What, Why & How do we Know ?
Instead of reading David Morey’s novel (which I had with me on our trip to the Gulf Coast over the Thanksgiving holiday) I finished Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” and got about half-way through “Philosophical Investigations”. The latter so far just seems to continue casting doubt on the science (logic) of natural language, and of course logic … Continue reading “Wittgenstein Disappointment”
I’ve barely blogged or posted anywhere in the last few months, almost none in the last month. Just too busy with the day job, and in a temporary state domestically. We move into a longer term place next weekend. I have however found some disjointed time to do some reading. I think the last things … Continue reading “Enlightened Reading ?”
I need to get this topic at the right level, following the Blackmore vs Midgley outing of yesterday. Before memes, let’s get the garbage out of the way …. It was set up as Blackmore vs Midgley, a combative argument – I have (on this very blog) agreed with both Midgley and Blackmore – I … Continue reading “More on Memes”
Following a search hit I find a source that links many of mine …. Pirsig and VUB/Heilighen, (Einstein Meets Magritte) with Josephson (explaining the paranormal with open minded science) with Dennett, Searle and Chalmers (PoM / Consciousness) in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. A paper in the 1995 JCS reviewing the 1995 Einstein Meets Magritte … Continue reading “Consciousness and Pirsig”
I took delight in discovering some time ago that the “semantic web” was coined by Michel Foucault (“Les Mots Et Les Choses” 1966, aka “The Order of Things” to distinguish it from Quine’s “Word and Object”) many years before Tim Berners-Lee came along. Not that I have anything against Sir TBL – it’s just part … Continue reading “Semantic Web n’all that”
Philosophy of Technology Reading List – From the UIUC (Uni Illinois at Urbana) – eight years old, but interesting nevertheless. (Marx, Wiener, Heidegger, Baudrillard, Herrigel, Pirsig, Buckie-Fuller, Foucault, Penrose, Theroux, to name a few)
Having finished The Blind Watchmaker – I was browsing Dawkins contribution to The Third Culture, which includes commentary on, and by, other members. I was struck by one of Dawkins quotes about Stephen Jay Gould “building non-existent windmills to take a tilt at” and felt the same problem I’m having with Rorty at the moment. … Continue reading “Brian Goodwin”
Chrucky’s paper (yesterday’s blog) covers interesting ground, even if the purpose is a catholic religious / abortion argument about what constitutes a human person. The concept of whether “morals” are something fundamental and whether consciousness and communication shared between “persons” are really part of some social contract, existing at tacit levels to build on more … Continue reading “Social Contract”