Weeknote 17+18/2024
“If you can approach the world’s complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things...”
Verbs
Remembering: Daniel C Dennett
April 19th saw the passing of the extraordinary and monumental philosopher Dan Dennett. Dennett’s work on consciousness, artificial intelligence, and evolution was enormously influential over the last 50 years and he left an incredible mark on the intellectual landscape of philosophy. For me, Dennett was someone who, whilst I wasn’t always entirely in agreement with, I always found myself thinking he was as close as damned possible to the mark on a huge range of central debates in philosophy. In particular, Dennett’s positions on the hard problem of consciousness, qualia, and free will resonated very powerfully with me. I would teach at least a handful of his ideas and papers every year when I was a classroom philosophy teacher and his work spoke powerfully to very meaningful concerns surrounding what it means to be a person, the nature of consciousness and how we might think of free will in the light of modern science. Had I still been in the classroom I would certainly have looked at his 2023 article in the Atlantic exploring the notion of counterfeit-people, likening the challenges we will face from AI to those encountered in the counterfeiting of money. Perhaps more than anything though I, like many others, was taken by Dennett’s approach to the discipline - one of absolute commitment and deep scholarly knowledge balanced by a lightness of touch and an open, honest, and attentive approach to the thoughts and argument of others.
“The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.” - Daniel Dennett
Listening: Zeldawave by Polygon Dream and Significant Others
As I’ve been working this week I’ve really been enjoying the three ‘Zeldwave’ albums from Polygon Dream - Zeldawave I, Zeldawave II, and Temples. They are, as you might imagine, a kind of synth-wave reworking of music from the Legend of Zelda series of games. I’m not sure I’ve ever written a nerdier sentence than that but, regardless of whether you’re a Zelda-head or not, it’s really great stuff.
I’ve also been listening to a lot of the Significant Others podcast whilst I’ve been travelling in the last week. It gives a fascinating take on major historical figures by looking closely at the other important people in their lives. The episode on the Marxes was fantastic (Ted Danson voicing Marx!) but I particularly liked the episode on Nietzsche. I’ve long been aware of the monstrous figure of Nietzsche’s sister, Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche, in his life but it seems I had no idea just how bad things were. Not only did she seem to systematically wreak havoc on much of his life - particularly when he was ill - but she also catastrophically distorted his legacy after his death. It took well into the 1960s and 1970s for philosophers and historian to make headway in clearing all of the corruption and lies she had sown. It’s a great episode and really illuminating plus the fantastic Flula Borg gets to voice Nietzsche. The podcast is also expertly and engagingly hosted, and written, by Liza Powell O’Brien who has a real knack for getting to the crux of a story whilst never reducing things to superficialities. She also happens to be the significant other of Conan O’Brien…
Watching: Dead Boy Detectives
Set in the Sandman universe of Neil Gaiman, and with cameos from characters drawn from Netflix’s adaptation of Sandman, Dead Boy Detectives is a bit more a spirited romp than Sandman. It’s got some slight YA tinges around the edges and maybe could do with deciding a little more firmly what it wants to be, but it’s a big bag of fun with some great central characters, really engaging performances and enough jeopardy, mystery, and drama to drive the show along. Although it doesn’t quite get the same lyrical and mythical highs as Sandman, it’s still beautifully shot, directed, and produced and feels like pretty high-calibre stuff. The real suspension of disbelief in this show, though, is not so much that ghosts live amongst us, and demons prowl the earth, but that any of the main protagonists are actually in their late teens. That aside, all of the central ensemble are riveting and have great natural chemistry and their supporting cast is delivering at just as high a level - Jenny Lyon as the witch Esther Finch is particularly brilliant and steals every single scene for me.
Reading: Presidential Glaciers
A short article in the Guardian last week that I really enjoyed was this piece on a political movement in Iceland that is looking to have a particular glacier, called Snæfellsjökull, listed in the upcoming presidential elections. It’s a great read and a brilliant idea from this grassroots campaign:
On paper Snæfellsjökull meets all of the basic requirements: it is older than 35 years and arguably can be considered a citizen of Iceland. The need for a civil registration number was skirted after Rawlings legally took on Snæfellsjökull as a middle name, in essence allowing the campaign organiser to become a proxy for the glacier on the ballot.
What I love about this is that it is, in a sense, silly and unserious, it is also extremely serious and is a way of drawing considerable attention to very important, and divisive, environmental issues. This sort of creative leveraging of political systems has a long and very rich history and it’s a brilliant way to raise awareness, bring important topics into public discussion, and challenge well-established political norms. In the UK we have Count Binface who serves a similar absurd but essential role in political discourse. I wish Snæfellsjökull all the best in June’s elections!
Words
A building in Riga. It was dark, so I didn’t find out what it was. A museum maybe?
It’s a double-feature this week as last week I was away in Riga, Latvia, running a workshop for the International Baccalaureate. I had a great time in Riga, working with a dozen or so fantastic participants for an IB Theory of Knowledge Workshop. It’s been 8 or so years since I’ve been in Riga, and it was December then so extremely cold. We had much better weather this time round although not a great deal of time to enjoy the spring sunshine. The workshop was very successful and it was really enjoyable working with educators from right across the region - Lithuania, Sweden, Germany, Kuwait, Saudia Arabia, Norway, and Poland. We had an intensive, but very productive 2 1/2 days together where we managed to deeply explore the TOK course and how it can be an engaging, valuable, and impactful part of students’ IB studies.
I remember eating very well the last time I was in Riga and this time absolutely lived up to those expectations Some brilliant seafood, a basque cheesecake that will long live in my memories, and one of the best pizzas I’ve had outside of Italy, too. The Baltic region has always been a real pleasure to visit and I’ve just got Estonia to go now so I think Tallinn might have to be on the cards in the future.
I was lucky with the travel this time (if you remember my jaunt to Abu Dhabi in January you’ll know what a relief that is) and the whole trip was pretty smooth from start to finish. Having these chances of working with teachers who are delivering courses that mean an awful lot to me and that I’ve given a great deal of time to is incredibly rewarding as well as being huge amounts of fun. I really do have to thank them, and the IB staff who were, as ever, incredibly welcoming, eminently professional, and a pleasure to be with.
Now back in Novi Sad, we’ve been trying to navigate the weather which has ranged from balmy late-spring sunshine to heavy thunderstorms. As they say in Serbia, lije kao iz kabla. You’ll be pleased to know, though, that Teddy the dog has had lots of opportunities for the dog park - to the extent that even walking within a few hundred metres of it now results in him gaining the strength of a mid-size JCB as he powers as hard as he can in the park’s direction. We’re also getting ready for our trip to Malta next week which will be part celebration of Anja’s birthday that took place just before I set off for Riga. We’ve never been to Malta so we’re both looking forward to the chance to explore somewhere new as well as, we hope, getting some solid sunshine and good food. Unfortunately, I do have to work for part of our trip so I’ll be relegated to the hotel room for some hours each day but there should still be plenty of time to relax and enjoy our time away.