Hafod

Time for cheese again last week, so off to London to hit the Bullingdons again.

Some cloud but bright enough. Mild, not to say warm. Masking on station and train, both quiet enough at Epsom, mixed. The resident indigent was missing from his station outside the station at 11:05.

Pulled a Bullingdon of the ramp and Waterloo and made my way to Short's Gardens in the usual way. Now, for some time, as regular readers will know, my day-to-day cheese has been Lincolnshire Poacher, introduced to me by Waitrose of Epsom but more usually bought from Neal's Yard Dairy. But while the taste has held up, the cheese has taken to having voids, which means that the cheese is apt to crumble under the knife when you hit one. Not good. So I thought I would try something else and took a pound of Poacher and a pound of Hafod of reference 2. Rather dearer, and good enough, but I am not yet sure whether I will buy it again. 

Oddly enough, I noticed that all four (or so) cheddar on offer came in a slightly different sized truckle, with Hafod being the smallest. The counter hand told me that this was quite handy as it made it easier to put one's hand on the right cheese, all looking rather alike otherwise.

Pulled a second Bullingdon to get me to Kibele of Great Portland Street. With the one-way arrangements in this part of town making it convenient to head up Charing Cross Road, then Tottenham Court Road and then hang a left at Euston Road. Left again at the Great Portland Street tube station. Streets I used to know much better fifty years ago and there has been much change, although most of the public houses are still public houses, albeit with different names and generally different appearance. Plus food rather than fags. Buck & Ryan, Maples and Heals (last noticed at reference 3) all long gone. Nearly all the funny little electrical shops of Tottenham Court Road gone.

I had marked down a stand near the top of Great Portland Street, but it was full, so I had to get across Euston Road, nip up Albany Street and drop the Bullingdon off at the stand in Longford Street. Back down Osnaburgh Street to be puzzled by the anonymity of a large red building, although I suspected it of being some large private health facility. Indeed, the whole area seemed to be full of such.

Found Great Portland Street again and proceeded to walk down the wrong side of it, thus missing my destination, despite having the street number. But I did come across the traditional looking public house, snapped above, firmly shut this Friday lunchtime. I thought a victim of the plague, but it seemed to have opened by the time I passed it again, a couple of hours later. Didn't think to go in and find out what was going on. Perhaps I was too full.

There was also an old-fashioned hardware shop, of the sort which used to be dotted about central London for the convenience of builders and others. Now nearly all vanished. The builders have to bring everything with them - or make the trek out to some suburban Wickes or B&Q.

I also came across a large synagogue, which I now know to be the Central Synagogue of reference 4, from which I learn that the original building, dating from the middle of the 19th century, was destroyed in a 1941 air raid, and replaced in 1955 by the present building. I presume that the image above, taken from reference 4, is an impression of the interior of the original building. I was reminded that it does not seem to be the custom in this country for synagogues to be open to visitors in the way that most Christian churches are - with the rather grand synagogue in Florence perhaps being the exception that proves the rule. See reference 5. Perhaps it is different in Israel - or in New York for that matter.

Eventually made the restaurant, where we took up a couple of seats on the pavement - it being still and mild enough for them to be comfortable. Started with bread, olives and hummus. Bread good, very good by the standards of most pubs and restaurants. Hummus fine, but I wasn't too keen on it being decorated with a tablespoon or so of some small chunks of a red, spicy sausage. A flavour and a texture too far.

Quite a reasonable selection of wine on the menu - I have no idea whether or how the Turks deal with alcohol in their own country - particularly as before the invention of Saudi Arabia they had some kind of leadership role in the world of Islam - and I took the only white wine from Turkey there. The last time probably being the Turkish restaurant next to the Globe Theatre visited a few times in and around 2018. See, for example, reference 6. And before that, we used to use a subcontinental off-license in Green Lanes of Harringay which sold Turkish wine back in the late 1970's, the area having taken in lots of Cypriots, from both communities, at about that time.

