Grande concerto, ieri sera al Baluardo della Cittadella di Modena, del trio Rosario Giuliani (sax contralto), Enzo Pietropaoli (contrabbasso),Marcello Di Leonardo (batteria) con l'ospite di lusso Fabrizio Bosso (tromba). Ero andato senza conoscere il programma e sapere che era dedicato alla musica di Ornette Coleman
(che in genere non amo) mi aveva un po' preoccupato - ingiustificatamente.
Giuliani e i suoi hanno sapientemente rielaborato lo spigoloso linguaggio free creando una terra di mezzo (frrebop, diciamo) dalla quale hanno regalato al pubblico 90 minuti di energia irreprimibile, facendo del proprio innegabile virtuosismo un mezzo espressivo piuttosto che un ornamento fine a se stesso (come capita spesso). Spero di poter più tardi mettere un video della serata.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
Contrarian
Reading contrarian reviews of books, movies etc. is usually as or more informative and quicker than reading the majority opinion.
So much about consistency
Ask a physicist, he'll tell you nature is efficient and minimalist; ask a biologist, he'll tell you it's inefficient and wasteful.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Can you falsify
Sam Harris is the author of the book "Free Will". The central point of his book is that free will is an illusion, because the reason of every our action are completely removed from our control and - even - our consciousness.
In other words: "I may be able to choose, but I cannot choose what I choose"
This way of framing the problem (as any other way, I admit) has a side that bothers me, as expressed by the following (Popper inspired) question:
"Is it possible to imagine an entity that is given free will in a sense that complies with the above objection?"
The problem is - obviously - that I cannot (and I'd like to ask Sam Harris). If the answer is indeed that such an entity cannot exist then we need to ask to ourselves if the reason is that the above objection is self-satisfying and therefore not very helpful (sort of saying "black is black" when asked to define black: true but trivially so) ? Or is the idea of free will intrinsically meaningless (like the "heigth of sweetness")? Or - finally - is the underlying definition of free will so bad that we need to go back to the drawing board before discussing its existence?
I rather tend to side with the third possibility, to which the first one may perhaps be reduced. The second remains a possibility, but it begs further explanations - after all, we do not spend much time debating the height of sweetness.
In other words: "I may be able to choose, but I cannot choose what I choose"
This way of framing the problem (as any other way, I admit) has a side that bothers me, as expressed by the following (Popper inspired) question:
"Is it possible to imagine an entity that is given free will in a sense that complies with the above objection?"
The problem is - obviously - that I cannot (and I'd like to ask Sam Harris). If the answer is indeed that such an entity cannot exist then we need to ask to ourselves if the reason is that the above objection is self-satisfying and therefore not very helpful (sort of saying "black is black" when asked to define black: true but trivially so) ? Or is the idea of free will intrinsically meaningless (like the "heigth of sweetness")? Or - finally - is the underlying definition of free will so bad that we need to go back to the drawing board before discussing its existence?
I rather tend to side with the third possibility, to which the first one may perhaps be reduced. The second remains a possibility, but it begs further explanations - after all, we do not spend much time debating the height of sweetness.
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