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Nagel - Mind and Cosmos |
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Tuesday, 26 December 2017 |
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Nagel attempts at provocation with its fiery title -Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False- with the intention of getting criticisms to raise interest in his position. However he fails at making clear what this position is. The book argues that the materialist version of evolutionary biology is unable to account for the existence of mind in three essential aspects: consciousness, reason and value. Both in terms of actual realization and historical evolutionary becoming.
His unclear stance orbits around a kind of pre-scientific panpsychism, where mind is a basic aspect of nature, and a kind of non-mystical teleology guides the route from the soup of atoms up to contemporary human mind.
While repetitive and basically empty, it is worth reading to see the main themes of the mysterian philosophy of mind community in relation to natural explanations of mental phenomena.
Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False
Thomas Nagel
Oxford University Press
130 pages
2012
Value for time: 5
Main value: Phil of Mind perspective; quick reading
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 26 December 2017 )
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John Markoff - Machines of Loving Grace |
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Friday, 07 July 2017 |
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Far from the cybernetic meadow that Richard Brautigan saw in his poem All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace the intelligent machines that can merge with us are not yet here. In his book, Markoff -a technical journalist- tried to address the convergence of natural and artificial intelligence (hence the subtitle "The quest for common ground between humans and robots"). However, he failed. The book, while interesting reading, is a mere compilation of AI people's personal histories. The technical content is minimal and the distillation f the "common ground" is totally missing.
However it is worth reading to see the ambient and economics of the AI community since its origins to the present day of Google's PageRank and Apple's Siri.
Machines of Loving Grace. The quest for common ground between humans and robots
John Markoff
Ecco - Harper Collins
378 pages
2015
Value for time: 7
Main value: AI History; easy reading
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 08 July 2017 )
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C.J. Bond - Biology and the new physics |
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Sunday, 27 December 2015 |
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The book Biology and the new physics : a plea for a consistent philosophy of life" by C. J. Bond contains an edited version of the address given by Bond at the Centenary Meeting of the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society on 7th October, 1935. It contains an analysis of the impact that the recent discoveries in quantum physics concerning the question of determinism in physics would have on a theoretical biology founded upon a basement of physics. In essence it is an argumentarium to keep old thoughts on free will and the role of God in the creation of the universe. He does so by means of a vision about how the intrinsic indeterminacy of matter -as postulated by quantum mechanics, and seen as the source of mental freedom- is constrained by an environment that overimposes a deterministic behaviour.
Biology and the new physics : a plea for a consistent philosophy of life
Bond, Charles John,
H. K. Lewis & co. ltd., London
64 pages
1936
Value for time: 6
Main value: Transdisciplinarity; foundations; big themes
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 26 December 2017 )
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Robert Rosen - Anticipatory Systems |
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Saturday, 25 January 2014 |
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In this book Robert Rosen tries to elaborate on the mathematical foundations of theoretical biology, trying to offer a framework that puts inner modelling at the core of anticipatory behaviour that is, for him, one of the keystones of living systems. The book was conceived in the 70s and was published for the first time in 1985. The 2nd edition -this one- is from 2012, with some additional content from his followers and his daughter. The book tries to be mathematical -Rosen was a mathematician-biologist- using category theory and dynamical systems to describe the way living systems relate to their environment -using a modelling relation-and can anticipate in it.
In essence it claims for a new foundation for mathematical biology that transcends dynamical systems theory -claimed to be inefficacious- offering mechanisms for addressing biological complexity to formalise what he later called relational biology.
Anticipatory Systems; Philosophical, Mathematical, and Methodological Foundations, 2nd Ed.
Robert Rosen
Springer
472 pages
2012
Value for time: 7
Main value: Transdisciplinarity; abstraction
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 21 December 2014 )
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Buckminster Fuller - Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth |
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Saturday, 25 January 2014 |
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This is the written, elaborated version of a conference that Fuller gave to the American Planners Association. In this book he analyzes the technological history of humanity to reach the conclusion that the knowledge gained and the technological power so obtained lets us -forces us- to properly manage the earth as a large, self-supporting spaceship. The work is valuable reading due to the yet valid analysis concerning the nature of weatlh and the proper political methods to deal with it.
Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth
R. Buckminster Fuller
Simon and Schuster
144 pages
1969
Value for time: 6
Main value: Out-of-the-box
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