Bet you wish your IDE could do this! (Also one of the most moving coder talks I've ever seen.)
via vimeo.com
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philosophy
See all posts on posterous with this tag »Jan 10 / 8:01am
Good interview with the man behind The Edge
John Brockman: the man who runs the world's smartest website
Since the mid-1960s John Brockman has been at the cutting edge of ideas. He is a passionate advocate of both science and the arts, and his website Edge is a salon for the world's finest minds
via guardian.co.uk
Mar 14 / 4:12pm
Philosophy degrees and famous people who have 'em
Here are some articles that describe how an undergraduate philosophy degree can prepare one for good careers other than teaching philosophy...
Aug 11 / 6:46am
WNYC - Radiolab: Morality (April 28, 2006)
Friday, April 28, 2006Morality
Where does our sense of right and wrong come from? We peer inside the brains of people contemplating moral dilemmas, watch chimps at a primate research center share blackberries, observe a playgroup of 3 year-olds fighting over toys, and tour the country's first penitentiary, Eastern State Prison. Also: the story of land grabbing, indentured servitude and slum lording in the fourth grade.
via wnyc.org
It's been years since I've had time to read Daniel Dennett or Douglas Hofstadter, so it's wonderful to get my fix for the philosophy of mind from that great podcast, Radiolab. This episode is one of their best, though also one of their most disappointing because about 24 minutes into a program on consciousness, the self and where morality and the decision-making process come from, right on the cusp of a Eureka moment, they abruptly veer off on another tangent. Listen to it first before reading on:
...So, they're discussing the "M.A.S.H." episode, in which a Korean mother smothers her crying baby to avoid detection:
- Robert: And at just the moment when they trying to decide what they would do, he took pictures of their brain. And what he saw, the contest he saw before, was global in the brain... It was a World War. ...Inside the brain was literally divided: "Do the calculations!" "Don't kill the baby!" And Jad, this was a different kind of contest than the ones we talked about before. Remember before, when people were pushing a man off of a bridge, overwhelmingly, their brains yelled, "No! No! Don't push the man." And when people pulling the lever: overwhelmingly: "Yeah Yeah! Pull the lever!" There, it was distinct. Here, I don't think really anybody wins.
- Jad: Well who breaks the tie? I mean, somebody has to win.
- Robert: Heh, well that - THAT's a really good question!
Hello?! Yeah - it IS a good question. In fact, it's sort of THE QUESTION TO END ALL QUESTIONS, right?!?! At 23 minutes and 57 seconds in this program we're holding our breath for Dr. Greene to reveal a new pattern in his brain scans that will finally free us from Cartesian Dualism once and for all! ...a meta-pattern that somehow correlates with the position of a self, emerging from nowhere, like a harmonic on a guitar string or a picture in a stereogram suddenly coming into focus.
...but no. Inexplicably, they just drop the question at that point and veer sharply off course, back into dualism, discussing some region above the eyebrows that may somehow further weight the decision-making process one way or the other, but doesn't itself actually decide the matter and so just a complete non sequitur.
Anyway, it left me pretty spent and disappointed. If there's any chance of Radiolab reading this, Jad, Robert, as Dennett says, "mind is a pattern perceived by a mind." Repeat that over and over like a mantra. And get Dr. Greene back on the show and back onto that question!
Sep 30 / 9:13am
Philosophy Now | Daniel Dennett: Autobiography (Part 1)
Daniel Dennett: Autobiography (Part 1)
What makes a philosopher? In the first of a two-part mini-epic, Daniel C. Dennett contemplates a life of the mind – his own. Part 1: The pre-professional years.
...8/19/10 follow-up: Didn't realize you had to pay for parts II and III of this auto-biography. I did, and they're definitely worth getting.
