Ever have the experience of sitting in traffic and believe that you are moving in reverse, only to realize a second later that you were fooled by the vehicle next to you moving forward? You were sitting still, but because you saw something moving away, you mistakenly thought you started to move in the opposite direction. Two different senses may be at work here: your sight and your balance. Lets assume that your balance did […]
Category: science
links, cause even though
i’m at the end of the internet, you may not be. Animal of the Month: NYC Pimp What a Pimp Reads – New York Times Blog “What sort of person subjects children as young as 12 to beatings and a life of prostitution? An evidence list submitted in the case of Corey Davis, a Queens man who billed himself as “Magnificent,” might provide some insight. Mr. Davis, 36, is facing a minimum of 23 years […]
Links, lanks, lunks
Animal of the Month: Black Grouse Get the Flash Player to see this player. Wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson chooses his top 10 bird songs via plump plum – some other of plump’s goodness: Nabokov on Lolita (part 2) [6m], Frank Zappa on Crossfire [21m] Wu Tang Clan Ain’t Nothin to Fuck With[3m]… at Chess [4m]: Apparently RZA is also a chess champion besides being one of the best rappers. Google News: ahh if only […]
Monty Hall Update
I wrote out an example playing of the Monty Hall Problem in Independence Friendly Logic as a game of incomplete information and appended it to my post here. I also left an extended comment on Dependence Logic vs. Independence Friendly Logic about some of the tribulations encountered as a non-academic trying to get my grubby little hands on obscure logic papers.
The Monty Hall Problem
[check out my more recent Monty Redux for, perhaps, a clearer exposition] The Monty Hall Problem illustrates an unusual phenomenon of changing probabilities based upon someone else’s knowledge. On the game-show Let’s Make a Deal the host, Monty Hall, asks the contestant to choose one of three possibilities – Door One, Two or Three – with one door leading to a prize and the other two leading to goats. After the contestant selects a door, […]
Solved Philosophy
I was reading the philo-blogs and today (7 March) Richard Brown has taken issue with Richard Chappell’s Examples of Solved Philosophy. Brown holds that there is no such thing as solved philosophy (or problems are “only solved from a theoretical standpoint” and hence “involve substantial begging the question”), whereas Chappell happily provides examples that “are at least as well-established as most scientific results.” Now there is something to be said for both sides: Brown is […]
Computers, Intelligence and the Embodied Mind
This interview with Hubert Dreyfus (just the parts about computers: part 1, part 2. via Continental Philosophy) briefly outlines one of the major criticisms leveled against artificial intelligence: computers will never be intelligent because our intelligence is based upon our physical interactions in and with the world. Very briefly, our intelligence is fundamentally tied to our bodies because it is only through our bodies do we have any interaction with the world. If we separate […]
On The Scientific View of the World
Many people have a “scientific” view of the world. This means that the world operates according to the laws of science, i.e., there are no mysterious forces that cannot be explained by some combination of physics, biology, psychology, economics etc. It is a mistaken view. The scientific view of the world can be summarized by this formulation: S) The world is governed by science if and only if, given a specified way things are at […]
Consciousness Dilemma
I watched Dan Dennett’s Ted Talk “Can We Know Our Own Minds” yesterday and it reminded me of a problem I had with the study of consciousness. I am convinced a solution cannot be written down or said. Assume someone knows what consciousness/mind/divine spark/what-you-will is. If someone knows something, then it is part of their consciousness. If someone knows what consciousness is, then the consciousness has a part that contains consciousness. Therefore someone has a […]
Why Intelligent Design Is Correct
Darwinian Evolution is a theory of Intelligent Design. Darwin argues for Natural Selection by starting with ‘Artificial Selection’, a theory of Intelligent Design. When Artificial Selection is generalized to Natural Selection Darwin is entirely cognizant of and makes no attempt to remove the elements of intelligent design embedded in the theory. In fact, he recognizes that these elements of intelligent design are what make evolution by natural selection so compelling and he specifically exploits them […]