Correlative Analytics -- or as O'Reilly might term the Social Graph -- sort of mirrors the debate on 'brute force' algorithmic proofs (that are "true for no reason," cf.) in which "computers can extract patterns in this ocean of data that no human could ever possibly detect. These patterns are correlations. They may or may not be causative, but we can learn new things. Therefore they accomplish what science does, although not in the traditional manner... In this part of science, we may get answers that work, but which we don't understand. Is this partial understanding? Or a different kind of understanding?" Of course, say some in the scientific community: hogwash; it's just a fabrication of scientifically/statistically illiterate pundits, like whilst new techniques in data analysis are being developed to help keep ahead of the deluge...
posted on Jul 21, 2008 - View this thread

The Reality Tests. "A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it?"
posted on Jun 4, 2008 - View this thread

The Stupidity of Dignity: Conservative bioethics' latest, most dangerous ploy. Steven Pinker reviews Human Dignity and Bioethics, the latest report from the President's Council on Bioethics.
posted on May 28, 2008 - View this thread

Are We All Really Just Disembodied Brains Floating in Empty Space? Recent mathematical results in the field of cosmology related to the Boltzmann's Brain Problem may point toward a peculiarly arbitrary universe in which, as improbable as it sounds, it's more likely than not.
posted on Jan 16, 2008 - View this thread

Parmenides. "The pre-Socratic philosopher sparked an intellectual revolution that still echoes today. Yet for philosophy and science to continue to progress in the 21st century, we may need to embark on an entirely new cognitive journey ."
posted on Dec 27, 2007 - View this thread

Since 1993, the Institut Jean Nicod has awarded the annual Jean Nicod Prize to a leading philosopher or cognitive scientist for his or her work in the interdisciplinary study of the mind. The recipient is expected to deliver a series of lectures. The lecture series of this past year's winner, philosopher Stephen Stich, is entitled "Moral Theory Meets Cognitive Science: How Cognitive Science Can Transform Traditional Debates", and is now available online in video form. Also available is the lecture series of the previous year's winner, evolutionary anthropologist Michael Tomasello: "Origins of Human Communication".
posted on Oct 29, 2007 - View this thread

MindPapers - David Chalmers organizes, streamlines and expands his collection of papers related to mind and neuroscience.
posted on Oct 25, 2007 - View this thread

The Philosophy and Neuroscience Movement (PDF). A paper by Andrew Brook and Pete Mandik on the relationship between neuroscience and philosophy. [Via MindHacks.]
posted on Oct 5, 2007 - View this thread

The Meaning of Life. "We create life, we search for it, we manipulate and revere it. Is it possible that we haven't yet defined the term (PDF)?" [Via The Loom.]
posted on Sep 6, 2007 - View this thread

Fate, Absolute Life and Death, the Aleph, the Zeitgeist, the sinking of the Atlantis, the World Trade Center, the formation of the universe...what more could you want from art? There's probably already been a been a post on this guy, Paul Laffoley, but I should hope more people could get a glance at some of this man's work. Crazy or brilliant, you make your decision. A video from his website.
posted on Aug 31, 2007 - View this thread

Science and Pseudoscience - a 1973 lecture from Imre Lakatos.
posted on Jul 30, 2007 - View this thread

Beethoven stretches out and relaxes. Gorillas belch to let others know where they are. Fish sing the body electric (.mov, 12 MB) for food and safety. How has your own perception shaped your worldview?
posted on Aug 14, 2006 - View this thread

"Lawsonomy is the knowledge of Life and everything pertaining thereto." The collected works of Alfred Lawson - professional baseball player, aviation pioneer, economist, scientist, theologist, and philosopher - are available to all. [more inside]
posted on Jul 6, 2006 - View this thread

Science sites of all kinds for kids. Archeology. Entomology. Natural Symphony. Baseball in Space. Philosophy. Process or Content. Science songs. Physics songs, relativity. String theory. Science and Art.
posted on Jun 26, 2006 - View this thread

The odd films of Neural Surfer. I've yet to watch them all but my fave so far is Little Things that Jiggle: Richard Feynman and Atomic Physics {google vid}, which is part of the Philosophy in less than five minutes (sometimes) series.
posted on May 10, 2006 - View this thread

