McGilchrist at Embercombe

Missed this conversation last night, so watching the recording today. Just VERY rough notes for conversation. What is the matter? Doesn’t actually answer – but talks around that we all seem to see the plight of western humanity. Then a long summary of TMWT (inc repeat of TMAHE HH content) Attention – a moral act … Continue reading “McGilchrist at Embercombe”

Innate by Kevin Mitchell – Review

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”

Consciousness and Free Energy

Just a post to capture a couple of unconnected links: (1) Sue Blackmore and Deepak Chopra revisiting their decade old “Battle of the Worldviews” disagreement at Tucson 2022 “Science of Consciousness” conference. Only managed to listen to half of it – not enough actual dialogue and Stuart Hameroff’s chairing doesn’t really help … but some … Continue reading “Consciousness and Free Energy”

Good and Bad but not Black and White

I have a long overdue (several years, half-drafted) piece called “Good Fences” that goes right back to basic “classification & identification, definition & description” of stuff we deal with in the real world: How we subdivide the world into different kinds of stuff and different things and give them various names. It occurs everywhere from … Continue reading “Good and Bad but not Black and White”

Innate by Kevin Mitchell

I’ve just taken possession of Kevin Mitchell’s (2018) “Innate – How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are”. No idea why it’s taken me so long to acquire a copy, he’s been on my book list for some time and I’ve been following him for a few years on Twitter – he’s a … Continue reading “Innate by Kevin Mitchell”

Information Ontology of Mind and Body

[Work in Progress – Draft will be edited without notification.] [Feedback appreciated on the “See / Refs” – where more are needed? Meantime all those indicated will be elaborated and worked into the text. And obviously on the intelligibility of the text so far. Drafting arose out of the “Three Essays” post, particularly “Algorithms for … Continue reading “Information Ontology of Mind and Body”

Rebalancing the Future

Richard Emerson invited me onto his podcast earlier in the week. We’ve met Richard here before on Psybertron, his personal “Renaissance” book and his “Ancient Worlds” project discovering – rediscovering – the value in ancient wisdom, with Dante’s “cosmology” being the poster boy. Apart from having a shortlist of topics before we started – and … Continue reading “Rebalancing the Future”

Three Essays on Brains & Minds

Just place-holders for pieces – or indeed whole comms campaigns (?) – that need to be created: Most generally because there are enormous persistent misunderstandings within science & technology and with public understanding of it, and specifically (topically given Musk!) with socially degenerate aspects of ubiquitous social media. In no particular order, they’re all connected … Continue reading “Three Essays on Brains & Minds”

Michael Zargham on Cybernetic Infrastructure

A quickie to capture this link: Very impressed watching this recorded Web3 Foundation talk by Michael Zargham. He’s a name I came across from making contact with the “Active Inference Lab”. I already know Anatoly Levenchuck and Karl Friston on the AIL Advisory Board and discovered that Zargham is another board member. (I’m intending to … Continue reading “Michael Zargham on Cybernetic Infrastructure”

Come the Revolution

Regular commenter AJOwens (“Staggering Implications“) posted a very astute thought below my post on John C Doyle and Zombie Science. Whether we see problems with “current” science as a bug or a virus, or simply the current state of ever-contingent, imperfect science, the switch to a new dominant view within science is of course exactly … Continue reading “Come the Revolution”