Terence Rajivan Edward

Bourdieu writes about so many things, about art, about sport, about homo academicus, about Algeria. It's daunting, but let's focus on familiar territory: the academic field. Bourdieu says you need that stylistic touch in your writing to progress - good argument, references, logic: it is not enough - and that how to achieve this touch cannot be specified in rules and is more readily available to affluent and cultured classes. But Bourdieu was mainly familiar with France. In England at least, there are all sorts of peculiar rules that you might well not know about, such as “Say ‘first’ not ‘firstly’ " (learnt from my sister) and "Use ‘alternative’ only when there is a choice of two" (learnt from the online commentary section of The Telegraph). If I tell you these rules, you might find them annoying and tell me to go away, though perhaps somewhat vulgarly. But when you learn them, you can signal that you belong to a distinguished class quite easily. That is a challenge to Bourdieu: we just don't need reference to undefinable class-specific stylistic touch to explain why this social class dominate subjects with writing (and what subject does not have writing, beyond mathematical symbols?). I am not sure if Bourdieu will fall at this challenge or not - you know I am terrible with confidentiality! Anyway, it is time for something you have all been waiting for. Imagine that I am an enemy with an apartment in a German castle. What is going to happen if you enter my apartment? I am going to show you something very frightening. I call it the dancing program, in GWBASIC with semicolons added for line breaks ("Semicolons from C or from Javascript?" No answer - just press enter instead within the interpreter, works on QBASIC too.). It happened to a machine and maybe it can happen to you, even if you, like me, have FREE WILL. (I hope I have got this right; I cannot be bothered checking the online manual.) 10 X = 0; 20 PRINT CHR$(X); 30 X = X+1; 40 IF X < 256 THEN GOTO 20; 50 GOTO 10;

Is there discontent with the much-cited British social anthropologist, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, whose work is also popular amongst analytic philosophers? A long-term colleague of mine, though no longer one I assume, Dr. Nicola Scott, voices some distaste when she hears his name. She was in social anthropology, then politics, then study skills. I also shared an office with her in the Williamson Building of the University of Manchester and we watched a quiz called Countdown together on the large television I kept there: I thought I was good at this show! With Evans-Pritchard, he is a scientist and also an Oxford gentleman, but it is a tricky combination to pull off, isn't it? "How are you going to do that?" people must have wondered, at the University of Cambridge, at the London School of Economics, and in Paris and beyond. (One spots the special ones early, I suspect, to use a term I found "entailed" from José Mourinho's contributions to UK popular culture. It was his first interview here as football manager, or something, and you felt, or one felt, this is hot-stuff in the football-popular culture system! Why does he not say, "I am THE special one, if he is so special?" It's a paradox. Is that humility in the appropriate league?) In the unabridged version of E.E. Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (no Oxford comma), Evans-Pritchard wrote, "There is one unlucky agent, however, who bears so close a resemblance to witches that he must be described in this chapter. This is a person who cuts his upper teeth first. Such a man is called an irakörinde; ira, possessor of, kö ( a contraction of kere), bad, and rinde, teeth. He is considered unlucky but not a serious menace, like witches, since he never kills people." (1937?: 57) The interest of numerous readers is awakened, I believe, but the desired details are absent for me. Is it that he never kills people but some of them contemplate suicide, or actually do it? He is not a witch, but was there a lot of public demand to say that he is a witch, leading to expert witchdoctors to quit and a very questionable kind of witchdoctor to get promoted? The rotation system the experts were using, to relieve pressure, was not enough perhaps. He does not give any details. Is that science? (I imagine a foolish reader saying, "I will give necessary and sufficient conditions for being an irakörinde.") Is that his being an Oxford gentleman, or is it actually admissible by the local standards of science, and what about the international ones? What does Evans-Pritchard, a famously religious man, think? He has never seen a case, and the structural-functionalism of that period does not allow one to go into history, though Evans-Pritchard later protested about this. (The song lyrics quoted in my title come from "You're still the one." The singer, Shania Twain, is Ojibwa-Canadian? To scientists who think the other races cannot do science because of racial inferiority, I will repeat the question: how did these people survive European diseases? "If that happens to you, then you'll see who can do science," an Ojibwa probably thinks.)

There are some contributions of mine which I delete because, um, they are not timeless I think. "Where is this other house? You say that it is massive and like ours, but I cannot seem to find it, though I did find a smaller house like ours located on Daisy -ank Road... Is this other house of which you refer just a delusion of yours (or could it be that this job affects the phenomenology of perception? Surely not?!)" Who wants to know about all this and for how long? But I have come across a local competition, which is perhaps of longer-term interest. The ChaChaChai restaurant branch in Rusholme has a frame between tables with some hexagons. They are cleverly arranged to form a star in the centre. Perhaps it is a bit vulgar to some eyes, but it is good, isn't it? Next door, one closer to Oxford Road, is the restaurant MyLahore. It has got some massive hexagons drawn in the waiting area. "Don’t do fancy star-in-the-middle nonsense. MASSIVE HEXAGONS," they seem to be saying. That is good too, I think - it is funny and I live in a nation famous for comedy. Also I have seen some arrangements of hexagon shapes at the University of Manchester, by the Williamson Building near Oxford Road. They are very beautifully crafted and they are arranged in a somewhat similar way to ChaChaChai's but there is no star-shape they make in the centre. But I did pay attention to the names in the central hexagon: Nancy Rothwell, for example. I am not named of course, and I guess the reader is wondering: do you want your name in the central hexagon yourself, T.R. Edward? I don't because I am not convinced by the hexagon as a shape. The Romantic poet William Blake wrote words to the effect, "Mock on Rousseau, mock on Voltaire, atomism will beat you." With an octagon, you can take a single type of block (within a computer program, say) and you can make a token of it, and then you can rotate it and add it and that is another token, and then you can take the block type and make a third token of it, and the result is an octagon, I believe. There is one atom from which the octagon is made. Of course, there is a clash with the standard stop-sign octagon used here. What to do about that? In Europe, with the influence of the Greeks, the standard representation of any polygon beyond four sides, and maybe even some four-sided ones, is as close to the ideal of the circle as possible. But atomism is our way. Are we local atomists or are we circle-admiring Europeans, with our ancient Greek cultural heritage? (Probably there are already people quietly discussing this question. I anticipate someone's asking, "Where did you get this octagon atomism idea from?" Not from these quiet discussions, which, as just implied,I have never heard. From the famous UK love of atomism, I suppose, but also I might have been prompted by another source. But I anticipate them saying, or their saying, "Please do not refer to me in this. I run a large restaurant in town and the food is very good, but it does not attract as many people as we would expect, though it does attract a certain gentleman, I suppose: he is polite but few amongst us would use that term." And someone else, within hearing range, ill-advisedly saying, "You know I'm good, even though the food was extremely disgusting at the time when you ate it. I'll take on imperialistic Germany for us Chinese.") I have put this paper in logical atomism and chemical atomism, because there is no geometric atomism, which I suspect is a mistake.

