Harold Camping died last month. In case you don't remember, Camping, the president of evangelical Family Radio, predicted that the world would end in 2011. Twice. He made these prognostications on the basis of numerology, which sounds like it might be a sophomore-level math subject, but isn't. The data for the calculations Camping used to … Continue reading The End of the World: Science or Religion? | Seth Shostak
Author: SelfAwarePatterns
A middle aged guy who loves discussing science, philosophy, history, science fiction, and many other nerdy topics.
The path to moral behavior | Machines Like Us
The brakes of your car fail suddenly and on your path are five people who will certainly be hit and killed. You can steer, but if you do another pedestrian will find himself on your course. Just one. What do you do: do you take action and kill one person or do you do nothing … Continue reading The path to moral behavior | Machines Like Us
Time to ditch falsifiability?
Related to my last two posts, and our discussion, Sean Carroll turned in an answer to the "What Scientific Ideas Are Ready for Retirement?" His answer? Falsifiability. Modern physics stretches into realms far removed from everyday experience, and sometimes the connection to experiment becomes tenuous at best. String theory and other approaches to quantum gravity … Continue reading Time to ditch falsifiability?
What scientific idea is ready for retirement? | Science | The Observer
Each year a forum for the world's most brilliant minds asks one question. This year's drew responses from such names as Richard Dawkins, Ian McEwan and Alan Alda. Here, edge.org founder John Brockman explains how the question came into being and we pick some of the best responses via What scientific idea is ready for … Continue reading What scientific idea is ready for retirement? | Science | The Observer
Farewell to Reality
Jim Baggott has written an important book, 'Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth', which takes a hard look at many modern ideas in theoretical physics, and finds that many of them are not science. Philosophy of science Baggott begins with a chapter on basic philosophy of science, identifying … Continue reading Farewell to Reality
Taking your time with decisions
Steve Fleming has an interesting article at Aeon on the advisability of sometimes taking your time with making decisions. Whether lingering too long over the menu at a restaurant, or abrupt U-turns by politicians, flip-flopping does not have a good reputation. By contrast, quick, decisive responses are associated with competency: they command respect. Acting on … Continue reading Taking your time with decisions
A Fantastic Voyage – Charles And Ray Eameses ‘Powers Of Ten’
Why You Should Upload Yourself to a Supercomputer
We're still decades — if not centuries — away from being able to transfer a mind to a supercomputer. It's a fantastic future prospect that makes some people incredibly squeamish. But there are considerable benefits to living a digital life. Here's why you should seriously consider uploading. via Why You Should Upload Yourself to a … Continue reading Why You Should Upload Yourself to a Supercomputer
Interview of Ara Norenzayan on Inquiring Minds podcast
As I mentioned before, I have a big backlog of podcasts that I'm working through on my lunch walks. Many of you have probably already heard this, but just in case you haven't: If you enjoyed my review of Ara Norenzayan's book, 'Big Gods', then you'll probably also enjoy this interview of him by Chris … Continue reading Interview of Ara Norenzayan on Inquiring Minds podcast
Rationally Speaking: What virtues, and why?
At any rate, what I’d like to do here is to explore a bit more of my own preferred framework for ethics, neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics (the “neo” prefix should alert the reader that I’m not about to defend everything Aristotle said, but rather discuss an updated version of the idea, based of course on his … Continue reading Rationally Speaking: What virtues, and why?
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