Here it is, your weekly rundown of interesting articles I’ve come across recently, to consider for your weekend readings:
Why your brain is not a computer. For decades it has been the dominant metaphor in neuroscience. But could this idea have been leading us astray all along? (Guardian)
What Thucydides can teach us. Ancient reflections on a time of plague. (Public Seminar)
The pandemic isn’t a Black Swan but a portent of a more fragile global system. [Even Nassim Taleb is right, occasionally…] (New Yorker)
The Buzz Aldrin fallacy. [It’s a thing.] (Medium)
What Sci Phi is all about: treating science fiction as philosophy. (Sci Phi Journal)
Intellectual alchemists. [On Umberto Eco and Emmanuel Carrère] (Public Books)
Five contemporary philosophies from the Eastern World. (Medium)
Philosophy as a Way of Life
Ahhh, you didn’t need Taleb to tell you that. Any good lefty would have done it!
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Good Guardian piece. And per any science of the evolution of mind to replace the old Ev Psych, such bootstrapped subsystems or whatever will surely be likely. But not “modular” as that implies, to me, top down and purposefulness ideas. And, in some sense, aren’t we working back toward old friend David Hume on this, on the level of activeness not passiveness of the brain?
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The Buzz Aldrin and philosophy piece is good. That’s why I’m putting that philosophy of science and pandemic modeling piece I sent you in my blog next week. Showing people that philosophy is very real world is always a good thing.
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Oh, can I talk to any of your grad students, Massimo? ;) http://existentialcomics.com/comic/341
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