Programming the Global Brain Considering how we can improve our understanding and utilization of the emerging human-computer network constituting the global brain. (Here’s a previous post on this topic) Abraham Bernstein, Mark Klein, Thomas W. Malone New ways of combining networked humans and computers—whether they are called collective intelligence, social computing, or various other terms—are…
Good article from Adam Frank: At stake is a critical question living deep inside the heart of modern foundational physics: What are the limits of science? David Albert was having none of it. As he correctly points out: Where do the fields come from? Better yet: Where do the laws of quantum mechanics come from?…
Richard Symonds (with whom I’ve corresponded over the years) has been leading the “campaign” to keep Joad’s name alive (I first mentioned Joad about three years ago here). I paste in Geoff Thomas’ comment: Richard Symonds is keeping alive the name of a very significant figure in British culture and the popular understanding of philosophy.…
I first came across a reference to Eugène Marais in Andries Engelbrecht’s very excellent Computational Intelligence: An Introduction. See the links below for details about this highly unusual character. The Tragic Genius of Eugène Marais (The author, Conrad Reitz, very kindly shared some of his thoughts with me). The Soul of the White Ant Introduction by Keith Addison EUGÈNE Marais was a South African…
The intro from Jan Willem Lindemans’ paper: The philosophical foundations of Hayek’s works are not beyond dispute (Gray, 1984, Kukathas, 1989, Caldwell, 1992, Hutchison, 1992): was Hayek a rationalist or an empiricist; did he follow Kant or Hume, Mises or Popper? Difficulties arise because these questions touch upon social theory, political philosophy, methodology and epistemology.…
Marking the loss of a musical giant – Levon Helm – this song’s lyrics has a form of the Lockean proviso (the song was written by Robbie Robertson): Back with my wife in Tennessee, when one day she called to me “Virgil, quick, come see, there go the Robert E.Lee” Now I don’t mind choppin’ wood,…
Alva Noë on where to look Alva NoëAstonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the SoulBrainCognitionCognitive neuroscienceCognitive scienceconsciousnessDescartesEmbodied cognitionExtended MindFrancis CrickneurosciencePhilosophy of mindRené Descartes
H/T to JG for bringing this to my attention. The über talented and prodigious chap who I’ve raved about before, Jonathan Gottschall, has this article in The Globe. In this vein, check out his recently published The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. FictionGottschallJonathan GottschallLiteratureStorytelling
E.O. Wilson is still going strong and is still stirring things up after all these years. E.O. is on my mind since I’m co-authoring a paper on stigmergy and he is one of the major players. Here are write-ups of his latest work. None other than Michael Gazzaniga in the WSJ Washington Post New York Times…
H/T to Pat Churchland for this in the Guardian: How did Bob Dylan write “Like a Rolling Stone”? The pop-science writer Jonah Lehrer wasn’t there, but he pretends to know anyway. Reaching a self-adoring climax, Lehrer writes: “For the first time in human history, it’s possible to learn how the imagination actually works. Instead of…
manwithoutqualities 