The Dawdler's Philosophy

Dawdler’s Classic is back! In this episode we discuss margin haunting in light of the Decoding the Gurus "gurometer." Then we tour a couple frameworks Ryan has come up with for margin haunting. Plus we unveil a neologism you will want rush out right away and use in the world as soon as you learn it! Yes! HAVE A GREAT DAY -Dawds 00:03:23 - Evaluation of margin haunters with Decoding the Gurus podcast “gurometer.” 00:44:42 – Margin haunters are substandard to any paradigm. 01:09:01 – Wave fronts, memetic drift, and memetopoles.

Episode never sent. This time we release upon the world...The World. Back when we took a year long break without telling anyone we had some recordings we never did anything with. Here is one of these recordings. Harland and Ryan have different styles of thinking about things and that includes "everything." So enjoy this brief excursion into our past. Besides everything and what we make of it, what's The World to you?

Oh, the philosophical times they are a-changin'!! "But HOW!?" you ask. With the seasons... And you thought it was all footnotes. Silly philosopher...

Preeeetty self-explanatory this time. Ryan goes over 10 things he hates, doesn't like, despises, etc., in nonfiction books. Harland does his best to disagree. Next episode: 10 things Ryan hates about devil's advocacy! Jk. -Dawds #1 Maps & Legends - Chapter Maps #2 Show, Don't Tell, Nonfiction-style #3 Style & Substance - Epigraphs #4 In The End - Footnotes & Endnotes #5 Size Matters - Book Length #6 E-mail Is Fine - Interviews & Narratives #7 Story Time - Stories, Yes; Dialogue? Nah #8 Apology Unaccepted - Using kid gloves with the reader around technical material. #9 The Elephant In The Room - Little-to-no acknowledgement about popular and comparable ideas. #10 Big Words, Little Context - Using uncommon phrases, words, and acronyms without giving them the appropriate context and slowing the pace and flow of the reading.

Whoo boy! Ryan is back in the swing of things with his kids in school and sports and ballet and covid and everyone's FREAKIN OUT! Harland is on a journey through the red states lookin' for a poker game or two. Apparently, Austin is nice...and hot. But they're back with your best interests in mind. Except there is no "mind" and they don't know what your interests are, let alone your best ones, because you won't tell them. That's why they're doing a review of some core ideas. Now that they have 27.7 listeners they have to onboard all 26.7 of you newbies! They cover a framework they call "Modes of Inquiry." Then there's Ryan's baby, "Episodic Synchrony." And last, and very much least, Dr. Ought-opus and his idea, NME skepticism. Catch 'em all while you can! And tell your friends! Outside, triple masked, and 20 feet apart, The Dawdlers

"Make a clear concise description of your podcast" they advise for this input. Umm... good luck with that.

Another letter. Another obsessive and compulsive repeating of oneself over and over again. Ryan replies to Harland's reply because he can't help but indulge in his thoughts and justifications. Maybe Ryan misses the point. Maybe he's on point. Tune in to find out!

No one needed this. Few people wanted it. But here it is, world. Basically, we're standing near an on-ramp to the infosphere holding a black markered cardboard sign which reads, "Will podcast for beer - God jest you".

Here I am, never-minding my own business when I stub my toe on a liter litter bottle full of semantics. Well how's about that?! It's from my old buddy old pal Sci-Guy Ry-- what a nice surprise! I should really not Dawdle too long and get back to him, lest remain least on the list of priorities! Feel free to listen in, dear old friends.

We Dawdlers are as advertised. But we're back. Don't get all excited. In this new kind of episode Ryan Writes Harland a "letter." Will Harland write back?

The value of history is that one has the chance to make sense of their present circumstances. How did we get to now? Can we come up with the best solutions to our problems if we think we understand how those problems arose in the first place? Fingers crossed. In 1959, author and scientist, C.P. Snow, gave a lecture on what he saw as a problem in the West. Two intellectual and influential cultures had formed and become entrenched; one, a literary culture and the other, a scientific one. If they had anything in common, it didn’t matter for the commitments they had made to their respective vocations were too great to be bridged without great effort. In this episode the Dawdlers discuss the lecture and the state of its themes in our current age.

What is a dream? How do we come to form “cherished aspirations” as one dictionary put it? Why do we bother? And how can such aspirations be American? How can such aspirations be shared widely? Equality, egalitarianism, opportunity. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For whom do these bells toll? Is it a good dream? And does one “have to be asleep to believe it”? In this long short, the Dawdlers take on a request from a listener and discuss “The American Dream.”