Skewered chicken with rice to follow. Chicken a little spicy for my taste, but entirely eatable, and the rice was very good. Probably taken with some more of their excellent bread. But I forgot to ask them to omit the dressing on the salad, rather oil & vinegar for my taste - almost invariably taking salads without dressing at home.

Plenty of street life to keep us amused.

Wound up with a spot of Calvados. Surprised that they had it. And then paid a visit to the branch of Nicholas down the road, a slightly up-market version of the Odd Bins which we used to like in Epsom. A good variety of wine in my range and with staff who seemed to know their stuff, or at least faked it pretty well. No Greco di Tufo - a fad which seems to have faded away, probably mainly because of lack of supply - so I settled for an interesting looking Reisling. They also had a well stocked cigar cupboard, which I was allowed to smell for old-times sake, without charge. I associate to the pie shop in Rabelais where the near broke hero paid for a smell of the pie with a jingle of his money. Or some such thing.

Strolled back down to Oxford Circus, passing up on a fancy whisky shop on the way, a branch of Whisky Exchange. Passing up on a pub I used to use back in the 1960's. Still there and still looking much the same, apart from the lights hung up outside.

Got into a muddle this morning with this old building, very near the whisky shop, which I cannot now trace on Street View. Clearly something for the next occasion.

Got into a another muddle at the tube station where I went into an entry reserved for exit; the one-way system designed to help with the plague. Arrived in the ticket hall to find all the machines there had been switched to exit, so back out onto the street and into the right entry, which worked.

Hot crowded tube. Lots of middle aged and younger men not wearing masks. No-one on this occasion offered me a seat. Perhaps that only works when I am with BH.

Passed up on the Half Way House at Earlsfield on this occasion, but did take in the platform library at Raynes Park, where I picked up a few bits, two of them, the spy story and the DVD, already noticed at reference 6. BH thinking about the other three - the blue one being a memoir from Stephen Spender, the white one a foreign novel (translated) and the yellow one some chap soul hunting in Tibet. Or something of that sort. 

I had passed on an old hardback copy of 'Swallows and Amazons', one of a series books by Arthur Ransome which were much read - not by me - when I was a child, but I did not think that it would have worn well enough to bother with now.

PS 1: for once blog search failed me. The restaurant near the Globe was found by asking Bing for its name and then searching the Blog using that. Raw search on the blog archive with keys like 'Turkish restaurant Globe' turned up too many hits to be helpful. And search on the blog itself - which works at post level rather than month level - so a much finer search - hindered by not having a clue about date.

PS 2: a little later: unable to let this one go, now traced to the north side of New Cavendish Street - a street which was once home to the Institute of Psychoanalysis, before they sold out and moved to Maida Vale - see reference 8 - just to the east of the junction with Portland Place. Probably the late 19th century Grade II building at No. 73, something called 'Regency revival', possibly the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland.

References

Reference 1: https://kibelerestaurant.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://cheese.com/hafod/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/st-thomas-hanwell.html.

Reference 4: https://www.centralsynagogue.org.uk/.

Reference 5: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2008/10/culinary-matters-reprised.html.

Reference 6: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/03/trainspotting.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/a-spy-story.html.

Reference 8: https://psychoanalysis.org.uk/.

Epiphenomena

Figure 1

This prompted by a reading of the paper at reference 1, with Halligan and Oakley having worked together over this ground for some years now and with references 2, 3 and 4, this last from 2000, being by way of previews of the present paper. Reference 4 was also the source of the picture above.

A review paper which also seeks to dethrone the subjective experience, together with the associated sense of a self which is in charge, from its present prominent position in our understanding of the human world and to have us regard this subjective experience more as an accidental by-product of all the other goings on in the brain, rather than as the apex of some pyramid, the crowning glory of a human being. An accidental by-product which doesn’t have much if any impact on what that brain gets up to. An accidental by-product which nevertheless results in most of us believing in this non-existent self, something rather like the soul of the Christians. A getting up to which sometimes includes generating a personal narrative (PN) and a personal awareness of some or all of that narrative (PA). Which we are invited to believe is not the same as saying that PN is what the brain thinks that the subject needs to know. That there is some need, that the brain has some purpose in its mind, one that the subject doesn’t get to know about.

