What, Why & How do we Know ?
Harris Podcast with Sean Carroll [Aside – Identity Politics topic – previously talking past each other with Ezra. Apart from better management of conversations with specific Q’s requiring A’s, main Harris lesson is to avoid agendas of extremists left or right. Convincing an extremist that they may be wrong is a counterproductive waste of effort. … Continue reading “Sam Harris & Sean Carroll – Raw Notes”
A piece tweeted today by @alomshaha linked from Cambridge University Research pages. First time “cog wheel” mechanisms (observed in many natural invertebrate contexts) have been shown to be functional as such – the point being the “designed-looking” arrangement – from our human perspective – is naturally evolved …. er, obviously. More interesting are the below-the-line … Continue reading “Evolved Teleology”
Always seen the multiverse idea as nothing more than a thought experiment, a kludge, a total cop-out if seen as representing or explaining anything like reality, (pretty much the same as Schroedinger’s Cat in that respect). By adding a massively complex explanation – whole new universes of infinite posssibility – to answer simpler problems and … Continue reading “The Multiverse Kludge”
Konrad Zuse is a new name to me, picked up from twitter mentions by @generuso and @rolyperera. Actually, like myself, an engineer rather than a scientist, but who apparently originally proposed a fundamentally information-based view of reality after considering causation from first principles. Apart from the fundamental causation and information aspects that recur here on … Continue reading “Konrad Zuse”
I’ll just leave this here. The dissipative-systems / entropic-anthropic agenda seems to have taken off in the wake of Dan Brown. The key point being that the 2nd law’s cosmic drive to dissipate energy and maximise entropy inevitably leads to intentional life because local concentrated pockets of reverse-entropy / complex-order turn out to be the … Continue reading “Eddies in the Flow of Life?”
Anyone who thinks the thesis of Dan Brown’s Origin is to disprove the existence of god clearly hasn’t read it. [Spoilers] Pre & Post Humanism in Dan Brown’s “Origin” The thriller plot suspense clearly hangs on the assumption of a church plot to suppress a triumph of science over god, but that’s the point of … Continue reading “The #JeremyEngland #Smackdown of Dan Brown”
I’ve been pretty sceptical about AI hype going back a decade or so when Kurzweil coined Transhumanism beyond the Singularity where artificial computer intelligence overtakes real human capabilities. Here my 2010 take on the 2009 Singularity Summit, where one of my heroes, Hofstadter, and others were also sceptical about Kurzweil’s take. In fact there are many … Continue reading “Pre & Post Humanism in Dan Brown’s “Origin””
Discounting the intellectual snobbery that this is about Dan Brown, as indeed the reviewer himself suggests, it is worth a read. The headline is: “Dan Brown’s New Novel Pushes Atheism and Endorses Intelligent Design … Wait …What?“ I’ve not digested the whole yet (and there are secondary references to follow-up) but my own position is … Continue reading “Teleology Without a God”