Editorial notes: Shai continuously explores different channels through which he might best document his life’s research work. Having traversed from hand-written notebooks to on-line writers forums and blogs, he begins using his Google Drive as a repository for documents he wishes to store on the web. It seems highly likely that some of his work, originally written and stored in Google Drive is...
A comparative review of a competitive NMDA receptor agonist and a film by award-winning Japanese filmmaker Mamoru Oshii First off: spoilers. If this was the future that word would be flashing right now[1]. Some background to set the scene: Ketamine[I]: it’s a drug best known as “that horse tranquillizer”, and although still employed in human pain management it is no longer employed routinely for...
Editorial notes: One of Shai’s unique talents was writing stories in the style of famous authors. In the story below, retrieved from his Google Drive, he convincingly imitates a vampire genre, Twilight-like movie script, as if it were directed by Wes Anderson. Scene 1: A fixed camera shows the following: A man (henceforth the “Father”) is waiting in the shade of his garden on a lounge chair. He...
The Bible Nut, whose given name was Joseph, had recently found out that between 7:00 pm and 7:30 pm each day the café across the road would sell their muffins at the reduced price of two dollars. Joseph’s permit allowed him to speak until 7:30 pm but lately, he had been stopping a little early to catch the sale. ‘And Jehovah called unto Moses, and spake unto him out …’ The Lord would forgive him...
There’s a great new study that shows how similar vertebrates’ and insects’ brains are. The scientists conduct molecular, developmental, genetic, and structural/morphological, neurochemical, neurological, and higher-order function tests! So maybe that’s cool1, but no real surprise2 1. It’s actually super amazing cool. 2. Well, not to someone with a reasonable education in biology. But I think this...
Kill Em All was Metallica’s first studio album in 1983. At this point, the lineup was Hetfield, Ulrich, Burton, and Hammet. The last famously replaced Mustaine, who was too much of an asshole for the band who had to be talked down to titling their debut KEM. Their original title would have been Metal Up Your Ass with complementary album art showing a hand stabbing with a dagger out of a toilet...
The description of the early analytic philosophers is that of a methodology, namely to analyze the world in terms of logical propositions. This is really a methodology, but I extract a metaphilosophy from it: philosophy seeks to (1) discover a method for describing the world (and its subjects) in such a way as to be informative (i.e. not mere tautologies nor contradictions), and then (2) to apply...
Loc.2716 “Observation of Nature” C* starts seeking universals (and itself) in things, but this proves an endless task, so it limits itself to finding the essential properties of things. But these ‘characteristics’ also prove changing, and hence it must regard them as ‘vanishing moments’. Thence it seeks the law which underlies these universal yet changing characteristics. It does this by...
Dear stranger, Down the road is a bridge over a cement creek. The waters are always very low, except when it rains, then it stays high for a few days. In the middle of the creek, to the side of the bridge, is a supermarket trolley lying on its side, half submerged. I walk over the bridge most days – to the train station, or the shops, or the library – and sometimes I see two ducks standing next...
A few thoughts on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Every culture has its ancestral story. This is one of mine. This is a story of survival. The Holocaust happened The Holocaust happened because of a world embedded deeply in antisemitism. It was embedded deeply with antisemitism because every country in Christendom had subjected Jews to second-class citizenship, to be denied, ransomed, evicted and...
