Swimming around in a mixture of language and matter, humans occupy a particular evolutionary niche mediated by something we call 'consciousness'. To Professor Nicholas Humphrey we're made up of "
soul dust": "a kind of theatre... an entertainment which we put on for ourselves inside our own heads." But just as that theatre is directed by the relationship between language and matter,
it is also undermined by it. It all depends how you think it.
posted by 0bvious
on Feb 4, 2011 -
17 comments
Rutgers professor of philosophy Jerry Fodor
created a bit of a stir last October when he wrote an article for the London Review of Books arguing that natural selection may not be such a great theory after all, and that a "major revision of evolutionary theory... is in the offing." Not many fellow
philosophers and academics agree, it seems. Fodor responds to his critics
here and
here. Six months later, it's still not entirely clear whether his argument is, as Justin E.H. Smith
put it, "irresponsible and stupid or so subtle that none of his adversaries, defending a status quo interpretation of the theory of natural selection, have been able to get it yet."
posted by decoherence
on May 6, 2008 -
142 comments
Did the discovery of evolution lead to Darwin's agnosticism, as
claimed? Carl Zimmer
wonders. More importantly, can evolution be
reconciled with Christianity?
posted by daksya
on Aug 11, 2005 -
90 comments