Some people use the term ‘epiphenomenon’ where I have used by-product. A term briefly recognised in much this sense by my (first edition, that is to say old) OED, but which attracts a substantial discussion at reference 10 – a discussion which includes a more sophisticated version of the A and B remark which follows below.

Along the way, they remind us of some of the many scenarios turned up in recent years involving processes once thought to involve or need conscious attention, to need the presence of consciousness, running along quite happily in the unconscious, under the hood as it were. 

This included reminding us of the complicated relationship between what is happening out in the real world and our subjective experience of same. Particularly if one indulges in trickery, experimental or otherwise.

Along the way, they also take a swipe at the notion that we have free will. A subject on which I offer some of my own swipes at references 5, 6 and 7 below.

Dethrone but not to deny. The paper allows that it would be interesting to know exactly how we come to have conscious experience and why, as seems likely, a reasonably sophisticated fungus like Ophiocordyceps unilateralist of reference 8 does not. But we are cautioned about getting too hung up on it – and the last sentence of the abstract reminds us ‘that most brain processes are not accompanied by any discernible change in subjective awareness’.

A position with which, having failed to come up with any very satisfactory reason for consciousness myself, I have much sympathy. Nevertheless, I would not be so quick to rule out a function for consciousness, for the subjective experience. At the very least it may well be that state of being A is necessary and sufficient for action B to follow and also that A reliably generates subjective experience S. We do not get from A to B without S, but it is not the case that S causes B, any more than the fall in the barometer causes rain.

It just seems a bit unlikely to me that evolution would go to the bother of creating something so pervasive and so seemingly important as consciousness without there being some point, some breeding advantage for selection to bite on. Or at the very least, having stumbled upon it, not to have gone on to find some use for it – rather as when writing complicated computer programs one sometimes finds oneself using a chunk of code for something which has nothing to do with whatever one wrote it for in the first place. My understanding is that the evolution of our bodies is littered with this sort of thing. Why not our minds too? So for me, just writing consciousness off as an evolutionary accident, as Halligan and Oakley themselves point out, is indeed counterintuitive.

Figure 2

Then contrariwise, unlike the old version of their diagram, Figure 1 above, the latest version of their diagram, Figure 2 just above, tells us that communication with the rest of the world which has been critical to our evolutionary success passes through consciousness, that is to say PN and PA. While I prefer Figure 1; I would prefer to say that communications are often available to consciousness, perhaps after the event, which is not quite as strong as saying they pass through consciousness or that they are mediated by consciousness. Sometimes we speak without thinking and we only get to look at the transcript afterwards – while at other times we write the script out before we speak. A process which, I believe, Winston Churchill took so far as to mark emphases, stresses and pauses on top of the raw words.

Contrariwise again, the abstract of reference 2 talks of consciousness driving autobiographical memory, at least in the sense that S causes B above: ‘… The personal narrative provides information for storage in autobiographical memory and is underpinned by constructs of self and agency, also created in non-conscious systems. The experience of consciousness is a passive accompaniment to the non-conscious processes of internal broadcasting and the creation of the personal narrative…’. Broadcasting which brings to mind Baars’ Global Workspace Theory (GWS).

And then there all the non-verbal communications, all the sub-texts, which may be far from the consciousness of the communicator, but which may be available to the observant observer. I associate to the way that professional gamblers are said to be able to read the body language of their less professional opponents.

I fairly commonly experience something that may be relevant. That is to say that I do not often think in a very active way. But I do often sit down at the computer and start typing – when words just seem to flow out of the brain, into my fingers and onto the screen, with my having anything much to do with it consciously. Sometimes the words so written read back again well enough afterwards. A point which is made at rather greater length in reference 4.

