Marc Defant gave a TEDx talk on the improbable events that had to happen in our planet's history for us to eventually evolve, along with the implications for other intelligent life in the galaxy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nCOhrYV7eg I find a lot to agree with in Defant's remarks, although there are a couple points I'd quibble with. The … Continue reading The extraordinary low probability of intelligent life
Month: August 2017
The layers of emotion creation
What are emotions? Where do they come from? Are they something innate or something we learn? The classic view is that they're precognitive impulses that happen to us. If so, this would imply that they have specific neural signatures. Early in her career, psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett attempted to isolate the neural basis of emotions … Continue reading The layers of emotion creation
Politics is about self interest
I've read a lot of history, including American history of the 18th and 19th centuries. It's interesting to read about the politics of these periods. From a distance across generations and centuries, you can see the distinction between the self interested stances people took and the rhetoric that was used to justify those stances. An … Continue reading Politics is about self interest
SelfAwarePatterns 