Should we adopt depressive realism?

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More realistic pessimists Depressive realism is the balance praised by political scientist Juliane Marie Schreiber. It takes up an agreed discourse: pessimists and their attitude towards the world are the most realistic vision. They are critical, empathetic, not very sensitive to bias. While optimists, always positive and in a good mood, overestimate themselves and blind … Read more

Only ashes remain…

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A closed point It seems to Sven Ortoli that mortuary cremations “lack an end point, a moment when we recognize that the door is closed. This is what happens in a cemetery, or on a pyre on the banks of the Ganges. ‘The sacred goes with the closure’, notes Régis Debray.” Many endings are missing … Read more

To think is to say no

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The no as a conscious project? Frédéric Manzini, in the footsteps of Alain and Derrida, opposes the thought of the yes, systematic and blind, to the thought of the no, which always questions its merits. Thought refuses to acquiesce, to “give up arms”. It says no to itself to avoid its lazy transformation into a … Read more

Contemporary information flows, a paradoxical reduction in exchanges

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An upheaval, really? Reading the article The Great Inversion, supposed to reveal a major upheaval in our society, many of you will have pouted. “What does he announce? Media dominance is a truism. Propaganda has been around for centuries. Debord has already taken care of denouncing the society of the spectacle. Information flows come and … Read more

Groupism versus collectivism

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Hookworm, human needle worm Albert Schweitzer, in Respect and Responsibility for Life: “I fished twice on the line with other boys. The torture of hook-impaled worms and fish that were tore their mouths inspired me with such horror that I refused to continue this cruel game. I even had the courage to turn my comrades … Read more

Stratium (theory of mind)

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Abstract: Stratium is a theory of mind as a multi-tiered system adding layers of meaning. There is no homunculus to read the result, making it necessary to say that these levels themselves read their constitution and “thicken”, degree by degree, the phenomenon called “consciousness”. To this teleological and functional theory is added an ontological theory, showing how the networks are anatomically concentrated at the base of the neural hierarchy, and very dispersed at the upper levels. ‘Stratium’ is a contraction of ‘strata’ and ‘atrium’.

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The complex dimension in mathematics

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Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russel André Deledicq and Mickaël Launay tell in Dictionnaire amoureux des mathématiques how Frege saw his beautiful set theory dynamited by a seemingly innocuous firecracker, posed by Russel. The year is 1902. Logicians like Frege try to make sets the fundamental core on which to build all mathematics. Arithmetic operations thus … Read more

How can we exercise our power without hierarchy?

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The citizen’s restrained dream To exercise complete and unmediated power over one’s own life is the dream of every citizen. Ouch! The title of “citizen” immediately curbs the dream. Others surround me, with their competing hopes. They have to be reconciled. “Integral and without intermediary” remain theoretical. If I am on the local population density … Read more