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Before reading “Art, craft, game-theoretic cognition and machine learning”

  Originally published on Language and Philosophy, July 12, 2022 A few essentials about the language game: language is cooperation; cooperation, far from being occasional among us, is the underlying condition of humanity as water is to a fish. Cooperation is so basic to our nature that we scarcely notice it. We share a code and share it among us constantly. We are the conversing species. The seven points below are an expansion of H. Paul Grice’s insights into conversational logic.  It is obvious that language evolved and survived for the purpose of conversation — sharing information. As powerful as symbolism is for an individual alone — to have a symbol “yesterday” or “tomorrow” or “will” or “may” or “could” or “not” let alone “could not have” or “couldn’t not have” allows us to think about imaginaries beyond the real, possibilities, counterfactuals and even impossibilities, that non symbolic minds cannot think about — as powerful as that individual possession is, it is vastly more pow
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Art, craft, game-theoretic cognition and machine learning

Originally published on Language and Philosophy, July 12, 2022 Here in Istanbul, you cannot but admire the Turkish carpet and the mosques of Sinan, the carpet a wonder of intricacy, the more complex and detailed the more wondrous, and Sinan’s grand mosques a wonder of simplicity, purity and restraint even when scaled to the most expansive heights. If you are an idle wonderer with time to think about questions almost too obvious to ask, you might puzzle over why are there no simple carpets when the simplicity of the mosques is so overwhelmingly effective. Why can’t carpet makers avail themselves of modest simplicity in their craft, when purity and humility can reach so deeply into the human heart and mind? The goals of craft are not the goals of art, no doubt. But what’s the difference? Or better, why such a difference? A good libertarian, and a good Darwinian — and they might as well be the same — would ask first where the market incentives lie. The answer will go a long way to explain
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The limits of imagination, scifi, art and UFOs -- or: the intrinsic mediocrity of art

Originally published on Language and Philosophy, July 12, 2022 “Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction” – Byron It’s widely assumed that the arts are imaginative while the sciences are too constrained by reality, by formalisms, by math and by logic for flights of imagination. What if we’ve all got this backwards? One look at the history of the arts tells us that the arts are more imitative than innovative, otherwise it would be impossible to identify historical periods in the arts, and styles in the arts might be their most obvious trait, so much so that it can sometimes be difficult for an observer to tell one artist from another. This should not surprise anyone. It has a structural reason that is all too often ignored. Art is usually made for an audience. It is a game theoretic activity in which the artist must entertain the audience, which entails that the art work not lose the audience’ attention but continually communicate and engage. If the art is too innovative for the
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Dramatizing morality

Originally published on Language and Philosophy, April 13, 2011 At the start of MIkhalkov’s Burnt by the Sun , the Great Hero of the Stalinist army appears to a platoon of soldiers as himself, barely clothed — he’s just run naked out of his bath, throwing on his pants to save the local peasants from some Stalinist ukase-from-afar. The soldiers don’t recognize him until he grabs a soldier’s army cap and mugs his famous profile for him. It’s the adorable hero as genuine and authentic as well as modest, courageous and good-humored, saving everyone from disaster through his simple honest speech borne of his unalloyed dedication to his country, his people and his army that he believes defends them. In a moment, the villain of the piece will appear not as himself, but in disguise, lying, playing, charming, insinuating, seducing  — he’s an artist, a musician, a far cry from an honest, simple soldier of simple skills and simple sentiments. He saves nothing and no one. He comes to serve himself
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Herodotus at Reed

  Originally published on Language and Philosophy, February 18, 2011 A friend expresses his enthusiasm for Herodotus, which he read at Reed College. In the same breath he elucidates the familiar themes of Greek tragedy: the gods punish us out of jealousy; huvris is tempting fate. “Moderation in all things” was inscribed at Delphos. I’d always wanted to read Herodotus, and now, intrigued, I did. To my surprise, nothing of the ethic of the tragedies played in his history. It’s a secular document. Secular values are everywhere in his stories.  And not just secular, but typically liberal values, almost modern liberal values. Maybe that’s why he’s survived and is still read, or, at least, read in liberal places like Reed. Herodotus writes about rulers at length and always assesses them according to the simplest liberal standard: a king who treats his subjects well is laudable and will rule successfully. Kings who brutalize their subjects are deplorable, don’t rule well and eventually get th
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