Stream of consciousness abstract (soc is relative to context): This pub, The Grafton, is good. There is not many people here, I wonder why. I am never going to be allowed in here again, if they find out what I did to get this whole pub! Just a few quiet and respectful others. Who is that guy who almost put his arm around me and... anyway, forget it. A defensive people, that's for sure! Wait: could that be attack? Francis Bacon's essay On Friendship. How did this even happen? It was the 17th century or whenever. There must have been a set of Cambridge whizzes - they whiz, don't they? you have to admit, they whiz - and they each came up with a super-clever paradox on friendship, you cannot get better than this, no way no way. And then one of them said, "We need to include Oxford Uni too." They were all disgusted of course, but they decided they had too. So they had a vote and the loser (that is Francis Bacon, by the way) had to do this: he had to hide away his clever paradox, so clever, no one can ever surpass this level. And he had to write a faux Oxford essay, elegantly capturing the point of view of the common man. But not too elegantly. Oxford would get into a fury and an Oxford essayist would show them how it is actually done. But something went very wrong. The Oxford essayists did not do anything. And all the brilliant paradoxes disappeared. And all that is left now is Francis Bacon's faux-Oxford essay. There needs to be a name for this, like trailblazer, but the other direction or something. It will come to me, Grafton, it surely will. Who are these young people coming in, only three? Of them! I bet Francis Bacon would like to know - I mean the essayist, if he came back ("Hey I'm 20th century art, but I wrote some essays too") - how Evans-Pritchard entered into Cambridge history. Oxford man E.E. Evans-Pritchard. How? The main problem for me is him surely, I hope this is not too arrogant of course, while the problem for him is one above: HOBBES. THOMAS HOBBES. How can it be? I can't even fathom Evans-Pritchard's level and he is clearly not even on top gear. "I eat, I sleep, I have children, and more." How good is Hobbes? Tell me, I want to know. No, no: I wanna know! No, I don't want to know. Avoid the core system. Avoid the core. Whatever is at the core of this country avoid! Avoid Russell, Wittgenstein he is not your friend. Avoid token women, token women, they are not your friends! But play like Barcelona too! No, Barcelona II! You gotta have a bit spice. My shop will be VULGAR!!!!!!! "Can you beat Francis Bacon, Terence?" Anyone can, I reckon: something very bad has happened here. History has guns, has angels, has tongues - Stephen Spender, or one of the other poets of that time. THE ANGEL! Definitely not the tongue. (A piece of added dialogue, 21: 12. NORMAL CONDITIONS: I'll do it; I am that gooooooood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I hope I can add another one of these contributions today. I am not sure who reads these, though I do have a troubling intuition regarding whom the last reader will be. I will address Muslim immigrants to the UK here. I imagine them thinking, "The myths are true. There are very high levels of human female flesh exposure here," with perhaps different associated emotions, depending on the individual. "How did this happen?" the new migrants wonder. (By the way, I am writing on 2nd July 2025, in case the ow; of minerva usually flies at dusk.) Well, dear friends, you know BUCHALEMON. (By the way, when Evans-Pritchard uses capitals it does not seem vulgar, but when Jerry Fodor does it seems vulgar. That cannot be right. "I am a very beautiful woman at the dining table now and I am about to...") Buchalemon visits one theological reading group and he fits in with them, he/she/... visits another theological reading group and fits in with them too. It is unclear how, because these reading groups are not compatible in X number of ways. Anyway (this is a speculation of mine, I should take care to say), now imagine a character in a Euro-American society with moderate flesh exposure levels, a kind of Buchalemon I suppose. He sees a woman exposing some flesh and he says, "Don't do that," which makes her rebellious and more flesh is exposed the next day. He sees another woman exposing some flesh and he says, "Do that more," and she needed some encouragement (given certain ends) and more flesh is exposed the next day. And then you get the observable result, respectful readers. ("What about me? I change my temper from time to time." No comment.) I hope addressing this theme is not too vulgar; it is a matter of some curiosity and probably practical interest.

