What, Why & How do we Know ?
I’m like a cracked record with “Nothing New Under the Sun”. I was just using the wayback machine / web-archive to find a copy of Doug Hofstadter’s contribution to the 2006 Tucson Science of Consciousness event: “Strange Loops, Downward Causation, and Distributed Consciousness” (Mentioned here in 2006.) His “I am a Strange Loop” was published … Continue reading “Very Little New?”
[Draft Holding Post – links being added.] Cybernetics, like anything else, evolves, so I’m never talking about specific systems theory(ies). I’ve described my own journey every which way through systems engineering to systems thinking under the cybernetic umbrella. I have a nothing new under the sun attitude to any topic, whereby changing language may change … Continue reading “General Systems Theory(ies)?”
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?”
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”
Kevin Mitchell (2018) “Innate – How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are” [This repeats and adds to relevant content from an earlier partial review.] Several of the more important books I’ve read recently have felt mostly like syntheses and restatements of things I already felt I knew one way or another – … Continue reading “Innate by Kevin Mitchell – Review”
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”
I’ve had Mark Burgess “Smart SpaceTime” for a year or more, but was prompted to pick it up and read just last week when I noticed a long Twitter thread by Mark: I have your Smart Spacetime (unread) on the desk beside me. Have I already missed the sequel? — What, Why & How do … Continue reading “Smart SpaceTime – Mark Burgess”
Arthur Eddington has been on my reading list for a decade or two, since he was so often cited as the person who had first gotten to grips with the new physics and its communication to a wider real-world audience, beyond those minds engaged at Copenhagen / Paris and in the Solvay conferences. I happen … Continue reading “Eddington and the Real World”
A Summary of Iain McGilchrist “The Matter With Things” My writings on Iain McGilchrist’s TMWT, and TME (The Master and Emissary) before it, are many, but unfortunately that means that no single post, since my reading of TMWT, gives any introductory overview for a new reader. So here goes: What is the matter with things? … Continue reading “What is the Matter with Things?”
Recent reads of Carlo Rovelli and Sean Carroll have been ultimately disappointing, but don’t get me wrong … Helgoland (2021) – by Carlo Rovelli Staggering Implications – Rovelli Without Whitehead (AJOwens Nov 2021) Mach, Bogdanov, Nagarjuna and Rovelli (May 2021) Classifying an Unread Book (May 2021) and, The Big Picture (2015) – by Sean Carroll … Continue reading “Deutsch over Rovelli and Carroll”