Traditional medical practice calls for treating back and neck pain with pain killers and muscle relaxers that affect other parts of the body in addition to the purpose for which they are prescribed. Chiropractic focuses all its energy on treating the pain by correcting the problem that causes it without resorting to the use of medications.

Fremont, CA 12/09 – Klein Chiropractic and East Bay Spinal Decompression are happy to announce that Dr. Daniel B. Klein DC offers safe solutions to back pain that do not involve the introduction into the body of medications that have unwanted side effects or involving invasive surgical procedures.

Utilizing the latest in chiropractic technology, Dr. Klein is able to treat a variety of conditions that were once very difficult to provide effective relief from, including sciatica, herniated disc(s), fibromyalgia, tendonitis, carpal tunnel, and more. Spinal decompression is especially useful on herniated discs because it creates a vacuum within the disc that helps to pull it back into its proper place and shape.

In addition to spinal decompression and computer assisted diagnostic testing, Dr. Klein provides the more traditional manual spinal manipulations that have been shown useful in treating conditions that the average person would not even associate with spinal problems. Subluxations, or small shifts out of alignment by one or more vertebrae can impede the electrical impulses carried by the nerves from the brain to the various body systems and back. Chiropractic manipulation corrects these misalignments and restores the proper functioning of the nerves so that the body operates at peak performance.

For more information about chiropractic procedures and how they make safe, effective alternatives to medicating the body to mask pain rather than treat its causes, residents of the Fremont area are encouraged to visit Klein Chiropractic and East Bay Spinal Decompression at their website, http://www.fremontchirowellness.com or to contact the clinic at:

Klein Chiropractic and East Bay Spinal Decompression

40000 Fremont Blvd Ste H

Fremont, CA 94538

Phone: 888-790-1660

Citat: Groucho Marx

Strax före avgång på Arlanda hittade jag en bok som blev en av semesterns höjdpunkter: “Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar… – Understanding Philosophy through Jokes”. Citatet ovan av Groucho Marx fanns återgivet på baksidan av boken. Boken åstadkommer det som den utger sig för att göra. Den belyser filosofiska principer genom att återge och analysera “roliga historier”. Angreppssättet blir, i mina ögon, väldigt lyckat. Jag har länge själv reflekterat över djupa likheter mellan god “humor” och filosofi. Humor bygger ofta på den oväntade och häpnadsväckande reaktion man kan framkalla hos åhörarna genom att bryta mot förväntade regler. Detsamma gäller ofta god filosofi. Man ifrågasätter saker. Belyser saker ur oväntade och oprövade perspektiv. Både humor och filosofi vänder ofta upp-och-ner på förutfattade meningar och begrepp.

En sånt ganska typiskt “skämt” som jag spontant kommer att tänka på (men jag vet inte om det fanns med  i boken) är det här:

Det finns tre slags människor – De som kan räkna och de som inte kan räkna…

Moisés, Jesús y un anciano con barba estaban jugando al golf. Moisés da un buen golpe, la bola va a parar a la calle y luego va rodando hacia el estanque. Moisés levanta el palo, aparta las aguas y la bola sigue rondando tranquilamente hacia el otro lado.

Moisés se vuelve hacia Jesús y le dice:
- Odio jugar con tu padre.

“Platón y un ornitorrinco entran en un bar…” – Thomas Cathcart y Daniel Klein.

Anecdotica sau filosdotica

Hai să încercăm ceva nou. Am mers întotdeauna pe deviza că lumea citeşte dacă vrea… nu post-urile mele ci cărţi. Dar ca mulţi alţii sunt relativ rupt de noile lansări din librării, şi recenziile de multe ori mă fac să vreau să nu mai citesc cartea.

Ascult atât Nirvana cât şi Oana… Sârbu, iar preferinţele mele beletristice sunt şi mai contrastante. Am dat recent peste o carte care mi-a stranit interesul prin simplitatea ei. Este vorba de “Platon si Ornitorincul intra intr-un bar“. Este un fel de dicţionar explicativ al filosofiei… pentru copii. Eh, nu neapărat pentru copii, dar pentru cei care nu prea au habar cu ce se mănâncă. Modalitatea în care este expus subiectul m-a făcut atât să nu o mai las din mână, cât şi să mă facă să râd la un pas constant. În mare, autorii cărţii  încearcă să explice problemele existenţiale ale lumii folosind anecdote şi paradoxuri universal cunoscute.

