How it is possible to live fairly normally with half your brain missing
Michael Brooks in the New Statesman. Brainbrain scienceMichael BrooksNeural networkneuronsneuroscience
Author: manwithoutqualities
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The God Delusion Debate (Dawkins-Lennox)
Here’s a follow-up to the last post, this featuring a debate between Dawkins and Lennox. dawkinsGodgod delusionlennoxphilosophy of religionrationalismReligionscience and religion
Why Take a Stance on God?
Gary Gutting interviews Keith DeRose Epistemologyepistemology of religious beliefExistence of Godgary guttingKeith deRosephilosophy of religion
Script for Butterfly in the Typewriter
Still on Toole, this just posted by Cory MacLauchlin. After the reading the actors talked about the colorful characters and the power of the dialogue. While most of them had heard of John Kennedy Toole, they had no idea how funny and heart-wrenching his life story was. a confederacy of duncesButterfly in the TypewriterCory MacLauchlinJohn Kennedy…
A Confederacy of Dunces – quotes and extracts – 71
“Be sure to stress the importance of this historic conclave,” Ignatius said. “We shall want no fly-by-nights in this core group.” “There may be a few costumes. That’s what’s so wonderful about New Orleans. You can masquerade and Mardi Gras all year round if you want to. Really, sometimes the Quarter is like one big…
Rory Gallagher
What Martha Argerich is to piano, Rory is to guitar. Below is another documentary about him. Hendrix on Gallagher from a previous post. bluesguitarHendrixMartha ArgerichmusicRory Gallagher
Austrian Theory and Economic Organization: Reaching Beyond Free Market Boundaries
The first volume (of two) edited by Guinevere Liberty Nell. The Austrian economic school famously predicted and explained the problems of calculation in a socialist society. With their concept of spontaneous order, they challenged mainstream economists to look beyond simplified static models and consider the dynamic and evolutionary characteristics of social orders. However, many feel that…
Music, Metaphor and Society: Some Thoughts on Scruton
Here is a superb critical assessment by Bob Grant on Scruton’s work (H/T to BG). Roger Scruton’s 530-page blockbuster The Aesthetics of Music was published by Oxford University Press in 1997. A paperback edition followed two years later. Neither received more than a handful of notices, a few appreciative, but some grudging and some actually…
Embracing the Creativity of Stigmergy in Social Insects
One of the doyens of stigmergic computational intelligence. There is no master architect, nor even a supervisor in these colonies. Grassé has shown that the key information required to ensure the coordination of building actions performed by insects is provided by their previously achieved work: the architecture itself. Grassé coined the term ‘stigmergy’ from the Greek…
Bar room existentialism
Once, in a small-town bar, Percy observed this: “You sit here and listen, and it doesn’t take long to realize that a lot of the ‘existentialism’ of the intellectual is close to the heart of the person next to you, having a beer after a day in a shrimp boat, or working on a farm,…
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