Researchers have found that prolonged concentration on a difficult task actually switches off a person's self awareness. Fancy experiencing this sensation for yourself? That would be an oxymoron in existence. Just lay back and let the orgasm take hold.
posted on Apr 20, 2006 - View this thread

Prof. Daniel Dennett's (New York University, Philosophy) new book Breaking the Spell appears to have frightened its NYT book reviewer, Leon Wieseltier (The New Republic, Literary Editor). Wieselter claims "The question of the place of science in human life is not a scientific question. It is a philosophical question", and promptly proceeds to demonstrate that he himself knows nothing about philosophy. Dennett responds.
Prof. Brian Leiter (University of Texas, Philosophy) responds that "'The view that science can explain all human conditions and expressions, mental as well as physical' is not a 'superstition' but a reasonable methodological posture to adopt based on the actual evidence, that is, based on the actual expanding success of the sciences . . . during the last hundred years."
b l o g s s and serious reviews.
posted on Mar 7, 2006 - View this thread

Test your knowledge of philosophy with the 2006 IAP Philosophy Trivia Quiz! This quiz is extremely hard, so you might want to take a break at the Cognitive Science Cafe [pdf].
posted on Feb 7, 2006 - View this thread

Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was a German thinker who came to America in 1933 after losing his job for opposing the national socialism movement. Tillich was at once a protestant theologian and an existentialist philosopher and humanist who attempted to intellectualize religion and bring it to contemporary audiences in the age of science. His brilliant writings and speeches would typically weave together biblical passages with discussions of philosophy and science. In this most famous work, The Courage to Be, Tillich laid out his case of how man can resolve the existential crisis of facing non-being. In echoes of Soren Kierkegaard and Freud, Tillich attempted to explain how man could resolve the fear of nothingness with the Courage to Be in the face of Non-being. Throughout his life, Tillich's ultimate concern was to try to help man understand the real value of faith and meaning by divorcing the concepts from the myths and the religious and social dogmas which cramp the mind of modern man.
posted on Feb 2, 2006 - View this thread

The first Transhuman Conference On the Law of Transhuman Persons: Whether or not you believe humans are set to evolve into gods, or AI is destined to achieve self-awareness the idea of the Transhuman is a thought provoking concept. Philosophers have debated the nature of the self, of the human for millennia. Is it time to start drafting new laws to govern all possible sentient beings on this planet? or is it all just a science of fiction? a comfortable humanist illusion?
posted on Dec 13, 2005 - View this thread

Nothing is funnier than an academic or scientist explaining humor.
posted on Dec 11, 2005 - View this thread

3quarksdaily. Just another blog, sure, but a good one. 3quarksdaily is a filter blog much like our very own, but with only 15 users (and an editor). As they say on their about page "On this website, my guest authors and editors and I hope to present interesting items from around the web on a daily basis, in the areas of science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and anything else we deem inherently fascinating." The do an admirable job.
posted on Dec 6, 2005 - View this thread

Does God Play Dice?
posted on Dec 3, 2005 - View this thread

Everything I Know-Buckminster Fuller During the last two weeks of January 1975 Buckminster Fuller gave an extraordinary series of lectures concerning his entire life’s work. These thinking out loud lectures span 42 hours (audio and text available) and examine in depth all of Fuller's major inventions and discoveries from the 1927 Dymaxion house, car and bathroom, through the Wichita House, geodesic domes, and tensegrity structures, as well as the contents of Synergetics.
posted on Nov 13, 2005 - View this thread

So. What will happen when our computers get good enough
posted on Oct 11, 2005 - View this thread

In Defense of Uncommon Sense. The Edge Reality Club responds to an op-ed by John Horgan (previously discussed here.) (Via)
posted on Aug 28, 2005 - View this thread

"Almost half the children committed one or more of these mistakes. They attempted with apparent seriousness to perform the same actions with the miniature items that they had with the large ones. Some sat down on the little chair: they walked up to it, turned around, bent their knees and lowered themselves onto it. Some simply perched on top, others sat down so hard that the chair skittered out from under them. Some children sat on the miniature slide and tried to ride down it, usually falling off in the process; others attempted to climb the steps, causing the slide to tip over. (With the chair and slide made of sturdy plastic and only about five inches tall, the toddlers faced no danger of hurting themselves.)"
posted on Aug 18, 2005 - View this thread

Did the discovery of evolution lead to Darwin's agnosticism, as claimed? Carl Zimmer wonders. More importantly, can evolution be reconciled with Christianity?
posted on Aug 11, 2005 - View this thread

