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Being in the World

Here’s a film that I chanced upon (I haven’t seen it yet). Once upon a time there was a world full of meaning, focused by exemplary figures in the form of gods and heroes, saints and sinners. How did we lose them, or, might they still be around, in the form of modern day masters,…

William Barrett on Existentialism

Here is a three part interview led by the ever reliable and precise expositor, Bryan Magee. I’m not sure that things have changed that much since this programme in 1978 in that while Heidegger is fully accepted (and suggestively reinterpreted) by those of us in cognitive science, mainstream analytical  philosophy still sees him as a…

Lichtenberg on Mind and Body

Here is an extract from the intro to Georg Christoph Lichtenberg by Steven Tester. GCL was a thoroughly modern mind in so many ways making writers such as Dennett, Grayling and the like seem rather timid (my previous Lichtenberg posts). Given Lichtenberg’s interest in self-knowledge, metempsychosis, and personal identity, it is not surprising that he often…

Of the External Senses

This essay is well worth a read. H/T to Brian Glenney for bringing it to my attention (I hang my head in shame for not having read it before). Adam SmithCognitionCognitive neuroscienceCognitive scienceDavid HumeDescartesEssayexternal worldhumeLockePhilosophyPhilosophy of mindqualiaSmithSocial SciencesTreatise of Human Nature

Machine Head

Namit Arora in a themed issue of Philosophy Now considers the complexity of consciousness and its implications for artificial intelligence. But despite the big advances in computing, AI has fallen woefully short of its ambition and hype. Instead, we have ‘expert’ systems that process predetermined inputs in specific domains, perform pattern matching and database lookups, and…