Patricia Churchland talking at the very excellent Santa Fe Institute. brain scienceCognitive neurosciencecomplexityconsciousnessdarwinEvolutionary PsychologyMaterialismMoral psychologyNeurophilosophyPatricia ChurchlandPhilosophy of mindsanta fe institutesituated cognitionSpontaneous order
Babette’s FeastfilmfoodgastronomyLa Grand BouffeTampopo
BBC popular write up of Simon Garnier’s co-authored Army ants dynamically adjust living bridges in response to a cost–benefit trade-off. antscollective behaviorcomplexitydistributed cognitionoptimizationroboticsself-assemblySelf-organizationSimon GarnierSpontaneous orderStigmergySwarm intelligence
When I was in the open ward and working on staff, he was very good to me. He immediately saw what I was getting at and helped me wire up my first lapsometer, read my article and refused to take credit as coauthor. “Too metaphysical for me,” he said politely, knocking out his briar. “I’ll…
Mishima once famously told his wife that “even if I am not immediately understood, it’s OK because I’ll be understood by the Japan of 50 or 100 years time.” The short answer according to the very excellent Mishima scholar Damian Flanagan is “no”. Today marks the 45th anniversary of Mishima’s death. Speaking of which see Yourcenar’s thoughts…
Another big loss reported (H/T Troy Camplin) Douglass C. Northeconomic historyEconomicsInstitutions
This in The Root funkgospelmusicsly and the family stonesoultrumpet
Newly published EM paper Chinese RoomExtended MindfunctionalismKengo MiyazonometaphyicsPhilosophy of mindsituated cognition
Interesting paper. Archangel of Fire – Uriel – by Simon Berger Counterfactual historyEpistemologyphilosophical literaturesituated cognitionsocial epistemologyspeculative fictionStorytellingthought experiments
This article caused quite a stir recently. David Driscoll issues an interesting response. And the word from Canada . . . bourbondavid driscolljim murrayqualiasingle maltwhiskeyWhisky
manwithoutqualities 