What, Why & How do we Know ?
No, he’s not. He does not say that “Consciousness is an Illusion”. End of. In short: 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 … 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 What is clear, after the throwaway “scientists will hate this” remarks, is that this is the reason he is unpublished in more popular journals and publishing formats.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”
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.”
It’s fair to say 2020 wasn’t the year most of us were expecting, and it’s not over yet. It’s been a very long 2020. As well as the culmination of the self-inflicted BoJo/Brexit/Trump insanities that meant UK and US were distracted from what really needed attention in the world at large (Chinese Uyghurs anyone? Climate … Continue reading “We Can Be Heroes in 2021”
Is Trump right or isn’t he? As I say, even a fuckwit is right half the time, but the “cause” of forest fires isn’t a simply binary (political poll) question. Forest fires are natural, a natural part of the cycle of change that brings us evolution over time. The planet needs them. The reason we’re … Continue reading “Trump, the Cause of Forest Fire Carnage?”