Nu e o carte pretenţioasă şi nici nu vrea să te transforme în Immanuel Kant, lucru care pe mine m-a bucurat. Dacă vrei să mai aprofundezi puţină filosofie, sau ai nevoie de subiecte de discuţie cu care să îţi impresionezi prietenele, pune mâna şi cumpăr-o de aici. Sau cei care ştiu puţină engleză şi au eMule instalat, pot să facă în aşa fel să o încerce şi gratuit.

Dacă vreţi şi un mic demo al cărţii, puteţi să citiţi în continuare.

Citeste un fragment din cartea “Platon si ornitorincul” in format PDF

Uma carreira científica é peculiar de certas maneiras. Sua razão de ser é o aumento do conhecimento natural. Ocasionalmente, portanto, um aumento do conhecimento natural ocorre. Isso, porém, não demanda tato, e sentimentos podem ser feridos. Pois em algum grau é inevitável que visões previamente expostas se mostrem obsoletas ou falsas. Acho que a maioria das pessoas pode reconhecer isso e aceitar que aquilo que elas vêm ensinando há dez anos ou mais precisa de uma pequena revisão; contudo, alguns sem dúvida acharão difícil aceitar, como um golpe em seu amor-próprio, ou mesmo como uma invasão do território que julgavam ser exclusivamente seu, e devem reagir com a mesma ferocidade que vemos nos papos-roxos e tentilhões-de-peito-rosa, nesses dias de primavera, quando sentem uma intrusão em seus pequenos territórios. Acho que não se pode fazer nada a esse respeito; é inerente à natureza de nossa profissão. Mas deve-se aconselhar e avisar o jovem cientista de que, quando tiver uma jóia a oferecer para o enriquecimento da humanidade, alguns certamente desejarão cercá-lo e despedaçá-lo. [Ronald Fisher, 1947, em entrevista para a BBC, citado por David Salsburg em "Uma senhora toma chá...como a estatística revolucionou a ciência no século XX, Zahar, 2009]

Ontem eu citei um trecho de Hayek similar em espírito. O ponto comum de ambos é que a empresa produtora de conhecimentos é sujeita a muitas imperfeições.

Existem barreiras à entrada e à saída. Por exemplo, digamos que um grupo decide que seus membros são os únicos, digamos, a entenderem como a economia funciona (logo, os demais são tidos como “ignorantes” ou “mal-intencionados”). Aí não tem quem lhes diga algo novo porque, afinal, eles sabem tudo. É um fenômeno brevemente citado neste pequeno artigo de Klein & Stern. Por outro lado, o sujeito que leu determinado autor e resolveu avançar em sua interpretação em direção distinta à do grupo que pertence, claro, pode ser discriminado e perder amizades (senão acesso a recursos financeiros). 

Note que não estou a afirmar que o grupo do exemplo está mais ou menos perto de algo que se possa chamar de “verdade científica” (existiria tal coisa?). A análise se preocupa menos com o que Fisher, o interessante estatístico, chama de “avanço do conhecimento” do que propriamente com os incentivos envolvidos na aceitação ou não de novas idéias. Claro que pode haver um maluco que queira nos vender misticismo como ciência – e ele sofrerá os mesmos efeitos descritos acima a partir de seu grupo – mas não julgo a qualidade científica de sua contribuição, apenas analiso os incentivos, ok? 

O mercado das idéias é algo interessante de se analisar e não há respostas definitivas sobre o tema. Há incentivos políticos e econômicos envolvidos e a própria definição de ciência sempre está no âmago destas brigas (o argumento estúpido, mas  final é sempre:  “você não faz ciência, eu faço”). Só para se ter uma idéia do tamanho do buraco, veja este texto. Ah sim, um bom estudioso do tema, creio, é o Alberto Oliva, que anda sumido da internet, infelizmente…

Daniel B. Klein and Charlotta Stern

PROFESSORS AND THEIR POLITICS: THE POLICY VIEWS OF SOCIAL SCIENTISTS

ABSTRACT: Academic social scientists overwhelmingly vote Democratic, and the Democratic hegemony has increased significantly since 1970. Moreover, the policy preferences of a large sample of the members of the scholarly associations in anthropology, economics, history, legal and political philosophy, political science, and sociology generally bear out conjectures about the correspondence of partisan identification with left/right ideal types; although across the board, both Democratic and Republican academics favor government action more than the ideal types might suggest.Variations in policy views among Democrats is smaller than among Republicans. Ideological diversity (as judged not only by voting behavior, but by policy views) is by far the greatest within economics. Social scientists who deviate from left-wing views are as likely to be libertarian as conservative.

