to a segment of ten thousand years—could have repeated nearly two dozen times or more already, if allowed to play out from its inception to conclusion. All that fits into just the last few million years and does not even touch the billions that came before. The paradox itself could be responsible for this silence as a sort of self-propagating disbelief across the galaxy that surely we cannot be the first to reach out or be contacted.

hail to the chief

Dangerous Minds shares this terrific send-up of the outsider candidate Donald Trump’s “platform”—produced rather surprisingly by a group of Arizona Republicans—in the form of well-choreographed and spot-on on-point Country music video.
Despite the message (and I suppose the satire is of a subtly that could mask the ridicule for a few nanoseconds), some supporters are ironically using the song during campaign rallies. Incidentally, the pomp and circumstance of Hail to the Chief—adapted from a Sir Walter Scott poem about the Lady of the Lake with references to Beltane, the Golden Bough and Druids—was originally somewhat of a bombastic parody, a useful signature tune to draw attention to less imposing office-holders, whether they wanted to be noticed or not.

5x5

gnomon: sundial with exacting perforations shows the time of day in digits with instructions to make your own

race to the bottom: more and more countries are outfitting outposts in Antarctica, via Superpunch

biscione: the heraldic serpent borne on the Alfa-Romeo logo is a viper eating a child—or possibly a Moor

out standing in the field: more winners and runners up for National Geographic’s photography contest

fist-bump: handshaking protocol from around the world