Philosophy
By its very nature, philosophy is an iconoclastic discipline, dedicated to questioning and dissecting the basic assumptions we use to make sense of our experience, in order to get a better understanding of reality and of the human condition. It was the ancient Greeks who first posed the question about whether the nature of determinism and fate might preclude the possibility of free choice. The answer to this question, in my mind at least, cannot be completely answered either by philosophy or by science alone, but by a cross-disciplinary collaboration of the two, so that the empirical evidence discovered by the natural and social sciences can be properly interpreted in light of philosophical concepts, theories and arguments that cannot be settled scientifically (things like consciousness, intentionality, whether reasons can count as causes, etc.).
One of my favorite tags in this blog is the one on Mind Control. There's just something morbidly fascinating and interesting about the prospect that, at least some of the time, we may be little more than automatons or zombies blindly doing the bidding of forces that we might not even be aware of, and which may actually go against our own personal and collective interests. And as one of my favorite science journalists, Ed Young, argues in the following TEDTalk presentation, biologists are continuing to find instances of parasitic mind control that will make you want to put yourself under a microscope...
Bow down to our parasitic overlords...
- Meaning Of Unconscious Mind
Consciousness by Robert Fludd, 1619Problem of conscious and unconscious mind isn't new in philosophy ? actually it was already known to antique philosophers (the unconsciousness concept was also used in the zombie thought experiment). The unconscious...
- David Eagleman - Can We Create New Senses For Humans?
It's been a source of questions, awe and insight among philosophers for a long time to consider the fact that all mental representations are ultimately interpretations of electrical signals traveling through the brain. Yes, we may ordinarily think...
- John Searle - Our Shared Condition: Consciousness
Studying consciousness is notoriously difficult, and until only the last couple of decades, very few intellectuals (apart from philosophers and psychologists) dared to even think about how to try to understand it. But with the rise of new disciplines...
- Zeus' Existence
"Did Zeus Exist?" by Gary Gutting July 31st, 2013 The New York Times When my children were little, they liked to play “Mother, May I?” At one point, I combined the game with an early introduction to classical culture, changing the key question to...
- S. Hawking...why There Is Something, Not Nothing
or "Father Raymond J. de Souza: Why there is something, not nothing" by Father Raymond J. de Souza June 10th, 2010 The National Post Stephen Hawking, the biggest brain among the big brains of physics, took the star turn here for the recent World...
Philosophy
Ed Yong - Suicidal Wasps, Zombie Roaches & Other Parasite Tales
One of my favorite tags in this blog is the one on Mind Control. There's just something morbidly fascinating and interesting about the prospect that, at least some of the time, we may be little more than automatons or zombies blindly doing the bidding of forces that we might not even be aware of, and which may actually go against our own personal and collective interests. And as one of my favorite science journalists, Ed Young, argues in the following TEDTalk presentation, biologists are continuing to find instances of parasitic mind control that will make you want to put yourself under a microscope...
Bow down to our parasitic overlords...
- Meaning Of Unconscious Mind
Consciousness by Robert Fludd, 1619Problem of conscious and unconscious mind isn't new in philosophy ? actually it was already known to antique philosophers (the unconsciousness concept was also used in the zombie thought experiment). The unconscious...
- David Eagleman - Can We Create New Senses For Humans?
It's been a source of questions, awe and insight among philosophers for a long time to consider the fact that all mental representations are ultimately interpretations of electrical signals traveling through the brain. Yes, we may ordinarily think...
- John Searle - Our Shared Condition: Consciousness
Studying consciousness is notoriously difficult, and until only the last couple of decades, very few intellectuals (apart from philosophers and psychologists) dared to even think about how to try to understand it. But with the rise of new disciplines...
- Zeus' Existence
"Did Zeus Exist?" by Gary Gutting July 31st, 2013 The New York Times When my children were little, they liked to play “Mother, May I?” At one point, I combined the game with an early introduction to classical culture, changing the key question to...
- S. Hawking...why There Is Something, Not Nothing
or "Father Raymond J. de Souza: Why there is something, not nothing" by Father Raymond J. de Souza June 10th, 2010 The National Post Stephen Hawking, the biggest brain among the big brains of physics, took the star turn here for the recent World...