For those who have been following the work of Andy Clark – Natural-Born Cyborgs – and his latest – Supersizing the Mind – not mention Ray Kurzweil (and The Matrix) – should enjoy this article from Scientific American (November 2008, pp. 56-61). Not included here are two subsections that outline progress and propspects for neurotechnology (“How…
A very basic overview of embodied cognition in Science News. Why do so many researchers insist on cutifying or the Spielbergerization of robots?
Good news. Andy Clark’s eagerly awaited book Supersizing the Mind is now available. I notice that Clark and Chalmers’ “The Extended Mind” is reprinted here as well. Groovy Dali-esque cover! (Now that I actually have the book in my hands, I see that it is a Dali painting). Something to look forward to will be…
Joel Parthemore’s well considered review of Richard Shusterman’s A Philosophy of Mindfulness and Somaesthetics. The current fashion, in certain circles of cognitive science and philosophy of mind, is to talk up the importance of embodiment and enshrine it in lots of well-considered theories without grasping the irony of pursuing what is, on the surface at…
Alvin Goldman, the doyen of analytic social epistemology, has a draft paper posted on his website entitled “The Social Epistemology of Blogging.” What’s gratifying to me is that via Richard Posner (whom Goldman cites), Hayek, who I have argued is the social epistemologist par excellence, makes an appearance. I have recently argued that if Hayek was centrally…
Another journal plug – this time for a special issue of Swarm Intelligence on Swarm Robotics. Check out the announcement on Simon Garnier’s blog.
I’d like to bring your attention to what promises to be a fascinating experiment, the brain-child of Richard Brown who has one of the most entertaining and provocative philosophy blogs around. The on-line consciousness conference pretty much follows the conventional conference format though with some small amendments. The papers are anticipated to be much shorter than usual which…
There’s a nice article in Scientific American entitled “The Expert Mind: Studies of the mental processes of chess grandmasters have revealed clues to how people become experts in other fields as well.” What struck me was the excerpt below which seems to be grist for the connectionist mill in that the expert is not confronted…
While I too am sceptical about the techno-ebullience associated with MRI scans what is interesting about the self-defeating claim in a cheekily entitled Economist article “Do economists need brains?” is this quote: neuroscience could not transform economics because what goes on inside the brain is irrelevant to the discipline. What matters are the decisions people take—in…
Anthony Grayling has convened a “symposium” on Reason in the latest issue of the New Scientist. Grayling’s position is very predictable but credit to him and the editors for bringing together a diverse group who for the most part seem to disagree with his conception. Neuroscientist Chris Frith, mathematician Roger Penrose and philosopher Mary Midgley are…
manwithoutqualities 