What, Why & How do we Know ?
Rather than a bat, how about a ventriloquist’s dummy ? Steve Jones in todays UK Daily Telegraph writes on the opposite effect to the seeing through hearing post earlier. Using “Educating Archie”, successful ventiloquism on the radio, he is discussing the importance of visual clues in voice communication. Hearing through seeing. (See also all the … Continue reading “What’s it like to educate Archie – III”
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”
Man hears in colour, or “sees” with the sound of music. [report via BBC]. Another variation on the Neuroscience explanations of consciousness – see earlier blogs on Sacks, Zeman and others. I stand corrected that it is not quite what Nagel’s bat was about. He was being general about the concept of “being like” something … Continue reading “What’s it Like to be a Bat – II”
As you may have noticed, I’m reading my way through a number books by neurosurgeons and brain scientists, as part of reviewing state of the art understanding of “perception”. Recently I read Edeleman, Zeman and Austin’s books, and more recently started Oliver Sacks “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat”, full of intriguing … Continue reading “It’s A Funny Old Brain”
[Also via Apothecary][via MetaFilter]. The Memory Hole: named after the text disposal chute in Orwell’s 1984, this site notes and preserves expunged information. While the theme is mostly political (unacknowledged reversed policies, unpalatable war information, etc) it also covers wider cultural stuff: for instance, Sunflower, the character Disney removed from Fantasia and later denied having … Continue reading “Institutionalised Memory Loss”