Know less than nothing!? What could negative knowledge possibly mean? In short, after I tell you negative information, you will know less... "In this week's issue of Nature, however, Michal Horodecki and colleagues present a fresh approach to understanding quantum phenomena that cannot be grasped simply by considering their classical counterparts." [via slashdot :]
posted on Aug 8, 2005 - View this thread

Who are YOU?
posted on Aug 7, 2005 - View this thread

Artists on science; scientists on art
posted on Aug 1, 2005 - View this thread

Gödel and the Nature of Mathematical Truth : A Talk with Verena Huber-Dyson
posted on Jul 29, 2005 - View this thread

Is Civilization Decaying? Will technological progress be accompanied by moral progress? Notes on a 1923 debate between J. B. S. Haldane (Daedalus) and Bertrand Russell (Icarus). "As John Brunner pointed out in an article in the New Scientist in 1993, these two books ... inspired two generations of science fiction writers."
posted on Jul 10, 2005 - View this thread

The fitness of evolutionary psychology
posted on Jul 4, 2005 - View this thread

Godel's theorems have been used to extrapolate a great many "truths" about the world. Torkel Franzen sets the record straight in his new book Godel's Theorem: An Incomplete Guide to Its Use and Abuse. Read the introduction (PDF). If you want, check out his explanation of the theorems.
posted on Jun 29, 2005 - View this thread

It's Carnival Time! In 2002, Silflay Hraka launched the internet's first carnival: The Carnival of the Vanities. Carnivals are showcases of the best that blogs have to offer; bloggers send in posts they have made that they are especially pleased with, and a rotating editor collates them into a weekly edition with editorial comments. Think of carnivals as best-of-the-blogosphere magazines. The Carnival of the Vanities (current edition here) doesn't have any particular focus, but a number of offshoots dedicated to specific fields have popped up. Stay up to date on blog postings about philosophy, science, history, the early modern period, sex, Canada, and (if desperately bored) cats. A new carnival about atheism, The Carnival of the Godless, will be coming out at the end of the month.
posted on Jan 23, 2005 - View this thread

The Meaning of Life according to various rather famous people (Dennett, Fukuyama, etc). I'm watching the Dennett video at the moment and it starts rather weakly, but, by midway through, is rolling along nicely. With topics like "being good without god" and "the anthropic principle" it struck me as relevant to a couple of recent askmefi threads.
Dennett: [pause] i guess i'll say it again, more slowly...
(oh, and the player interface is rather delicate - give it time to load and click play a few times...)
posted on Oct 1, 2004 - View this thread

Whose life would you save? Carl Zimmer takes a look at the work of philospher-neuroscientist Joshua Greene in the emerging field of the neuroscience of ethics and morality (Leon Kass, take note.) [Via Dynamist Blog.]
posted on Mar 10, 2004 - View this thread

Jaron Lanier talks about philosophy, computer science and physics. Suppose poor old Shroedinger's Cat has survived all the quantum observation experiments but still has a taste for more brushes with death. We could oblige it by attaching the cat-killing box to our camera. So long as the camera can recognize an apple in front of it, the cat lives.
posted on Nov 20, 2003 - View this thread

The cable clock. This clocks tells time, just like any other clock, but the movement of the hands is hypnotic and beautiful. To physicists, time is defined by quantum mechanics. A photon with energy h (Planck's constant) behaves as though it were oscillating once per second. For Philosphers, time is less concrete, and they love to talk about it. Western society lives by the clock - does it make a difference if this is the kind of clock that you live by? After all, everyone knows that time is money. If you have to be a clock watcher, does it help if the clock is as calming as the Cable Clock is?
posted on Sep 9, 2003 - View this thread

they've got god... world's first completely artificial lifeform created. ethical, spiritual, and social implications a-go-go, via blogdex.
posted on Jan 17, 2003 - View this thread

I know this much is true... For years, I have said that the greatest thing about the modern state of the US is that we hold nothing as "True". I was wrong. Apparently our "Truths" were just sleeping; now everyone seems to have some, and they're proving to be as divisive and factionalist here as elsewhere. So - apart from any particular issue - are there "Truths", or are there just perceptions of an issue? And, just to keep some edges sharp, in answering, are you at all religious?
posted on Sep 19, 2001 - View this thread