What, Why & How do we Know ?
As a blogger since blogging was invented, I’ve maintained the idea of a blogroll in the side-bar – linking to other bloggers and sources of news and input I read and recommend. It’s long been redundant since all sources provide feeds not just through RSS but primarily via micro-blog channels – aka social media – … Continue reading “BlogRolled Over”
As an atheist who believes in the fundamental nature of information and meaning this episode of Future Proofing on Faith – “how the functions of religion could be taken over by technology” – I found very hard to listen to. Great conclusion from Timandra Harkness, despite some awfully confused content contributors. Good in parts, but where to … Continue reading ““There’s No Faith Without AI” – Please God, No!”
Bookmarked this Twitter thread back in February, but was reminded of it again over the weekend, so I thought I’d capture the content once and for all here: I have now written more than one book, so hopefully have learned something about the process. Here at the ten things I wish I knew when I … Continue reading “Writing Your Book, with Jamie Bartlett”
Mentioned before that, apart from hearing their voices via the excellent writing of Andy Martin, I’d kinda resigned myself to never really getting to grips with Sartre or Camus in any technical philosophical sense. Those strange foggie-froggies that predated the even foggier (mostly French) PoMo’s destined to be left in the mists of time as … Continue reading “It’s Never Too Late for Sartre”
Here’s a thing, a link to a piece which, as I type, I’ve not read yet. A word in your ear: The art of making ourselves heard. Never conversed with or even met Andy Martin face-to-face, but I know Andy’s writing (in the biblical sense) and thanks to a few Twitter and other on-line exchanges … Continue reading “Faceless or Factless”
Origin is the latest from Dan Brown. [Many spoilers and rough notes.] [This below is a doubtful piece of writing – a much better review here in “Pre and Post-Humanism”.] ===== This review focusses on the “technical” content, with anything on the plot and style or on my reading of it being relegated to a … Continue reading “Origin Where We’re Headed”
References to Yuval Noah Harari’s “Homo Deus – A Brief History of Tomorrow” are coming thick and fast: Andy Martin in The Independent “Transhumanism: The final chapter in humanity’s perpetual quest to be kitted out in comforting accessories.” (Previous brief reference solely on Information aspect). Philip Kitcher in the LA Review of Books “Future Frankensteins: The Ethics … Continue reading “Irrational Science Portends Inhuman Transhumanism”
Does the very word “information” imply a consciousness to be informed by it? Simple answer is no, but that’s about defining what we mean by information – a language problem – but there are important underlying concepts worth unpicking. Let’s separate two issues first. Firstly, in theory – Verb-Nouns – nouns whose root is a … Continue reading “Information > 140chars Quickie”
I’ve been sitting on this link for a while, an Independent piece by Andy Martin on his interview of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She’s someone I’ve kept at arm’s length through the whole recent Islamophobia period – care is needed when unpicking the political correctness of anti-Islam / Islamism rhetoric and campaigns. Islam has a problem … Continue reading “Trust in Ayaan Hirsi Ali”
I’ve had actual language lessons in maybe four non-English foreign languages at various times, studied a couple more as a precursor to needing to learn them and looked-up some basic vocabulary in a couple more for travel reasons. More generally, I’ve taken longer term interest in etymology, particularly from Proto-Indo-European roots and sometimes Sanskrit sources as well … Continue reading “MML – Me & My Languages”