Notes - dark and delightful / cat culture / draft printed / ePublishers /

         0956 hours. I just read this tidbit from Edge which I received yesterday. I need to read more from Dennett. I like his thoughts of which this is an example.

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Edge dot Org.  March 4, 2014

THE THIRD CULTURE - HeadCon '13 Part X: WHAT'S NEW IN SOCIAL SCIENCE?

Edge #413 - Daniel C. Dennett The De-Darwinizing of Cultural Change - Part X HeadCon '13

            "Think for a moment about a termite colony or an ant colony—amazingly competent in many ways, we can do all sorts of things, treat the whole entity as a sort of cognitive agent and it accomplishes all sorts of quite impressive behavior. But if I ask you, "What is it like to be a termite colony?" most people would say, "It's not like anything." Well, now let's look at a brain, let's look at a human brain—100 billion neurons, roughly speaking, and each one of them is dumber than a termite and they're all sort of semi-independent. If you stop and think about it, they're all direct descendants of free-swimming unicellular organisms that fended for themselves for a billion years on their own. There's a lot of competence, a lot of can-do in their background, in their ancestry. Now they're trapped in the skull and they may well have agendas of their own; they have competences of their own, no two are alike. Now the question is, how is a brain inside a head any more integrated, any more capable of there being something that it's like to be that than a termite colony? What can we do with our brains that the termite colony couldn't do or maybe that many animals couldn't do?

"It seems to me that we do actually know some of the answer, and it has to do with mainly what Fiery Cushman was talking about—it's the importance of the cultural niche and the cognitive niche, and in particular I would say you couldn't have the cognitive niche without the cultural niche because it depends on the cultural niche."

DANIEL C. DENNETT is a Philosopher; Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Co-Director, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University; Author, INTUITION PUMPS

From Edge dot Org.

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         You find the humor dark. I find it delightful. Post. - Amorella

         1243 hours. Carol will be getting her hair done within the hour then, we are off to lunch. In the meantime I will run off this first and only (I hope) pre-final draft.

         Spooky the Cat has a bird cornered outside the front window. She appears determined. If her looks and yellow eyes could raise the window it would be raised. Her thick black tail has been waving for at least four minutes. Alas, the bird must have moved on from within the front bushes. She sits and waits with her tail low and thighs high like a paddle wheel on each side. Your cats have a glass wall and those four, those paired yellow and green eyes can only witness. But then, food, water, shelter, health and entertainments are provided. What more can a cat want but what sheorhe cannot afford to have? - Amorella

         1410 hours. I really have a fine printing machine in the Brother Laser. I ran off 263 pages with nary a problem. It stopped once at some 230 sheets to add paper. Re-started, it finished quickly. The machine gave some heat off in the process but once done the fan went off. Mostly I was grabbing a few sheets at a time because I forgot to pull out the paper hold. I couldn’t pull the hold because the paper came out so rapidly. We have never had such a printer. The copy looks good with clear crisp black ink on yellow for contrast. It will be much easier to proofread. After seeing the height of the pile I will do what Amorella suggested first, read all the way through; then pull and order the segments as four separate units for readability. This way the reader can choose herorhis own way to read the work. Perhaps as an ebook the segments can be reordered automatically. (1420)

         Carol will soon return. This is a major completion for you. Not often that a writer can see his work on real paper. This allows you to feel you are actually accomplishing something. You might contact iUniverse to see what they can offer you in terms of e-book publication since they completed your first three works. It would seem the polite business-like thing to do, don’t you think? – Amorella

         1427 hours. I hadn’t given much thought to that lately. Thank you, Amorella. You are right. It would be proper. They did a good job with all four books. I will have to work up a letter, a proposal I suppose.

         I agree, a proposal. Post. - Amorella