Misc.

One of the above was valued at $450 million. I'm sure you can guess which.

There's something to be said about preservation here-the desire to keep things from the distant past intact. The defacement of the sleeping Buddha is a tragedy (being 1,700 years old makes it the oldest of its kind). Horrible as that it is there's still some hope in the fact that it has been restored and that it will (hopefully) be exhibited. 

But the sale of the Leonardo is also a symbol of the astronomical wealth of some people, the vast inequalities of late capitalism, and not simply bout the love of art. In effect, the commodification of art is what this is all about. Will the painting be viewed by the public or will it just be an investment, part of someone's private collection?  

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Point of order.

Do rats in a maze follow a strict map (if rewarded then turn right; if not, keep going straight) or do they form a complete cognitive map? And humans? Does reliance on GPS result in us losing that map since, like the rat we simply turn left or right depending on what the electronic voice tells us to do? And does our ability to notice the environment we live in subsequently dwindle? How will we ever find home?

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How to Think.

Not in isolation but with others, for others. This seems like a radical overturning of centuries of a false sense of autonomy. An autonomy, incidentally-and to join up the dots-that is leading to more reliance on machines.

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When evening comes, I return home and enter my study; on the threshold I take off my workday clothes, covered with mud and dirt, and put on the garments of court and palace. Fitted out appropriately, I step inside the venerable courts of the ancients, where, solicitously received by them, I nourish myself on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born; where I am unashamed to converse with them and to question them about the motives for their actions, and they, out of their human kindness, answer me. And for four hours at a time I feel no boredom, I forget all my troubles, I do not dread poverty, and I am not terrified by death.

--Machiavelli.