Do you remember January 2020? In a Danish newspaper a cartoon appeared. The Telegraph said, "The cartoon, published in Jyllands-Posten on Monday, depicted a Chinese flag with the yellow stars normally found in the upper left corner exchanged for drawings of the new coronavirus." The Chinese embassy in Denmark said that the cartoon crossed the acceptable boundaries for freedom of speech. Apparently the Chinese people were upset. The cartoon was by Niels Bo Bojesen. The Danish prime minister said that Danes had freedom of expression, including freedom to draw, and apparently there is a long tradition of satirical drawings in Denmark. I saw some reactions online from Chinese people, reminding the world of Danish capitulation to German Nazis, if I remember correctly. You can imagine how the Danes must have talked. "Of course the Chinese can draw but do they have ideas?” “Bobo has ideas.” “A Chinese flag with a virus instead of the yellow stars. That is an idea.” “Bobo is the conceptual artist. The Chinese merely have the technical artist, Yuyu Fang or whatever.” “Is a technical artist actually an artist?” “The Chinese have not yet reached the stage of the concept.” “They have come far quite fast, but not far enough." I went to a Chinese restaurant in Manchester at the time. It was my favourite. It has been shut down now. Anyway, I ordered my usual food but it was strange. There were all these delicate white pieces in the rice. I had to pick them out one by one. I was not happy! Then I remembered all the swans in Hans Christian Andersen and Isak Dinesen (also known as Karen Blixen - I have my own sea story, by the way: The Pirate Cook. “It is not as good as Dinesen.” “Nowhere near as good.”). I did not order this dish but they gave me swan fried rice. You can imagine the Danish reaction upon reading this: "No! No! No! BOBO'S CORONAVIRUS FLAG versus SWAN FRIED RICE. This is horror!!!!" (My new publication is not appearing on my PhilPapers profile yet. If you want to know what is in my stream of consciousness, it is this: Should it not be appearing by now? Should it not? Should it not? Check it again! Check it again! Look: Christian List's new paper is in the new publications section. Mine is not there. Where is it? It's title is, what is it? what is it? Kundera and paradox of analysis, something like that. I can just imagine the reaction. "It is not as good as List's publication." "No, no, definitely not. But at least I understand it." "Oh yes, we must be fair these days and concede that we understand it, whereas we do not understand List." "But we feel, we feel List is better." "Feelings matter." Welcome to Swan Fried Rice level!!! You want some more stuff, 11.43: if List is so good, why does he not explain in plain English how to cure these people of this way of thinking? He's a pessimist, I think. A German philosophical pessimist. "They are what they are. I don't work on stuff like that." That's surely the examination question! And can any of them do modus ponens and how to ensure that they can?)

I presume Francis Bacon was compulsory reading for philosophers once upon a time, right up to the twentieth century. If I may be permitted a long quotation, in his essay Of Friendship he writes, "We know diseases of stoppings, and suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession. It is a strange thing to observe, how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship, whereof we speak: so great, as they purchase it, many times, at the hazard of their own safety and greatness." Various physical substances open various parts of the body, but only a true friend opens you to tell your real thoughts and emotions, Bacon sort-of says. The words "whereof we speak" remind us today of Wittgenstein: his famous words in Frank Ramsey and C.K. Ogden's translation "Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent." These come late on in his 1922 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Now the familiar portrait of Wittgenstein is that he was friends with Bertrand Russell when he wrote this book and later a severe rupture occurred, and he produced Philosophical Investigations. There is famously the early and the later Wittgenstein. But I interpret Wittgenstein as alluding to Bacon's Of Friendship. On my interpretation, Wittgenstein is conveying, "Russell, I have produced this quite closed book, rather than a pleasant conversational work on the topic, because you are not my friend."

DEF: What are heuristics? Heuristics are simple rules which we use in making decisions. They have various exceptions, but we don't incorporate the exceptions into the rule because it would slow down decision-making. NOTDEF: This definition is going to need work. DEF: So what I want you to consider is this. Let's imagine a man called Tehr. Tehr is not a bad man, but he is an annoying man - this is beyond all reasonable doubt. Of course, everyone is annoying, but we don't call some people annoying because it is the community's way of being annoying. Only other communities find that annoying, and perhaps Tehr. Now Tehr is a clever man too. He tries his hand at dentistry. He is too annoying and has to move job. He tries his hand at the newspaper business. The journalists say that he is too annoying to even be a Guardian journalist. He tries to be a lawyer. The lawyers fire him, which is unusual. Tehr dies a happy old man, but soon there is another fellow quite similar, even with a similar appearance. Here is a heuristic: in any choice between this Tehr-type and another person, choose the other person. But most people don't use this heuristic in life-and-death situations, because they know that Tehr is not a bad man. They just don't want to be too annoyed at work. If a nurse must choose between attending to two critically ill patients, and Tehr is one, most nurses will not apply the heuristic: which entails choosing not Tehr. But maybe some people will. ME: I don't know. I am probably out of my depth! How do you develop simple rules for recognizing Tehr-type, Def, sorry I mean Mol.

The individual in history is always replaceable versus a football-management Youtube video I saw this video online on Youtube, but I cannot find it now, when I did a Youtube search "Jose Mourinho and young players" and even when I put the accent in. It is extremely well-crafted to my casual eye, and it has probably got a cartoon pen in it, and it argues with evidence for this: "José Mourinho does not like young players." The video seems to be getting very involved with the character of José Mourinho. Now Leslie Stephen, father of Virginia Woolf, somewhere in his writings, introduces us to the view that in history the individual is always replaceable. (From Carlyle’s discussions?) Consider this problem, which occurs in many many games as an Englishman or economist would say. You are taking in young players to form a team: 17 of them, let's say. You will reduce them to 12, let's suppose. There are 2 very good players. One of them presents themselves as solid and mature. The other presents themselves as doing fancy tricks. They form a little team of their own. They pass to each other in the game more often. You are the manager but are you any more? The best solution in all societies hopefully is this: we have two teams and two managers and one manager takes Mr. Solid-and-Mature and the other manager takes Mr. Fancy-Tricks. No team has both kinds of player, because then the official manager cannot function. It is not about like or dislike: "He only likes young players if they are always mature." ("We know this problem so we come all disguised as one of these types/kinds. We are the Lords and Ladies from Terry Pratchett." LOL! Or: hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.)

