What, Why & How do we Know ?
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”
I’ve been racking my brains for a day or two as to how I came to be reading Sean Carroll’s 2016 “The Big Picture – On the Origins of Life, Meaning and the Universe Itself”, indeed how I came to buy it in the Spring of this year? I can’t read every book by every … Continue reading “Poetic Naturalism – Sean Carroll”
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”
Busy, Busy, Busy. Mentioned strange times regarding work-load and productivity a few posts ago; my pipeline stuffed with unread bookmarks and unresolved references, and a to-do-list with at least seven dimensions of priorities to juggle, personally and professionally. Not exactly “treading water”, but difficult to discern progress going anywhere. Ironic that the immediately previous Wittgensteinian … Continue reading “A remarkable book. It changes everything.”
Just watched and listened to a whole 2 hours plus interview of Avi Loeb by Michael Schermer, about a book I’ve not read: “Extraterrestrial” As a dialogue it’s not good, particularly in the 20 to 40 minute period, where Loeb is frustrated at Schermer’s line and talks over his new questions. Sabine Hossenfelder drew it … Continue reading “Cosmic Clickbait”
Having got quite excited last month to reconnect with Martin Rowland’s simple presentation of the mathematical symmetries at the root of fundamental physics several neat graphic representations turned up via Twitter just this week. Now normally I react to flashy graphics in science as giving too much mis-placed concrete credence to someone’s speculative musings – … Continue reading “Fundamental Physics in Graphics”
Max Tegmark’s full title is … “Life 3.0 – Being Human in the Age of AI” … and I remain pretty sceptical about the AI-hype. Last mentioned Max’s book back in 2017, but already added a 2019 note to that just last month. The book, as the Life 3.0 title suggests, is primarily about evolution … Continue reading “Life 3.0”
Richard (Rick) Ryals died 01 Dec 2018 from what I presume to have been throat or pharyngeal cancer. I only knew him as an on-line contact. Originally using the on-line user name “Island” or “Island9”. In the few days, inside the week before his death, I was private-chatting with him on Facebook Messenger after he’d … Continue reading “Rick Ryals”