I now associate to the behaviourists, part of whose creed, as I understand it, was that it is much better to focus on what people do than on what they say, particularly about themselves, this last being particularly unreliable.

An interesting and thought provoking paper – even if my own view is that it might be salutary rather than helpful to describe consciousness as an epiphenomenon. Salutary in the sense that it takes us down a peg or two. Rather in the way that Copernicus did when he reorganised the solar system.

And talking of pegs, I read only yesterday, in a review of a book about fungi in the NYRB (reference 14), that some biologists worry about whether it makes sense to talk about a plant or an animal as a single, independent entity. What about all the essential micro-life, the millions of other entities, including fungi, working away near, on and in the plant or animal in question?

Additional matters

As with consciousness, we dethrone but do not deny personality. There may not be some bit of the brain which does personality for us, there may be no soul and there may be no commander-in-chief lurking in the interior of the brain, but humans – and most larger animals – do exhibit characteristic personalities. And we tend to be wary of people who do not have, do not seem to work within such personalities.

I am reminded that consciousness in humans precedes language – ask a parent of a toddler – and the large animals which we presume to be conscious after a fashion do not have language at all. But maybe there is some rapid change in the quality of consciousness as the toddler learns first to gesture and then to talk,

Halligan and Oakley talk of consciousness as a by-product of the brain’s various processing systems. By way of contrast, LWS-R of reference 9 suggests a data structure and processing arrangements dedicated to producing the stream of what it calls frames of consciousness. A consciousness module. A data structure which might well meet some of the objectives of the GWS, but for which I offered no purpose beyond generating the subjective experience. Which one might argue – as I already have above – was a bit extravagant: why go to all that bother for no apparent end? A difficulty which Halligan and Oakley try to duck with talk of by-products.

Figure 3

We are pointed to the AST (attention schema theory) of Graziano and his colleagues, to be found, for example, at reference 11. A theory which appears to be built on, inter alia, the long life, the persistence of folk theories of mind, plausible enough and long enough to become embedded as structures in real minds. Some of this is suggested in the snap from reference 11 above. With the result that our expectations about minds are reflected in our subjective experience of our own minds. Something which is perceived as being in charge, being in control – whatever the facts on the ground might actually be.

Figure 4

One relic of these folk theories is the way we talk of someone facing someone else down, perhaps a gang of unruly drunks, as if some power were emanating from the person doing the facing down, typically from the eyes. One example is the way that in many early paintings of the annunciation, for example that above by Crivelli, first noticed at reference 14, the Virgin Mary is impregnated by what appears to be a ray of strong light, emanating from either the Lord or one of his doves.

Differences in ancestry notwithstanding, this attention schema does not seem to be that far from the LWS-R, already mentioned.

We are also pointed to the illusionism of Frankish, to be found at reference 12. I had less sympathy with this one, and did not get further than the first few paragraphs.

References

Reference 1: Giving Up on Consciousness as the Ghost in the Machine – Peter W. Halligan and David A. Oakley – 2021. 

Reference 2: Chasing the rainbow: the non-conscious nature of being - Oakley, D. A., and Halligan, P.W. – 2017.

Reference 3: Consciousness evolved for the greater good, not just the self – Oakley and Halligan – 2015. A piece in New Scientist. Not traced.

Reference 4: Greatest myth of all - Peter W. Halligan and David A. Oakley – 2000. Available for a fee at https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16822653-700-greatest-myth-of-all/. Or for free if you poke around a bit.

Reference 5: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/11/free-will-1.html. 

Reference 6: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/11/free-will-2.html. 

Reference 7: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/free-will-3.html. 

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis. With thanks to the NYRB for drawing my attention to this fungus.

Reference 9: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/an-updated-introduction-to-lws-r.html. 

Reference 10: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/. 

Reference 11: Toward a standard model of consciousness: reconciling the attention schema, global workspace, higher-order thought, and illusionist theories – Graziano, M., Guterstam, A., Branden, J., and Wilterson, A. – 2019.

