evolutionary biology – Page 2 – manwithoutqualities

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April 25, 2012evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, Kristin Andrews, mind reading, mirror neurons, philosophical psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophy tv, Robert Lurz, social cognition, sociocognition

Animal Mindreading

Kristin Andrews and Robert Lurz discuss animals and mindreading. CognitionCognitive neuroscienceCognitive sciencephilosophical psychology

January 30, 2012conservatism, David Eagleman, evolution, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, Jesse Prinz, liberalism, moral philosophy, moral psychology, neural correlates, neurobiology, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, plasticity, political philosophy, roger scruton, Susan Greenfield

Nature, nurture and liberal values

Roger Scruton weighs in on the nature/nurture debate via a threefold review. (Image another Steve Pyke portrait). Roger Scrutonsteve pyke

August 13, 2011artificial intelligence, biology, cognition, cybernetics, embodied cognition, embodiment, emergence, enaction, enactivism, Evan Thompson, evolutionary biology, francesco varela, Humberto Maturana, Mind in Life, philosophy of mind

Maturana and Varela’s classic Autopoiesis and Cognition is freely available here (H/T to Paul Loader). What makes a living system a living system? What kind of biological phenomenon is the phenomenon of cognition? These two questions have been frequently considered, but, in this volume, the authors consider them as concrete biological questions. Their analysis is bold and…

June 7, 2011david livingstone smith, evolution, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, killing, less than human

Less than Human

My chum David being interviewed by a local Portland magazine programme here and featured on the BBC.

May 24, 2011evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, g.a. cohen, Jonathan Gottschall, the rape of troy

Jonathan Gottschall’s The Rape of Troy

I had the good fortune to meet Jonathan Gottschall at a recent conference. This guy is young, brilliant and so self-effacing – but I’m hardly the only one to recognize this – see the write-up in The New York Times. His talent for deploying an another discipline in the service of another reminds me a…

May 8, 2011artificial intelligence, austrian economics, brain science, cognitive science, cognitive systems, complex adaptive systems, complexity, connectionism, consciousness, constructivism, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, Embedded, embodied cognition, embodiment, emergence, enactivism, epistemic systems, epistemology, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, externalism, hayek, mind body, neural networks, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, qualia, situated cognition, social cognition, social connectionism, social constructivism, social epistemology, social ontology, socialism, sociobiology, sociocognition, spontaneous order, The Road to Serfdom, the sensory order

Friedrich Hayek

Born on this day in 1899

April 17, 2011david livingstone smith, essentialism, ethics, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, less than human, neurophilosophy, neuroscience

Less Than Human

My chum David Livingstone Smith’s latest book is getting some good coverage. The latest review of Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others can be found in Scientific American.

April 16, 2011brain, brain science, churchland, cognitive closure, cognitive science, Colin McGinn, complex adaptive systems, connectionism, consciousness, Descartes, distributed cognition, dualism, Edelman, embodied cognition, embodiment, erol basar, evolutionary biology, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, externalism, friedrich hayek, gerald edelman, hayek, joaquin fuster, mri, networks, neural correlates, neural networks, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, qualia, self-referentiality, situated cognition, social cognition, spontaneous order, the "hard" problem, the sensory order

Brain-Body-Mind

Here is the recently published book by my chum Erol Başar who as it happens is also contributing to my forthcoming edited book entitled Hayek in Mind: Hayek’s Philosophical Psychology. Not surprisingly, there is much reference to Hayek’s The Sensory Order peppered throughout Erol’s book most notably in section 2.12 (pp. 39-41). Other distinguished neuroscientists who appreciate…

March 9, 2011brain, brain science, cognition, cognitive science, consciousness, Eliminative Materialism, evolution, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, moral philosophy, mri, neural correlates, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, patricia churchland, paul churchland, philosophy of mind, value

Pat Churchland on the source of value

Another video (via David Livingstone Smith) of Pat Churchland plugging her and Paul’s forthcoming book Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality. This talk is part of the The Great Debate conference Can Science Tell Us Right From Wrong?

March 5, 2011david livingstone smith, dehumanization, ethics, evolution, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, genocide, less than human, moral philosophy, war

A Philosophy of Genocide’s Roots

My chum David Livingstone Smith’s latest book (that I have been trailing) has just been reviewed in the New York Times. The subject matter is as timely as ever and is a cracking read accessible for a general audience and an academic audience.