Listening to the music of The Advisory Circle has been a fascinating experience for me. It’s a style of music which produces, quite deliberately, a profound sense of nostalgia. But what is nostalgia all about?
I strongly believe that emotions are much more than merely feelings. An emotional experience, I believe, contains a set of information about both who we are and what the world is about.
Today we have another short post, this time about Anaxagoras. Russell asserts his main importance as being the person who first introduced philosophy to Athens. He was a student of Anaximenes, and in his later life he was an influence on Socrates.
He was born in Clazomenae, a costal town of Ionia, around 500 BCE. He lived in Athens from 462 – 432 BCE, the golden age. It is believed that he was…
While the Buddha dreamt peacefully and awoke with clarity, Descartes concludes his first meditation dreading that he’ll awaken from the dream.
For Descartes, the toilsome wakefulness which follows from a peaceful rest is accompanied not by the light of clarity, but by shadows of even larger philosophical uncertainties looming over him.
Academic philosophy, especially in the west, has long had a reputation as the near-exclusive domain of white men. These days, however, there is growing interest in philosophy by historical women and in philosophical traditions from other parts of the world. The rediscovery of neglected texts from outside the mainstream has made it increasingly clear that women have always done philosophy, even where this work has been obstructed, lost, forgotten, misattributed, unacknowledged, or plagiarized. Now, academic studiesandpopular op-eds alike are calling for philosophy to recognize that a narrow focus on only some kinds of thinkers at the exclusion of others forecloses possibilities for thinking and seeking out truths, rather than pursuing them.
Despite the tight historical links between science and philosophy, present-day scientists often perceive philosophy as completely different from, and even antagonistic to, science. We argue here that, to the contrary, philosophy can have an important and productive impact on science.
Brain “plasticity” is one of the great discoveries in modern science, but neuroscientist David Eagleman thinks the word is misleading. Unlike plastic, which molds and then retains a particular shape, the brain’s physical structure is continually in flux. But Eagleman can’t avoid the word. “The whole literature uses that term plasticity, so I use it sparingly,” he says. Eagleman also discounts computer analogies to the brain. He’s coined the term “livewired” (the title of his new book) to point out that the brain’s hardware and software are practically inseparable.
I recently watched all of Star Trek: Picard, and while I was definitely on board with the vast majority of it, and extremely pleased with certain elements of it, some things kind of bothered me.
And so, as with much of the pop culture I love, I want to spend some time with the more critical perspective, in hopes that it’ll be taken as an opportunity to make it even better.
[Promotional image for Star Trek: Picard, featuring all of the series main cast.]
Brain “plasticity” is one of the great discoveries in modern science, but neuroscientist David Eagleman thinks the word is misleading. Unlike plastic, which molds and then retains a particular shape, the brain’s physical structure is continually in flux. But Eagleman can’t avoid the word. “The whole literature uses that term plasticity, so I use it sparingly,” he says. Eagleman also discounts computer analogies to the brain. He’s coined the term “livewired” (the title of his new book) to point out that the brain’s hardware and software are practically inseparable.
I recently watched all of Star Trek: Picard, and while I was definitely on board with the vast majority of it, and extremely pleased with certain elements of it, some things kind of bothered me.
And so, as with much of the pop culture I love, I want to spend some time with the more critical perspective, in hopes that it’ll be taken as an opportunity to make it even better.
[Promotional image for Star Trek: Picard, featuring all of the series main cast.]
