I was shocked to learn of Peter Lipton’s death. Just this past June, Peter delivered a bravura performance at the EPISTEME Rutgers conference – inference to the best explanation – was unsurprisingly central to his talk. We were thrilled that Peter also agreed to join EPISTEME as an Associate Editor. Peter and I had a correspondence early…
On a rare few hours off, I took time out to visit the MIT Museum and MGH’s Ether Dome. The former is a super journey through the 20th Century’s exponential technological developments; the latter the home of anesthesiology. The photos: with Kismet/ether dome – the painting dramatising the first experiment in anesthesiology.
Cass Sunstein writes on the TPM Blog that Hayek’s ideas of distributed knowledge “bear directly on open source software, wikis, prediction markets, and perhaps much more”. Yes, indeed. The mechanism that captures this aggregating phenomenon is called STIGMERGY: the phenomenon of indirect communication mediated by modifications of the environment. Indeed, much of what goes on in the complex…
Some four months ago I commented on how swarm behavior is entering the public consciousness. Well there is an article in yesterday’s the science section of the New York Times that continues this trend. But if you want a really good recent article on swarm intelligence, I would refer you to the paper “The biological principles…
Much has been made about Anthony Flew’s “conversion” from atheism to deism. An article in The Atlantic suggests that all might not be quite as it seems. I’m not in a position to adjudicate, but something is a bit off. (On a personal note, Flew has been a responsive and charming correspondent and an early supporter (a charter member) of the…
Motivated by a brief paragraph posted by Colin McGinn, I offer the following thoughts. Mill’s Utilitarianism in Focus (1) Utilitarianism contains two essential components: (a) an axiology, i.e. a theory of intrinsic value (a theory of what we’re to take as good in itself or good for its own sake, and (b) a consequentialist ethical theory. The two…
manwithoutqualities 