Daniel Klein tem sido um nome relevante no debate sobre o viés ideológico na Academia norte-americana. Em outro texto, interessante mas algo incompleto, os mesmos autores dizem o seguinte:

Most intellectuals develop ideological sensibilities by the age of twenty-five or thirty (Sears and Funk 1999), and afterward they rarely revise them substantially. Intellectual delight and existential comfort are taken not in reexamining prior decisions, but in refining and developing ideas along the lines already mastered (Ditto and Lopez 1992; Nickerson 1998). Professors are likely to respect scholars who pursue questions similar to their own and who master similar modes of thought. They are not likely to respect scholars who pursue questions predicated on beliefs at odds with their own. Indeed, if a scholar is engaged in a task that might threaten a colleague’s sense of self, he may give rise to personal distress and create acrimony between them. Professor A might lose standing and credibility with students if a colleague, Professor B, who is teaching those same students in a different course, exploded some of the premises of Professor A’s course materials, lectures, and writings.

Será que os professores se deixam levar por suas ideologias frequentemente? E esta história do sujeito já estar mais ou menos confortável com sua visão de mundo aos 25 ou 30 anos de idade? Concordo com o fato de que a ideologia é algo difícil de se entender, mas isto não implica que ela não esteja presente em nossas vidas. No caso da pesquisa acadêmica, acho que falta alguém que faça algo similar a Klein & Stern. Gostaria de saber se existe o tal viés “esquerdista” que tantos citam – sem uma única evidência empírica, por mais pobre que seja – nas universidades brasileiras. Eu até suspeito que ele exista, mas minha experiência pessoal não é generalizável (qualquer um que tenha estudado…e entendido…um pouco de estatística sabe disso).

De qualquer forma, ficam para o leitor deste blog as referências para começar sua pesquisa na área.

“Täiuslik” on sõna, millega tasub olla ettevaatlik, aga täna olen ma vapper ja endas kindel ning julgen öelda:

Tadah! Lubage esitleda – täiuslik poplugu:

Robert Wyatt & Bertrand Burgalat – This Summer Night

(youtube)

Daniel Kleini loodud psühhedeeliliskammiv video sobib looga samuti imeliselt kokku. Väga harva tabab video loo olemust nii täpselt. Oh, ma olen püütud.

Ning et mõnupakett oleks täielik, on loost oma miksi teinud Hot Chip. Mida veel tahta.

Minul on igatahes suvi.

Robert Wyatt & Bertrand Burgalat – This Summer Night (Hot Chip Remix)

“Israel Kirzner on Coordination and Discovery” de Daniel Klein e Jason Briggeman

Israel Kirzner has been one of the leaders in fashioning an Austrian school of economics. He has tried to marry Friedrich Hayek’s discourse with the deductive, praxeological approach of Ludwig von Mises. The praxeological style stakes its claims to scientific status on purported axioms and categorical, 100-percent deductive truths, as well as the supposed avoidance of any looseness in evaluative judgments. In keeping with the praxeological style of discourse, Kirzner claims that his notion of coordination can be used as a clear-cut criterion of economic goodness. Kirzner wishes to claim that gainful entrepreneurial action in the market is always coordinative. We contend that Kirzner’s efforts to be categorical and to avoid looseness are not successful. We argue that looseness inheres in the economic discussion of the most important things, and associate that viewpoint with Adam Smith. We suggest that Hayek is much closer to Smith than to Mises, and that Kirzner’s appeals to Hayek’s discussions of coordination are spurious. In denying looseness and by trying to cope with the brittleness of categorical claims, Kirzner becomes abstruse. We dissect Kirzner’s discourse and find that it erupts with problems. Kirzner has erred in rejecting the understanding of coordination held by Hayek, Ronald Coase, and their contemporaries in the field at large. Kirzner’s refraining from the looser Smithian perspective stems from his devotion to Misesianism. Beyond all the criticism, however, we affirm the basic thrust of what Kirzner says about economic processes. Once we give up the claim that voluntary profitable activity is always or necessarily coordinative, and once we make peace with the aesthetic aspect of the idea of concatenate coordination, the basic claims of Kirzner can be salvaged: Voluntary profitable activity is usually coordinative, and government intervention is usually discoordinative. But the praxeological style of discourse must be dropped.

