What, Why & How do we Know ?
Evolutionary psychology just is what happens to us. “Evolutionary Psychology” as a self-identified political “ought” interpretation of evolutionary reality and the political reaction to brand it pejoratively as “EvoPsych” are just that – identitarian political movements, not to be confused with reality. I said as much just in the title of the first long piece … Continue reading “Evolutionary Psychology – Again?”
Whichever word we choose (*1) – synergy or emergence – to represent systematic parts (internal and/or external) interacting to create “more than the sum of the parts” (*2), what really matters is that we have an explanation and understanding of how IT happens (*3). How synergy leads to emergence of entirely new entities and behaviours, … Continue reading “Synergy or Emergence?”
For me, for decades, the idea that (even scientific) truths always have a political dimension has been central to my epistemic agenda. Not that science was my specific target, more the general orthodoxy that logically-positive objective-determinism presumes to fully explain the truths of real-world causation. And I’ve said so from my perspective as a science-educated … Continue reading “Wokeism and Critical Theory”
Progress on Priorities A strangely productive week since my previous “Resolution” post – I’m obviously focussed on the right priorities at last. Namely getting my “technical content” better organised for review. Started using free versions of Academia.edu and Orcid.org – posting some of my key (older and/or half-drafted pages and pdf’s – mostly just testing … Continue reading “Attention as a Moral Act”
I may have posted this before (from Aug 2022) but was prompted to read and share it today since Kevin Mitchell re-tweeted it. Like the original Twitterstorm the prompt was a heated dialogue involving Sabine Hossenfelder, this time with Philip Goff (all publicity is good publicity if you’re selling a book I guess) – but … Continue reading “Determinist Reductionism Sucks – Yet Again”
Preamble: I was left with a pretty negative view of Larry Krauss after his collaborations with Richard Dawkins – “The Unbelievers” (2013) and Dawkins breathless afterword to Krauss “A Universe From Nothing – Why is there something rather than nothing?” (2012) In that recommendation – oft repeated in public sessions since – Dawkins concluded “The … Continue reading “Krauss Revisited – still haunted by Copernicus?”
In theory I’m not reading, so I can focus on writing, but just acquired these three, on top of the two recent reads of Humboldt and Prigogine. Help!!! Guess I can leave the two memoirs until some “time off in reward” and having seen Kevin talk about his latest, I probably have his thinking already … Continue reading “How’s The Writing Going?”
A recurring mention of mine is that “I am in writing mode” – deliberately avoiding reading new publications, even where it will obviously be relevant to my writings – everything is connected at some level of abstraction after all. I acknowledged this state existed “in theory anyway” when failing and reading a couple things in … Continue reading “Patterns of Behaviour”
Dan Dennett shared this Nick Humphrey lecture at the RI. https://t.co/We3BW2QEGe Nick’s best version by far of his theory of consciousness: the positive side of illusionism, with new lines of evidential support. — Daniel Dennett (@danieldennett) September 23, 2023 I’ve watched once through and notwithstanding clear differences – evolution of warm blooded mammals (environmental independence), … Continue reading “Nick Humphrey and Mark Solms?”
Agency is the subject of this talk by Kevin Mitchell (Trinity, Dublin) outlining the arguments in his upcoming book “Free Agents – How Evolution Gave Us Free Will” (Oct 4th) – already on order on my book list. Been following and plugging his thinking into mine for a couple of years now, since his previous … Continue reading “Kevin Mitchell’s Agency”