What, Why & How do we Know ?
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”
Start the Week – Rationality in an Irrational Age – BBC Sounds Another fantastic edition. Well done @amolrajan – it really is possible to have intelligent dialogue on “tricky” subjects.@amiasrinivasan and @sapinker on sex between student and professor anyone? https://t.co/pzjjdUeCnE — What, Why & How do we know? (@psybertron) October 18, 2021 So as defined … Continue reading “Rationality According to Pinker”
I noted ten days ago I had acquired a copy of Chiara Marletto’s first foray into popular “trade” science literature “The Science of Can and Can’t” and noted at the time that I’d already been following her work and that of David Deutsch her mentor and collaborator for more than a decade. I’ve been putting-off … Continue reading “A Kite’s Eye View”
I’ve been following Deutsch and Marletto for over a decade, and had the pleasure of talking with Chiara Marletto over lunch at a How The Light Gets In event in Hay on Wye in 2016. This interview from a few months ago, Dec 2020, is excellent because she is simply allowed to talk and describe … Continue reading “Information Theoretic Marletto”
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.”
Nearing the end of my reading of Cheryl Misak’s biography of Frank Ramsey in the chapter Wittgenstein Comes Home [and below, the penultimate chapter on the necessary layering of philosophy]. Previously so far: “Ramseyian Pragmatism” (this post). “A Vienna Interlude“. “The Hypocrisy of Debate“. “Ramsey, Wittgenstein, Gödel and the rest.” Final round-up: “The Best Consequences … Continue reading “Ramseyian Pragmatism”
Coincidentally, having just read and reviewed the Dennett piece at lunchtime today, after having it bookmarked for a month or two, I picked-up on a Twitter thread between Philip Ball and Sabine Hossenfelder on pretty much the same topic, but based on a piece I also had bookmarked for sometime, by Ball in Physics World. … Continue reading “Conscious Will – The View from Science”
I’m beginning to realise that in the UK philosophical canon Whitehead took up the radical empirical monism I associate with James, Bergson, Northrop and Pirsig, and which is seeing a resurgence in those increasingly rejecting a material metaphysics underlying the physical world. New-realists like Smolin, the new-panpsychists like Kastrup, Tononi and the Integrated Information Theorists … Continue reading “The Process Ontology of Whitehead’s Metaphysics”
Dan Dennett has long been a hero of mine, the science-friendly philosopher who has synthesised both Darwin and Turing into his theories on the evolution of conscious will. Great 30 minute interview here with Jim AlKhalili on his “Life Scientific” on BBC Radio 4. A potential new hero here in John C Doyle of Caltech, … Continue reading “Heroes”
Rounding up my reading of Michael Gazzaniga, his 2015 “Tales From Both Sides of the Brain – A Life In Neuroscience.” in particular, though having completed and enjoyed it I went back to his “Who’s In Charge” for a second go. Previously, newest first: Baloney Generator #2 ?” Gazzaniga’s Most Stunning Result. Tales From Both … Continue reading “Who’s In Charge?”