Intro to Logic class start

Beginning the second five week session of the summer today! Intro to Logic met for 2 hours and looks like it will be a fun group. So far I have been using the video camera to record the lecture and they are posted on my Youtube page here:

Okay, so here we have Ellen doing a show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V5IzWgZzcY and here we have Robin doing a show: I find both are funny but I can really only watch Ellen because of the vocabulary. Robin uses vocabulary that makes me feel - uncomfortable. Why does he have to do that? Can't he be as funny as Ellen without it?

Trying to keep up with the wave

We have had a real dose of summer this year! Several days of above record temperatures - to accompany above record swarms of mosquitoes. Chocolate is soft. People are complaining that it is too warm! Imagine!? Meanwhile, my reading and courses continue with all sorts of interesting things going on. Who said philosophy is old? New books in my awareness include Daniel Dennett, Thomas Metzinger, and Douglas Hofstadter, as well as a host of others. So this summer I have moved away from the Zizek, Badiou connection to try to keep up with the wave of more analytic philosophy with an emphasis on the mind and language. This certainly ties in with Zizek and Badiou, but the language is easier to follow. I have to admit one of Thomas Metzinger's youtube videos was a challenge to follow since it was in German and fast. It also included more humor than I recall hearing in a German lecture - ever. Since his English is so good, I wonder if English style humor is a characteristic that can bleed over into German speech? Check it yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1MBG7FaZKM Okay, so the first was a mistake and occurs just at the end of the first segment. He misquotes the famous line from the Tractatus. "Wowon man nicht sprechen kann, daruber muss man schweigen." Thomas accidentally says "sprechen" instead of "schweigen" - so "speak" instead of "be silent". Obviously the audience laughs when they catch it and Thomas becomes instantly funny in response. Of course much of the reaction I interpret as humor is actually a response to some unusual things he says, as that religion and spirituality are not related! He is using spirituality more along the lines that William James does in "The Varieties of the Religious Experience".