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Biology Assistant
03 Dec Biology Assistant
Longmire, WA, USA
Website Mount Rainier National Park
The Mosaics in Science Internship Program seeks to engage ethnically and racially diverse young professionals in natural resource careers.
**All Mosaics in Science interns are required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination**
Stipend: $600/week + housing
During the last century, the American West lost many of its predators, the impacts of which have cascaded through the ecosystem. The causes of these declines are myriad and include direct human-caused mortality, as well as habitat loss and the creation of substantial barriers to population connectivity. Significant, historical threats such as overharvest and predator control programs have been eliminated; and some carnivore populations are slowly recovering. However, swaths of landscape remain and continue to be fragmented, and climate change poses a novel challenge. Among the carnivore species most at risk are the mid-sized carnivores (i.e. mesocarnivores) including: fisher (Pekania pennanti), wolverine (Gulo gulo), and Cascade red fox (Vulpes vulpes cascadensis). Fishers were extirpated from Washington State by the mid-1900s and are actively being restored through reintroductions. Wolverines were also extirpated from the state in the mid-1900s and there is some recent evidence of recolonization by at least three individuals in the south Cascades, though their status and ability to persist are unknown. Historically, Cascade red fox occurred throughout the Washington and British Columbian Cascade Mountains but their range has contracted to a small portion of the south Cascades, with Mount Rainier National Park providing essential core habitat and habitat connectivity. Mount Rainier National Park has been actively engaged in mesocarnivore monitoring and recovery with the five primary goals listed below. The intern will work as a member of a team, in collaboration with the Cascades Carnivore Project to conduct scat surveys on trails, which will allow MORA to continue to identify species and individuals, and to accomplish the following goals: 1) detect occurrence of fisher, wolverine and Cascade red fox in the park using photos and DNA from scats, hair, and urine samples, 2) estimate the number of Cascade red fox in the park using genetic mark-recapture analysis of genotyped DNA, 3) identify health risks by characterizing parasites in scats, 4) identify key food resources by DNA metabarcoding of scat samples, 5) estimate Cascade red fox home range size and seasonal distribution to identify areas to focus education and outreach efforts and reduce fox habituation, food conditioning and human/wildlife conflicts. Field work requires hiking up to 10 miles per day for multiple consecutive days in a remote, mountainous setting carrying pack that weighs up to 40 pounds. The survey protocol can be viewed here: https://www.cascadescarnivore.org/volunteer
The intern will work 40-hours per week both independently and as part of a team. Candidates must be able to hike over uneven terrain carrying a 40 pound backpack for up to 15 miles. Successful candidates will: have a keen interest in wildlife and wilderness, be highly motivated and well organized, have excellent verbal and written communication skills, be an enthusiastic learner, be engaging with the public, have experience backpacking and camping, and have a strong commitment to safety. Experience/coursework in ecology, field methods, mammalogy, ornithology, biology, molecular biology, environmental policy, and GIS are highly desired.
The applicant must be a U.S. citizen or U.S. permanent legal resident ("green-card-holder") between the ages of 18 and 30 years old, inclusive, or veterans up to age 35. Prior to starting this position, a government security background clearance will be required.
To learn more about this position, please click here.
To apply for this job please visit www.mosaicsinscience.org.


Today's PR landscape is complex. With the number of traditional media outlets on the decline, and the number of social media and thought leadership channels on the rise, it can be difficult for any modern PR professional to keep up. Healthcare PR pros face the additional challenge of complying with regulations that the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) imposes on healthcare related communications. The intent here is not to cover the details of every government regulation, but rather, we thought it would be useful to share some of the rules, principles and definitions, specific to the FDA, that can impact your PR, advertising, and promotional efforts.
FDA guidance states that the agency evaluates the "net impression" of a promotional piece "to determine whether the piece as a whole conveys an accurate and non-misleading impression of the benefits and risks of the promoted product." The FDA considers not only words or statements, but also designs and images, format, and placement and size of text. So while individual statements may be accurate and non-misleading, you must consider the impact of the piece as a whole before determining whether it meets this FDA standard.
Healthcare products can provide many benefits to patients, but they often also come with risks. The FDA may determine any material as "misleading", including a press release, that does not adequately balance the benefits and risks of a healthcare product or service.
You may be thinking, "But, wait! How can I communicate the benefits and risks of my product in a 140 character Tweet?" The FDA feels your pain, but unfortunately is not moved. Recently released social media and internet guidelines state, "If the firm concludes that adequate benefit and risk information, as well as other required information, cannot all be communicated within the same tweet, then the firm should reconsider using Twitter for the intended promotional message." They make the same statement regarding character limited advertising, such as Google Adwords. Keep in mind that linking to adequate benefit and risk information does not mitigate the company's responsibility to address both in the initial communication.
The promotion of the off label use of prescription drugs is prohibited. That means that a drug intended and approved to fight depression, for example, cannot be promoted as a sleep aid, even if anecdotal evidence suggests that it is effective as such. Healthcare PR professionals should pay attention to the public statements of employers or clients to avoid this potential violation.
It may seem like a good idea to let third parties (who are not subject to FDA regulation) make the case for your product or service. Not so fast. In 2012 the FDA sent a warning letter to Amarc Enterprises regarding the marketing of a dietary supplement on their company Facebook page. The FDA found the company to be in violation of the accurate and non-misleading standard because the company "liked" a user's post in which the user endorsed the product as an effective cancer treatment. Also cited was a link on the company's timeline to a third party website regarding cancer treatment.
All of this may seem a bit overwhelming, but the bottom line is that the FDA is tasked with the important responsibility of ensuring that patients get complete, fair and reliable information about the products and services they choose. Healthcare PR professionals can partner with them by following the regulations and guidance provided by the agency. With careful thought, your PR strategy can be executed in a way that is both compliant and compelling. We highly recommend that all PR pros in the healthcare industry get further education on this subject.


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Lucid versus Rivian: a contrasting business approach
EV makers have suffered due to supply chain shocks and production shortfalls. Rivian shares have fallen more than Lucid, leaving a higher upside for the Amazon-backed company, even as analysts remain optimistic about the prospects of both companies.
The share prices of Rivian [RIVN] and Lucid Motors [LCID] have shown diverging trends over the past month.
The Rivian stock price is down 18.8% since the start of last month, closing at $50.24 on 31 March. In comparison, the Lucid share price is up by 1.6% over the same period.
This may be because of a standout difference in the companies' production styles. Rivian entirely outsources the production of its electric motors. Lucid on the other hand, much in line with other EV companies like Tesla [TSLA], builds them in house or 'insources' them.
LCID Chart by TradingView
Sectoral weakness for EVs
Despite the general euphoria surrounding electric vehicles under the global green movement, shares of EV makers have been under pressure since the start of 2022. Investors are in the process of churning their portfolios from growth-oriented companies to value stocks. In addition to that, pressure from supply chain disruptions and limited production of semiconductors has further hurt the auto market.
The Global X Autonomous and Electric Vehicles ETF [DRIV], which tracks key players in the EV space, as well as technology providers with exposure to the electric vehicle industry, has fallen 9.7% in the first quarter of 2022.
However, Rivian has had it worse. It was publicly listed in November 2021 and rose approximately 70% immediately. Then, it started falling and is now at half the level at which it started the year.
Lucid stock is also down 30% since the start of 2022, although since 1 March it has reversed some of its earlier losses.
Fresh pair of hands at Rivian
In its fourth-quarter update on 12 March, Rivian warned that it may have to halve its production outlook for 2022 to 25,000 units because of supply chain concerns. Then,
it grabbed headlines when it raised and reversed a price hike on its flagship electric pickup truck to offset inflationary pressure.
It didn't help that its blue-chip buyer Amazon [AMZN], which holds 20% in the company, placed an order from rival Stellantis, owner of the Chrysler brand.
To course correct, Rivian is relying on freshly hired chief operating officer Frank Klein, who joins the company in the role on 1 June, according to a company press release. Klein will be responsible for building "robust and stable operations processes as well as scaling vehicle production", the company said.
RIVN Chart by TradingView
Lucid's regulatory probe challenge
Lucid, at its end, is also facing production challenges and revised this year's output estimates to 12,000–14,000 vehicles from 20,000 earlier.
The luxury EV manufacturer said the lower targets were a result of shortages of parts such as window glass and interior carpeting. Lucid, like Rivian, may be forced to increase prices as raw material costs inch up, particularly as Russia's war in Ukraine has exacerbated supply issues. Lucid's CEO Peter Rawlinson told Reuters that there is an "inevitability" that the company will need to "look at the price points of models that are coming out in the future".
The Lucid stock also faces a regulatory overhang. It came under the lens of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with regards to disclosures and projections it made when it was publicly listed in July last year. Lucid has still not made any statement on the matter.
Rawlinson said he was "optimistic" that these issues would be resolved, helped at least in part by Lucid's plans to develop a vehicle assembly facility in the US and a second factory in Saudi Arabia.
Rivian or Lucid: Which stock is better?
Analysts are optimistic about both stocks, although the projected returns on Rivian at this time appear to be higher.
According to 15 analysts polled by MarketScreener, Rivian has a consensus 'buy' rating and an average price target of $86.87, representing a 72.9% upside on its 31 March closing price. Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley calls it "the one that can challenge Tesla," in a widely reported investor note.