There is a kind of person, I believe, whom you can meet in Christian societies or societies with a long-tradition of Christianity. I refer to them as Christian humility robot, but they are flesh and blood human beings with DNA and minds. (If necessary and sufficient conditions are specified for being a robot, then possibly some of us will count as robots though.) Humility is an important virtue for Christians but it does not seem sensible to outlaw arrogance. So what does one do with an arrogant - or cocky, as my father would say - person? The crucial problem is not a person who acts cocky in public, when this is merely a public persona, a mask metaphorically speaking. The crucial problem is the person who in their consciousness is cocky, has a high opinion of themselves (maybe there are subtle distinctions here, but I am overlooking them). The Christian humility robot thinks, "I am a socially intelligent, emotionally intelligent, and responsible fellow and I can intuit this individual's soul, so I will work on this individual and without making a mess, ensure that they have the virtue of humility." (There are other robot concepts, such as law-law robot: "You have not done anything wrong but I am going to teach you that you are taking a risk.") Christian humility robot raises an interesting issue of how you run a multifaith society, an issue which is connected with conflicting beliefs about permissible inner nature but is not purely a clash of belief: religion M allows this kind of inner nature and Christianity does not. (BOOKALEMON: "I do this with Christians and this with the Muslims and all the robots fail. I'm that good or maybe I'm not.") Now in a society in which the overall vision is "You set the rules and people who consent to them should follow them but they get to do whatever they want within the rules" another kind of robot emerges. They do stuff, you hint to them that they should not, and they notice the hint but they keep going. "You need a rule there or else I am going to do that" is the message. This kind of character raises various interesting questions. "I have never actually met an autistic person, but I have read a few books and are they on the autistic spectrum?" When we meet some autistic people, they seem to converge with us on various matters but sometimes they don't, and regarding the convergences, it is strange: for example, give them 17 items and they rank this number 1 like us, but if you ask them why, then you will soon think, "I am out of my depth and getting out of here." Given this reaction, the whole idea of an autistic spectrum seems strange. We are humane people and they are humans too, but they are just different: is the spectrum merely amongst them? A worry I have is this: medics just introduced this spectrum concept and labelled some people as autistic, beyond the obvious cases, to resolve problems of justice in the family - family members leave this family member alone if the member has an autism diagnosis. Anyway, we are finally at what you have all been waiting for. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu thinks that to achieve in various institutions, you need to not just follow written and unwritten rules but also have the appropriate style, which cannot be specified in rules. What is he to make of the set-the-rules-properly robot, because they won't allow you to use a style-based selection system? They get in somehow and when they notice that this institution is functioning because of something other than the official rules, they start misbehaving. But it is not misbehaviour to them, because it is within the rules. (TERRYPRATCHETTFAN: "Those are the lords and ladies." ME: Lords and ladies are pure entertainment. You curtsy not to become a victim. "What does this hole do?")

In the society which I live in - should I call it England or UK (or even a Euro-American society - it is a good term, I suspect)? - we normally think that there are three main social classes: the aristocracy, the middle class, and the working class. The English ones are all famous, perhaps because they love fame: the English working class (the best!), the English middle class (Jane Austen, how’s the weather), the English aristocracy (the Royal family, pomp and pageant). But I have developed an alternative conception of the classes, or main classes. There is the class which devises rules - we don't know much about them. Let's call them "the ruling class lol." Then there is the class who just follow these rules, even if they are stupid rules - let's call them "the rule-following class lol." In between these two, is the class who say, regarding a rule that seems stupid to them, I will follow it if you give me a trick to show me how. For example, there is the rule that you should be polite in UK and say, "Please" when you want something. "I will follow this rule if you show me how to say it and say it in a polite way to someone I don't like." Here are some tricks: you tap your finger on your waist and when you are doing so that means "W-nk-r," etc. Let's call this class "M-th-rf-ck-rs lol." ("What about the class who just say, 'WHAT?' when you explain a simple rule to them?") Freud talked about repression and how repression is a condition of civilization, in Civilization and its Discontents. You have to repress some aggressive instincts or drives - I am not being too careful here, psychoanalysts - for there to be civilization. The third class identified above (excluding the parenthetical class of course) - in this order because of ease of exposition, not rank in society - don't repress much, I suspect. If they must suddenly repress more, it could be a problem. "Why do you keep tapping your finger? That's weird. What is going on there?" you wonder out loud. Be very careful here.

I have some disagreements with articles I read from The Guardian, if I recall correctly. But I cannot remember the names of these articles. I am sorry for not putting the reference(s). A comedian I know “told” me, "Don't say sorry: just don't do it." But the information I shall present may be of use to some people and I am not sufficiently humble to think that someone else is sure to tell you this. I recall that The Guardian, or a journalist for that paper, recommended the following: we evaluate a football training system not by its best players (such as Paul Scholes at Manchester United; does this reference point still work?) rather by how it improves the average player (Darren Fletcher). I think there is an aristocratic game along these lines: take the most unsuited person to a field and train them up and show the world, "Look: I managed to get this stupid person functioning, whom everyone else would have given up on." (I am probably heading for an aristocratic marriage therefore!) It could be a very dangerous game this. Newcomers to the game produce immigrants who become dictators in various countries. What they consider a stupid person, or unsuited to a field (to be more politically correct), is of so much higher a level than what experienced trainers in the game do, while the populations of some countries have become largely stupid owing to pursuit of the game. Well, there is a tricky question of whether it is useless in any field to be clever beyond a certain point. Dali was probably the best doctor in Paris and the best who-knows-what-else, but he said that if he were less clever he would have been a greater painter, and painting is his field it seems.