Reference 12: Illusionism as a theory of consciousness – Frankish, K. – 2016. A chap who is coy about his age.

Reference 13: https://aeon.co/. We are told Frankish contributes to this online magazine, inter alia, a collection of exotic bits and pieces. They say: ‘we are committed to big ideas, serious enquiry and a humane worldview. That’s it’.

Reference 14: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/05/ascolan-cucumber.html. With thanks to the National Gallery for the use of their picture.

Reference 15: Entangled life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds and shape our future – Merlin Sheldrake – 2020. A chap whose father was well known for his research into the paranormal and for his promotion of panpsychism. The usual small prize to readers who can say what that last is, in words of not more than three syllables, without asking Wikipedia.

Golden rings

From time to time I notice the golden ring at Buckfast abbey, otherwise a replica of the Aachen Barbarossaleuchter, to be found, surprisingly enough, at Aachen. See for example, reference 1.

So this afternoon, I was turning the pages of my book of Annunciations from Phaidon, noticed at reference 2, and I came across the image above, taken from an illuminated manuscript of 1452, the work of one Jean Fouquet. That is to say, the Book of Hours of one Étienne Chevalier, 1452-60, held in the Musée Condé at Chantilly. Which, as it happens, is Epsom's twin town in France, a twinning celebrated by Chantilly Way - which connects Hook Road with Horton Retail and Horton Lane. A road which contains a fine line of mature trees, presumably a relic of Long Grove Hospital.

An image which suggests that that church ornaments like the Aachen Barbarossaleuchter were not so uncommon after all: this one is nothing like as grand, but there are similarities. When will I next come across another?

Colours not much like those in the Phaidon version, but who can know now what the original might have looked like new. And we do know that colour reproduction on computers is not always as good as it might appear at first glance.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/aachen-barbarossaleuchter.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/05/ascolan-cucumber.html.

Reference 3: http://musee-conde.fr/fr/. I think this is the right place, but search fails to find anything to do with this image. Let's hope it is their search engine rather than my information.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hours_of_%C3%89tienne_Chevalier.

Duffel or duffle?

Having staved off the evil day for some years, by replacing leather thongs with silken ropes, I have finally fallen for a new duffel coat from Gloverall, a new coat which turned up from somewhere in the Midlands, in a van, within just a day or so of ordering it.

There is some doubt about how old the old coat is, with the only trace from gmail being an interaction with the Gloverall customer care centre about colour in 2008. It seems to be reasonably clear that a coat was bought on that occasion. It seems reasonably likely that any subsequent purchase would also have figured in the email record and so is actually non-existent. The present old coat does indeed date from 2008.

While reference 1 suggests that I was worrying about the condition of the leather thongs early in 2015. So it all adds up.

First action for me on arrival of new coat was to decommission the new coat, as snapped above with all the ropes and buttons removed. Ropes preserved for posterity, buttons in the large jar of same.

Second action for BH was washing and airing. The old coat needed to be washed before it could take up its new duties as a blanket for watching television in the extension, apt to be cold in the winter, thus saving the planet by economising on our use of our antique electric fire from Belling, and the new coat needed to be aired to remove its factory smell.

Washing and airing now complete and the two coats are ready for duty.

It just remains for me to check up on my confusion about the spelling. Duffel may be a place in the Netherlands rather than a coat.

PS: later: Duffel turns out to be a town near Antwerp, in Brabant, in Belgium. On the river Nete which flows into the Rupel which flows into the Scheldt. Lots of waterworks. There are also two castles, perhaps dating from the days of Spanish occupation, Fort van Duffel and Kastel del Elst.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/12/duffel-coat.html. Start of roping up.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/01/military-bearing.html. Roping up completed.

Reference 3: https://www.gloverall.com/.

