Almost a week since I posted. Too many domestic (relocation to Australia) chores. Been active philosophically on MoQ-Discuss e-mail forum, trying to raise the bar as far as scientific explanation being more than “scientific method”.
Since finishing David Deutsch and “The Rule of Four” I’ve been reading “The Two and a Half Pillars of Wisdom – The Von Igelfeld Trilogy” by Alexander McCall Smith (Author of “The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”). Amusing, if a little stereotypically British about stereotypical Germans “A blend of the cultivated pomposity of Frasier Crane and the hapless gaucherie of Inspector Clouseau.” says the cover blurb aptly. As I say, amusing with “philological” intellectual references. Flood of reminiscences as the central character is asked what he would most like to do in life that he has not yet had the opportunity to do “Study and work in Cambridge” he says, and for all the reasons I miss the place. Oh well.
Of course it was the title caught my eye. What with WWI in focus with the ANZACs suffering at Gallipoli against the Turks and other disasters like Townshend surrendering to the Turks at Al Kut in Iraq – T. E. Lawrence “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” was clearly just below the surface.
Anyway, whilst waiting for the following to arrive …
* Dennett – “Freedom Evolves”
* Dennett – “Consciousness Explained”
* Dennett – “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”
* Hofstadter and Dennett – “Mind’s I”
* Hofstadter – “Godel, Esher, Bach”
* Chalmers – “The Conscious Mind – In Search of a Fundamental Theory”
* Blackmore – “Consciousness, An Introduction” (to replace one I gave away)
* Neville – “Magic Circle” (suggested by Georganna in response to hype around The Rule of Four and The Da Vinci Code) – out of print, must find a used copy.
… prompted by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, I picked up Cervantes’ Don Quixote (The Tobias Smollett translation). Something I probably ought to have read already.
(Almost forgot – what a great coillection of book links from Rage Boy / Entropy Gradient Reversal.)