What is a biomarker? There are probably different definitions. Here I shall understand a biomarker to be a bodily substance which reliably indicates a disease. For centuries, people have probably been looking for a reliable biomarker for schizophrenia, though I recall reading that the pioneer was a nineteenth century Scottish doctor. The search for a biomarker for schizophrenia today is said to be in the name of objectivity. Currently schizophrenia is diagnosed by behavioural symptoms and perhaps the patient's reports of their experiences. A biomarker will provide objective diagnosis, it is said. Current diagnosis is based on subjective data. As philosophers we wonder, "What do 'objective' and 'subjective' mean here?" One answer is that "objective" means reliable and "subjective" means unreliable - call this "the reliability answer." But psychiatrists believe that their current non-biomarker diagnostic tests are reliable. Another answer then is that "subjective" means dependent on introspection or reports of experiences - call this "the introspection answer." The objective is not dependent. But (i) is not all empirical science always subjective then (and here let's take medicine to be science, for simplicity), because scientists have to report observing that the litmus paper changed colour and the like? And (ii) why strive for the objective if it does not entail an increase in reliability? A third answer is that "subjective" in medicine means that there is dependence on THE PATIENT's experience or reports of it (and does not concern observational reports by medical researchers). (And there is an ideal of medical science as objective: as minimising dependence on patient's experience or their reports of it when diagnosing.) Call this the "our science answer," because the concept of objectivity in medicine requires an explanation that uses the concept of a patient and does not mechanically import a general answer, from general philosophy of science or from John McDowell on "subjective" and "objective." You have to add this concept to understand what medicine as science is. With these answers introduced, I want to say something about a likely revolution that can occur given a successful biomarker for schizophrenia, which researchers are forever searching for but has yet to be found. Let's imagine that element X1 in the blood correlates highly with schizophrenic behaviour and so does element X2 and nothing else does, and these cover all cases previously called schizophrenia. One abandons the current diagnostic system, with its various subcategories of schizophrenia, and says there are two types: X1 schizophrenia and X2 schizophrenia. A scientific revolution occurs because of the successful discovery of biomarkers, which fascinatingly does necessarily involve an improvement in reliability. (Some dialogue. MARXIST: there will be an improvement in reliability, because the doctor cannot be reliable when dealing with patients outside their class. They experience these as a threat and consciously or unconsciously fail. I don't go for the attractive third explanation of the terms "objective" and "subjective" because the first definition is fine. And I reject care ethics as not taking into account abcs of Marxism on class struggle. AZANDEPRODIGY: Biomarkers more reliable? Come play my game - I'll testya. By the way, Prodigy is a music band and this comes from one of their songs: Breathe.)

ME: I read your paper "Who Will Sustain Sustainable Prosperity?" It has some proverbs, if that be the right word, about cake: "Have your cake and eat it," "There's more to life than cake," and "Share that cake." I have developed my own one. MIRIAM: Do go on. ME: Do you want to make a book of cake proverbs or something, almost all our own, us two individuals? KANTIAN-FOLKLORIST: Proverbs express the folk wisdom of a people. You don't make enduring proverbs by trying to come up with them. You aim at something else, something good, such as teaching people and you follow your duty in communicating and such proverbs occasionally arise, or they do in a few individuals. ME: Maybe. I just thought of one: the devil has the best proverbs. MIRIAM: Forgiveness forgives the proverb. CHRISTIAN: You cannot beat the devil in art. They can reach the highest levels. Only in forgiveness does he fail. ME: You know how there is a person who thinks, "If I know the rules of the game, I always win," and then thinks, "but I need some time to get the hang of the game: the bedding in period as it is called." MIRIAM: Everyone needs that? (O wait, retrospective success, or whatever the term is.) ME: Okay, let's say that we aim to change the game just before you have mastered it. But have you seen, in Super Mario World, the koopa that gets into the flashing shell? PRODIGY: Come play my game, I'll testya! NORMALCIRCUMSTANCES: Get back in the kitchen.

ECONOMIST: I study the rational pursuit of ends. What do you think of the relation between the rational pursuit of ends and logic is? LOGICIAN: I don't know. I just prioritise logic. If someone asks me, does a conclusion follow from certain premises, I tell them the answer (as I believe it to be). I don't think: it is rational for my aim(s) in life to fail here, so I will. And I don't think: it is rational for me to get myself into a state in which I am inwardly less logical, so I will. ECONOMIST: But surely you must make exceptions to your policy. LOGICIAN: This approach is too complicated for me, making exceptions in abnormal circumstances. But my body might intervene in some circumstances: I might pass out. FRESHSTILL1: My body is affected too, but I am much more sensitive than you are. My battery runs out so quickly. FRESHSTILL2: If I feel something slightly off in my body (and I attend to these things much more than you), then I interpret what is going on until I feel better. POSTMODERN PSYCHOANALYST: Freud and others tried to interpret the symptom, believing that when they got the correct interpretation it would go away. But the body is just not coherent. One symptom requires X and another symptom requires not-X. VALUEPOO: You have to prioritise doing well-formed poo, as depicted on bus stands in Manchester during Coronavirus season. MADMAN: A desk is your mother. A desk is your mother. A desk is your mother. PSYCHIATRIST: Okay, point taken!

I joined a Manchester comedian community in late 2024, as a performer (start and end dates are very tricky in this matter), and performed until April 2025. I noticed that quite a few comedians said that they had autism (none of them appeared to be lying). The autistic person in this community tries to identify the rules by which people acknowledge material as funny and meet those rules in their stand-up performances and WhatsApp contributions and when they laugh at others as an audience member: that is my interpretation, anyway. I think these comedians misunderstand the value of autism, or perceived value, in this community. ("The North of England is famous for character comedy and by pursuing this pick-up-artist of comedy project, I am a character," I imagine one saying.) What the community wants from an autistic person is: (i) to devise a system of rules for doing comedy which does not capture the public standard of funniness in this community (and probably is not even aiming to do so); (ii) to show how the system leads to interesting new comedy; (iii) to share the system. ("Is this input going to produce the expected output?" I don't know; the fault lies with Simon Baron-Cohen probably. Using the system probably has to expand our sense of what is funny: "I didn't realize this system would work but it does and it is broadening my horizons.") A comparison will hopefully be helpful. There is such a thing as univocalic poetry. When you write a given poem using this system, you can only use one vowel in that poem (but you can use it as many times as you want: that type can be tokened as many times as you want). This system (this set of rules) leads to interesting poetry. One day someone came up with the system and then they shared it, and now it is increasingly popular; I wonder why.

