What, Why & How do we Know ?
The Edge Annual Question 2004 Q. What’s your law ?Here’s a selection of my favourite answers; Interesting how many are about meaning and communication, and more specifically about wishing to believe. Schank’s LawBecause people understand by finding in their memories the closest possible match to what they are hearing and use that match as the … Continue reading “The Edge Annual Question 2004”
The Edge – World Question Centre 2003 – The latest offering from the Digerati of the Third Culture [via John Robb]. Though provoking if a little deliberately over-hyped as per the original Reality Club concept, edited by John Brockman. Actually this collection is generally a little sad, patronising, and cloyingly patriotic, if predictable – too … Continue reading “The Edge – World Question Centre 2003”
Johnnie Moore is someone I’ve followed as long as I’ve been blogging – in the original “blogroll” over 20 years ago, though to my shame I’ve very rarely mentioned him, and I think I’ve attended a session with him only once – way back when. More than once in a previous life I’ve been close … Continue reading “The Shadow of Knowledge”
Ergodicity is my new favourite word. Some things are ergodic, some are not, they’re non-ergodic. And rather than a definition (see also post-note below), it deserves a riff … A ubiquitous question is, does the end always justify the means or maybe no end ever justifies any & all means? You might achieve the same … Continue reading “Ergodic or non-Ergodic, that is the question.”
There was a time when I followed John Brockman’s Edge regularly, it was a great way to pick up relationships between living thinkers you already knew and admired and others you didn’t, from across unlimited intellectual fields. The great thing about the annual Edge Question is that apart from the open question, there is no … Continue reading “Hidden Concepts – Edge 2017 – Let’s play Connections instead of Bulldog”
Corbyn was elected by a “newly young” Labour party membership – not by the Parliamentary Labour Party – unsurprisingly he thinks he has a mandate for juvenile policies – not liking bad stuff, bad stuff like war and killing people and poverty and inequality, and …. Not even square one in real-world politics. Mercifully, he has … Continue reading “Let slip the dogs of war – “Bombing Innocent Syrians” – is that the question?”
Alom Shaha @alomshaha tweeted – Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote “Le Scientifique n’est pas une personne qui donne les bonnes réponses, mais celui qui pose les bonnes questions.” Nicolas Fanget @nfanget tweeted translation as “Scientists aren’t people who give the right answers, but ask the right questions.” Reminded me of Einstein / Nietzsche / MacGilchrist / MacIntyre – We are worshiping … Continue reading “Objective Rationality vs Intuitive Knowledge (again) @alomshaha @nfanget”
Just a quickie. A story on BBC R4 Today this morning. These recent photos of parliament showing empty and full houses for different debates, circulating on social media and used to suggest how badly MP’s see their priorities. They’re fake. No shit Sherlock?!? Some discussion about how social media readers are less critical in their … Continue reading “Memetic problem acknowledged by the mainstream @BBCr4Today #memeticproblem”