What, Why & How do we Know ?
Good to see actual scientists being public about the limitations to reductionist determinism, and why emergent objects can and do have their own causality. Noticed Philip Ball post a note to the effect that this really could be considered a given – “well established” and “not much left to debate” – now even though there … Continue reading “The Orthodoxy Softens on Determinism?”
Watching this wonderful “Krebs Cycle” RI lecture by Nick Lane – last mentioned him here – and just wanted to note two things for now. One, there is an obvious topological parallel (*) between (System) Markov Blankets and (Mitochondria) Lipid Membranes at two quite different levels of abstraction – information processes and biochemical processes. And … Continue reading “Markov Blankets vs Lipid Membranes”
A musical interlude: A couple of years ago I posted some pictures I took of John McGeoch, back in 1978 when he was playing in Howard Devoto’s Magazine, in a Facebook thread reminiscing on Devoto and Magazine. (Photos taken at The Nashville Rooms, a regular London pub-rock bar in the days of punk, that later … Continue reading “John McGeoch”
An information-and-computation-based metaphysics is fundamental to several recent sources (as well as my own metaphysics) – even if the specialist scientific researchers often don’t concern themselves with metaphysical aspects of ontology. Most recently John C Doyle and Mark Solms for example – information and its processes are simply taken as more fundamental than any other … Continue reading “More on Fundamental Information & Computation”
Author Michael Lewis lists “the books that made me” including: The book that changed my life Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig Interesting selection … I did fully read both Cervantes and Tolstoy. With me it was Anna Karenina that gave me many false starts until I read beyond the dysfunctional Karenins … Continue reading “ZMM – The Book that Changed my Life”
I’ve started to read The Idiot several times, got as far as Myshkin arriving in Petersburg once or twice, but never got as far as realising his “Prince” character was the “Idiot” – as the naïve and well-intentioned voice in a complex world of love, money, ambition and personal motivation. Dostoyevsky’s strategy to communicate his … Continue reading “Dostoyevsky – The Idiot”
In between writing, reading and filleting good books on topics of the day as far as my social-knowledge and decision-making research agenda is concerned, I like to catch up on the great books. They’re great books for a reason, and the reason is often timeless. It’s three weeks since I posted for some reason. I … Continue reading “Great Books”
Interesting piece in Aeon on The New Astrology by Alan Jay Levinovitz. Almost three decades ago, when we were developing training in business information modelling, a colleague once warned me never to forget a model was always a model, however effectively the model fitted its purpose, it wasn’t the actual world we were dealing with. I’d previously already … Continue reading “Fetishising Mathematical Models. Economists as The New Astrologers”
McLuhan’s Next – Noticed earlier that Paul Kelly had many references to McLuhan, and others who refer to him, Levinson and Postman for example. Recently I’ve been intrigued by the level to which McLuhan’s aphorisms turn up in day-to-day day-job contexts, not least in a recent white-paper by a Canadian day-job colleague. What is it … Continue reading “McLuhan’s Next”
Toy, Mirror, Art – Just a holding post to link to a paper by sci-fi author Paul Levinson, posted by Paul Kelly at [as we know it]. (Need to digest and brush up on McLuhan).