Never mind the justice, just feel the freedom

I was interested to read this morning - in an item brought to me by Microsoft News - that the US, Canada and China have done a deal over the daughter of the boss of Huawei, held on house arrest in Vancouver for getting on for three years, for possible extradition to the US on charges relating to sanctions on Iran. Something to do with Huawei lying to HSBC about the nature of their relationship with Iran - which reference 1 suggests is extensive. Nevertheless, given the passage of time, lying to HSBC about it does seem a bit like ancient history.

A deal which resulted in the daughter catching a plane to China and China releasing a couple of Canadians held in a tit-for-tat arrest. Just like the deals over spies that the US and the UK used to do with the late USSR during the Cold War.

With the difference that the daughter was held on house arrest in a Vancouver mansion, while the two Canadians were held in prison in China. Let's hope they had some Chinese. We are not told whether they got any special privileges while there or whether they, like the daughter, have pleaded guilty to the charges against them. Whatever they might have been.

PS: are the Tories about to learn that a free market for all your friends with their eyes on profit today is not a very good way to run an industry like gas supply? And to go back to a nationalised industry which has room to have regard for tomorrow? To maybe take all those once prominent gas holders out of mothballs? I associate to Northern Rock, whose business model was built on cheap access to short term money - rather than cheap access to short term gas.

References

Reference 1: https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/how-us-sanctions-drove-iran-into-huaweis-arms/.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2012/08/sacks.html. Earlier notice of Huawei.

Reference 3: https://www.huawei.com/en/. Where there is a glossy promotional film, from which the snap above is taken. 

Band width

I was sent an email telling me about reference 1 earlier today, the top of which is snapped above. A paper published online by the Lancet a week or so ago. Just one paper in what I imagine is a huge number of such. Let's hope our once world class civil service still has the band width and organisation needed to cope with them all - to the point of formulating at least adequate - if no longer world class - policy options for our ministers to consider.

Let's hope also that our ministers do not allow their understandable parochial concerns to blot out wider concerns - or to put it another way, the needs of others, particularly those others with a lot less money to throw at COVID than us.

References

Reference 1a: Considerations in boosting COVID-19 vaccine immune responses - Philip R Krause, Thomas R Fleming, Richard Peto, Ira M Longini, J Peter Figueroa, Jonathan A C Sterne, Alejandro Cravioto, Helen Rees, Julian P T Higgins, Isabelle Boutron, Hongchao Pan, Marion F Gruber, Narendra Arora, Fatema Kazi, Rogerio Gaspar, Soumya Swaminathan, Michael J Ryan, Ana-Maria Henao-Restrepo - 2021.

Reference 1b: https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2821%2902046-8.

Wellingtonia 46

Captured in the margins of a visit to Charlwood, on its heritage open day, on which more in due course. 

Just to the south of Reigate, on the bit of the A217 called Drovers Green Road, at the entrance to gated community called Somers Gate. According to the gate post, in 2015 by the developing people at reference 2.

Sufficiently gated that the gates were shut - I did not think to find out whether they were actually locked - and that Street View blurred things out when their camera was looking straight down the drive.

On the basis that the road to the east of the A217 labelled Salmonscross is actually Lonesome Lane, and the road to the west just below is actually Sandcross Lane, this estate may have been built on the site of Dovers, a few yards to the south of Doversgreen. At some point transformed into Drovers Green Road. I was looking for something of the sort, a house grand enough to be bothered with planting a Wellingtonia.

Much the same story at the end of the century. With the addition of Earlswood Asylum a few miles to the east, presumably the same sort of thing as we had here in Epsom.

However, casual research fails to turn up anything about a stately home called either Dovers or Doversgate, so can't be sure that is where Somers Gate came from. The Somers Town of London, between Kings Cross and Euston, presumably not relevant: 'At the end of the 17th century John Somers, Lord Chancellor and later Baron Somers of Evesham, acquired the local freehold. The arrival of the New Road (now Euston Road) improved access to the area and in 1793 Frenchman Jacob Leroux leased land from the Somers family for building'. Unless the developer was born in a Somers Town slum and had a sense of humour?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/wellingtonia-45.html.

Reference 2: https://thakeham.com/.

Group search key: wgc.