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Philosophy And Art Can’t Answer The Big Questions. Only Science Can

Perhaps whole revised paradigms of thought, such as those a century or so ago when relativity and quantum mechanics emerged, will take comprehension in currently unimaginable directions. Maybe we shall find that the cosmos is just mathematics rendered substantial. Maybe our comprehension of consciousness will have to be left to the artificial device that we thought was merely a machine for simulating it. Maybe, indeed, circularity again, only the artificial consciousness we shall have built will have the capacity to understand the emergence of something from nothing. I consider that there is nothing that the scientific method cannot elucidate.

Art Criticism Vs. Art Journalism: Which Responsibilities Are Whose?

“In the first episode of Momus‘s ‘Criticism in Conversation’ [podcast] series, an art critic and an art journalist parse the differing responsibilities and approaches of their craft. Join Catherine G. Wagley (Momus contributing editor, and critic for ARTNews and L.A. Review of Books), and Julia Halperin (Executive Editor of artnet News, and former Museums Editor for The Art Newspaper) as they compare notes and find common ground.”

A Neuroscientist Finds She Has Been Reading Differently? Why? She Investigates

The reason no one’s reading War and Peace is, Clay Shirky asserted, because it’s “too long, and not so interesting.” Instead of mourning the loss of the “cathedral” reading experience offered by a great 19th-century novel, we should be adapting to the “bazaar” culture of the internet. If the medium trains our supremely adaptable brains to work differently, well, maybe that’s because they need to work that way to take advantage of “the net’s native forms.”

The Key Thing Sasha Baron Cohen’s ‘This Is America’ Reveals Isn’t Gullibility Or Bigotry – It’s Fear

“Cohen’s real trump card is [the character] Col. Erran Morad, an Israeli ‘anti-terrorism expert’ who plays into every fantasy American conservatives seem to have about Israel. … Morad exposes these worshippers of military masculinity as almost parodically antiheroic. They’ll do anything as long as it’s called ‘training,’ no matter how humiliating it is in their eyes, and if it will save their own skin.”

‘Chris, Let’s Talk About Your Performance Issues’ Turns Out To Be Ad For Ballet Company

“Earlier this summer, strange billboards and bus-stop ads started popping up around Louisville, Kentucky. A woman, Jessica, was sending public messages — that seemed really personal — to a guy named Chris. Things like, ‘Chris, maybe we should try role playing’ or ‘Chris, let’s talk about your performance issues.'” After a few weeks of letting folks in the city toss around theories (and they did), Louisville Ballet fessed up. And, says the company’s marketing director, the campaign worked in more than one way. (She also says that Chris and Jessica are real.)

James Baldwin’s Only Children’s Book, Forgotten For 42 Years, Is Back

“When Little Man, Little Man was first published in 1976, critics didn’t know what to make of an experimental, enigmatic picture book that straddled the line between children’s and adult literature. It received lukewarm reviews and quickly went out of print. Now, roughly four decades later, Baldwin’s relatives have resurrected the work, with a new edition from Duke University Press, and it could scarcely be more timely.”