What, Why & How do we Know ?
I mentioned noting that one of Rebecca Goldstein’s earlier works was Incompleteness – the Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel. Since Gödel is an existing interest of mine, and Goldstein’s writing has never let me down yet, it was a no-brainer to obtain a copy. (I’ve since also obtained a copy of her fiction The Mind-Body Problem – … Continue reading “Comprehensively paradoxical Gödel – Rebecca Goldstein”
I need to finish off my notes on Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow” since I posted some criticisms before I’d read the concluding chapters. Strange to read the explicit dualisms: Two systems – Fast intuitive thinking and Slow considered thinking. Two species – Humans (reasonable) and Econs (entirely rational). Two selves – Experiencing self … Continue reading “Dual People”
Leon sent me a link to this paper a couple of years ago, to which I responded “interesting” – he knows I’m interested in memes. I didn’t actually read beyond the title until today. The essence of memes is that there is something “self-serving” about patterns of information (*1) which is independent of any rationally … Continue reading “Project Management Memetics”
Interesting NY-Times piece by William Gibson from back in August. (Thanks to Edward at Nixon McInnes) “I ACTUALLY think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions,” said the search giant’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, in a recent and controversial interview. “They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.” Do we … Continue reading “What to do next ?”
OK, so enough Zizek for one day … clearly a student of Jacques Lacan is about as “foggy froggie” / PoMo as one can get, but cheeky with it. Hard work, but valuable on balance. Picked-up the Peter Sloterdijk link in my earlier reference to Zizek. Found this review of his “Critique of Cynical Reason” … Continue reading “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World”
Two observations … The last 2 or 3 months …. been getting repeated bursts of direct hits from “Limelight Networks” in Tempe, AZ. No idea why – are they testing out some content crawler at Uni of Az ? Last couple of years …. I get constant search hits from people all over the world … Continue reading “Web Traffic”
Interesting post from Anecdote about peer pressure influencing moral decisions. I first noted this 15 years go when I read DeLorean’s (auto)-biography. The paraphrased quote of his I keep dredging up is “Committees of moral men make immoral decisions”. Nils Brunsson has this well documented as “Management Hypocrisy” Interstingly another recurring memory on that score, … Continue reading “The DeLorean Effect”
Interesting post from Sam Norton. A thoughtful Christian positioning on recent “blasphemy furies”. Amongst other things I was taken by this quote from Rene Girard. “The invention of science is not the reason that there are no longer witch-hunts, but the fact that there are no longer witch-hunts is the reason that science has been … Continue reading “Would Science Consider This Blasphemous ?”
Also from Mark Federman, a piece on research he is doing on organisational effectiveness. The point that interested me, apart from the general parallel with my agenda, and my earlier dissertation is his focus on Chris Argyris “espoused theories” concept – ie the idea that they are different to actual “theories in use”. Something I’ve … Continue reading “Organisational Effectiveness”
Dave Pollard picks up on The Edge 2006 Question response from Kai Krause, and adds quite a detailed take of his own. The original Krause analogy is a good one. If you take a memetic view of cultural ideas, that drive our day to day decision making, the crises that occur (those that don’t arise … Continue reading “The Blue Screen of Death”