What, Why & How do we Know ?
Here (#3) below is the David Hamill piece from the Free Thought Prophet blog that triggered the two … previous (#1) … posts (#2) as well as a lot of comments and tweets. Most of my earlier thoughts concerned the Jerry Coyne post given as a reference and the linked Dan Dennett Big Think video. … Continue reading “Dennett and the “Little People” #3″
I came across a twitter thread of Free Thought Prophet (FTP, otherwise anon) recommending a blog post by John Hamill (Atheist Ireland National Committee) about Dennett’s position on free-will. FTP I know as a knockabout humorous commentator in the space occupied by the four horsemen. As a rationalist, atheist, humanist myself, “free-thought” is the traditional tag … Continue reading “Dennett and the “Little People””
A running theme throughout Psybertron is the reality of conscious mind and its consequences in the real world. That’s partly because explantory understanding of our understanding and of our decision-making is my main research focus and partly because – probably not coincidentally – it’s also a prime (but not the only) example where politicised scientific dogma … Continue reading “Altered States of Consciousness”
(Editorial Note : This paper was originally prepared for the 2005 Liverpool Conference on Robert Pirsig and his Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ). It is a personal non-technical view of the MoQ, and indeed the first part of paper is an entirely subjective and naive account of the author’s “thought journey” that led to reading Pirsig … Continue reading “It’s Evolutionary Psychology Stupid”
It’s normal for a young upcoming artist to go through some packaging and maturation from first being noticed paying their dues and honing their skills in earliest bar gigs seen by a few, to the global media promotion of the act and a new album. Gary Clarke Jr is no different. Good and loud and … Continue reading “Gary Clark Jr.”
“Spiritual but not religious” is a meme of a joke these days, because (as this BBC Magazine piece shows) the term spiritual can cover a multitude of new-agey sins. Interestingly the list of “spiritual” books includes Pirsig’s 5m-selling ZMM, but none of the books are actually mentioned in the piece. Instead we get interview quotes … Continue reading “@BHAHumanists #Spiritualbutnotreligious”
… after (almost) ten years of blogging, I’d know when not to blog. Ten year celebration here at Fiatech I managed to get out onto 6th street and spend three hours between “Friends” and “Chuggin Monkey” … no idea which bands I actually saw but the musicians flitted between the two, and … I don’t … Continue reading “You’d think”
Read and recently re-read “The Emerging Mind” originally prepared as the 2003 BBC Reith Lectures byVilayanur Ramachandran – Rama to his friends aparently. First time through (the book) I was initially disappointed (as ever) but in fact the book of 5 lectures is a gem. I was initially put off by his early suggestion that … Continue reading “Vilayanur Ramachandran”