What, Why & How do we Know ?
Completed Hofstadter and Dennett’s “The Mind’s I” on the way back to Perth, Oz. Although it peters out a bit, with Hofstadter’s “Conversation with Einstein’s Brain” there are still more gems in there. After Lem’s excellent “Non Serviam” mentioned previously, we still have Ray Smullyan’s “Is God a Taoist”, John Searle’s “Minds, Brains and Programs”, … Continue reading “Mind’s I – Round-up”
One important thread in the development of Pirsig’s ideas, starting with Northrop and the aboriginals of “Latin” America (and all points “East” of western thinking), continued in the North American Indian anthropological forays with Verne Dusenberry. A descendent of said anthropologist points out that Dusenberry’s book is back in print with Oklahoma University Press. Some … Continue reading “Cree Anthropology”
Been worrying about this since Northrop’s references to Aryan, and the 20th century “PC” difficulty of attributing the language to an Aryan “race”. [PIE 2012/3 Update.] [PIE 2018 Update h/t Alice Roberts] Since Sir William “Indiana” Jones proposed a common Aryan or Indo-European language in 1786, with linguistic similarities having been noted by European travellers as … Continue reading “Aryan vs Indo-European”
I’ve tried to keep Psybertron away from global politics subjects, despite noting the subconscious kick in the pants 9/11 gave to its motivation (see footnote on every page), mainly I guess not to overstate any impression of self-importance and to keep in perspective of what I might aim to achieve in my world of business, … Continue reading “Paradox of War Against Terrorism”
I’ve taken the frontcover shots of the books I’m reading or have recently read off the side-bar – just too much slow graphical content for the home-page. I must construct a separate bibliography page soon. Currently I’m still working slowly through F S C Northrop’s The Meeting of East and West – full of good … Continue reading “Reading List Update”
On holiday, sailing in Greece. Met John Flynn and son David. John works for EMIL (ex EEEL) ExxonMobil in New Malden UK. A long term customer of mine at Foster Wheeler, Reading, UK, down at Esso Fawley. He regularly works with Richard Carroll, someone I employed during my 22 years at FW. Small world. Also … Continue reading “We’re in Porto Heli”
Just received “The Meeting of East and West” by F.S.C. Northrop (MacMillan, 1946, 1st ed, 2nd impression) from MGBooks used bookstore @ URL:// 1013 Brice Road, Rockville, Maryland, 🙂 30 hours after confirming a standard flat-rate US-snail-mail order through Amazon’s used book service. I’m very impressed – with Marcy George, Amazon, the US Postal Service … Continue reading “Clicks Meets Used Bricks”