I joined a WhatsApp group for Manchester comedians in late 2024. It was split into two groups in 2025: one for idle chat and one for useful chat. I was on useful chat and then decided to join idle chat. There I encountered an assertion norm, if that be the right term, asserted by a renowned comedian diagnosed with autism: if it is funny, say it. Does he mean, "Say something if and only if it is funny"? (Say it if it is funny and if it is not funny, don't say it.) Or does he mean say it if it is funny (an imperative to share the funny), but you can say other stuff too. ("You are so rubbish at analytic philosophy compared to me." Who said that? "I have mapped everything already, all the qualifications, and all the other things you have no name for yet." My response: this is the rule-book, indeterminacy of translation, I am a community member! "I thought through all that years ago." HOW? Hopefully the autistic comedian will soon be better at analytic philosophy than me. Go marry him!) Either way, does the person suffering from/advantaged by autism assume an objective standard of funniness? Let's pretend that this comedian thinks that there are rules (or necessary and sufficient conditions) regarding what counts as funny. And he would take his success as proof: "I have some rules and I follow them and people laugh. And by following them, I laugh at others when they are funny and not otherwise, as revealed by a zero error count on this matter." Perhaps it will turn out that his success is community-specific and his proposed assertion-norm will have to be revised to: "Say something if and only if it is funny by a community standard." But what about: say something if you experience the thought as funny, as proposed by my first psychiatrist’s assistant? The gap between the classes in England must be the largest in any country!

We of course live in a scientific age, and in such an age it is impossible that a man does not measure his friendships. "This be my best friend," you say, for true science must always be public. "This be my second best friend" - located at a great distance of course. "This be my third best friend" - and the distance between second and third even greater. But then you grow old and where are these friends now, you short sighted fish? It is a scientific age, but you have still not adapted to it, and gave up ranking beyond third. Granted you have a table, but it is a ridiculous table of three. Consult the periodicals: nothing could be more ridiculous than a table of three. Then you encounter fourth and fifth, as you correctly hypothesized in your mind - your intuition is indubitable - but did not trouble yourself to verify. "Hello friend," they say ironically to you, a chemist too intoxicated to detect irony. Furthermore, how did you become friends with one, two, and three? Common interests, emotional bonds, sexual desire - what else would create that most absurd of things, a man who is friends with a woman, in the third case textbook displaced narcissism? Thus my first warning: rank beyond three and rank until you include the men of this sleepy town! But what good are they, anyway? What friends do you need, my friend? You are a mere animal guided by your instincts, but if science has taught us anything, it is the danger of our instincts. My friend, become friends with at least one random person. Let the computer decide, lest your unconscious drives intervene. Write one of those programs of yours, who in the West codes better? [Pastiche over: it is insane to imitate Nietzsche perhaps but is it billions of times more sane than any other "thing" I do?]

We think of the infamous French philosophers as largely ignoring Wittgenstein. But they can be interpreted as reacting to him, in particular his "Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent." Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Deleuze, and JULIA KRISTEVA talk and write nonsense until some sense emerges, before returning to nonsense, or so it often seems. The manager probably says, "That's okay. As long as some value emerges in the process of doing so. It is like the English tradition of gardening, isn't it? The English let their plants grow in accordance with nature, with a few touches here and there to ensure a bearable end-product. It is not like French gardening, in which there is strict regimentation." Then what ensues is massive opposition from English and American philosophers. "What the hell?" (Apologies for use of this word.)

Is the concept of postmodern pastiche even coherent? If we try to answer this question in the traditional British analytic style, we will assume that the concept is a complex concept which results from combining two more basic concepts: the concept of pastiche and the concept of something's being postmodern. Then we will try to define each by specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for each, probably going through several definitions for each if past history of analytic definitional attempts is anything to go by. I am not going to use this approach here, because I don't really use it to understand literary theory and related art theory. ("Are you gay?" This is not an acceptable question in a tolerant liberal culture. Anyway, I have this other concept, namely reverse Alan Turing level: they inject you with stuff for being heterosexual.). During modernism, each individual tries to pioneer their own style, or else groups do, groups here being smaller than all participants (the surrealist style, the cubist style). Postmodernism, as I shall understand it (influenced by Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus), is an era in the arts which proclaims that all possible styles have been produced and so there is nothing left to do but imitate old styles in new combinations. This is called postmodern pastiche. It is not meant to be satire. Pastiche is non-satirical imitation. Now here is my problem with the concept of postmodern pastiche. The trend of literary interpretation known as deconstruction is supposed to be a paradigmatic instance of postmodernism, that is to say, an ideal example of this. But deconstruction avoids getting involved with intentions. But to apply the concept of pastiche as non-satirical imitation, one has to get involved with intentions. “This piece is not intended as satire. This is pastiche.” To be more precise, the following combination seems a problem: (i) Deconstruction is a paradigmatic instance of postmodernism: an ideal example. (ii) Deconstruction avoids attributing intention. (iii) Postmodernism involves pastiche. (iv) Pastiche is detected by detecting intentions. (By the way, the loose influence of Wittgenstein is: why is the world not the totality of things, rather the totality of facts? “Because the same things might be arranged differently and then it is not the same world.” Yes, that’s the stock answer.)

We tend to divide the British newspapers into left-wing and right-wing, or Labour and Tory. The famous left-wing newspapers are The Daily Mirror and The Guardian (which briefly employed a school friend of mine - you mistreated him I bet and he left; I know the rules of Britain and now I am going to mistreat you; because I am a good man I will warn you now: this is going to be painful for you). The famous right-wing newspapers are The TImes, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, and The Daily Telegraph, sometimes called The Torygraph - I am a fan though. There is also The Independent, which I dislike somewhat, and The Daily Star, which I really like, and The Daily Sport, which I once bought. (Sorry if I missed any newspaper out, the Sunday counterparts, etc.) But I am not convinced by this political division. Philosopher Kathleen Stock is a favourite with The Guardian, and she is right-wing if anyone is. (She would go left-wing if she felt duty requires this? My station and its duties.) Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins is a favourite of The Daily Telegraph, despite being famously liberal. I would say Jenkins is cleverer than Stock. What I propose is that it is a streaming system: streaming is something you normally do in school, if you do it at all, by putting students of comparable ability in the same class - it is not for adults I used to assume. The Guardian go with intellectuals of their ability, regardless of the intellectual's political preference. The Daily Telegraph go with intellectuals of their higher ability, again regardless of the intellectual's political preference. And there is no newspaper for me yet! ("No, it is Telegraph for you." Note: my title misquotes a song by Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan.)

