What, Why & How do we Know ?
I’ve latched onto the idea of Deflationary Thinking quite recently – the past year? – rightly or wrongly linking it to my move to the meta, to abstractions over details … (The devil, etc …) Weirdly I was prompted to revisit Bulgakov “Master & Margarita” after Philip Goff shared a PhilPapers link with a quip … Continue reading “Deflationary Thinking”
Having a day in bed, trying to shake off this year’s cold between Christmas and New Year. Know exactly where we picked it up. Someone suffering conspicuously badly behind the bar a week before Christmas at one of the pubs we frequent was surely the spreader event. Naughty. Same symptoms, including a damn cough, but … Continue reading “The Between Times”
One of my main agenda items is the demystification of consciousness, in order to make progress on more important and pressing issues for humanity. In fact, the meme “(Unlocking) The Mystery / Secrets of xxxx” is a pet hate – a click-bait meme to sell books, but not to enlighten or solve any problem. Consciousness … Continue reading “The Mystery of Physical / Materialism?”
The small Matter of the Sacred In a “Discord” discussion-group side-branch off from “Channel McGilchrist” we’ve been having some discussions about the sacred – the most important additional topic in “The Matter With Things” (TMWT) that is not already in his earlier “The Master and His Emissary” (TMAHE). “The Sense of the Sacred” forms the … Continue reading “God Talk and McGilchrist”
Mentioned Sheldrake’s “trinity” in passing at HTLGI last week. He did actually name the three, but I failed to capture … and I’m digging for earlier references. “Is the Sun Conscious” is the same angle he used last week. Talk part-way down this page from 2015 – as a Christian theist / lay preacher he … Continue reading “Rough Notes on Sheldrake’s “Trinity””
I’m blocked by OJ, so I’m recording reaction to this retweeted tweet here: Paul is right on “beergate” and Keir will resign if he’s wrong. Smirking style from Owen and Michael – makes me question their divisive motives concerning serious complex topics. The whole “I’m not a lawyer but Jolyon Maugham is” is a red-herring … Continue reading “That Paul Mason Discussion”
Still drafting a longer thesis on my full metaphysics, prompted in this earlier post, but the premises are quite straightforward: IF – we allow that physics (physicalism / materialism) are fundamentally about information and processes (ie computation). THEN – I’m happy to be considered a physicalist, and that all evolved phenomena, including those of subjective … Continue reading “IF, THEN, ELSE – It’s Not Complicated”
This is just a placeholder for something I should write based on my reading of Sean Carroll’s “The Big Picture” particularly chapter 36 on Fine Tuning. I’m still reading and almost finished, having posted 2 or 3 reflections so far. Whether I ever do a full review or not, it is very good despite many … Continue reading “Poetic Naturalism Meets Fine Tuning”
Matthew Segall (Footnotes2Plato) is a fellow traveller with whom I’ve crossed social-media tracks over several years and he’s not one of those respondents to Philip Goff in this month’s JCS Panpsychism Special, where I’ve been collecting copies of all the freely available pre-print articles. An intriguing few are not available, below, but I thought I’d … Continue reading “Matthew Segall”
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”