What, Why & How do we Know ?
Special edition of The Edge. Question from Danny Hillis with responses from the great and the good at The Edge. “Perhaps better would be that we might need separation of ideas/memes/cultures long enough to test them — and then recombine the parts we like best.” George Church Reinforces the issue of the speed of communication …. no … Continue reading “Who Gets to Keep Secrets ?”
Interesting set of links spinning out of a Ben Goldacre piece on “judging quality” in scientific “evidence”. Cialdini’s “Influence”. Complementary & Alternative Medicine. Ben’s piece with My original comment, plus comments by JDC at Stuff & Nonesense, and Keith Douglas the philosopher-animal. The cognitive “short-cuts” people use – heuristics – to make complex decisions pragmatically, … Continue reading “Short Cuts”
I support the power of blogging (and other social media) but you’ve probably detected I also see a problem with over-communication. In the clamour for attention, bad information can drive out good – the memetic problem as I call it. There is a moral imperative to say what needs to be said – and that … Continue reading “The Power of Blogging”
…. to the list of theologians talking sense. Thanks to David Morey for the link. Relatively few scientists are working constructively to build conceptual bridges between science and religion. (Of course, this makes the few who are all the more important.) Most bench scientists are suspicious of those who call for an integration of science … Continue reading “Add Phillip Clayton ….”
Hat tip to Sam for this Guardian link. Interesting in its own right and interesting given Sam’s downer on Obama in favour of his sweetheart Palin – when it is clear that both posess quality. (And a great comment thread on this preceding George Monbiot post.) And for this… global political issues are psychological not … Continue reading “China Wrecked Copenhagen”
Kevin Kelly talking on “The Technium” as he calls it – the “cosmic force” of technology running right through evolution. I probably wouldn’t use his language, but I do agree – the anthropic angle of the self-organizing drive is just that, our perspective, as “the species that domesticated itself” in order to exploit that (otherwise … Continue reading “Technophilia”
A new post from Chris Locke after a 6 month hiatus at Mystic Bourgeoisie. I think Chris is getting closer to his agenda – the “but I’m not new-age” meme – is a meme defined by new-ageism. He’s right there, the problem of “Numinous Lunacy and Sanctimonious Narcissism” as he calls it, is memetic. Not … Continue reading “On Not Being New Age”
With a few days of enforced rest, and no new unread books left, I’ve been dipping into an odd mix of earlier attempts – Dante’s Inferno, Hitchhiker Trilogy, Heisenberg, Cluetrain Manifesto to name a few. Spurred by the latter no doubt, I checked out what Dave Weinberger is blogging these days : As we come … Continue reading “Signifier and Signified”