My apologies for my silence (to whom? Is anyone listening?) but I've been running about a bit.  I had hoped to have something to share with you all, but life got in the way and I have 63-74% of about four things to share. So instead of any of them, here is a basket of links to keep your mind off the abyss of meaninglessness that is life without my blog posts.

So, here you go:

Yet another piece on why computers will never truly compete with brains.  Personally I think the argument would be stronger if the author rejected the presumption, which he seems to hold, that the real core of human consciousness is "the brain."  That is the kind of Carteian picture of the self as essentially a disembodied "mind," which then gets replacaed by the brain.  But no human is just a brain; they are a fully embodied mental agent, for whom the brain is important but only as part of a wholly embodied ensemble.  

JS Bach as a rebel, though this piece arguing that seems to me much more sizzle than steak, confusing "innovation" with "rebellion."  But isn't there a difference?  Serious question. (And anyway, the thing about Bach was that he was a supreme human genius whose genius was relentless, lasting pretty durably across decades of unbelievably high-order work.)

Admiral Hugh Sinclair, the head of the UK foreign intelligence service (the SIS or "MI-6") before World War II, was a pretty perceptive figure on the nature of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.  This piece discusses an article he published in April 1939.

I don't think this is a very good argument against critics of academic writing--the sentence "Opinions about writing style are just as ideological as any other kind of aesthetic judgment."  is one place where I would begin to ask questions, and anyway, the piece is so completely defensive as to not admit any writing is bad.  But you may want to read it, to be challenged or reassured.  I found neither in it.  But you know what?  Judge for yourselves.

A powerful account of acedia, "the noonday demon" of the Christian Desert monastic tradition, and how illuminative it can be for those struggling with meaning in a world of total work today.