What, Why & How do we Know ?
Excellent short interview by Claudia Hammond (BBC-R4 All in the Mind) with economics-psychologist Daniel Kahneman. (Also in the same edition another twist on the many studies of real-life abnormal brain lesions contributing to the understanding of normal brain-mind functions. A pair of conjoined-twins with separate-but-connected brains – 4-half-brains having more possibilities than the usual two. … Continue reading “Daniel Kahneman”
A Summary of Iain McGilchrist “The Matter With Things” My writings on Iain McGilchrist’s TMWT, and TME (The Master and Emissary) before it, are many, but unfortunately that means that no single post, since my reading of TMWT, gives any introductory overview for a new reader. So here goes: What is the matter with things? … Continue reading “What is the Matter with Things?”
Mentioned earlier collecting previous links in preparation for receiving Iain McGilchrist’s latest, well here it is: Iain McGilchrist The Matter With Things – Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World Volume I – The Ways to Truth Introduction Part 1 – Chapters 1 to 9 plus Coda The Hemispheres and the Means … Continue reading “There We Have It”
A new overload of bookmarked pages to capture. Life remains complicated for reading and writing for domestic and work reasons, so I’ll dump most here without reading or reviewing in detail for now. Resources for later. Philip Goff on this old chestnut … Hacking, White and McGrath all referenced (but not Anthropics …) ‘Is the … Continue reading “Link Dump”
Just a bookmarking post. Hat-tip to @anitaleirfall for posting this link to Daniel Kahnemann’s “retraction” of underpowered statistical significance data in his Thinking Fast and Slow based on his earlier work with Amos Tversky. Noted previously that super-statistician Taleb had profound effect on Kahnemann. Kahnemann’s work is behind “Nudge“. (He and Tversky much referenced in Thaler … Continue reading “Nudge – (erroneous) internalisation of small (but significant) facts – Scary!”
Skimming my blog dashboard I find I have several, a handful, of draft pieces with reference to Nassim Nicholas Taleb and things he’s published or linked to, that I’ve not quite had the courage to post yet. Like many, I find his argumentation style is so ruthless, he suffers no fools gladly, that even short supportive responses … Continue reading “Taking Care with Taleb”
Attended Theos event “Does Humanism need Christianity?” at Kings College, London last night The dean introduced Nick Spencer of Theos, who in turn introduced chair, Clare Carlisle. Christian speakers were Angus Ritchie and Alison Milbank. Humanist speakers were Julian Baggini and Richard Norman. The topic was a conversation in response to the Theos essay / booklet … Continue reading “Does Humanism Need Christianity? #TheosHumanism”
Dick (ie Baron) Taverne came along to the CLHG book club discussion of his “March of Unreason” last night. Interesting to meet and spend time talking with him. Since his book is now 10 years old he gave us a 10 minute update on how he saw things different now. I actually thought all his main … Continue reading “Dick Taverne”
Heard Graham Bell talk again last week, this time a LAAG event entitled: “Making moral decisions: Are ‘you’ really in charge?” (With scare quotes around the ‘you’ in the original.) Obviously with that title presented that way, I was prejudiced to expect the usual “You and your free-will are illusions” line of denial. In fact, … Continue reading ““Making moral decisions: Are ‘you’ really in charge?””
Listening to Simon Blackburn last night at Conway Hall, indeed mulling over the title of his talk before listening to him, it is transparently obvious that he has an important agenda when it comes to his close association with humanism and the BHA. Now Blackburn is probably “the” greatest living British philosopher active and teaching … Continue reading “Simon Blackburn’s Message on Virtues for Humanists”