Lucid has a consensus 'outperform' rating and a $34.75 price target, representing a 36.8% upside on its share price at the close on 31 March.
Citi analyst Itay Michaeli reduced his price target on Lucid stock from $57 to $45 last month, because of the lower-than-expected production forecasts for its Air model, reported The Fly. However, Michaeli maintained a 'buy' rating as Lucid's Q4 losses were lower than expected.
Will VR hardware help lift the Apple share price?
Meta is the industry leader when it comes to augmented reality and virtual reality hardware, but Apple could eat into its dominance.
Investors lose appetite for Beyond Meat and Tyson Foods shares
Demand for plant-based protein products is falling as consumers cut back on foods with premium prices.
Geely's Zeekr premium EV brand eyes $10bn IPO valuation
It would be the first major listing of a Chinese company in the US since Beijing and Washington agreed to share audits.
Gene editing stocks are being dragged down. Is now the time to buy?
Gene editing is a niche that could be the key to unlocking the future of healthcare, but there are several challenges for industry players to overcome.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This is the 31st of 215 Banbury photos.
I used to go to this lovely swimming pool. I learnt to swim and dive here, and used to dive off the spring board.
Add a memory of Banbury.
Buy "Banbury, Market Place 1960" Available as a print, mounted, framed, or on canvas.


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Committee considers applicants for Presidential Pardons
Bandits hit Republic Bank ATM on Ariapita Avenue
Darlisa Ghouralal Created : 4 September 2018 Crime
Investigations are continuing following a robbery at Republic Bank's Ariapita Avenue, Port of Spain branch over the Independence Day long weekend.
Police reports indicate that security officers on Monday discovered that a wall had been busted in an apparent attempt to gain access to the bank's main vault.
Republic Bank confirmed to media that the thieves were only able to breach a cash bin and made off with $180,000 in assorted cash: 127,000TTD, 5,000 USD, and 500 Can$.
The bandits also made off with a total of 205 pounds and 427 Euros.
A sensor for the bank's ATM was also said to have been stolen.
Republic Bank has provided CCTV footage to police to aid in their investigations.
Woodbrook police are continuing investigations into this incident.
Republic Bank Limited's Woodbrook branch was broken into over the long weekend.
Below is the full statement from Republic Bank:
"The burglars were able to circumvent the Bank's security systems and gain access to the premises. However, they were not able to access the Bank's main cash vault. Overnight teller tills were tampered with and a value of less than $200,000 was stolen.
Republic Bank is providing video footage and other electronic security evidence to the police.
The Bank takes the security of its branches very seriously and continues to work with law enforcement officials to apprehend the perpetrators and bring them to justice."
Download the Loop News Caribbean app on Google Play Store: http://bit.ly/GetALoop
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Ariapita Avenue
Bank robbery
ATM sensor stolen
Six years hard labour for man accused of robbery with violence
Bandits make off with half million in cash from Chaguanas bank
Security guards stop attempted ATM robbery
New Student Guild inducted at UWI St. Augustine


I'm going to be making some presentations next week in three different places. These timings are a bit provisional still; I will update this if they change. Had a couple of TV interview requests; if there are any others, please contact the organisers to agree how to proceed.
7pm – 9pm Public Meeting and book signing in the Old Magistrate's Court, St. Helier (just behind the Town Hall). Also attended by TJN's John Christensen.
9.15 p.m. Buffet supper for about 20 interested people in the upper room of the Post Horn pub.
Contact clubley42 (at) hotmail.com for further details.


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Information Theory and Metaphysics
March 10, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 34 Comments
Courtesy of listener Matt Gantner, here's a Scientific American article on "Why Information Can't Be the Basis of Reality."
The author, John Horgan, criticizes information theorists like James Gleick who posit that information is somehow the basic structure of the universe (which seems to be a modern variation on Anaxagoras's idea that mind, or Nous, is the fundamental component). Horgan argues that information requires someone to be informed, i.e. requires consciousness, which is obviously not in any ordinary sense present at the sub-atomic level. This is similar to Searle's "Chinese Room" argument against the idea that "mind" can be understood as symbol manipulation (discussed here).
What do you think? Is Horgan missing something?
-Mark Linsenmayer
Filed Under: Web Detritus Tagged With: Chinese room argument, information theory, metaphysics, nature as mind, philosophy blog
Ethan Gach says
It all sounds pretty Hegalian (or at least touches on one of his central issues) to the degree that they are arguing over which is more primary, the information or material that conveys it, or in another way, the perceptions or the perciever (when what really makes sense is to say, its the middle ground, duh!})
For instance a lot of Horgan's questions could be turned back around, like the following:
"The concept of information makes no sense in the absence of something to be informed—that is, a conscious observer capable of choice, or free will (sorry, I can't help it, free will is an obsession)."
Well does conciousness make sense without something to be concious of? Or in Horgan's phrasing, how could their be an informed without information?
And then there is this straw man:
"Matter can clearly exist without mind, but where do we see mind existing without matter? Shoot a man through the heart, and his mind vanishes while his matter persists. "
Well the body is still existing to another mind. That Horgan concerns himself with the body and mind of one person, while sneaking in the conciousness of a second observer seems a silly oversight.
Of course none of that is to say that all matter could be information, any more than all information could be matter. So while Horgan wants to give matter primacy, it seems obvious that giving the primacy to information is just as problematic, or rather, that the distinction between them is problematic.
And Wheeler seems to make this very claim when offering the following:
"We live in a "participatory universe," Wheeler suggested, which emerges from the interplay of consciousness and physical reality, the subjective and objective realms."
This all gets confused though with the idea of information as binary sets. If information consists of binary sets, it must be some second order thing, arising perhaps, from the interplay of these binaries (like the possibility that information, "emerges from the interplay of consciousness and physical reality), in which case would information be primary, even as it "arises" out of other things?
So in response to the Horgan critique, maybe one could say that the universe = information. Information IS the interplay of binaries, which as relations of things to other things ARE what we think of as conciousness, and since conciousness needs what it is concious of in order to be concious (assuming conciousness requires an object at which to direct itself or differentiate itself from), and I really don't know where I'm going with this, other than to say that Horgan's claim that information requires an "informed" could be correct with out it following that conciousness must be something seperate from information.
On practical grounds though, such a theoretical model could lead and in fact seems to already have led to some interesting insights into how we can configure computers, scientific models, and other systems.
Naturally, I'm with Horgan on this.
Burl says
First off, people think consciousness alone defines subjectivity/mentality and is always 'on' in animals with a CNS. Unless an organism has sense organs and is actively engaged using one or more of them to emphasize and focus upon the importance of the form of a bit of objective data (information), then most of the time the animal subjectivity is sub- or pre-conscious.
Like driving to work, unless a ball rolls into the street and jars you to full conscious awareness, you may well arrive at your destination mindless of the overall trip – your body's past event-memory allowed lower mentality to work off of a limited field of information. When we dreamlessly sleep we are non-conscious. So if everyone were on auto pilot or asleep, lots of the cosmic information required to hold everything together is inactive (no conscious yes or no decisions).
But arguably, it is just decided-upon info that is actual and the rest merely possible.
But really, isn't the data that empirical activity of conscious minds discovers what constitutes information in the article, so that unknown things like the nature of gravity are not yet decided (actualized) informationon, so there is no metaphysical need of gravity.
Maybe semiotics and says info is merely signs. For my vote, it is more likely that the ubiquitous metaphysically 'objective stuff' is feelings formed within occasions of subjective experience.
Daniel Horne says
Cool topic! I was thinking about buying this book.
Re: Horgan. Isn't this just a rehash of "idealism" vs. "materialism"? I like Horgan — he's one of the few guys I'll regularly watch on Blogging Heads TV. But one thing that annoys me about him is that he's quick to dismiss philosophical concepts once they start to violate his vision of "common sense." (As if quantum theory — which he fully accepts — doesn't also violate common sense.) I think Horgan's exchange with a fellow science writer, George Johnson is telling:
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/33899?in=13:25&out=18:06
Basically, "Hume is for college, and then you grow up."
In short, I don't think Horgan is sufficiently familiar with idealism (and its evolution and various iterations) to credibly dismiss it on the grounds that it's insufficiently "hard-headed." Watching Horgan over the years, I think what he means by "hard-headed" is simply short-hand for "what the majority of the scientific community currently accepts as true." Of course, many "hard-headed" scientists also brushed off plate tectonic theory, and relativity theory, and the Big Bang theory, until, oops, empirical observation caught up with them.
I'm not saying I accept Gleick's thesis, or idealism. But I find Horgan's critique glib. I'm more willing to be agnostic about these things, as my limited exposure to physics has made me pretty skeptical of "common sense."
I found Freeman Dyson's book review much more interesting, though it doesn't go down the idealism hole:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/10/how-we-know/?page=1
In Dan's link to Dyson's review of Gleik, the discussion of genetic info being efficacious by non-conscious genes gets to my point in my 1st post.
