Victim of the Brain
A 1988 docudrama about “the ideas of Douglas Hofstadter“. The protagonist is Dutch director Piet Hoenderdos. The film features interviews with a youngish Hofstadter and a never young looking Dan Dennett :) (90 minutes).
Category Archive Browsing Category: consciousness
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Modules, Networks, and the Brain’s Need to Heed
This is an article I culled from Scientific American.com. What struck me about this article is that it features the work of Joaquín Fuster, one of the very few first-order neuroscientists who appreciate Hayek’s proto-connectionism (the other being Edelman). Fuster really deserves to be better known within the philosophy of mind community – his writing is highly accessible. I thoroughly…
Pinker and Goldstein on Atheism
In the wake of Dennett and Dawkins, two more prominent names weigh in on atheism. This article from Salon.com I reproduce here because of annoying pop-up adverts. Also see David Berreby’s piece on Dawkins (Berreby happens to drop in a reference to Oakeshott – this Oakeshott fellow seems to be getting fashionable amongst bloggers). Readers might be interested in…
Perspectives on social cognition
The September 7th issue of Science is a special issue devoted to social cognition: the table of contents found here. I reproduce the introduction “Living in Societies” by Caroline Ash, Gilbert Chin, Elizabeth Pennisi and Andrew Sugden. The appearance of this issue has prompted me to post the introduction to the special issue of social cognition…
The Matrix and Philosophy
For many the term “film” let alone “Hollywood film” can be uttered in the same breath as philosophy (the only instances I can think of right now are Mishima, Death in Venice and Performance – three films conspicuously missing from a list of ostensibly philosophical films: I have mentioned elsewhere that what was passes for philosophy is contentious). Anyway, there is a film…
Stelarc the “cyborg”
So-called “performance artist” Stelarc whom I first discovered through Andy Clark’s Natural Born Cyborgs (reviewed here) has implanted a “third ear” in his own arm. Apparently the ear will have a microphone implanted to allow others to listen to what his extra ear picks up. It looks like an ear but will it function like…
The Greenfield-Koch Debate
A somewhat hurried Greenfield-Koch debate which I discovered on Peter Mandik’s excellent blog. I don’t think this standard debating format works well – in many respects it vulgarizes the topic. The full debate (75 minutes – 247MB or available in 15 minutes chunks) can be found on the Mind Science Foundation website.
Oliver Sacks Interview
(57 minutes)
Putnam Lecture: The Depths and Shallows of Experience
The title of Putnam’s lecture a nod and a wink to James. (87 minutes)
Hofstadter Lecture: Analogy as the Core of Cognition
Wonderful opportunity to see the man in person (66 minutes)
manwithoutqualities 