Month: October 2026

Saturday Night at the Obituaries

A re-post from 10 June 2023. Some busted links. May fix tomorrow, or not.

Astrud Gilberto, the Girl from Ipanema, has passed on at age 83. The genre, Bossa Nova, was popular from the late ’50s to the mid-’60s.

“Blame It on the Bossa Nova” is a song written by Cynthia Weil (lyrics) and Barry Mann which was a 1963 hit single for Eydie Gormé, reaching number 7 on the Hot 100 in Billboard in March 1963.

‘Route 66’ actor George Maharis is dead at 94.

Jack Kerouac in a letter from 17 January 1962: “Everybody is making money off my ideas, like those “Route 66″ TV producers, everybody except me . . . .” (Selected Letters 1957-1969, ed. Charters, Viking 1999, p. 326; see also p. 461 and pp. 301-302.)

Here is the Nelson Riddle theme music from the TV series.  And here is part of an episode from the series which ran from 1960-1964.  George Maharis bears a striking resemblance to Jack, wouldn’t you say? And notice Maharis is riding shotgun.  Kerouac wasn’t a driver.  Neal Cassady (The Dean Moriarty of OTR) was the driver. Neal at the wheel.  One in the hand, four on the road:

Now dig Bobby Troup.  Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, Dr. Feelgood,  and others have covered the tune. How should we describe the good doctor’s performance? Energetic? Nay, manic. Makes this old man want to hit the road, which he will be doing before too long. Every true American loves the open road. And if you don’t? Then you are not a true American. The version by Asleep at the Wheel is especially good.  “Four on the road, one in the hand,” as Neal Cassady says somewhere.

Tina Turner died recently at 83.  Some of us remember her mainly in connection with the abusive Ike.

It’s Gonna Work Out Fine 

Enough death for one night.

John Searle on AI

Below, a  Searle-y observation which I suspect is on target. “Next token prediction,” which is the ‘magic’ that drives Claude & Co, is just super-sophisticated and super-fast auto-completion. But I’ll go Searle one better: it’s not the brain that thinks or any part thereof, but a spiritual substance ‘metaphysically behind’ it. I wish I could prove that, but I doubt that anyone can. It is, however, reasonable to believe, or so say I.

I don’t buy the idea that “automatic formal systems” (John Haugeland) are semantic engines. They are syntactic engines only. “Computers are defined in terms of symbol manipulation, and symbol manipulation by itself is neither constitutive of nor sufficient for meaning.” (John Searle, MIND: A Brief Introduction,  Oxford UP 2004, p. 101.)

Vlastimil asked over at Facebook:

If many many mutually incompatible, substantive, philosophical views are reasonable, what makes you prefer a given one over the other?

I replied:

That’s a fair question. Obviously there is no algorithm (decision procedure, ‘effective procedure’) that we can apply. Suppose the question is whether we as individuals have a higher destiny beyond the grave. Nobody KNOWS the answer to that, and anyone who thinks he can PROVE it one way or another is engaged in what I call metaphysical bluster. (G. K. Chesterton is an example of a blusterer.) So in the end it all comes down to a free personal decision based on many factors including religious and mystical experiences, hints, intimations, glimpses, not to mention careful examination of all the arguments pro and con of all the philosophers, sages, mystics, religionists, and theologians  East and West throughout the ages.  Even if no argument or set of arguments is rationally COERCIVE, some arguments or sets thereof are better than others. For example, the arguments of the doctor angelicus count for more than those of a hack like Ayn Rand. I’ll send you a copy of my book if I can finish it before “shuffling off the mortal coil.” In the end you must ‘cut off’ yap and scribble and DE-CIDE (you know Latin) what you will believe and how you will live, and then live according to what you decide where belief and action are mutually reinforcing and limiting.