But I am afraid Dyson's joy in announcing the repeal of the second law of thermodynamics may be premature. For instance, he is pretty much acknowledging a form of entropy when he says:
"…from Shannon's decision to separate information from meaning. His central dogma, "Meaning is irrelevant," declared that information could be handled with greater freedom if it was treated as a mathematical abstraction independent of meaning. The consequence of this freedom is the flood of information in which we are drowning. The immense size of modern databases gives us a feeling of meaninglessness"
David Buchanan says
"The idea that mind is as fundamental as matter," Horgan says, "flies in the face of everyday experience." He thinks he's arguing from common sense and the facts of science but it seems to me that he's actually defending a metaphysical position. As Daniel points out, he seems to be dismissing idealism as if materialism were the only option. But what could be more relevant to an examination of the assertion that mind is as fundamental as matter? The readers of Scientific American are likely to find this attitude quite charming but I think the interesting thing about this information theory is the challenge it poses to the metaphysical assumptions that Horgan takes to be "crushingly obvious".
It might seem like I'm getting ready to defend idealism but if I did that it would just be a mirror image of Horgan's mistake. Instead of reducing mind to matter, I'd be reducing matter to mind. But what I think info theory implies – or at least one way to take the implication – is that mind and matter are not two separate ontological categories. Instead, mind and matter are two dimensions or aspects of everything so that the mental doesn't suddenly appear at some point in the course of evolution. Instead, mind goes all the way down so that even subatomic particles have some small ability to respond within their environment. The idea here is that at this very basic level of existence has a range of "options" so narrow that its "behavior" can be described in terms of fixed laws. Using the exact same scientific data, then, we can reconceptualize the laws of physics as extremely persistent patterns of preference.
It sounds pretty crazy at first, I know. But we don't have to imagine that atom and stars have minds in any kind of anthropomorphic sense. This is not to suggest that matter has anything like reflective self-consciousness or that a photon deliberately decides to be a particle or a wave. The idea is simply to seriously question the idea that physical reality is completely distinct from mind. I think the idea is that mind and matter evolved together. As the physical forms grow increasingly complex the mental dimension expands proportionally and a broader range of preferences can be expressed. There is still quite a leap in consciousness when we move from the physical level of evolution to the evolution of biological life but, on this view, consciousness does not have to suddenly appear out of nowhere. It was always already there, just as the physical components of life were already there, but now both dimensions have achieved a new level of complexity together.
This is a bit like idealism but it can be contrasted with the kind of absolute idealism wherein all of reality is One unified consciousness. On this alternative view, reality is entirely noetic but not in a unified way. Instead, as William James puts it, everything gets known by something. What you get here is a kind of pan-psychism wherein all of reality has a mental dimension but in various degrees and in endless varieties. On this view, reality is experience, but not a subjective solipsistic sense nor in the absolutist's universal sense. Instead, reality is experience and experience goes all the way down.
"reality is experience and experience goes all the way down" …and as A N Whitehead says, "Besides experience, there is nothing, nothing, nothing – bare nothingness."
Whitehead and James describe each moment of reality as a droplet or throb of experience. These experiences are dipolar – physical/mental, or similarly, objective/subjective.
Subjectivity/mentality is the stuff only of a present and momentarily brief occasion (maybe ½ sec in human conscious experiences) that quickly becomes a brute objective/physical fact of the past. In its once future, there is a new becoming in the now present occasion of subjective experience.
(Ontologically/temporally, one might say objectivity is be-ing in the past, and subjectivity is be-coming of the present. But this seems counter to Heidegger, to me.)
As best I can paraphrase ANW, the universe is a welter of megatrillions of split second spatio-temporal (throbs) called 'actual entities' or 'occasions of experiene' or 'actual occasions'. During such throbs, subjective experience takes what is and integrates it with what might be. Affective tone (form) of physical feelings now objectified past facts actualized by once subjectively present occasions, together all lure the present actual entity to integrate the affective tones with conceptually grasped possibilities as it desires achieving greater definiteness of the forms. Once the present subjectivity satisfies its appetite, becoming ceases – its be-ing is of objective brute facticity. Its one time future now succeeds it as a new present subjective occasion whose past now includes a new fact – its immediate predecessor.
Speculative metaphysics at its grandest, but maybe just hokey ideas suffering from a mix of inconsistent existents (time, space, concept, feeling, form, mental, physical…). It is how ANW explains the universality of all experience, from quantuum to human consciousness. I am posting this to confirm and perhaps add a little to what David commented about experience going all the way down to an electron.
The small particle occupies a locus of space-time containing an interacting nexus of similar particle-events and exhibits a procession of past/present/future. Its present occasion of experience is far more physical than mental, and lasts maybe a billionth of a second. In its present circumstances, it's 'experience' is of the immediately past occasions in its nexus (protons, neutrinos, whatever the find at cyclotrons…) whose physical energies (analogous to affective feelings in organisms) are 'subjectively sensed' and integrated with a new possibility (or a mere repeat of its past). It's present act is already largely predicted by its physical past, as will also be true for that which succeeds it as its future; but, with all the individual possibilities that affect the interacting 'particles' in their own process within a nexus, this present occasion may have taken in a past of energy forms that would most efficiently be integrated in such a sudden new manner that the particle jumps into a higher or lower orbit (or whatever electrons do that make news in quantuum science journals).
I think it might help here to focus on what I like to call "semantic indeterminacy," which I think shows the seriousness of the problem whatever one's metaphysical/epistemological persuasion. What makes the sentences in a book "information" is not just its syntax (rules of combination) but semantics: meaning the arbitrary assignments of meanings to symbols. This is clearly requires conventions adhered to by human subjects: "dog" need not mean dog, and dogs can be referred to by any symbols we like. Another way to illustrate this is to take any computer program you like: it has an infinite number of interpretations depending on how we rig up our inputs and outputs to making them meaningful to human beings. The call of duty is also math. But with some tweaking (not of code but hardware) it could be turned into a inefficiently programmed game of tic tac toe. And so on. (Or it could just be call of duty where all greens are replaced with browns and vice versa).
The point is that there is nothing independent of human custom that allows us to take a particular set of patterns of 5 volt charges or the absence thereof and say even that they are 0's and 1's, even though they can be conveniently made (in computers) to represent them (in the same way that "dog" is a convenient way to refer to dogs). That's semantic indeterminacy. You can't derive semantics from syntax, and you can't have information without semantics. And semantics requires human subjects. There's is no subject-independent, metaphysical a-priori correlation between "dog" and dogs, or a certain set of code and Call of Duty. They have to be rigged that way by custom or hardware.
So you can pretend all you want that information is "out there," but this is simply a way of concealing from yourself a fundamental problem — of conflating syntax and semantics because it gets one out of a thorny bind. The inventor of the computational theory of mind Jerry Fodor himself realized this and has written about it frequently in the the last few years as a criticism of his own work. It's is simply naive to use the word "information" in the way that it used by many popularizes of cognitive science.
Being a Hegelian or idealist, incidentally, does not help you out of the problem. Because the same indeterminacy and lack of derivation of semantics from syntax is a problem even if we think of the as both involving contributions from the subject. The problem just becomes a problem of a relationship between two things in the idea-realm rather than its more typical formulation as the mind body problem, where syntax is associated with matter and semantics with mind.
Tom McDonald says
This is an excellent argument against formalism in logic, i.e. focusing on syntax and ignoring the thoroughly contextual character of semantics.
Your point about syntax and semantics is not widely enough appreciated.
However, let me dispute your point about Hegelian "idealism". Kenneth Westphal is a notable contemporary philosopher who argues for Hegel as a realist. With Westphal I would urge not to read Hegel as an idealist but as an anti-dualist and realist.
It is just not going to work to say we can have information in our heads or in our concepts that bears no fundamental origin or relation in reality itself. Hegel foresaw this problem with Kantian subjectivism and that's one reason why there's still contemporary significance to his philosophy.
The idea is that in some sense, nature bears the germ of rationality in the form of patterns, repetitions, and reproductions. Isn't identity, even if we only call identity the relation of resemblance, the most fundamental germ of what we mean by reason and intelligence?
With this idea we can get the drift of Hegel's argument that there has to be continuum form nature to reason as more fully developed and manifest in us.
Geez, Wes, I thought ANW was hard to follow. For someone with no real analytic phil background other than my Phil 102, "Copi's Logic," can you paraphrase what you just posted?
I am not dumb, only uninitiated in the terminology you use.
Typo,
'I' not 'P' in last sentence
Burl, we discuss this on the phil of mind episode; it's probably easier to get in context. Semantics: what terms mean (relation of symbols to objects). In computers, strings of symbols can elicit actions in a program. Does that program "know what the symbols mean?" It Wittgenstein's rule-following sense, yes, they do, but all this relation of symbols to other symbols to actions taken by the program (which, to it, are just really more symbols; it doesn't KNOW that if it sends electric pulse to position B that its arm will raise or that it'll print something out); it doesn't know how these things connect to the real world. So you can't model a human mind with a computer and you can't model physics and chemistry as just a bunch of information processing.
Hi Burl, sorry — I wrote that quickly and should have explained those terms. See Mark's response, and: think of syntax as a language's grammar, semantics as its dictionary.
There are certain rules for the way we order words, for instance, such that they can be meaningful English sentences. "The touches rat red" is a violation of syntax/grammar: to name one problem, an article can't precede a present indicative active verb in this way. We find such rules in grammar books; but we look to a dictionary for semantics.
