Category: philosophy
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Selves: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics
Galen Strawson, Selves: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics A review by Thomas Nagel, The I in Me http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n21/thomas-nagel/the-i-in-me “Galen Strawson’s book Selves, a work of shameless metaphysics“ A review by Sydney Shoemaker, Cornell University http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/24233-selves-an-essay-in-revisionary-metaphysics/ Strawson’s paper in Internet that is close to the idea of the book http://www.imprint.co.uk/strawson.htm From Section 1.7 Thing, object p.…
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Geoffrey Gorham: Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Science: Bolinda Beginner Guides by Geoffrey Gorham. As a printed book: The Philosophy of Science: A Beginner’s Guide The Origin of Science Defining Science The Scientific Method The Aims of Science The Social Dimensions of Science Science and Human Features My impression of the book was quite good. The book is well structured…
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Playing Chess in the Game of Life
In the discussion after my comments to The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow: http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/t/863ed5c8b04572e0 I have asked what it looks like to be a pattern in the Game of Life (the analog of the Theory-of-Everything in The Grand Design). John Clark has compared in this respect the Theory-of-Everything with the rules of Chess.…
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Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
Recently I have listened to The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow and below there are a few comments. The book starts with that philosophy is dead. “Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers…
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From Boltzmann’s fluctuation hypothesis to Boltzmann’s Brain
While reading Klaus Mainzer, ‘Thinking in Complexity: The Computational Dynamics of Matter, Mind, and Mankind‘ I have seen a description of Boltzmann’s fluctuation hypothesis in Chapter 3.2 Boltzmann’s Thermodynamics and the Evolution of Organisms. I have read about this hypothesis when I have studied statistical thermodynamics long time ago. However it was a surprise for me…
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Every Event has a Cause as Metaphysics
In his book An Essay on Metaphysics in Part IIIc Causation, Collingwood has considered what could mean that every event must have a cause. This could be interesting for a discussion on free will, as Collingwood shows that causation presupposes free will. In other words, if free will is to be abandoned, then causation must…
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Neuroscience as Science of Thought?
Nowadays one can often hear that neuroscience can explain everything about a human being. The external physical world interacts with human sensory systems, natural neural nets in the brain get excited and this in turn causes excitation of muscles. Modern science has found nothing else in a human body, hence when we would like to…
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Free Will and Mathematics
Alekandr Lokshin has a book Free Will and Mathematics (in Russian) and he has started a discussion on the everything list with an abstract of the book in English Alekandr Lokshin, 27.05.2012 20:51: Alexander A. Lokshin FREE WILL AND MATHEMATICS Moscow, MAKS-Press, 2012 , 40 pages (abstract) The general idea of the booklet is as…