What, Why & How do we Know ?
IÂ mentioned Rory Stewart just yesterday for his foreword to one of my library of unread books. What I hadn’t noticed until yesterday was he’d been one of the virtual guests at “Realisation2023“. I’ve almost attended Realisation a couple of times now – a mixture of conference and retreat, with a focus on … reinventing … Continue reading “Rory Stewart – Realising the Future.”
Mentioned in the previous post I’d been re-reading / re-viewing Dan Dennett content since, as ever, I found myself defending what he really believes about human consciousness against those that dismiss him as some kind of illusionist, compatibilist, denialist. He’s actually an evolutionary systems-thinking realist like the best of us. There’s some determination amongst popular … Continue reading “Vive La Difference 2023”
No, he does not say that “Consciousness is an Illusion”. End of. In a sentence: Dennett’s position is that: Consciousness and conscious will are as real and evolved as anything else in the world. The powerful (useful, but misleading) ILLUSION is the Cartesian theatre / video screen with the homunculus viewer / user as things … Continue reading “Is Dennett an Illusionist?”
I’ve been following and writing about the “TERF War” (transgender debate / gender wars) for about 8 years now, since 2015 when I read Alice Dreger’s “Galileo’s Middle Finger“, her book about her expert practitioner – and very personal – involvement in “The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen: A Case History of … Continue reading “Gender Wars 2023”
Just a quick diary of my 4 days at the IAI “How the Light Gets In” festival in Hay-on-Wye 2 to 5 June 2022, from a logistical & meta perspective first, before I get down to any people and significant content. Being also the Jubilee holiday, the main car-park in Hay was free so I … Continue reading “HTLGI2022@Hay – Mostly Meta”
Further to the previous post, let’s try and elaborate some specifics of what John C Doyle has to say. What is clear, after the throwaway “scientists will hate this” remarks, is that this is the reason he is unpublished in more popular journals and publishing formats. Because he is pointing out “a problem with science” … Continue reading “Zience and John C Doyle”
Pointing out that hypocrisy has become the standard of all political discourse rather than addressing substantive content. Great post from Jamie Bartlett earlier today: Political argument is becoming one & tedious effort to identify hypocrisy in your opponents’ behaviour, in order than you can comfortably ignore anything useful they say. Gets us nowhere. — Jamie … Continue reading “Don’t Panic Captain Mainwaring #COP26”
Since initially getting interested in the “TERF Wars” reading Alice Dreger, back here in 2015 (before Maya Forstater and J. K. Rowling, before “TERF” itself even) the number of GC/RadFem supporter follows in my Twitter timeline has snowballed to effectively drown-out most other areas of interest. Ironically those with whom real engagement is needed the … Continue reading “Reducing Gender Critical / Radical Feminist Follows”