In logic, these rules include, for instance, the notion that ~(a & b) makes sense but (a ~& b) does not. Those logical operators never go next to each other. But the semantics here has to do with what meaning I assign to "a" (we use symbols like "a" here because logic abstracts from specific content, but we assume we can make any assignment of any atomic sentence we like to "a" without changing logical relations).
When I'm writing a computer program, I quickly learn when I've violated syntax: my code returns an error. Suppose I write a program that essentially says, "if someone presses the 'K' key, draw a red pixel at coordinate x, y on the screen." I might screw up the syntax if I put my "if" and my "then" in the wrong place. But semantics here ultimately has to do with the fact that the keyboard and monitor are connected to the computer in a way that is meaningful for human beings. It's like the assignment of the meaning dog to "dog." The code at bottom — the series of 0's and 1's that famously compose it, if that's familiar to you — itself has no way to refer to a red pixel; there isn't some series of 0's and 1's that would give you a red pixel in any hardware setup, or conjure it from thin air. We human beings make those semantic assignments when we determine what electrical pattern coming from the processor will lead to a red pixel appearing on the screen. The same electrical pattern could yield a red pixel, blue pixel, or infinite number of different things depending on the setup. Consequently, the electrical patterns themselves are not "information" any more than the arrangement of empty glasses on a bar counter are "information" — they're meaningless unless made otherwise by explicit agreement between human beings.
So why there should be a fixed semantics for the brain is frankly baffling. In the case of behaviors, not so: e.g., an electrical pulse traveling down a nerve moves the finger. Alter the wiring and the same brain state will move your toe. We get something analogous to the computer rigging I described above. But what of the feeling of pain? Given the whole setup it's clear that pricking my finger will cause a certain behavior via intermediate brain activity, in the same way that it would be clear to someone analyzing a certain mechanical system that pushing a lever will, let's say, open a door. The intervening hydraulic mechanical system shows me why in terms of physical forces. And all I have to do is examine those forces to predict the result. But I could never deduce some subjective feeling of pain associated with the intervening mechanism in either system. Where it's clear from wiring that pin prick will cause behavior x, there's nothing to tell me why it is that it produces pain rather than pleasure. I can visually traverse the nerve from finger to brain and back, but I can't traverse it from finger to brain to "pain" and then back. Pain is not a visible part of the mechanism. And there's no divine dictionary that we can inspect to see that pain is naturally assigned to a given brain state. We know that pain is correlated with certain brain states because of a) the reports of other subjects b) the fact that we have had the same experience. Those correlations are just correlations: they say nothing about the mechanism, about why there should be such an assignment written into things (when all other semantic assignments we know about are arbitrary, and all other syntactic systems we know about can be given multiple interpretations).
So the idea that semantics arises out of syntax (and one and only one set of meanings for a particular system), when we know that every syntactical system has multiple interpretations, is not now a workable idea (as intriguing as it is; hence the persistence of the mind body problem). See: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/#DoeSynExpSem
And for more on syntax and semantics in this context, see: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/#5.1
Not being able to get semantics from syntax seems to present a problem for our historical notion of the universe where in "conscious" things came from "non-conscious" things. Or at least as we understand the universe temporally as not having life at some time t1, and then having it later on at time t2.
Unless the idea of a universe before consciousness is akin to God hiding fossils in the ground (or that our traditional idea of time is inaccurate), it seems to present a problem, especially in the face of a dualism. It's one thing to have a mind/body split, but to have one precede the other seems a bit strange (not that strangeness is any measure of truth or accurateness).
At bottom, the argument for syntax seems to be that all processes are syntactical. The way humans assign meaning would itself be syntactical, and could conceivably be reproduced by a programed entity (like a robot, or a genetically/socially engineered human) so that it would seemingly "freely" assign meaning, despite doing so according to complex and perhaps unpredictable rules.
So when Wes you say, "Those correlations are just correlations: they say nothing about the mechanism," that seems to entirely endorse the idea that true, pure semantics is actually impossible, and that despite are daily semantical doings, such displays of meaning-making are really derivative of some form of rule following.
I am also confused, how can a correlation be arbitrary? If the correlation were arbitrary, how would it hold? And if it did not hold, why would it be considered a correlation (I'm thinking here of the example of correlating pain with a certain brain state). Regardless of whether someone else is in fact able to correlate my pain with my brain state x, what keeps us from thinking it is true in principle?
What if we stop thinking of intelligence as "consciousness" versus a nonconscious material 'presence'? In Hegel's anti-dualistic argument, the most fundamental sense of intelligence or reason is identity, and identity in the concrete 'non-ideal' natural world can only be a relation or resemblance between one and another entity. We can see that nature bears the germ of rationality in the formation of patterns, reproductions, and repetitions, all of which involve the basic sense of what we come to realize or cognize as relations of identity. It's not ultimately coherent to deny that there is a continuum between nature's patterns and the self-realization of rationality in us.
With this idea we can get the drift of Hegel's argument that there has to be a continuum from nature to reason as more fully developed and manifest in us.
Sorry I pasted in the rest of that by accident. This post should just read:
I'm not quite sure I understand the point you're making, could you elaborate Tom?
Ethan Gach :
@ Ethan:
Sorry if this post seems too general/abstract.
Here are the basic points I want to argue:
What exactly do we mean by rationality, i.e. intelligence, i.e. thought? I believe that in the modern world we've come to assume that these are ultimately defined by human utility, but this assumption goes unrecognized. This is an important point made by Heidegger. The hidden metaphysical assumption of modern thought is essentially this: nature is merely brute, present 'stuff' and 'mind' is a by-product of animal and then human utilization of the stuff that is present. This picture — this enframing — is generated and reinforced by modern utilitarian normativity: thou shalt not think cosmologically, thou shalt be locked inside one's own 'mind', thou shalt be humbled into the service of technological concerns.
Thanks for framing the terminology and clarifying, Mark and Wes. I have read a good bit of analytic philosophers, though admittedly superficially, so my comprehension is scant and does not endure over time.
Given the "Metaphysics of the Alphabet" of the 20th Century logical positivists, analytic philosophers and linguists like Chomsky and Pinker have severly altered the focus of 'the love of wisdom'. I never understood how bright minds could ever believe that linguistics was the metaphysical ultimate – reality itself. Such viewing of the abstractions of syntax and logical symbols is the fallacy of misplaced concreteness – taking the abstract to be the actual reality.
In the first link Wes posted above there is "syntax underdetermines semantics." You needn't tell this to a poet – it is their entire stock and trade.
In the second link which is all about Searle (as is he) and his magnum opus thought that 'A machine cannot do everything a human can.' We witness profundity never before visited upon mere mortals. He is quoted in the link saying "Computation exists only relative to some agent or observer who imposes a computational interpretation on some phenomenon. This is an obvious point. I should have seen it ten years ago, but I did not." Hot Damn! Thanks, Dr. Searle, for realizing there is a purpose for humans after all!
In a video interview of Searle's colleague, Hube Dreyfus, he says that AI failed to understand the importance of the body in human experience. Whitehead didn't. 50 years before Merleau-Ponty added arms and legs to Husserl's bracketed phenomena, ANW urged that it is our 'withness of the body' that we know the world (and contra Hume, causal efficacy). He also saw where logical positivism was making the fallacy I mentioned above and how it led Frege, Husserl, and a whole century of philosophy off course, thus evoking Ignatius Reilley from Bourbon Street to exclaim in _Confereracy of Dunces _ "What this world needs is a proper geometry and theology!
To my brief previous post that paraphrases ANW's actual occasion, I will add a detail For a presently becoming occasion of experience, the physical objective actualities of now past occasions is taken in as many feelings, each with its affective tone (= subjective form). These forms give evidence of degrees of definiteness of realized universals (eternal objects, Platonic Ideals, potentialities for actualization).
The mentality of the occasion consists in entertaining propositions whose subjects are any number of the physical data taken, and whose predicate is the universals partially realized in the predicates.
From John Cobb's "Glossary of Process":
The use of the term "proposition" suggests a connection with logic. Whitehead emphasizes that propositions play a vast role in experience beyond the one they play in logic, but logic may be a good place to begin. We can start with a common statement, such as "The dog is brown." "The dog" refers us to what Whitehead would describe as a very complex "society" of "actual occasions." "Brown" refers us to an "eternal object." The statement brings these together.
Now we note that, for Whitehead, the statement points us to a potential. The potential is not the statement but the dog itself as brown. Propositions exist in the real world as what Whitehead describes as "lures for feeling." Some of the propositions are realized in the world, some are not. The latter may be called false, but "false" propositions may be more 47 John B. Cobb, Jr.
important than true ones. For example, they may describe the way things should be and move us to action.
This fairly common-sense understanding of propositions gives way in Whitehead to a more precise and powerful one. The problem with the statement "The dog is brown." is that the logical subject already contains descriptors. Suppose what we thought was a dog was in fact a wolf. Judging such a proposition then becomes difficult. The more precise statement of the proposition is "That or it is doggy and brown." "That" or "it" simply indicates the entity about which we want to speak, the logical subject of the proposition. One connects to that entity, whatever it may be, certain eternal objects, which Whitehead calls the "predicative pattern." One is holding up the possibility that they characterize that object. The note of potentiality remains, but the prehension of the predicative pattern is tied to or integrated with the prehension of a particular entity.
