Interesting stuff elsewhere…

Discussion welcome.

1. “I realized then, with shock, that our disagreement was not about the capabilities of machine learning models at all. It was about the capabilities of human beings” — Shannon Vallor (Edinburgh) on the ideology of “superhuman” technology, and on appreciating the human and the humane
2. “[Marcus Aurelius] says, if you’ve ever seen a hand or a foot or a leg severed off from the rest of the trunk, that’s what we make of ourselves when we cut ourselves off from each other” — Nancy Sherman (Georgetown) and Margaret Graver (Dartmouth) discuss stoicism, its popularity, and its lesser-appreciated aspects, on NPR’s “On Point”
3. “We’re not supposed to admit it when we feel stupid, or underappreciated, or jealous, or that we cared so much about something that when it didn’t go our way we felt shattered” — mathematician Danny Calegari (Chicago) on the personal dimensions of professional disappointments and failure
4. A group of AIs try to figure out who in their midst is really a human — a “reverse Turing test” (that’s kind of cute). Also: the booming business of deepfakes of your deceased loved ones.
5. “Bernard Williams’ Historical Self-Consciousness” — Harvard’s 2024 Whitehead Lectures, by Miranda Fricker (NYU)
6. “Even if in a piece of music its structure, sounds, intentions, and goals are set there is something inherently puzzling in it” — Giulia Lorenzi (Warwick) on “places in which imagination may play a role in enjoying, perceiving, and producing music”
7. “Simplicity remains the key. / I’m no conceptual acrobat / Who postulates as if it’s free; / My convenient myths are only that.” — Quine’s “On What There Is”, the poem, by Brad Skow (MIT)

Mini-Heap posts usually appear when 7 or so new items accumulate in the Heap of Links, a collection of items from around the web that may be of interest to philosophers.

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