The NY Times has an interesting article about a study which purports to show that literacy may have been far more prevalent in pre-Babylonian exile Judah than many had thought. The implication, it's believed, is that Biblical minimalist scholars who thought that no part of the Bible was composed until after the exile, are wrong. But … Continue reading When were the earliest parts of the Bible written?
The unavoidable complexity of morality
I've written before on why science can't determine morality. This isn't a particularly controversial position (even if many of Sam Harris or Michael Shermer's followers find it so). No one seems to have found an intellectually rigorous answer to David Hume's is/ought divide, that you can't derive an ought from an is. To logically determine … Continue reading The unavoidable complexity of morality
The power of symbolic thought
One of the things I've pondered a few times on this blog is our ability to recognize another intelligence, such as an extraterrestrial intelligence. On the face of it, this seems straightforward. Do they form societies, use technology, manipulate their environment, and overall show signs of intelligence? Except an alien intelligence may be so different from … Continue reading The power of symbolic thought
The reliability hierarchy of expert opinion
There's been a mild amount of angst on the internet in recent days over a couple of well known science communicators espousing nonsense on matters outside of their field. The first was Bill Nye, who made comments about philosophy that most charitably could be described as uninformed. The second was Neil deGrasse Tyson's tweets about biology expressing … Continue reading The reliability hierarchy of expert opinion
Voting in the primary
Yesterday was the Presidential primary in my state. My vote went to Hillary Clinton, principally because I'm a Democrat and Clinton's views are slightly closer to mine than Bernie Sanders. At heart, I'm a pragmatist who isn't a big fan of hopeless battles. I agree with many of Sanders's aspirations, such as universal healthcare and free college, … Continue reading Voting in the primary
Are rocks conscious?
Consider a rock outside somewhere. It sits there, starting off in the morning in a certain state. The sun comes out and proceeds to warm it up. Its temperature climbs through the day until the sun sets, whereupon it cools through the night. The cycle starts again the next morning. The rock is going through … Continue reading Are rocks conscious?
SMBC: Do ethics actually exist?
This is just too close to some of our recent discussions for me not to call attention to it. As usual, Weiner knocks it out of the park. (Click through for hovertext and red button caption.) via: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Crash Course takes on philosophy
I've featured Crash Course videos before. The Green brothers (and collaborators such as Phil Plait) manage to take various subjects such as history, astronomy, politics, biology, and others many might find dry and boring, and make them interesting. Each episode is relatively short (usually under 15 minutes) but cover a lot in that time, edited to move along at a hyper … Continue reading Crash Course takes on philosophy
In case you haven’t heard yet, gravitational waves have been detected
I won't attempt to describe the implications. For that, your best bet is to read it from one of the experts, Ethan Siegel: The First Detection Of Gravitational Waves Validates Einstein In A Whole New Way! Let's hope those implications aren't this. Source: xkcd Both General Relativity and the Standard Model or particle physics keep getting … Continue reading In case you haven’t heard yet, gravitational waves have been detected
Panpsychism and definitions of “consciousness”
Disagreeable Me asked me to look at this interesting TED talk by Professor Mark Bishop. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUNHyPFvUWc The entire talk is well worth the time (20 minutes) for anyone interested in consciousness and the computational theory of mind, but here's my very quick summation: The human mind, and hence consciousness, is a computational system. Since animal … Continue reading Panpsychism and definitions of “consciousness”
SelfAwarePatterns 