"Elections" in the institute

Yesterday we had the second tour of our elections. We had to select two people (from the Assoc. Prof. level or above, younger people are democratically ineligible to compete) who would represent the Institute of Philosophy within the Assembly of the BG Academy of Sciences. Among many non-democratic events that day one seems particularly repulsive. One of the right hands of the chief "competitor"(the very director of the Institute), a middle aged Professor, probably due to his own stupidity, said to one of the young colleagues:

You HAVE to vote for the director and his partner because if you don't you the young people would start getting kicked out of the Institute.

Year is 2008. Bulgaria. EU.

Post-Communist democrazy in academic BG

A couple of days ago two people in a state academic place received official warning that they would be fired. For posting their protesting letters in a philosophical web forum. The letters protested against the imbecile system of evaluation at the academic place and were sent to the managing heads of the place. Instead of discussion the warnings, actually in the form of semi-official threats followed. Cheers!

Cake, "Frank Sinatra"

We know of an ancient radiation
That haunts dismembered constellations,
A faintly glimmering radio station.
While Frank Sinatra sings stormy weather,
The flies and spiders get along together,
Cobwebs fall on an old skipping record.

Beyond the suns that guard this roof,
Beyond your flowers of flaming truths,
Beyond your latest ad campaigns,
An old man sits collecting stamps
In a room all filled with Chinese lamps.
He saves what others throw away.
He says that hell be rich some day.

We know of an ancient radiation
That haunts dismembered constellations,
A faintly glimmering radio station.

We know of an ancient radiation
That haunts dismembered constellations,
A faintly glimmering radio station.
While Frank Sinatra sings stormy weather,
The flies and spiders get along together,
Cobwebs fall on an old skipping record.

RICHARD III

NO BEAST SO FIERCE BUT KNOWS SOME TOUCH OF PITY.
BUT I KNOW NONE, AND THEREFORE I AM NO BEAST.

Richard III

William Shakespeare

The "no regrets" illumination

Now, that I look back, and I see the things in a quite different way that I used to. In fact, it is clear that it does not matter whether A would do a mistake first or B. Yes, it is true that B's mistake might have been influenced by A's one but not necessarily. For if A was a kind of unmistakable would not have committed a mistake in the first place. Time could show that once thought to be wrong choices are actually good ones. And therefore the attitude of no regrets is the adequate one and not the one that goes on digging and trying to rebuild the past with a back date. People should be as ready to acknowledge the mistakes of the others as their own. It is fair. Thus fuck you, past, welcome dynamic present. Pardon my French, if you know what I mean (and you probably don't).

The beginning of the end

Some 30 minutes ago I have finished the main body of my CEU thesis. When I look back, honestly, I can't believe it. I left my good job in Sofia, I left my girlfriend and my family to come to a country with a language I will never learn to write a text in a philosophical tradition I hardly knew at all. The first year was perhaps the most difficult in my academic life. Not because of the complexity of the ideas, which are usually far from simple, but because I had to face the true reality of my intellectual limits. I just could not believe that I am that stupid. Now, I am much more comfortable with myself. I know that some things I will never understand and this does not bother me as much as some 6 years ago. Yet, and this is the good part, I also know that if presented with sufficiently efficient stimulae I am capable, at least in principle, to develop my rationality in such a way that to become able to grasp what any human on the planet is able to grasp. Technicalities like time, energy, actual neuron configurations, love life, lazyness and the like I leave aside :). Thus, I have now much greater confidence in human rationality (and by far not just mine) than I had before. Also, I prefer to think that I have better understanding of it too. If I knew how those years would change my life I am not sure that I would have chosen the same way. Still, as I know how stubborn I am and especially for non-rational matters (I have reinvented the application of the euphemism "intuitive") I would have probably done all things in the same way again. I have the feeling that all mistakes that I made are actually inherent part of me and choosing to avoid them would have amounted to pretending to be someone actually I am not. Even the worst of them, such that concern and hurt the closest people. If I am a bad person and If I do bad things or simply stupid then be it but at least that is me and me alone. And I need to know my real me. This could not be a mistake. My text could be full of mistakes, for sure, but I liked the intellectual road that led to it. I might even not be able to defend but now (unlike 5 years ago) I really do not consider that so important. At the end of the day if the text is not good I myself would not like to get a degree that allegedly pronounces it as a good one. Fair enough. Walking is often so much better than arriving. Perhaps, there might be no arriving at all.

Philosophy of Film

Last week, besides writing my thesis, I was devising courses in Philosophy. For SU. First I mounted one about Philosophy of Film. then, to make it worse, I assembled one about Philosophy of Science. At the end I wrote one on what I know best, the a priori. My guess would be that the Film would be rejected for being "too lite". :). Then, the philosophy of science would be rejected for being too "same" like the main course. Last chances for the a priori. But it is offered in English so I do not really know. If some english speaking students really can cope with analityc philosophy lang-wise chances are that they are not at SU. So looking forward to next year :).

The catch in Leibniz's Law

Eversince I read Kripke I can't get rid of that feeling that there is huge problem lurking in the LL. It is a numerical problem and it comes from language and not the world as it is. I could hardly be accused of being Millean about mathematics but I am pretty sure that even if some part of Frege's criticism is right the whole aproach was wrong. I mean, wrong. For as far as genuine metaphysics is involved properties might not happen to be just properties of concepts and thus a second order properties. I like the idea that our mind attributes numbers as properties to our concepts but I have the feeling that this does not help us much with the actual role maths plays in natural sciences. So yesterday I wrote 3k words on Kripke, blaming him for Lebniz's faults. I mean, the guy is still alive and can do somethign about it. Leibniz can't, Frege too so it would be a kind of unfair :).

A Good New day

More than an year after. Keane, "Everybody's changing". Morpheus, "Some things never change". Anyway. Who gives a flying fuck. For what is worth, I don't. Can't fly, you see. Yesterday of all the streets in Budapest I got on Vaci Utca. Yeah, I know. But I was sick, the flu got me well and I was trying to get to a change and get some money to go home. So before that, just to make it a bit clearer, for several months I freak out on all LEICA stuff. I dream about the Noctilux, no kiddin'. Making plans to get the RED camera. Now when I recall that I was seriously thinking that bying the HVX is crazy, quite funny. So I do lousy pics with my Lumix just to learn how to work with Leica and then the next moment I get out of the change beaureau. Some forints in the pocket. I turn left to the square and I see the typical tourist trap, selling photos of Budapest. 250ft each. Cheap. I look at them, like three and as I bye them I ask the girl with the hat whether she took them. She nods and points with her head towards a guy, Zoltan. Looks like a beggar. I ask him "Nice pictures, what camera did you use." The guy says in bad English "Leica". I can't believe my ears. I say "Yeah, I really like the M8 but it is too expensive for me right now". The guy smiles and opens his bag "I have one here". There it was. An M8. With a zoom lens though. but nice. Later, I was thinking whether it was the Leica look of the pictures of Danube or it was just a random catch. At the end of the day, who doesn't have a Leica these days :).

Shivaree, Goodnight Moon lyrics:
http://www.personal.ceu.hu/students/03/Boris_Grozdanoff/goodnight%20moon.htm