Dan Klein sobre um dos mais famosos economistas austríacos, Israel Kirzner. Texto obrigatório para o próximo semestre (se é que você me entende). Excelente para quem gosta de História do Pensamento Econômico que, claro, não se limita ao final do século XIX (lembrete: estamos no século XXI).

27. Christopher Walken

People, this nation needs more cowbell. Christopher Walken knows this, and he’s been working tirelessly to promote the popularity of cowbell in our schools. Okay, maybe not, but if he were president I’m sure that he would. And why am I so sure about all that? Because Christopher Walken is an equal opportunity actor. He doesn’t turn down any role, no matter how awful or humiliating. I mean, how else do you explain a triple-threat like him ending up in a movie like Joe Dirt? You can’t. But really, I think that General Mayhem had the right idea about making him run for president. His cult following would vote for him just because, but the rest of us would vote for his slogan. “No More Zoos!”

Also, as a sidenote, if you’d like to add more cowbell to your life, I suggest visiting http://www.morecowbell.dj/. You won’t regret it. 

26. Melinda Gates

Don’t be surprised that Bill Gates didn’t make the list. He’s just too freaking busy trying to ward off Steve Jobs to be president. But he’d make a good First Gentleman, so it’s not really a problem to nominate Melinda here. Melinda is right there in the title of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which means that she’s not afraid to use her name and her money to promote education and access to technology in the US as well as enhance worldwide healthcare. A lot of the time, global charities are passed over for a more localized impact, but in this case, Melinda’s organization takes on issues abroad as well as here at home. And if you don’t think that she has the killer instinct to run the country, let’s remember that she was born in Dallas. We’re kind of betches, but we can take care of ourselves.

25. Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein

Have you ever wondered exactly what the meaning of “is” is? If you have, then you should write in ‘Bill Clinton’ this year, but if you’re pretty sure you’ve got basic vocabulary down, you might want to give this pair a chance. Cathcart and Klein wrote the book Aristotle and an Aardvark Go To Washington in an effort to help people understand not only what political double-speak means, but how easy it is to fall into it. And they do it all with jokes. How fabulous is that? If only they could explain the “the VP’s in charge of the senate” comment to us. The one explanation they can’t give us, however, is WHY politicians do it. Is it a perceived stupidity on our part or are we simply electing idiots? Maybe if we send them to the White House, they’ll have an answer for us.

For years I have been trying to find a good book about philosophy.  I have always found the ideas behind different philosophers and philosophical concepts to be very interesting and I’ve wanted to learn more.  The trouble is, most books on philosophy are written in such dull language that I couldn’t make it through the first chapter without falling asleep.

Therefore, when Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein’s book “Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar” caught my eye in a bookstore in Washington’s Reagan National Airport I just had to get it.  “Plato and a Platypus”, a New York Times Bestseller, is a book that is all about understanding philosophy through jokes.

I purchased the book in the airport, opened it up and started reading immediately.  I couldn’t put it down!  In fact, I had read through all 191 pages before my plane even took off (though I must add an aside to say that our plane sat on the runway for 4 hours due to bad weather…).

“Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar” is, in my opinion, a work of genius.  It goes through the history of philosophy from Metaphysics to Meta-Philosophy, stopping to joke about Logic, Epistemology, Ethics, Religion, Existentialism, Politics and Relativity on the way.  Cathcart and Klein do a great job of explaining different philosophies and philosophers in layman’s terms and use jokes (and good jokes at that!) to help them explain.

The duo break down Existentialism into a single statement:  “You haven’t lived until you think about death all the time,” and they use jokes to explain other difficult philosophical concepts.  I think it is quite obvious that I highly recommend this book.

And on an end note, here is my favorite joke in the book.  It is used to help explain Aristotle’s distinction between essential and accidental properties.  In the book, Cathcart and Klein write that According to Aristotle, “essential properties are those without which a thing wouldn’t be what it is, and accidental properties are those that determine how a thing is, but not what it is (I. Metaphysics).”

