What, Why & How do we Know ?
Nice piece from Antonio Damasio Thanks to Marsha on MD for posting the link. Topical for me right now because of the Iain McGilchrist I am currently reading. The indecision of rationality. In the clip we don’t hear what the specific brain lesion / abnormality is, but this is very much about the left-brain being … Continue reading “Decisive Emotions”
I was reading Graham Parker’s reminiscences of 1975 London pub-rock, around the recording of “Live at Newlands Tavern” – boy that took me back – but no I wasn’t actually at either of those Peckham or High Wycombe gigs, nor even that Dr Feelgood gig in Guildford with GP or Paul Weller. Must buy a … Continue reading “More Thoughts of Chairman Parker”
As I near the end of a period of living & working in the US, in the Tennessee Valley in northern Alabama, I notice a few of my blog posts recently closing circles, mainly in musical connections. One obvious circle for Sylvia and I is that, purely coincidentally, the move from the US, is not … Continue reading “Hoops of Fire”
I made a reference to this book by Chris Wilson earlier and started a more thorough review … below. Chris responded before I had published … so appended below is our initial exchange to my incomplete review. We can use the comments below to continue the public dialogue. Psybertron asked “What am I missing ?” … Continue reading “Healing The Unhappy Caveman”
A fantastic article from New Scientist, via Sam (via “Peak Oil” action network). It is exactly my thinking …. not just in not ignoring non-human socio-cultural-intelligence … Sam brought it to my attention, because in MoQ circles, I am always warning that socio-cultural-intelligence (layers 3 and 4 of the MoQ) are not necessarily restricted to humans, … Continue reading “Make Love, Not War”
John Stuart Mill of his own free will, On half a pint of shandy was particulary ill. Will. The Pythons’ song memeing itself in my brain the last day or so, was prompted by listening to the BBC’s “In Our Time” this last Thursday. Anthony Grayling, Janet Radcliffe Williams, and Alan Ryan discussing the life … Continue reading “Of His Own Free Will”
Whilst being a fan of both Blackmore and Dennett, one of their claims I have trouble with is the idea that consciousness (and free-will) is an illusion. I’m never sure if that’s a claim that it isn’t therefore real, which would clearly be preposterous, or simply that it shares some attributes with illusions, which is … Continue reading “That Conscious Illusion”
Dr Austin again. “Sperry takes over where William James left off. Neurosciences have rejected reductionism and mechanistic determinism on the one hand, and dualisms on the other…. higher level interactions [of the] brain are presumed to be reducible [only in principle] in terms of fundamental physics. How does it help us to know about quarks, … Continue reading “Quirks Emerge Beyond Our Quarks”