Dak
mentat
I'd like to read his book. Based on what has been standing out to me about the NT for the last few years, I'm not going to be too difficult a case to convince.
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Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week
- Thread starter Ender Rises
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I'd like to read his book. Based on what has been standing out to me about the NT for the last few years, I'm not going to be too difficult a case to convince.
Prismatic Sphere
We Carouse
Einherjar86
Active Member
The man in that video does not understand what he's talking about.
I don't know any online. I'm reading a book by Steven Johnson called Emergence: the Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software. It offers lots of concise synopses and explications of different studies and other texts on complexity, drawing them together. It reads a bit like journalism rather than theory or philosophy, but Johnson still gets the point across.
I don't know any online. I'm reading a book by Steven Johnson called Emergence: the Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software. It offers lots of concise synopses and explications of different studies and other texts on complexity, drawing them together. It reads a bit like journalism rather than theory or philosophy, but Johnson still gets the point across.
Dak
mentat
Einherjar86
Active Member
Dak
mentat
Yeah someone was posting something similar regarding the "Bell Curve" book in another forum. Facepalmage.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Just so we don't appear to be making baseless accusations:
Jared Taylor entirely misunderstands what intelligence is. He measures it by progress, but this strikes me as little more than Western bias and a conservative reactionary stance against accusations of racism.
All human beings have the same capacity for knowledge; just because African cultures don't use wheels doesn't mean they aren't intelligent enough to invent it, and that kind of understanding is dangerous and very biased. Cultures create and invent based on the relationship they have with their environment, and if conditions do not promote technological development, then this doesn't mean that the people in that environment are naturally less intelligent than others. All it means is that this culture has not experienced the necessity to develop in the same way.
Jared Taylor entirely misunderstands what intelligence is. He measures it by progress, but this strikes me as little more than Western bias and a conservative reactionary stance against accusations of racism.
All human beings have the same capacity for knowledge; just because African cultures don't use wheels doesn't mean they aren't intelligent enough to invent it, and that kind of understanding is dangerous and very biased. Cultures create and invent based on the relationship they have with their environment, and if conditions do not promote technological development, then this doesn't mean that the people in that environment are naturally less intelligent than others. All it means is that this culture has not experienced the necessity to develop in the same way.
Dak
mentat
A major issue for Sub Saharan Africa was relative isolation due to geography and Egypt, meaning it was left out of the flow of ideas via trade and war that occurred in the East/Eurasia/West/North Africa.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Good point, although I also believe that there really is no reason why Sub-Saharan Africa should have developed in the same manner and direction that the Western world did. Development corresponds to the conditional need; it's entirely contingent. The Western world developed the way it did because it experienced the material pressure to do so.
Prismatic Sphere
We Carouse
What he also doesn't address is how governments have destroyed the modern black family to keep their(gov'ts) bogus livelihoods going), the Drug War is the new Jim Crow, etc.
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
Cool, thx. Doesn't Professor Robert Sopolsky have a lecture online about emergence and complexity?
Yeah, here it is. Does this lecture relate?
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Einherjar86
Active Member
Most definitely, I've watched it (I think you originally posted it, actually). I'm really intrigued by emergence theory, mainly because it offers some striking explanations for how complex patterns can "emerge" from remarkable simple processes.
Daniel Dennett also comments on this in relation to consciousness in his book Consciousness Explained. A bit of a presumptuous title, but it's an interesting book; or the chapters that I've read, at least...
Daniel Dennett also comments on this in relation to consciousness in his book Consciousness Explained. A bit of a presumptuous title, but it's an interesting book; or the chapters that I've read, at least...
Prismatic Sphere
We Carouse
Has anybody here read The Origin Of Consciousness In the Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes?
The best and most explanatory work IMO.
The best and most explanatory work IMO.
Einherjar86
Active Member
I have a copy; read portions. Daniel Dennett's work is equally, if not more, explanatory in my opinion.
I find Dennett's disproving of the "Central Meaner" to be particularly interesting.
I find Dennett's disproving of the "Central Meaner" to be particularly interesting.
Prismatic Sphere
We Carouse
Well, since I have read the entire Jaynes book, I think you find it to be even more explanatory when taken as a whole, particularly when you get to the latter chapters on hypnosis and schizophrenia. Jayne's theory is the only thing I have ever read with a viable explanation as to what these two phenomena actually are. Then it really clicked home.
I am also currently reading The Julian Jaynes Collection, released last year, and to this day the evidence supporting Jaynes' Bicameral Theory continues to mount and give further credence to it and it has not been debunked with any success or near-success.
I am also currently reading The Julian Jaynes Collection, released last year, and to this day the evidence supporting Jaynes' Bicameral Theory continues to mount and give further credence to it and it has not been debunked with any success or near-success.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Dennett is very accepting of Jaynes's theory, if I'm not mistaken. I think he disagrees with some of the premises, or evidence, but he finds the theory convincing overall. Speculations on consciousness are just that, so it really becomes assessing arguments based on their internal workings and rationale. Jaynes is a good writer, and the book itself is certainly interesting.
I just find Dennett to be a bit more developed in his approach, less focused on gods and hallucinations and more interested in things we take for granted, like speech, writing, etc.
I just find Dennett to be a bit more developed in his approach, less focused on gods and hallucinations and more interested in things we take for granted, like speech, writing, etc.
Prismatic Sphere
We Carouse
Well I would have to read up on Dennett, of course. But many have taken Jaynes' work to even more ridiculous areas, like Terrance McKenna. Talk about a guy who is out there, he uses psychedelics to talk to aliens. But this Dennett sounds a lot more grounded.
Dak
mentat
NYT: Philosophy's Western Bias
Edit: On that note, reading the opening pages of Neitzsche's "Human, All Too Human" and I'm blown away.
Edit: On that note, reading the opening pages of Neitzsche's "Human, All Too Human" and I'm blown away.
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
I'm surprised that he makes no distinction between analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, and doesn't really make it clear that he is apparently talking about the history of philosophy the entire time.
What exactly were you blown away by?
What exactly were you blown away by?
SentinelSlain
Suck my joined date.
- Nov 21, 2007
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Do people generally say that the Abrahamic religions were ultimately positive for mankind or negative?
