Our family enjoyed a few weeks of vacation on Bornholm. As we were milling around, a handful of ideas for future blogposts occurred to me; I also took tons of photographs. I thought I would share some of these pictures, and summaries of potential blogposts, here.
Bornholm is a small island in the Baltic Sea, located just south of Ystad, Sweden. The known history of the island dates prior to the 800’s and includes interesting roles in northern-European history during the middle ages. A common attraction for visitors to the Bornholm is Hammershus, which was constructed around 1250 AD. I have memories from throughout my life walking through the ruins and taking hikes around the (oftentimes, very windy) perimeter.
The cultural legacy of Bornholm includes the various round churches. Denmark became a Lutheran country in the 16th century; King Christian III, who was influenced by the teachings of Martin Luther, introduced a series of reforms that led to the establishment of Lutheranism as the state religion. These reforms included the dissolution of Catholic monasteries and the transfer of their assets to the crown, as well as the adoption of Lutheran principles in church doctrine and practices.
These round churches date back to the Middle Ages and were primarily associated with the Knights Templar, a medieval Christian military order.
This church is Østerlars Church. The painting below is of the same structure dated August 12, 1821.
The topography of Bornholm includes forests, rocky coasts, and farmland. The population of the island is just shy of 40,000 people, and the largest town, Rønne, has only about 10,000 people, so there is no meaningful urban influence.
My dad grew up near Hasle, which is one of our favorite places. We rented a summerhouse in the forrest south of Hasle and enjoyed the local beach, walking around the forrest, and easy access to family visits.
We found some good time to enjoy the late sunsets at Hasle Strand.
Blogpost ideas
These were a few ideas that occurred during our visit.
Reaction to Marc Andreesen AI essay
Marc Andreesen wrote an essay titled Why AI Will Save The World. I think this topic of the future implications of advances in AI is highly worth following and the implications for policymakers, business people, moral philosophers, economists, and, simply stated, everyone globally, are both interesting and important.
Sam Harris and Andreesen debated this essay in this podcast. To summarize the eventual mutual perspectives about the other’s criticism as tautological is probably sufficient. While I tend to agree with nearly everything written in the blogpost, I think the implications of even low likelihood scenarios of consequences of the alignment-problem-gone-wrong coupled with emergent sentience is worthy of more than his hand waving and optimism. I would like to write more on this.
Art, Neuroscience, the Golden Mean, and the Super Ellipse; Also, Major 4ths and Major 7ths | Inquiry into clash and color, including the philosophy and physics
I have been reading over the past few years more traditional philosophy, as well as listening to some lectures on neuroscience, and find myself wondering how much of our views of what is aesthetically pleasing or bothersome is rooted in evolution and culture.
For example, we appreciate a CMaj7 chord differently from a G7 (or tri-tone substitution for any V7); In these cases, we can point to physics for descriptions of the phenomena. Two examples I wonder about for spacial purposes are the golden mean and super ellipse; My thoughts about this arose as I was walking around the Louisiana. The artist below, Palle Nielsen, seemed to be working through common elements and geometry in a manner I have imagined Piet Hein similarly engaging in as he eventually landed on a Superegg.
Monsters | Art, Clair Dederer’s recent book, and where Oluf Høst fits
I recently read Clair Dederer’s book Monsters about art, culture, and the ways we “consume” art conditioned upon (or, more likely, not conditioned upon) our views of the artist and their own morality. I loved this book and thought Clair did a nice job weaving history, philosophy, sociology, and her own experiences into the book. I highly recommend it.
I also visited the Oluf Høst museum in Gudhjem during our trip to Bornholm. The Høst story fits nicely with the narrative of a wonderful artists making periodically tragic and despicable choices, yet producing wonderful artwork. I can imagine enjoying spending some more time trying to understand this particular story and how it fits within the ideas of Clair’s book.
The history of the Hasle Glass Factory | Business and Society
When I started in business, I was primarily interested in the ideas of how organizations (and sales people) are best designed (and trained) to compete and earn profits; As time progressed, I became more interested in other nuances of optimized business functions, such as corporate finance, marketing, HR, and strategy; While I am still interested in all these things, I have become increasingly in love with the study of business because of the stories: triumph, tragedy, and comedy all play roles in the stories over the arc of a lifecycle.
Developing a story about the ideas and vision behind the Glassworks on Bornholm in the mid-19th century seems very worthwhile. This seems like a story worth telling!
Reflections on discussions with family in Danish healthcare | Politics, Economic Growth, The Business of Healthcare, and Derek Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion
We spent wonderful time with family on our trip; Included in a number of instances was discussion with family in healthcare. I love seeing my family because their interest in discussing politics and ideas is relatively high. I am blessed with an interesting family! In a few conversations, this dialogue included connections between the Danish and American systems, the influence of the USA (e.g. via the implementation of Epic in Copenhagen), and possible connections of Danish health policy to Derek Parfit’s repugnant conclusion.
Coming around the mountain again | My excitement for building a new insurance, employee benefit, and professional services firm as a 45 year-old mid-career professional; Also, Entrepreneurship and Doubt | Some personal experiences and the feelings associated with quieting doubt with empirical observation
I am having so much fun with the building of our new business. The experience building something from scratch is so exciting and fun, but also initially scary. There were initially some quiet doubts in my mind, suggesting high likelihood of failure on the basis of past successes being misattributed to my own work and skills. These doubts included thoughts about whether Stuart and I could effectively attract great customers without an old or national brand, and without past colleagues I associated with, and without established contracts with insurers.
These voices have all disappeared at this point, given our success over the last year. And silencing those voices is as satisfying as any solution we have built, program we have written, or sales we have made.
Now, I am extra pumped to go create more solutions, write more programs, and onboard more sales!!
The Wager | Chalmers and Koch’s bet about “The Hard Problem of Consciousness” and will the next 25 years lead to the same results as the last
This article in Nature describes the result of a 25 year bet.
. . .even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience?
David Chalmers, Facing up to the problem of consciousness
Maybe this should be connected to the blogpost on the critique of Marc Andreesen’s essay on AI…
Occupation on Bornholm | The role of the Russians and Nazis on late 20th century Bornholms culture
Our grandmother, Bedste, used to offer a regular caveat to many plans and visits… something effectively agreeing to a plan, subject to the Russians not returning to Bornholm. I wonder if future grandchildren of today’s youth won’t notice a similar fingerprint on their views of their seniors as a consequence of recent history: Covid19, etc.
I am curious to inquire further about the ways both Nazi and Russian occupations effected culture on Bornholm. It seems like an interesting blogpost to research.
Just Walking Around | Is there a better thing for a family to do together?
I know many great writers and philosophers wrote about the value of walks. We enjoyed our time walking around together over the past few weeks. I imagine an interesting blogpost could identify some of the most thoughtful accounts of the value of this time, with family, or even one’s self.
I really enjoyed our time as a family just walking around. We should do that more.