Roots, Rock, Frege
With all this as lead in, the following link shows how ANW sees propositions in all their concreteness. Among other things, they are lures for feeling of the SECOND subject of the proposition – the subject entertaining the proposition.
ANW's propositions are nothing like those logical positivists' vacuous abstractions of words, symbols, and logical operators if they were, my dog could not be conscious. Asshole philosophers that are happy with that possibility can go to hell – on this, Searle and I agree.
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2770
Correction to line 1 in last para
With all this as lead in, the following link shows how ANW sees propositions in all their concreteness.
Near the end of his article Horgan says, "Part of me would love to believe that consciousness is not an accidental by-product of the physical realm but is in some sense the primary purpose of reality." Consciousness is reality's primary purpose or it's an accidental by-product? We have only those two options?
I appreciate Wes's input on the syntax-semantics distinction but doesn't it beg the question of a broader conception of consciousness to frame the question in terms the verbal and conceptual meanings of self-conscious creatures like ourselves? Isn't the question about the possibility that consciousness is ubiquitous and exist in various non-human forms? The shark has no definitions and doesn't know what "hungry" means but in some broader sense of the term the smell of blood in the water is "meaningful" to the shark. He is able to respond "intelligently" in some broader sense of that word too. The single celled organism also has some small ability to respond. But that's where most people draw the line. In our culture, extending any kind of awareness to inorganic, physical reality is just too weird for most people. But it's really just a different description, a different way to think about the same facts.
If we reject Horgan's dilemma as too stark and say consciousness is neither a by-product nor reality's sole purpose. Between those horn there is an another idea; consciousness is embodied all the way down. I guess I like the aesthetics of that idea. There is an expanded notion of evolution so that it isn't just a biological theory but extends a line of continuity from the big bang to the next great idea.
Wes makes an excellent case against formalism in logic, i.e. focusing on syntax and ignoring the thoroughly contextual character of semantics. His point about syntax and semantics is not widely enough appreciated.
However, let me dispute the point about Hegelian "idealism". Kenneth Westphal is a notable contemporary philosopher who argues for Hegel as a realist. With Westphal I would urge not to read Hegel as an idealist but as an anti-dualist and realist.
@ David Buchanan
This is excellent:
"If we reject Horgan's dilemma as too stark and say consciousness is neither a by-product nor reality's sole purpose. Between those horn there is an another idea; consciousness is embodied all the way down."
Except that I would reformulate it this way:
We should reject Horgan's dilemma as too stark: we need not believe that either (a) reason is a pure by-product or (b) achieving thought is reality's purpose. Between those horns there is an another idea: reason is embodied in the repetition and differing of nature all the way down.
This is interesting, but what you advocate (if that's the right word) sounds like a neo-Schopenhauerian concept of the World as Will. I don't mean that as a critique, but I wonder if you agree there's a resemblance.
Are you saying all experience is conscious experience?
*Are you saying all experience is conscious experience?*
This question to David was #16 this morning, but now #20.
I think it even went from #15 last nite to #16 this morning.
There is a bug in the combox indexing.
Nevermind, I see there really are 21 entries – I guess the coffee was weak this morning. I am reading James' "World of Pure Experience," where I think he posits the neutral monism of pan-experience which has objective/mental aspects all at once.
James' "World of Pure Experience"…sheesh
On Heidegger's insightful suggestion we should get rid of the terms "mental", "consciousness", and "mind" because they carry too much subjectivist baggage which hinders us from understanding what in the world itself makes it intelligible.
Resugence of the Ancient Concept of Science?
Mark is right to compare Gleick to an ancient Greek like Anaxagoras. I would also suggest Aristotle. Gleick's proposition is meta-physical and aesthetic in the sense that he appreciates the organization of nature into patterns in a non-utilitarian, i.e. non-modern (postmodern?) way.
The Modern Attitude Toward Nature: Skeptical, Ascetic, Utilitarian, Subjectivist
Horgan's response is a great example of the encrustation of Cartesian dualist subjectivism and Humean skeptical subjectivism into modern utilitarian dogma disguising itself as objectivity about nature. Horgan argues that there is no information without information-for, and there is no being-for in nature as such, therefore one must deny in oneself the tempting but sinful idea that reason is continuous with nature. Here Horgan also betrays the concealed asceticism in the modern utilitarian idea of science: in order to develop the most useful scientific applications and technologies we must deny ourselves the indulgent metaphysical and aesthetic intelligence of Greek philosophy.
A Possible Way Out of Dualism?
I suggest we follow Heidegger and try to ween ourselves off terms like "mind" and "consciousness" which are weighted with subjectivist baggage. The continuity between nature and reason is to be found in temporal terms like pattern, repetition, reproduction. In nature pattern, repetition, reproduction are unselfconscious, whereas in human culture these temporal movements become self-reflective and free via human historical development.
Sorry if that seems just as obscure. I'm trying to put the argument together in clearer way and will post again later.
Lookin' forward to it. You know, ever since the dawn of speculative thought around the axial era 3(?) millennia back, we have tried to figure out what kind of *stuff* we move around in. I wonder if fish do the same thing?
I am attracted to Heidegger's Being as an ultimate, but confess I have not absorbed his various terms and qualifications. But I am pretty dense, as I have been reading process phil stuff for several years now and still get hung up on some basic notions.
For example, I do not know why I cannot prehend the past actual occasions of another mind. I understand I cannot read his/her present becoming occasion of mind, but what about once it is settled and objectified as a brute fact.
Any process folk out there in PEL country know the answer?
Bohm's active information – watch all 5 of this processist's thought.
Then ask Dr. Cobb http://www.processandfaith.org/askcobb/
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text:
Survivor Kaôh Rōng: Neal Gottlieb Gives The Scoop On His Emergency Exit
March 31, 2016 – 11:06 AM – 1 Comment
Neal Gottlieb, an ice cream entrepreneur, was pulled from Survivor due to a leg injury (CBS)
Long ago, Vanuatu played host to Survivor. Thirty-nine days of conniving and kava benders bore out on the so-called "Islands of Fire," a nickname earned by the land's active volcanoes. Twenty-three seasons later, Survivor unleashed another round of major volcanic activity, not in the form of an actual volcano, but in the form of an oozing pit of human fire called Mount Saint Neal.
That's the nickname Survivor Kaôh Rōng ice cream man Neal Gottlieb coined for the gaping hole in his knee, a gushing source of pus that was ripe for infection. The risk of permanent damage was so high that host Jeff Probst and the Survivor medical team pulled Neal from the game in this week's merge episode, ending the Brains tribe's dandy schemer's journey at 19 days.
Neal's exit couldn't come at a worse time for his fellow Brains. The three remaining members of his original tribe — former federal agent Joe del Campo, manatee devotee Aubry Bracco, and multi-hyphenate Debbie Wanner — appear to be on the outs with the seven other players in the game, ripe for the Pagonging in the weeks ahead, barring some serious maneuvering. What's more, Neal left the game with a hidden immunity idol still in his pocket, leaving the Brains outgunned in the battle against Kyle Jason and Tai Trang's respective idols.
I spoke with Neal this morning about his untimely exit from the game, why he held onto the idol, his outlook as the first member of the Kaôh Rōng jury, and more.
Fair warning: Neal goes into graphic detail about his wounds, and it's not pretty.
How're you feeling, Neal? I know it's early in California right now…
It's way too early. I got way too little sleep, and I had way too much fun last night. [Laughs] Despite the fact that it was my own funeral!
I have to imagine it was cathartic on some level.
It is. I can finally tell America that I lost Survivor. That was April 17. Almost a full year ago.
We all know about Mount Saint Neal, but did the thing on your back have a name?
No, I didn't even know the thing on my back existed until I think Day 18, the day after the merge. I was in the water with Aubry and she goes, "What the hell is the thing on your back?" I thought it was a pimple or something. I felt it while I was sleeping. But I had no idea that it was dead black flesh.
You didn't know it was Black Kryptonite.
Yeah. Oh my god, it was absolutely disgusting. I didn't even get a good view of it until I saw it on camera at the hospital. Before the individual immunity challenge, when I went and saw medical, I hadn't shown [my back] to medical. They'd been aware of the knee from Day 15, but I didn't show them the one on the back because I didn't know it was a thing. Doctor Rupert [not Boneham] took both hands and squeezed it, and the amount of blood and pus that came out of it was absolutely amazing. I could look over my shoulder, and my back looked like a Civil War battlefield. It was absolutely disgusting. Can you imagine a grown man with his man hands grabbing your flesh and basically tearing it open? That was one of the more painful experiences of my life.
[Expletive].
But it didn't matter. I was staying in. I was ready to keep kicking some ass.
Well, that's awful. But Mount Saint Neal is the real reason you're pulled. What was the recovery process?
I ended up at the hospital around midnight. I was staring up at the ceiling as they dug out my knee with what looked like a melon baller. They did the same thing to my back. I was in the hospital for a couple of days. They brought me back to the city that the island of Kaôh Rōng is off of, and the next morning, I ran four miles on the hotel treadmill. The only time the knee ever really hurt was the first day that it popped up, as the painful little pimple. The doctor came out and ended up lancing it. After that, I had full mobility. I was running around, I was looking for idols, I was getting food. I was fine! That's one of the reasons why it was so tough. I understand why they made the decision, but at the same time, as I said to Jeff before the challenge, "I'm fine." It wasn't bothering me.
