Dr. Brandon Beasley 🇨🇦

Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.

Ends on the interesting note that, while Newton wrote & cared as much about astrology & alchemy as mathematics & physics, in his lifetime he only published his work on the latter but not the former, a distinction that many of his predecessors wouldn't have made, reflecting changing scientific norms.

Finished reading this today, the latest in some reading I've been doing about the history of science and the role played by what we would now think of as occult, mystical, or magical ideas in the progress of science in the 14th to 17th centuries.

"All we sought was the truth that the facts didn’t tell us."

-- Philip Marlowe, in Raymond Chandler's *The Long Goodbye*.

Why AI chatbots lie to us A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine needed to collect and format some data from a website, and he asked the latest version of Anthropic’s generative AI system, Claude, for help. Claude cheerfully agr...

Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social is always worth reading on AI, and this is no exception.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Idea: Sellars' claim that "means" statements ("... means ___") are metalinguistic and display the functional roles of concepts, is basically his version, in the idiom of analytic philosophy ("the new way of words"), of Peirce's 'pragmatic maxim'.

(I cannot be the first to think this)

It’s kinda fun that “substance”, “hypostasis” and “understand” all kinda have the same base meaning, looking at their etymology. Stand under.

When we hypothesize we place something under, try it as a foundation. When we gain the right kind of confidence, we stand there with it.

"The traditional mind-body problem is...a veritable tangle of tangles. At first sight but one of the 'problems of philosophy,' it soon turns out, as one picks at it, to be nothing more nor less than the philosophical enterprise as a whole."

-- Wilfrid Sellars, "Intentionality and the Mental", 507

Cautious -- like one fording a stream in winter
Hesitant -- like one in awe of his surroundings
Respectful -- like a guest
Poised -- like melting ice about to fall
Honest -- like unhewn wood
Empty -- like a valley
Opaque -- like muddy water

-- Dao De Jing ch 15, my translation (based on D.C. Lau's)

Of old, those who were called scholars
were mysterious, subtle, and with knowledge
so profound that it cannot be understood.

Because we cannot understand, we can only know them by their outward appearance:

No witty comment; I'm just very happy to see this.

doi.org/10.1017/apa....

Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced
for contingencies!
O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, acci-
dents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.

-- Walt Whitman, "Me Imperturbe"

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all, or mistress of all—aplomb in the midst
of irrational things,
Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles,
crimes, less important than I thought;
[...]

Oh that would work! Sort of like the 'approxinately equals' sign in math.

This is a great idea. If it wasn't already taken by some other languages for direct quotation I'd suggest using these: <<...>>

The writer Trevanian (nom de plume of film scholar Rodney William Whitaker), described the typical fan of his novels in a peculiar way, which it seems to me is apt to describe what is best in pragmatism and something I recognize in myself:

"An idealist mugged by reality".

Count me in!

Human Meanings | Brandon Beasley | Substack Thoughts and arguments, philosophical and otherwise, from a humanistic perspective that holds that meanings are the unique and most important things we create, express, and live by. Click to read Huma...

I have a blog--it's actually a substack, but I'm old enough to still call it a blog--here: beasley.substack.com. So far it only has one post, "Are We in the Anthropocene or Not?" (beasley.substack.com/p/are-we-in-...) from over a year ago, but I intend to publish more regularly starting soon.

The advance version of latest article, "What is Pragmatism's Language and Experience Debate Really About?" in Contemporary Pragmatism is now out: brill.com/view/journal...

If you would like me to send you a copy, I'm happy to do so; email me at bbeasley[at]ucalgary.ca

Not two minutes on here and already I'm reminded why I quit social media! Haha.

So, don't expect to see me much. But I will post little updates from time to time, and the occasional substack post, once I start that up.

In the mean time, as my therapist says: take good care.

Got this in a fortune cookie a while back. Sums up my philosophical project rather well (if in French).

Congratulations! Hope to see you in the next cabinet.