What, Why & How do we Know ?
A 3 year old post from Dave Pollard, that I spotted on a cross-hit, probably due to the fact that he self-referenced in a more recent post. Entitled “The End of Philosophy” and inlcuding a reading list with a lot of common ground here. The particular post concerns a review of a book called “Straw … Continue reading “Homo Rapiens”
Blogging still a bit sporadic since the move to the US, something to do with the new domestic habits as much as anything else. Reading habits are mainly bedtime or when sitting in the countryside during a weekend picnic or evening sunset, though it’s starting to get too cold for the latter. After concluding Rand, … Continue reading “Ongoing reading & blogging …”
I’ve barely blogged or posted anywhere in the last few months, almost none in the last month. Just too busy with the day job, and in a temporary state domestically. We move into a longer term place next weekend. I have however found some disjointed time to do some reading. I think the last things … Continue reading “Enlightened Reading ?”
John Stuart Mill of his own free will, On half a pint of shandy was particulary ill. Will. The Pythons’ song memeing itself in my brain the last day or so, was prompted by listening to the BBC’s “In Our Time” this last Thursday. Anthony Grayling, Janet Radcliffe Williams, and Alan Ryan discussing the life … Continue reading “Of His Own Free Will”
Or even plain old post-autistic-rationality. I keep using the “scientific” meme in scare quotes … the idea that being hyper-rational, fundamentally-objectivist … the meme of using entirely deterministic and reductionist scientific arguments and logical induction … cannot be the basis of a high quality explanation in all but the simplest “scientific” context. (Every debate of … Continue reading “Post-Autistic-Memetics”
I continue to be fascinated by the developments at the British Computer Society Cybernetic Machine Specialist Group (BCS Cybernetics Group or BCSCMSG for short) despite the dense specialist jargon making proceedings all but unintelligible to any lay reader like myself. Here is the synopsis of papers presented at the BCSCMSG Symposium 10 as part of … Continue reading “Quantum Information & More”
Part of researching stuff for my Chalmers / Deutsch synthesis paper, I was browsing a number of Diploma and BA essays on the Sheffield University “Pathways to Philosophy” site. (I’m often contemplating the need for me to have some more formal philosophy education before having enough credibility to write myself, but I fear I may … Continue reading “Noumena and Materialism”
I’m very close to finishing “The Conscious Mind – In Search of a Fundamental Theory” by David Chalmers. Everything except his review of Quantum Physics, over which I skimmed ahead to get a feel for the scope he’s addressing. I find myself in a very strange state, skimming some sections forwards and backwards, returning to … Continue reading “The Dave’s Have It”