“Why is an elephant big, gray, and wrinkled?”
“Because if he was small, white, and round, he’d be an asprin.” (Cathcart & Klein)

“A western anthropologist is told by a Voohooni that 2 + 2 = 5. The anthropologist asks him how he knows this. The tribesman says, “By counting, of course. First I tie two knots in a cord. Then I tie two knots in another cord. When I join the two cords together, I have five knots.”

Extracted from Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar… Understanding philosophy through jokes by Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein

Earlier this summer, I was a prisoner of summer school. One class was fun (Film), the other, not so fun (Politics). I literally would stay up all night compiling notes on Machiavelli, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Hobbes, etc. (Seriously, you name the theorist, I’ve read it.)

One day, after a brain melt down, a friend of mine, my sister and myself went to Borders to relax. (We do that.) My brain was in desperate need for something else to read (A book that didn’t contain the words, life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness.) and my sister notices a book she thought I’d enjoy purely because the title had the word platypus. (I love odd animals!)

The book is titled: Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar… This is seriously one of the best books I’ve read in a while. For anyone who is interested in philosophy and its theories, it explains everything through jokes. There wasn’t a joke I didn’t laugh at in the book. It covers all ares of philosophy: metaphysics, logic, ethics, language, religion, basically, anything you can think of! (It was refreshing reading Machiavellian theories with a couple of jokes thrown in.)

I feel this is an interesting way to learn. I did a little digging to understand why the authors chose to teach this way. (Well, not a lot of digging, I just went to their website.) This how they explain it:

“The construction and payoff of jokes and the construction and payoff of philosophical concepts are made out of the same stuff. They tease the mind in the same ways…philosophy and jokes proceed from the same impulse: to confound our sense of the way things are, to flip our worlds upside down, and to ferret out hidden, often uncomfortable, truths about life. What the philosopher calls an insight, the gagster calls a zinger.”

Even if you don’t like philosophy, pick up the book because you can at least learn a couple of good jokes to tell your friends. I’m currently reading Aristotle and an Aardvark go to Washington… (another book written by these fabulous authors!) and I can’t put it down! I’ll tell you all about it when I’m done!

Até Vol 20 Numbers 2-3 (September, 2007)

“Review of Ronald Hamowy, The political sociology of freedom: Adam Ferguson and F.A. Hayek” de Daniel Klein

“From Keynes to Hayek: The marvel of thriving macroeconomies” de Roger W. Garrison

“Hayek and Experimental Economics” de Vernon Smith

“Coordination in the History of Economics” de Dan Klein e Aaron Orsborn

We tell of the evolving meaning of the term coordination as used by economists. The paper is based on systematic electronic searches (on “coord,” etc.) of major works and leading journals. The term coordination first emerged in professional economics around 1880, to describe the directed productive concatenation of factors or activities within a firm. Also, transportation economists used the term to describe the concatenation of routes and trips of a transportation system. These usages represent whatwe term concatenate coordination. The next major development came in the 1930s from several LSE economists (Hayek, Plant, Hutt, and Coase), who extended that concept beyond the eye of any actual coordinator. That is, they wrote of the concatenate coordination of a system of polycentric or spontaneous activities. These various applications of concatenate coordination prevailed until the next major development, namely, Thomas Schelling and game models. Here coordination referred to a mutual meshing of actions. Game theorists developed crisp ideas of coordination games (like “battle of the sexes”), coordination equilibria, convention, and path dependence. This “coordination” was not a refashioning, but rather a distinct concept, one we distinguish as mutual coordination. As game models became more familiar to economists, it was mutual coordination that economists increasingly had in mind when they spoke of “coordination.” Economists switched, so to speak, to a new semantic equilibrium. Now, mutual coordination overshadows the older notion of concatenate coordination, although “Austrian” economists have sustained discussion of concatenate coordination (with unfortunate confusion, we suggest). The two senses of coordination are conceptually distinct and correspond neatly to the two dictionary definitions of the verb to coordinate.
Both are crucial to economics. We suggest that distinguishing between the two senses can help to clarify “coordination” talk. Also, compared to talk of “efficiency” and “optimality,” concatenate coordination allows for a richer, more humanistic, and more openly aesthetic discussion of social affairs. The narrative is backed up by Excel worksheets that report on systematic content searches of the writings of economics using the worldwide web and, using JSTOR, of Quarterly Journal of Economics, Economic Journal, Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, and Economica.

Comentários de Frederic Sautet