What, Why & How do we Know ?
As well as dallying about at conceptual / philosophical levels with cybernetics and systems thinking in recent decades, I’ve had several abortive attempts at getting some useful tools going. In fact in those decades I was also working with and for software developers / solution providers on “generic” tools mainly in the “capital facilities” business. … Continue reading “Systems Functional Needs”
Watching this wonderful “Krebs Cycle” RI lecture by Nick Lane – last mentioned him here – and just wanted to note two things for now. One, there is an obvious topological parallel (*) between (System) Markov Blankets and (Mitochondria) Lipid Membranes at two quite different levels of abstraction – information processes and biochemical processes. And … Continue reading “Markov Blankets vs Lipid Membranes”
I have a long overdue (several years, half-drafted) piece called “Good Fences” that goes right back to basic “classification & identification, definition & description” of stuff we deal with in the real world: How we subdivide the world into different kinds of stuff and different things and give them various names. It occurs everywhere from … Continue reading “Good and Bad but not Black and White”
I’ve just taken possession of Kevin Mitchell’s (2018) “Innate – How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are”. No idea why it’s taken me so long to acquire a copy, he’s been on my book list for some time and I’ve been following him for a few years on Twitter – he’s a … Continue reading “Innate by Kevin Mitchell”
[Work in Progress – Draft will be edited without notification.] [Feedback appreciated on the “See / Refs” – where more are needed? Meantime all those indicated will be elaborated and worked into the text. And obviously on the intelligibility of the text so far. Drafting arose out of the “Three Essays” post, particularly “Algorithms for … Continue reading “Information Ontology of Mind and Body”
Richard Emerson invited me onto his podcast earlier in the week. We’ve met Richard here before on Psybertron, his personal “Renaissance” book and his “Ancient Worlds” project discovering – rediscovering – the value in ancient wisdom, with Dante’s “cosmology” being the poster boy. Apart from having a shortlist of topics before we started – and … Continue reading “Rebalancing the Future”
Just place-holders for pieces – or indeed whole comms campaigns (?) – that need to be created: Most generally because there are enormous persistent misunderstandings within science & technology and with public understanding of it, and specifically (topically given Musk!) with socially degenerate aspects of ubiquitous social media. In no particular order, they’re all connected … Continue reading “Three Essays on Brains & Minds”
Subir Sarkar was interviewed by Sabine Hossenfelder last month, but I didn’t capture the link then: Interesting content in the “Einstein was right when he said he was wrong” domain when it comes to the cosmological constant. Pointing to to some radically “new” ideas being needed to fix anomalies in physics. (That’s new as in … Continue reading “Subir Sarkar”