One of the things that I am struck by in analytic political philosophy is published premise-by-premise reconstructions which are flawed, sometimes severely flawed. Analytic philosophy is renowned for expertise in logic, so I wonder how these get published. There is other stuff that surprises me, or at least makes me wonder, which is similar. I was responding to a paper by Professor Miriam Ronzoni on the basic structure of society, entitled “Two Concepts of the Basic Structure, and their Relevance to Global Justice.” In it, she specifies four propositions and identifies an ambiguity in the third one, or tries to. I was trying to imagine her point of view. I imagined that when she submitted this paper, she thought, "This part with the four propositions is really analytic. They will love that." And when she got published, she believed that this thought was verified. I felt sorry for her and felt it was good of me to point out how various competent analytical philosophers would regard it, in a series of nitpicking contributions on PhilPapers. But then I thought, "Don't people have a reasonable knowledge of what they can and cannot do well by the age at which she submitted." (I remember N - Dr. Nadia Lisovskaya - was trying to make a gift for someone and I suggested to her that she draw something as a gift and she said, "No, I can't do that with my artistic skills," so I tried to come up with another gift idea.) "How do they get in with these weaknesses?" I often wonder about (various) analytic political philosophers. But if they know their weaknesses, I ALSO wonder why do they try to do this? (In the case of Ronzoni, I suppose she can improve: her errors seem not that bad.) I would not try to become a professional juggler, because I just don't have the skill (I think). What motivates her and others (Professor Jonathan Quong, Professor Anca Gheaus, Dr. Richard Child, and many others)? Maybe they think that their errors are harmless in philosophy and they would not, for example, become a builder if they had analogous problems with that craft. But I am not sure though, because of what I experienced in 2023. In September 2023 - September 6th was it? 6/11! - I was forced into hospital with a mental disorder, pretending to be French feminist Simone de Beauvoir. I was moved to North Manchester General Hospital and I met a consultant psychiatrist, Dr. Swan he is called for short. When I first met him, I wondered whether he is a proper doctor and I asked him what is inside the cell. He made an error in his list (to the best of my knowledge): he said that the cell membrane is inside the cell. He is a consultant psychiatrist and he is trying to tamper with my brain and he does not know ABCs of cell biology! ( Cell biology is different from building, of course, but if this kind of error turns up not just in philosophy, but also in such psychiatry, why not in building too? My current psychiatrist, whom I am meeting on Tuesday, seems really clever. But I am wondering whether there is just a book somewhere which tells you something of this form: doing X is how you seem really clever to members of the working class, doing Y is how you seem really clever to the middle class, doing Z is how you seem really clever to the aristocracy. I recall that the comedian Milton Jones has a joke mocking pick-up-artists, pick-up artists being people who apply reliable formulas for seducing women, despite not being rich, romantic, or good-looking [this “or” is different from mutually exclusive “or,” by the way]. But I don't mock them specifically because I believe many people are doing something analogous to pick-up artists: “This is our formula for getting a lectureship job at the University of Manchester despite not being able to do various things Terence would expect.” Note: my title quotes a song by Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan, which I regard as perhaps misleading, the song lyrics that is. All the roads that the man walks down are very similar, I suspect.)

You are an ambitious university and you have lecturers all at 6/10 level (6/10 means “6 out of 10”). Then you get a new generation of lecturers at 7/10 level. When they are old, a new generation comes in at 8/10 level. You now have some 8/10 and some 7/10. But the problem is this: the rules by which 7/10 work don't make sense to 8/10, but they do to 9/10. 7/10 and 8/10 are not compatible. For example (I can't think of a better one), 7/10 think that when you are writing you should not keep using the same word: use a synonym. 8/10 think: use the same word; this variation is very vulgar. But 9/10 think: it is good for foreign speakers, they can improve their vocabulary. (Observe the success of J.K. Rowling.) Once you get all 8/10 you have a problem. They don't get along with 9, so 9 don't go there, and you are NEVER going to see 10/10, whom they do get along with. (Also when 8/10 don't get along with someone, they don't do what 7/10 do: instead they become very aggressive!) Dear Beloved University of Manchester: just get rid of 8, go back to 7, and wait for 9! (Also the rating system is a simplification. 8/10 academically to get to 8 reduces his social intelligence and has a parent figure supply that. "Hey, that can be me: old 7/10." Addition to the Pied Piper of Hamlyn: you don't need to pay the Pied Piper because if the rats come back we can surely do his role, said this combination 7 and 8.)

If you are a very casual observer of rap music (Kimberley Brownlee???), you probably have this impression: it is all black people and one white boy-man. Assume this impression. What is this one white boy-man doing there and outshining everyone else? Should not Eminem - the one white man in case the perspective of history is very different - think this: it's a black man's industry and I will give them their space? But maybe that is a bad idea: "If no one challenges them, everyone will think they only dominate because of sympathy with what back people have been through: give them their space." But let's compare rap with professional philosophy (if we can maintain coherence)! A casual impression: it's all white men and Carrie Jenkins. Here is a sensible response (Joel Smith's view last year???): "It is obvious that black people, brown people, yellow people, and red people can do this as well. We don’t need someone to challenge us to show this (and an analogous situation obtains in rap music - no need for Eminem to show that a white man can rap well too; just give them their space). Arguments and distinctions: it is not so different from law. There are good black lawyers, good brown lawyers, good yellow lawyers, good red lawyers. Philosophy appears to be open to someone with sufficient talent who tries but it is blatantly not. And only a fool would keep trying to get in." Here is another response (Ann Whittle's view???): "It appears that others can do this, but it has been cleverly set up so that they cannot or would not. Who is going to spend all their time making these distinctions on these topics? As soon as they realize the demands involved, they go and do something else, for example they build a big system. As soon as Professor Miriam Ronzoni realizes the demands of analytic philosophy actually, she gives up promoting Rawls and builds an emotionally-appealing system." This is a response of mine: this network can surely find a minority who achieves what I did in publications and with the philosophical-poetic system too, but they would just leave if they experienced the kind of deterring behaviour I have. (Zsuzsanna Chappell: "My husband is rich; I don't need to do this" Other quotes from Dr. Chappell: "No, you can't do it like this. I have done a course at the LSE." Note: my song title quotes Bob Dylan. How close to Eminem can Carrie Jenkins get? "VERY CLOSE.")

