Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios

Was ist Lissabon im Sommer? Hund in der Metro kein Problem, Hund in der Tram schon - so mussten wir uns aufteilen, um einmal die legendäre 28 zu fahren. Schade! Auch die Tuktuks haben sich meines Erachtens ganz schön verändert - die kleinen Piaggios sieht man kaum noch - dafür immer mehr "Golf-Wagen" ähnliche Modelle für 6-8Personen - da geht der Charme ein bisschen verloren. Immerhin haben die E-Tret-Roller die Kopfsteinpflastersträßchen in der Altstadt noch nicht geflutet...Daher habe ich eine E-Tret-Roller gekauft, um zur Arbeit zu pendeln ...

The rest of the story...

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

"In 1963, Asimov argued that science fiction appealed to an existing type of curious reader, but today, it seems more likely to subtly alter the way in which we all think and feel."


In "Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction" by Alec Nevala-Lee

"'How long has this racket been going on? And why didn't anybody tell me about it sooner'"

Heinlein to Campbell after selling "Life-Line" in 1939, In "Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction" by Alec Nevala-Lee

"'There are about five consistent, adult science fiction writers in the business: de Camp, Heinlein, Hubbard, van Vogt, and, if he'll only work at it a little, del Rey.'"

In a letter from Campbell to Heinlein, In "Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction" by Alec Nevala-Lee


I started reading science fiction in the '80s. I never enjoyed the Hubbard stories I read in anthologies. Then I found out about Dianetics. His self-created biography including multiple resurrections was more fantastic than any of his fiction. :-) Campbell, as many have observed, took science fiction to “another level”. I'm a little surprised Andre Norton was omitted in this write-up.

A long time ago, and as a form of self-imposed discipline, I decided to keep a list of the books I started to read, followed by a list of those I finished. We’re talking 1980 here (before there was a thing called Internet as we know it today). Unfortunately, and despite all this information, I don’t have the faintest idea how many books I read since 1980. I have notebooks, one for fiction and one for non-fiction in which I keep my lists and mark each book out of 10 - I haven’t read anywhere near the number of books I should have since we are talking many eons here, but I find it helps me remember books and spurs me to complete some I would otherwise give up on.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

(Original Review, 1994-11-17)




Dave Chalmers did a great job of making consciousness popular but his own view was 400 years out of date. Descartes is the real rigorous physicist here - he was after all one of the people who devised physics. What he meant by the soul and God being 'spirit' is that they caused matter to move. Matter for Descartes was just the inert occupancy of a space (extension). So physics consisted of the interaction of spirit and matter. We now call spirit 'force' or 'energy' and Descartes was quite right because thinking is all about electromagnetic fluxes - which in themselves do not occupy space or have mass. His mistake was to think that there had to be one special spirit unit. Leibniz sorted that out in 1714.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

NB: I’m the author of this book. And this is not a review. So don’t you start huffing and puffing about me rating it…

The silver-foil room and the 1977 aesthetic ... Things howl on the frontier, not just the wolves ... And the dustpile ... The 21st Century howls I thought ... but a Portuguese publishing marketing person? ... An EXCEL spreadsheet? ... Then I thought: Clammy handshake, unedited ... You can smarten yourself up with twenty five Euros and a visit to PRIMARK ... I don't know what I am on about either ... a desert of dung, preserving mediocrity ... This is not a quote ...

I self-publish because my writing doesn't fit a particular genre. I write across age groups and styles (i.e., I write book reviews). I don't write 'mainstream'. I am what I am and therefore I cannot box myself in for the sake of money. Thus, I write what I want, self-publish, shrug my shoulders if there are editorial errors, (it's not like I don't edit 1000 times, & all my work, even that which I've already published, is under constant revision, editing & upgrading).

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

(Original Review, 2012-04-30)




I have recently read books by Dr. Mario Beauregard and Dr. Rupert Sheldrake and I'm inclined to believe that the answer to “The Hard Problem” is not beyond us to comprehend and it would be a shame in terms of our evolution if we were to think it so.

