What, Why & How do we Know ?
I’m reading Stephen Toulmin’s 2001 “Return To Reason” (I also have, but have not yet read his “Cosmopolis“). It is as good an expose so far on the enlightenment wrong turn as I have yet read. That reasonableness is more than rationality, that wisdom is more than knowledge. I hadn’t before quite appreciated how the 17th … Continue reading “Too Much Integration”
This is just an excuse to post a link to an old post on Evolutionary Intelligence by evolutionary biologist Ze Ayala in which he says … Scientific knowledge, like the description of size, materials, and geometry of Guernica, is satisfying and useful. But once science has had its say, there remains much about reality that … Continue reading “Ze Ayala”
Prompted partly by “And Another Thing” the latest (No.6) in the HitchHiker’s Guide being published, and partly by wanting to remind myself what DNA would really think of Dawkins, I’ve been re-reading the first five parts of the trilogy. OK, so the film could not do justice to the the constant stream of verbal, philosophically … Continue reading “Horoscopes in Space-Time”
Thanks to PZ Myers for the links to this Jerry Coyne piece on Francis Collins (Obama’s choice for NIH Director) lecture at UC Berkeley. (And a review by Sam Harris.) Dr. Collins will have more responsibility for biomedical and health-related research than any person on earth, controlling an annual budget of more than $30 billion. … Continue reading “Religion Does Pollute Science”
I’ve now read almost two thirds of “Shop Class as Soulcraft“. I like to blog my book reviews in segments, because unless I’m genuinely surprised by picking up a book in the first place, I am always conscious that I’m reading it because is seems to fit my agenda (positively or negatively). I like to … Continue reading “Not Short on Wisdom”
It’s fair to say that doing an MBA back in the late 1980’s was instrumental in developing my focus on the psychological aspects of the question, “What, why and how do we know?” I’ve referenced my dissertation once or twice before and acknowledged the input from the tutors in the “organizational behavioural” subjects. Of course … Continue reading “Enlightened MBA ?”
I’ve just thoroughly read and re-read a piece by Slavoj Zizek in The Cabinet entitled “From Western Marxism to Western Buddhism“. Zizek is on my “must read” list for various reasons, so this was a good start, and I quoted briefly from this particuar piece in responding to Chris Locke’s reference to it in his … Continue reading “Authentic Radical Fundamentalism ?”
A main thread of my work is that what passes for sense, knowledge and rationality in communication and decision-making with any “what should we do” qualitative, ethical or moral element, is essentially memetic. A western meme that dominates western society and western dominated worlds; a meme that focusses on quantifiable values and discrete objects than … Continue reading “ECT – A Fine Meme”