After you went through the hospital and consulted with the doctors and everything, did that crystalize the situation for you? Did you agree with their decision to pull you from the game?
I mean, I think I'll always be split on that thought. There was a confessional I gave in the morning before the immunity challenge. They were setting up the shot, and I was digging into [the knee] with some grass, just getting some pus out, and a big chunk came out. I could see that the hole wasn't what I thought it was. There was a secondary hole beneath the hole. It went a lot deeper than I thought. That was the moment where I thought to myself, "Oh, crap. They're going to pull me for this."
So, I actually packed all my stuff up. I didn't tell anyone what I was doing. But I brought the ice cream pants, my leather shoes, my sports coat, my bow tie, and a few other mementos, to the immunity challenge, because I thought for sure they were going to yank me from the game right there. And then they didn't. They didn't! I thought, "Okay, we're going to get through Tribal. They're going to leave me in." And then you see Jeff pulling up in the boat…
…and you knew what was coming.
Oh, yeah. If you look back through the press photos, I'm sitting on that log like a dog about to be put down. I couldn't even look at them. I knew exactly what was going to happen.
How much time was spent out there comparing war wounds? You were all so beat up!
[Laughs] I mean, when Jeff came out — and you didn't even see it, but just about everybody had something that he had to walk through. I laughed, because I thought Jeff was getting ready to give Dr. Phil a run for his money and have a daytime medical show or something. It was certainly something to talk about! We were like a bunch of old people with our ailments. But at the same time, I don't think there was a single person who was like, "I want out. This sucks." By no means.
Pivoting away from the injury, let's talk about the idol. Why didn't you give it to Aubry, or anyone else for that matter? You said on Twitter that there's a story there. What's the story?
The night before, as you saw, there's this scene of Aubry and I sitting on the beach. I let her know that I have the idol. That conversation goes on for quite some time. At some point she says something along the lines of, "You know, I'll slit your throat if I have to." And at that point, I had a pretty good idea that I was going to be pulled from the game. So in my fragile emotional state, I just did not find any humor in that comment.
It was that, and then it was getting pulled. It's one thing to know you're going to get pulled, but when Jeff shows up and you're still in that game… when you're in the game, you always have hope that you're going to stay in it and find a way. I think I still had that hope until the doctor said, "We're pulling you from the game." Then it was just a few frantic minutes of saying goodbye. It was a crazy emotional state, where I'm just thinking, "What can I do about this? How can I fix this?" Because that's how you are in the game. There was also just a part of me thinking, "If I go home now, Aubry gets to live to see another day, and I'm going to have a family heirloom." But I instantly regretted it.
I was going to ask if you regret the decision.
I do. But also, they didn't show that as we were saying goodbyes… they edited my quote to the team. I stared them all down and said, "You guys are lucky… because I was going to beat every single one of you." And they knew it! But then Aubry and I walked around just a tiny bit, and I gave her my jacket. I put some things in the pocket of the jacket, that I pulled out of some other pockets in my pants. So [the others] didn't know whether or not I gave Aubry the idol. There's also the thought that sometimes the threat of an idol is even more powerful than the idol itself. Idols get played, but if you don't know if somebody has it or not, that threat can go on for some time.
Before you were pulled, did you have a solid plan on how you were going to navigate that Tribal Council, or did you feel like you were in a bad spot? It looked pretty bleak for Brains.
I think Aubry was in a really bad spot, with the numbers the way they were. They weren't going to take a chance on me, having an idol. But it's tough to be the Brains in Brains vs Brawn vs Beauty. There's a reason why they throw the Brains into lockers, because the brawny people are threatened by the smart people, and the beautiful people are threatened by the smart people. That puts a target from you on the beginning.
I think the move is you have to be a crap-for-Brains, like in Cagayan.
Or the crazy one, or the older one, but not the one who's the puzzle master and physical threat as well and is well-liked. But it's an individual game at that point. Sure, we're still playing as three separate tribes at that point, but how long are those alliances going to last?
Were you aware of any of the other idols in the game? You were on the same beach with Jason for a while. Did you know about his idol, and if so, did you have any type of relationship with him where you could have teamed up to create a super idol?
I didn't trust Jason, so I wasn't going to let him know that I had an idol. But I suspected that he had one. At one point, I was about to look in his bag, which is where he kept his idol, but somebody showed up and I never got around to it. But I suspected. They were always explaining away something with the idol and Alecia. I don't remember the exact story, but when people throw [stories] out at you, you tend not to believe them. But I suspected he had one.
Also, the morning of Day 19, I actually found the Beauty's idol box, so I knew that was out there. I found the lock, key and clue, but the idol wasn't there. I think I mentioned it to Nick, and he said, "I think Caleb had it." I was at the same tree on Day 17 with Tai walking around, and he kind of played dumb, so I suspected that it was him. But it's also a year on and it's easy to remember that you knew what was going on all the time, but there were hunches.
You're the foreperson of the jury. Without spoiling outcome, can you talk about your approach to the jury, and how you viewed your new role in the game?
I don't know if you've seen the memes on Reddit and everything, about "Neal's always watching." But it's kind of funny, because for the next 20 days, Neal's always watching! [Laughs] There's a little irony there.
I'm sure there are going to be some great screen-grabs in the future. I hope you brought an umbrella to Tribal Council.
Yeah, funny. Cute. I didn't know that was going to pop up… like a Victorian lady with a parasol. [Laughs] But I have such love for the game. I wanted somebody who lived up to those virtues of outwitting, outplaying and outlasting to win.
It's a year on, as you said, and it's a tough way to lose Survivor. You play the game expecting that you might get blindsided. You don't expect that you'll get pulled for a knee injury. How unresolved is this for you — and if it is resolved, or close to resolved, how did you get there?
It's not. It's not resolved. It can't be. I'll always go forward through life firmly believing I was going to win that thing. That's a tough thing. On one hand it puts me in an enviable position. Caleb left so early, and I think it's hard to say that he was going to win; he had a huge target because of who he was, and people knew him. Everybody else lost that game either by getting voted out or not getting enough votes at Final Tribal. So it's an enviable position where I can go forward and tell the world that I was going to win, and nobody can prove me wrong. At the same time, it's grossly unsatisfying. You were going to win Survivor, and you didn't, all because you had a volcano of pus spewing out of your knee.
Josh Wigler is a writer, editor and podcaster who has been published by MTV News, New York Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Comic Book Resources and more. He is the co-author of The Evolution of Strategy: 30 Seasons of Survivor, an audiobook chronicling the reality TV show's transformation, and one of the hosts of Post Show Recaps, a podcast about film and television. Follow Josh on Twitter @roundhoward.


Accolade Hospice is seeking pre-nursing students for our Volunteer Program! This is a wonderful opportunity to serve your community as well as enhance your applications for Nursing programs. We offer flexible schedules, opportunities to use your talents and uniqie life experiences. Our Volunteers are able to contribute to the care of our patients and/or also assist in our office.
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The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has produced a report, 'Complaints Matter,' which said there was a wide variation in the way complaints were handled across the NHS, primary care and adult social care services in England.
The report said too often people were met with a "defensive culture" and people could be put off making complaints about care because providers were not willing to listen to concerns. Many people who contact the CQC do not even get as far as making a complaint, as they are put off by the confusing system or worried about the impact that complaining might have on their or their loved ones' care.
More needs to be done to encourage an open culture where concerns are welcomed and learned from. The CQC says it has been looking at how to make complaints handling part of its inspections of health and adult care services in England.
Let's hope the report's findings are acted upon, so the most vulnerable people are treated with dignity and respect which they deserve.