This episode is slightly different, in that it is our first attempt at recording while doing a Live Stream! Sounds about the same I reckon. But we're excited anyway. An analysis of Thomas Nagel's 1974 paper "What is it Like to Be a Bat?", which initiated "decades of confusion" in the philosophy of mind literature, and gave us the phrase still in use today "what-it's-like"-ness as a pseudo-definition for consciousness.

After another mammoth Dawdle, the Dawdlers finally return to the Margins seeking specters, and find this time the anti-improvement, anti-guru, self-improvement guru Alan Watts. They consider some of Mr. Watts' most controversial opinions with oodles of juicy quotes. As is the nature of considering the centrality / marginality of thinkers, many guests come to the party this week, but Alan has always loved an audience! Wrap up your kashaya, assume the lotus, and get yer enlightenment-- sucka! 00:00:00 - 00:16:40 - Margin Haunters vs. Flat Earthers / Membership to the Clubhouse 00:16:40 - 00:21:10 - Watt a Man 00:21:10 - 00:50:00 - Watts' Attacks on Virtue, Morality, Honesty, and Capitalism 00:50:00 - 01:16:11 - Watts the Philosophy of the Dawdle / (Ir)Responsibility / Creativity 01:16:11 - End - Watts' "The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are" / Ryan's Frustrations

The thigh-ly anticipated second half of the Richard Rorty Dawdle. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Part II!

Can’t we all just get along and get awards for attendance? Or not? Your science is not better than my poetry! This week we talk about Richard Rorty’s “Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature”. In Part 1 of this topic (WHAT!?) there are plenty of misgivings, mischaracterizations, and misunderstandings along the way. But we keep retuning to this framework of ours: the modes of inquiry (E3: Triamond Joy!). These include overseeing, truth seeking, and game playing (and engineering but Harland has yet to come around to it). Rorty wants to scrap much of it. Por qua? Let’s play some games! -Dawds

Again, we return to “The Great Filter”. Ryan is obsessed! This time, Ryan, like millions before him—millions!—has a solution to Fermi’s Paradox and “The Great Silence”. It’s “The Great Server”! Yaaaaaaay! Bury those ear buds deep in your ears! It’s about to get virtual! -“The Dawdlers”

Man does not live by bread alone. He also lives with social anxiety and is a bit of a control freak. These neuroses fuel him too. Oh, and lies. This is also critical. Lies must be told. How else can you get people to do shit you don’t want to? In this episode you will be treated to a Pre-Covid discussion had back in December of 2019 that these Dawdlers were too lazy to knit together into a fine piece of auditory (f)art. The topic? Religion and explanations for its creation and subsequent changes. Enjoy your lockdowns. Oh, and don’t forget to treat others the way you wish to be treated. And if you wish to be treated like shit then too bad for the others, amirite? -Dawdlers 00:04:21 – Defining terms // What is Religion? // What is culture? 00:12:48 – Asking questions // Tinbergen’s “Four Questions” // Origin, spread, and maintenance // Traits – morphology, physiology, behavioral, life history 00:23:05 – Hypotheses // David Sloan Wilson’s “Adaptive vs. Non-Adaptive” framing // Adaptive Hypothesis (AH) 1: “The Watcher” // AH2: “The Organism” // AH3: “The Parasite” // AH4: “The Useful Fiction” // AH5: “The Echo” // Non-Adaptive Hypothesis (NH) 1: “The Dinosaur” // NH2: “The Blind Matthew” 01:17:09 – Winners & Losers // Everything is happening, everyone’s a winner // Ameliorating fear makes sense and shit just happens…

Still getting our footing here at Dawdler’s HQ. Hence this klunky transition back we’ve been doing since we dropped out after American Thanksgiving. This episode is a long short. Not much structure like a typical long episode, but it is what it is, right? This time we use a twitter thread Ryan saw that raised some flags for him. It’s a thread discussing what might best be described as discussing the business of science. Yuck! Though sources aren’t really cited and quotes aren’t given, we still end up where always do anyway. Something like, “The hustlers are dead! Long live the hustlers!!” SAD! Lots of love! Dawds

Intent or accident? That is the question. No good deed goes unpunished! But in what world is that!? One where shit is just banging together towards a blah entropic state or one with biased negentropic filters that favor the hustlers? This week the Dawdlers discuss the notions of luck and karma and the preference for inhabiting systems—especially social systems like, y’know, SOCIETY—that reward good deeds. Wouldn’t it be nice…