(no subject)

There is no absolutely pure rational knowledge except the four principles to which I have attributed metalogical truth; the principles of identity, contradiction, excluded middle, and sufficient reason of knowledge. For even the rest of logic is not absolutely pure rational knowledge.
...
§ 11. In this regard the direct opposite of rational knowledge is feeling, and therefore we must insert the explanation of feeling here. The concept which the word feeling denotes has merely a negative content, which is this, that something which is present in consciousness, is not a concept, is not abstract rational knowledge. Except this, whatever it may be, it comes under the concept of feeling. Thus the immeasurably wide sphere of the concept of feeling includes the most different kinds of objects, and no one can ever understand how they come together until he has recognised that they all agree in this negative respect, that they are not abstract concepts. For the most diverse and even antagonistic elements lie quietly side by side in this concept; for example, religious feeling, feeling of sensual pleasure, moral feeling, bodily feeling, as touch, pain, sense of colour, of sounds and their harmonies and discords, feeling of hate, of disgust, of self-satisfaction, of honour, of disgrace, of right, of wrong, sense of truth, æsthetic feeling, feeling of power, weakness, health, friendship, love, &c. &c. There is absolutely nothing in common among them except the negative quality that they are not abstract rational knowledge.

--- Arthur Schopenhauer, The World As Will And Idea.

(no subject)

On a totally unrelated subject. Last season Harry Kane was the captain of Tottenham and he scored a bunch of goals for the team. In summer he became a free agent and signed with Bayern for a cool E100M fee. Everybody thought that Tottenham was finished.

Not so fast. With Kane gone, other Tottenham players are scoring at a nice pace and the team is at the top of the Premier League. Moreover, they are playing well as a team, which is definitely the work of their manager. Of course, Tottenham got lucky in the controversial game with Liverpool, but hey in sports "they don't ask how you score; they ask how many." In the meantime, Kane is providing the much needed scoring for Bayern. Not much adjustment was needed for him to become productive for the team.

I can't remember any other case where the departure of the best player improved both his former and the current teams.

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(no subject)

Current efforts to understand human brain remind me of digging a tunnel from two opposite sides of a mountain. That is, from the first side, a community of researchers is trying to gather data by implanting sensors directly into the brain. From the other side, a different community is getting glimpses into the brain through getting data from "peripheral" organs, e.g. eyes, blood, limbs, skin, etc. I wonder when and where they are going to meet.

(no subject)

Reason is feminine in nature; it can only give after it has received. Of itself it has nothing but the empty forms of its operation.

--- Arthur Schopenhauer.

Over millennia, the unique ability of women to conceive and bear children got interpreted as their only ability.