Why study a science subject over an arts subject, at university say? Answer 1: "I want a job: what jobs are there in the arts? Hardly any!" ANSWER 2: "In science you can prove you are good. There are tests of facts and of mathematical ability. In arts it is all subjective: just opinion. The people who get in are probably only those from 'the right' social class." This second answer I have heard on numerous occasions, by people with very different wealth levels and even country backgrounds. (“Why do you say ‘The second answer I have heard’ and instead of ‘I have heard the second answer…’ ”? The Sisters Brontë!!! It’s still Charlotte dominating Google search, 8.53am, "bronte" as search string.) Okay, let's switch to business for a while and then evaluate answer 2. You run a successful family business, quite a big one, the business that is. You produce some children, some of whom are stupid. What are you going to do with your stupid ones? "I might let them run a small department, where even if they make bad decisions it won't be a big problem." Now it was probably in a history of anthropology book: I recall reading that the scientists in England in the late 19th century mostly came from 130 or so families. These families probably even set up some universities or departments. What do they do with their stupid children? ("Send them to you"?) Here is a proposal: they put them in charge of a department. By the way, at the University of Manchester an economist once told me that because of the mathematics, economists with very different political preferences can agree (or "agree that given certain premises, the conclusions follow," I am tempted to add). But another economist (or economics student) told me in shock: "A referee said that the maths on a submitted paper was wrong - the maths!" Did you ever think: these well-established families would start cheating you on the mathematics to ensure that it is largely their people in the science "business"? Are you but a tutor for the Sidgwick family as well?! “Maybe but I don’t write about my experiences in public because…” (Note: my title quotes Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan. Note also: I imagine someone one day in the future writes similar responses to mine and puts them online. He doesn't know where my responses are, and I don't know where a previous person's similar responses are, and so forth.)

I associate the words "Shut up and calculate" with a famous loudmouth physicist, but who said it first? I don't know. Much the same advice can be given across fields: go to work, focus on your professional area, don't offer opinions on this, that and the other. Is this good advice? There are several reasons why it might not be, or might not be for you. Here are some, not in order of importance. (A) You are interested in what happens if you break the taboo. (B) The common opinions of people in a social class (or caste or social rank) above yours may well be of interest. Take your opinion that the best approach to work is to hide your emotions, do your work well, and go home: a widespread opinion in this society I live in. This approach solves problems of how to work for an authority whose decisions you disagree with, as you sometimes probably will, and how to relate in a civil way with colleagues, especially given intense divides over some topics, such as politics and religion. (Question for Rawlsians: how do you achieve your end of diverse people living together without an approach such as this, which does not much use the right to freedom of speech?) I suppose a social class above yours centuries ago worked out that about 1 in 4 people can read your facial expressions of approval and disapproval anyway and worked out solutions to your problems. The common opinions of this class are of interest to you. (“We don’t do stoic stiff upper lip really.”) (C) The sharing of opinions leads to interesting puzzles. For example, regarding the philosophy profession, how do these people get so good at philosophy and still say that? I would have to be on drugs to say that! "Even at the time, many philosophers found his solution unconvincing," Timothy Williamson writes, in his introduction Philosophical Method (p.1). EVEN? I think the best objections to some figures appear when they are alive; afterwards hardly anyone is going to read this stuff - the buzz around them will disappear and other figures of comparable stature will be carefully read. And it is difficult to anticipate reception in future generations. (By the way, a friend of mine, probably noticing my ego as a teenager, told me: there must be very clever British people elsewhere. If a social class above shared some of my ends, they probably don't try to achieve them like I would. "We don't get a person cleverer than this to write essays for the common man: it is known to cause disgust. They'll return to their Orwell. Is there any sensible end for which we need this clever???" They have a different list of sensible ends also.) (D) Some people are basically conversational philosophers with an academic dressing of references and you can provide better conversation maybe. "Hey liberal dudes, aren't people social beings, dudes? Prisoners don't like solitary confinement." I am taking this prisoners reference from memory of Kimberley Brownlee in the Philosophical Quarterly. I haven't been to prison, but in psychiatric hospital there were periods in which I just stayed in my little dormitory space, because of very aggressive patients. I have seen patients fight with each other. (My title quotes Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan.)

I sometimes mock brief memorable philosophy, such as Derrida's paradox that forgiveness forgives the unforgiveable, by showing that on closer inspection this emotionally powerful stuff is misleading or just false. This is probably in line with my training in analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophers are not swayed by this thrilling stuff (or thrilling for many): they examine philosophical claims carefully, for example finding the initial formulation insufficiently clear and examining several revised formulations. (This goes back to before analytic philosophy really, with Henry Sidgwick and probably even before him.) But is such analytic philosophy always a good idea? I was in hospital for an extended period of time in September 2023 and I tried to do analytic philosophy there, without a pen and paper and no smartphone or computer either. (I escaped about three weeks later, was brought back after a week, and was given my laptop at some point. I am focusing on the period in hospital without laptop. I didn't have a smartphone back then.) I came up with a complicated solution to the surprise exam paradox. I don't remember it now! Of course, I remember the surprise exam paradox - it is thrilling stuff. What I don't remember is my complicated and no doubt novel solution. I suspect analytic philosophy is just not designed for people who end up in certain situations, in prison for example. If you are ever there, come up with immediately exciting stuff for the common man and woman, like true forgiveness forgives the unforgivable (or metaphor cannot be defined non-metaphorically). (Have you seen those videos with Donald Davidson? I was thinking to make a fake one. DAVIDSON-: "Conceptual relativism is a heady and exotic doctrine, or would be if we could make good sense of it. The trouble is, as so often in philosophy, it is hard to improve intelligibility while retaining the excitement." (1973-4: 5) ME (laughing): You haven't thought this advice through carefully, paradoxically. Anyway, I am probably a guest here amongst old families in the business. How am I doing? DAVIDSON-: Do you know whom the previous guest was?)