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Female lawmakers support 'Day Without Women' -- but won't skip their votes
Updated: 3:28 AM PST Mar 8, 2017
CNN: @womensmarch/Twitter
'A day without a woman' -- Women's March organizers plan general strike
SOURCE: CNN: @womensmarch/Twitter
As many women go on strike around the world Wednesday, some female lawmakers in Congress are standing with them in support. But they're not taking the day off. "I certainly admire this as an opportunity to remind people how important women are to our society," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire. "But I will be here working." "There's so much mischief going on in this Congress with the Republicans, we dare not turn our backs," quipped Rep. Lois Frankel, a Florida Democrat who chairs the women's caucus in the House. The same team that organized the Women's March in January is encouraging working women to stay home on International Women's Day in a demonstration of economic solidarity they are calling "A Day Without A Woman." They're urging women to take the day off from both paid and unpaid work, wear red and avoid spending money (unless it's on small, women and minority-owned businesses). So many women are taking heed that schools in Alexandria, Virginia, are shutting down Wednesday because more than 300 employees have requested the day off. The day of protest is the latest evidence that the millions of women who turned out for women's marches around the country the day after President Donald Trump's inauguration are remaining engaged in politics -- particularly as congressional Republicans advance a new measure that would block government dollars from going to Planned Parenthood as part of an Obamacare repeal. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, said since the Women's March, "a record number" of women are expressing interest in running for public office, and others are "paying very close attention." "They're trying to make the point that equality is really important because women play such an important role in our economy and our society," McCaskill said. "They're just trying to speak up and say, 'Hey, if we weren't around, you guys would be in a world of hurt.'" But as for taking the day off, she added: "I'm pretty sure I need to vote." Female lawmakers' plans Rep. Barbara Lee, D-California, sent out an email to male and female colleagues in Congress calling for them to participate by wearing red, giving floor speeches about women's issues and coordinating social media activities. Around lunchtime, Democratic members of Congress will gather outside on the east side of the Capitol for a press event. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, said she plans on wearing red but has no plans of staying home. "I want to make sure women's voices are heard in Congress every day," she said. "I'll be here," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington state. "I applaud everyone who's making their voice heard." Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, said she will follow Lee's advice and wear red. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, said her office is ordering lunch from a woman-owned restaurant that is giving women the day off. But Duckworth said she won't be taking the day off herself. "As much as I would like to get out there and show my support by not coming, there's just a lot of work that needs to be done here that will affect the lives of women and children, and I think I'm going to go ahead and show up," she said. Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said she'll be celebrating International Women's Day. "But I'm planning on going to work -- and working hard," she added. So why the color red? "The red is symbolic of energy, the willingness to fight back," Frankel said of women's desire to speak out against what they consider damaging policies by Trump. "I feel like I am a psychiatrist because I am stopped every place I go," she said. "People are so anxious about what this president is doing ... and that's why something like this is catching on. People need to release this anxiety." Clinton, progressive groups push female candidates Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, increasingly re-entering the public eye, is set to speak Wednesday at an International Women's Day event in Washington. On Tuesday at a Girls Inc. event, said the full equality of women is "in big ways and small, the unfinished business of the 21st Century." She also urged women to run for office. "Let us hope there is a wave of young women running for office in America," Clinton said. "And let's be sure we support them, in every way we can. Let's help them shatter stereotypes and lift each other up." Emily's List, which backs female Democratic candidates, has launched a new program called "Run to Win" that triples the organization's staffing at the state and local level to recruit and train female candidates for office. The organization has heard from nearly 10,000 women interested in running for office since the 2016 election, said Jessica O'Connell, Emily's List's executive director. "Just look at what we've seen since the Women's March -- women are speaking out at town halls, providing legal counsel to those affected by Trump's immigration bans, and standing up to Trump's agenda in the halls of Congress and in government offices across the country," O'Connell said. Like the Women's March, "A Day Without Women" is led by major progressive groups. NARAL Pro-Choice America -- which led 11 liberal groups in sending a letter Monday to Senate Democrats warning them that "we need you to do better" in opposing Neil Gorsuch's nomination for the Supreme Court -- is closing its office Wednesday so staffers can participate in the day of protest. It is also sending members to participate in a protest outside the White House Wednesday over Trump's decision to reinstate the "global gag rule," which bars federal dollars from going to international health care organizations that perform abortions. "We want to send a message to the world and to the country that a world without women doesn't function, and in order to allow women to be the wonderful members of society that we are that really powers the economy and our culture forward, we need policies in place to support us. And that obviously means policies to advance reproductive freedom," said Kaylie Hanson Long, NARAL's communications director.
As many women go on strike around the world Wednesday, some female lawmakers in Congress are standing with them in support.
But they're not taking the day off.
Girl 'superhero' imitates 'Fearless Girl' statue
"I certainly admire this as an opportunity to remind people how important women are to our society," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire. "But I will be here working."
"There's so much mischief going on in this Congress with the Republicans, we dare not turn our backs," quipped Rep. Lois Frankel, a Florida Democrat who chairs the women's caucus in the House.
The same team that organized the Women's March in January is encouraging working women to stay home on International Women's Day in a demonstration of economic solidarity they are calling "A Day Without A Woman."
They're urging women to take the day off from both paid and unpaid work, wear red and avoid spending money (unless it's on small, women and minority-owned businesses).
So many women are taking heed that schools in Alexandria, Virginia, are shutting down Wednesday because more than 300 employees have requested the day off.
The day of protest is the latest evidence that the millions of women who turned out for women's marches around the country the day after President Donald Trump's inauguration are remaining engaged in politics -- particularly as congressional Republicans advance a new measure that would block government dollars from going to Planned Parenthood as part of an Obamacare repeal.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, said since the Women's March, "a record number" of women are expressing interest in running for public office, and others are "paying very close attention."
"They're trying to make the point that equality is really important because women play such an important role in our economy and our society," McCaskill said. "They're just trying to speak up and say, 'Hey, if we weren't around, you guys would be in a world of hurt.'"
But as for taking the day off, she added: "I'm pretty sure I need to vote."
Female lawmakers' plans
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-California, sent out an email to male and female colleagues in Congress calling for them to participate by wearing red, giving floor speeches about women's issues and coordinating social media activities.
Around lunchtime, Democratic members of Congress will gather outside on the east side of the Capitol for a press event.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, said she plans on wearing red but has no plans of staying home. "I want to make sure women's voices are heard in Congress every day," she said.
"I'll be here," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington state. "I applaud everyone who's making their voice heard."
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, said she will follow Lee's advice and wear red.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, said her office is ordering lunch from a woman-owned restaurant that is giving women the day off.
But Duckworth said she won't be taking the day off herself.
"As much as I would like to get out there and show my support by not coming, there's just a lot of work that needs to be done here that will affect the lives of women and children, and I think I'm going to go ahead and show up," she said.
Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said she'll be celebrating International Women's Day. "But I'm planning on going to work -- and working hard," she added.
So why the color red?
"The red is symbolic of energy, the willingness to fight back," Frankel said of women's desire to speak out against what they consider damaging policies by Trump.
"I feel like I am a psychiatrist because I am stopped every place I go," she said. "People are so anxious about what this president is doing ... and that's why something like this is catching on. People need to release this anxiety."
Clinton, progressive groups push female candidates
Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, increasingly re-entering the public eye, is set to speak Wednesday at an International Women's Day event in Washington.
On Tuesday at a Girls Inc. event, said the full equality of women is "in big ways and small, the unfinished business of the 21st Century." She also urged women to run for office.
"Let us hope there is a wave of young women running for office in America," Clinton said. "And let's be sure we support them, in every way we can. Let's help them shatter stereotypes and lift each other up."
Emily's List, which backs female Democratic candidates, has launched a new program called "Run to Win" that triples the organization's staffing at the state and local level to recruit and train female candidates for office. The organization has heard from nearly 10,000 women interested in running for office since the 2016 election, said Jessica O'Connell, Emily's List's executive director.
"Just look at what we've seen since the Women's March -- women are speaking out at town halls, providing legal counsel to those affected by Trump's immigration bans, and standing up to Trump's agenda in the halls of Congress and in government offices across the country," O'Connell said.
Like the Women's March, "A Day Without Women" is led by major progressive groups.
NARAL Pro-Choice America -- which led 11 liberal groups in sending a letter Monday to Senate Democrats warning them that "we need you to do better" in opposing Neil Gorsuch's nomination for the Supreme Court -- is closing its office Wednesday so staffers can participate in the day of protest.
It is also sending members to participate in a protest outside the White House Wednesday over Trump's decision to reinstate the "global gag rule," which bars federal dollars from going to international health care organizations that perform abortions.
"We want to send a message to the world and to the country that a world without women doesn't function, and in order to allow women to be the wonderful members of society that we are that really powers the economy and our culture forward, we need policies in place to support us. And that obviously means policies to advance reproductive freedom," said Kaylie Hanson Long, NARAL's communications director.


A new book from MIT Press is a major contribution to "Signalling Theory". It is called Honest Signals by Alex (Sandy) Pentland.
"How can you know when someone is bluffing? Paying attention? Genuinely interested? The answer, writes Sandy Pentland in Honest Signals, is that subtle patterns in how we interact with other people reveal our attitudes toward them. These unconscious social signals are not just a back channel or a complement to our conscious language; they form a separate communication network. Biologically based "honest signaling," evolved from ancient primate signaling mechanisms, offers an unmatched window into our intentions, goals, and values. If we understand this ancient channel of communication, Pentland claims, we can accurately predict the outcomes of situations ranging from job interviews to first dates.
The power of unconscious signalling continues to amaze me. For years hypnotists and Influence experts have claimed (or warned) that very subtle factors influence decision making and judgements.
For a superb overview of the subject of decision making and choice, I strongly recommend an episode of the new series of Radio Lab devoted to the subject called "Choice".
"Judgment of character can be influenced by something as simple as the temperature of a drink held in our hands, according to a US study published today.
Researchers from Yale University conducted experiments that showed that people perceive others as more generous and more attentive if they have just been holding a hot cup of coffee, and that the inverse is true for cold drinks.


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For my final 31 Films of Halloween: Women in Horror Edition post, I decided to show appreciation for the Black women in horror! The first Black women who began appearing in horror films were in the 1930's, and they held roles that strongly represented the social values of America at the time. Films like Chloe, Love is Calling You (1934) and Ouanga (1936) showed Black women as the villain White people (mostly White women) had convinced themselves that they were- thieves of their babies and their men. As the film industry progressed and the horror genre pressed on making more films, the role of Black women in these films didn't increase in number nor in value. They were pigeon-holed into roles that further stigmatized the ideas around Black people and their culture. They were voodoo priestess's, gyrating natives, and loyal mammies who served the only purpose of furthering a plot or storyline.
