OK, this was originally intended as a kind of semi-private scrapbook towards the next F&SF-type novel, as semi-explained here . But my G...

Spoilers ahead -- though not quite enough -- for both Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract and Christie's Murder on the Orient...

Empathy. (1) What simulation-theory / theory-theory hybrids are available? Could different persons be distributed along a spectrum of simu...

"This pure ideal man, which makes itself known more or less clearly in every subject, is represented by the state, which is the objecti...

"No doubt the artist is the child of his time, but unhappy for him if he is its disciple or even its favorite! "[...] Cherish tr...

"The misfortune of his brothers, of the whole species, appeals loudly to the heart of the man of feeling; their abasement appeals still...

"If the nobility of art has survived the nobility of nature, it also goes before it like an inspiring genius, forming and awakening mi...

" No doubt the artist is the child of his time, but unhappy for him if he is its disciple or even its favorite! Let a beneficent deit...

"... when reason brings her moral unity into physical society, she must not injure the manifold in nature. When nature strives to main...

"The savage despises art, and acknowledges nature as his despotic ruler; the barbarian laughs at nature, and dishonors it, but he often...