What, Why & How do we Know ?
“Dysmemics – Bad Ideas that Reproduce Furiously” caught my eye in the profile header of Paula Wright on Twitter / X. I’ve been using “the memetic problem” for the idea that “bad ideas win over good ideas” in the battle for attention and adoption for at least two decades. Even the sciences themselves suffer from … Continue reading “Dysmemics”
I’ve been following and writing about the “TERF War” (transgender debate / gender wars) for about 8 years now, since 2015 when I read Alice Dreger’s “Galileo’s Middle Finger“, her book about her expert practitioner – and very personal – involvement in “The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen: A Case History of … Continue reading “Gender Wars 2023”
This is a 2023 Annotation of a 2005 paper prepared originally for the Liverpool Conference on Robert Pirsig and his Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ). The text is unchanged except for correcting a few obvious typos and formatting errors, and to keep me honest the original “It’s Evolutionary Psychology Stupid” remains here complete with old broken … Continue reading “Zero to Pirsig”
I saw the excellent Dave Snowden speaking at the Annual Mike Jackson lecture at Hull University yesterday evening. [Post Note: The recording now available here.] Excellent in every way – Dave’s presentation and his conversation with Mike. All, that is, except for the absence of audience questions and discussion which meant I came away frustrated … Continue reading “Dave Snowden and Mike Jackson”
Baggini, Churchland, Flanagan in dialogue around the topic of Julian’s latest book “How to Think Like a Philosopher” – or as he preferred it “How NOT to think like a philosopher” >>> rough notes: All positive about Dennett, McIntyre, Wittgenstein, Descartes, Hume, etc. More than wondering in vacuo – adjacent sciences matter. Glad to hear … Continue reading “How do Baggini, Churchland and Flanagan Think?”
Capturing this neat summary, NOT for the decade long Sex vs Gender blip of 21st C insanity, but for the millennia old fact that men and women do have archetypically different brains & minds as well as biological bodies. “Vive la Difference” as I keep referring to it. Facts are not normative, everything and anything … Continue reading “Sexual Dimorphism”
This Karl Friston interview is long and wandering (almost 4 hours!) and a bit distorted by the somewhat affected (?) naïve “Theory of Everything” – everything including the kitchen sink – agenda of interviewer Curt Jaimungal, but anyway … some very rough mental notes: Deflationary view – hooray. The very point. Using / understanding general … Continue reading “Long Friston Interview”
Mentioned in a recent “systems sciences” post being recommended to read Peter Corning’s “Nature’s Magic”. Well I’ve had it a couple of days now and like what I read. As a result of the original “see inside” skim I’d already discovered that Corning’s idea of nature’s magic is SYNERGY, essentially that the whole is more … Continue reading “Synergy – Nature’s Magic?”