For my next 31 Films of Halloween, I want to honor the Underworld series. Selene (played by Kate Beckinsale) is my favorite badass, leather-wearing vampire woman in a 5-film series. The Underworld series definitely gets a bad rep, and sometimes it's understandably why. It's the only film series (besides Star Wars) where bullets never seem to land. And there is more emphasis placed on the aesthetics (hotness) of the film rather than the actually story-telling. Nonetheless, I love this film franchise!
Binging In Times of Uncertainty
About 6 months ago, I was working front desk at a hair removal clinic. What seemed, at the time, to be the height of the pandemic was really taking its toll on my overall health. I have my mom who works in the hospital. Her and my sister live 1,500 miles away from me. My father lives 1,800 miles away from me. I was sitting in what now did not feel like home at all, away from my family, while a tiny number on my phone (that I checked every single day) climbed higher and higher. 10,000 cases in my dad's area, 4,000 in my mom's, and 5,000 in my own area. Are we going to be okay? I remember my mom told me once that they took all of the masks from her floor, because the hospital as a whole was short, and the emergency had priority on them. I just about had a panic attack then. Thinking about every single person I cared about driving to work, being in close proximity to so many people on a daily basis. We can't afford not to work, so we just have to be "careful."
The Nuances of Language and Symbolism That Drive "Lovecraft Country"
Written by Misha Green, the television show creates an immovable life force with its story and pacing as it takes our main characters through the terrifying mazes Jim Crow-era America and a secret, witch cult called the Sons of Adam. What really elevates the show to new, heightened levels is the incorporation of symbolic references that add on to an already linguistically and thematically nuanced storyline. It makes you think. It keeps you on your toes, finding new information and Easter eggs with each re-watch.
"I May Destroy You" Is As Nuanced And As Good As It Sounds
I just started I May Destroy You yesterday. I also just got caught up with I May Destroy You yesterday. Written by and starring Michaela Coel, I May Destroy You is a new, HBO show that chronicles a young writer named Arabella (Coel) as she deals with the aftermath of being sexually assaulted at a bar one night. I May Destroy You explores the "perfect victim," linear healing, and different forms of sexual abuse all in one. One line that really stuck out to me was, "The problem is when people don't know what is a crime and what isn't a crime, they don't report it and people get away with it."
Support the Creator
Beyoncé's "Gift" That Keeps on Giving
Black is King feels like something new. As a longtime fan, it feels like a transcendental step in Beyoncé's career. From her early albums and early acting projects, to "Beychella", Lemonade, and now Black is King, Beyoncé has continuously stepped more into herself, more into her own creativity and vision in a way that shows her growth, the growth of her fans, and Black pride overall. She steeps herself and her art in Black culture. She has always been a standout, an idol, for many in the Black community.
20 Films Directed By Black Women That You Can Stream Right Now
I wanted to use For My Culture 1 this month to highlight these works, not only because they deserve it- they are amazing works of art- but because I want to support Black women. I want their films to be a part of our discourse, our top 10 lists, our reviews, and daily conversations. These are all films directed by Black women that you can stream RIGHT NOW. The future of the film industry is slowly looking brighter when it comes to opening up diversity and opportunities for Black women, as well as other minorities, but the progress is too slow. We have to do our part with support and recognition, and I for one am more than happy to do so. Watching these films over the past few years and weeks was a blast for me. They are strong pieces. They evoked so much emotion, made me laugh, and filled me in places I didn't know were empty. I hope you all enjoy this list as much as I did!
Miss Juneteenth (2020) Feels like Home
Starring Nicole Beharie, Alexis Chikaeze, and Kendrick Sampson, Miss Juneteenth is a generational story of Black motherhood and womanhood. It is also a film about liberation in one of its most intimate forms. Turquoise "Turq" Jones (played by Beharie) is a dedicated mother who is preparing her daughter, Kai (Chikaeze), for the Miss Juneteenth pageant- a pageant that she won back in her own time. The film follows them through this journey, but it is also follows Turq through her own.
Top 5 Songs That Got Me Through My Quarantine Depression
It took some time, but it worked. I found small consistencies throughout my day that made me feel purpose. I was Facetiming my family, organizing my closet, finding different recipes to try, NOT checking the new every hour, reorganizing, and listening to a lot- A LOT- of music. Music is therapeutic. We all know this. It makes you smile when you want to and cry when you need to. I took a shower every morning to music, listened to it during breakfast, during a home workout, and even when I was just sitting on the couch. Music moved me through this entire process, so here are five of my favorite songs during my home isolation. The link for the whole playlist will be tagged at the bottom as well!
Selena: The Image of Latin Influence
Known as the Queen of Tejano, Selena revolutionized a genre and broke boundaries like no other, especially for the Mexican-American community. For nine years running, she won "Best Female Vocalist" at the Tejano Music Awards. She became the first Latino singer to debut at the number one spot on the U.S. Billboard Top 200, and her album Amor Prohibido, was the best-selling Latin album of all time. On top of her musical success, Selena had a growing success in fashion.
April 2, 2020 August 17, 2020
"What's Going On"- Da 5 Bloods (2020) Pays Double Tribute
There are many memorable moments in Spike Lee's 2020 film Da 5 Bloods. From Delroy Lindo's performance- hell, the entire cast's performance- to the cinematography and the story line, the film held me awestruck, tearful, and contemplative through its entirety. But perhaps the most compelling aspect of this film for me was Lee's incorporation of Marvin Gaye's 1971 album What's Going On. It was such a minor, yet monumentally, moving choice that etched this film into my brain and sent my thoughts soaring.
Caring About My Life Is Not Some Fad
The murder of George Floyd indeed started a conversation- or rather it magnified the conversation already being had. It ignited a movement, and it unearthed so many other people who were buried beneath the system of silence and oppression. Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Kendrick Johnson, and so many more stories were brought forward to light, reopened, and given the proper recognition for push for justice. With the increase of recognition, calls for abolition, and catalysts of action, there has also been an influx in pandering and performative activism to the point that the deaths of Black people have been twisted into a meme-procuring, internet fad for some.
Welcome to Volume 1: For My Culture
I want to take my website and use it to further amplify mine and the voices of my people. I love to educate and learn, but I also love my culture. Going forward, I will be doing a quarterly issue/theme on my blog that centers around loving my culture and others loving their own. This theme will be for amplifying Black voices, but in the future, I hope that I can help amplify the voices of so many more. I hope you guys enjoy!


The 2017 Charlotte mayoral election is set to take place on Tuesday, November 7, 2017. Party primary elections were held on Tuesday, September 12, 2017. Second-round primaries would have been held on Tuesday, October 10, 2017, if they had been necessary, but both primary winners received more than the minimum 40 percent of the vote needed to avoid a runoff. The incumbent, Democrat Jennifer Roberts, was eligible to run for a second two-year term. She ran but lost the Democratic nomination in the primary. Two members of the City Council, Democrat Vi Lyles and Republican Kenny Smith, won the primaries and advanced to face each other in the general election.
Results would be announced on 10th October 2017 evening once the voting gets over.
Voting to start on 10th October 2017.
Polls will be open 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. in Charlotte.


The interesting thing about the La Trappe Brewery is that they are the only authentic Trappist brewery outside of Belgium. The International Trappist Association is comprised of 15 monasteries, and some of the products they produce are labeled as 'authentic Trappist products' which means that they are produced by the monks on the monastery grounds, and profits are intended to benefit the community. Seven of these monasteries produce beer, and it is generally considered some of the best beer in the world. They are Achel, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle, Westvleteren, and the subject of this post, La Trappe.
La Trappe is one of the easier Trappist beers to find in the states, although I believe all of them but Westvleteren can be found legally. I was first introduced to the Tripel after picking up a 4-pack at the old Marcello's and fell in love. This was one of the beers that really put me past the swill and even the Abita-level beers of the world and really got me interested in the world of craft beer. It features a honeyish, caramel, spicy aroma and a taste to match, all malty and expertly hiding the 8% ABV. I'd highly recommend anyone looking to expand their beer horizons to seek out a 4-pack of these, and if you like it, there are dubbels and quads available too!


"Just a short note to tell you how much my wife enjoyed her birthday party held at the club. The staff did an absolutely wonderful job. The arrangements were beautiful and the kitchens food preparation was top notch. The wait staff treated our guests graciously and they were all well impressed."
"Thank you so much for helping us with our wedding ceremony and reception! You were so detail-oriented and you really have an eye for elegance. You added details we hadn't thought of, so thank you for going above and beyond"
"I am writing to let you know what a great job your staff did at our wedding reception. The waitresses were friendly, helpful and efficient. The table settings were beautiful and the food was delicious. Thank you all for a really nice job."
"Thank you so much for doing such a wonderful job with our wedding. Everything was just perfect!"
"Kevin and I just want to say thank you for everything you did to make our wedding day special. The flowers were beautiful, the food was awesome and the reception area exceeded all of my expectations. Some of our family and friends said it was one of the best weddings they have ever been to! Thanks again for everything!"