I believe ALL areas of science should be open and up for debate. Now, scientific materialism seems at a loss to explain irrefutable accounts of mind over matter, intuition, willpower, the "placebo effect" in medicine, of near-death experiences on the operating table, and of psychic premonitions of a loved one in crisis.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

(Original Review, 2000-10-15)


I don't agree that it is as big mystery as pointed out elsewhere in another review I’ve read...I think we do know a great deal about consciousness. The problem lays also in our willingness to explore altered states of consciousness. This must be included in any theory...Some examples of books dedicated to this subject of consciousness. I have been reading lately: “Complete works of Freud and Carl Jung”, “The Tibet Book Of The Dead”, “Tao Te Ching”, R. D. Laing’s “The Politics Of experience (Birds Of Paradise)”, “The Tao Of Physics” by Fritjof Capra, Works Of Richard Feynman, Works of Spinoza, “Altered States Of Consciousness” by Charles T. Tart, “The Conscious Mind” by David J. Chalmers, and Anthropological Studies on Shamanism and so on, indicate that the human animal has not progressed much physiologically over the past two or three thousand years. However we have progressed massively technologically...Plenty of food for thought in this area.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

(Original Review, 1992-10-25)


I feel uncoupled.

Who knows for certain: their inner experience of sights, smells, emotions, and the rest?

And this is why I often find the discussion frustrating; from my reading of his work, Dennett has never denied the experience of being conscious. What he is saying is that if you create a zombie doppelganger that resembles you in every way then the "zombie" will by necessity be of such complexity that it gives rise to consciousness. And it will do so from normal, physics-obeying, materialistic processes. It is in this way that we are all the zombies of the thought experiment - not that we are all empty machines that experience nothing.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

(Original Review, 2014-10-31)




Dear Barroso, Dear Malstrom and other commissioners,

If you want to achieve economic growth in Europe, you should stop bribing politicians as the Governments of Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Czech, Hungary ...and the Central Bankers. We all know you thought-control them on the nets of Telecom Austria, Telenor ... with implants ...to quote European Parliament "converging technologies, shaping the future of european societies" - "there will be politicians with implants and control in this manner". We all know Commissioners, ECB, EC, EBRD employees have such implants and act together. We know you offer a "better life" to the CEE servants if the betray their countries, a little bit. We all know how you manipulate Ukraine and media.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

(Original Review, 2012-08-04)





There has been a long tradition of defining intelligence to be whatever machines can't do at the time. The recent book "Automate This: How Algorithms came to rule our world" by Christopher Steiner gives a good overview of many of the fields in which computers have achieved or surpassed human performance, whether in game play [2018 EDIT: (Chess (Deep Blue), Jeopardy (Watson))], medical prescriptions (diagnosis and fulfillment) or even music (judging potential, composing).

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

(Original Review, 1981-05-30)




Why do I read? To learn, to experience worlds, emotions, interactions that I don't experience in my reality, to think, to be, to become.

If not for Huxley - recommended by an English teacher at school - I'd have remained a working class racist, sexist homophobe, would never have smoked haxixe, gone on to study philosophy, met my children's mother, have had wonderful kids or stepped out of a culture of impoverished imagination.
I might have been 'a happy pig' rather than an "unhappy philosopher," (to paraphrase Plato) it's true, but it's been a richer life for it.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

Another piece of advice you of want to succeed in writing a novel:

1) Be youngish and photogenic;
2) Lure an agent with your headshot - or be well-known already;
3) Get a PR who is at least as good as your agent;
4) Include some mildly kinky sex scenes in your book and market it as being aimed at middle-aged women;
5) Live on Facebook with a thousand-selfie-a-day habit;
6) Praise god for your God-given talent then adopt atheism;
7) Tell everyone to get fucked.

To quote Somerset Maugham: "There are only three ways to write a novel ....unfortunately, no one knows what they are .... "

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.