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Category: knowledge modeling

Contributions of embodied realism to ontological questions

Contributions of embodied realism to ontological questions

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This article fortuitously popped up in my email this morning, as we discussed this topic in our online discussion yesterday.  An excerpt from the introduction will explain its relevance. “Emancipation is very much about reducing what Bhaskar calls the demi-real–beliefs and conceptions that do not correspond well with reality.  […] It is not enough to point out the demi-real or systemic biases in reason.  Ameliorating demi-reality involves identifying its sources, i.e. the causal and structural mechanisms that produce it. […]…

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Kuhn: The structure of scientific revolutions

Kuhn: The structure of scientific revolutions

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This excerpt from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Kuhn about paradigms supports my claim that worldviews are transcended and replaced, not included. Kuhn, by the way, got his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard before going into the philosophy of science. “The functions of a paradigm are to supply puzzles for scientists to solve and to provide the tools for their solution. A crisis in science arises when confidence is lost in the ability of the paradigm to solve…

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The geometry of space

The geometry of space

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Following up on this cogsci article, this new article in Nautilus supports the previous work about how spatial motor schemas extend into abstract conceptual mapping. Excerpts: “We, unlike our computers, represent information in geometrical space.[…] The brain represents concepts in the same way that it represents space and your location, by using the same neural circuitry for the brain’s ‘inner GPS.’ […] The hippocampus’ place and grid cells, in other words, map not only physical space but conceptual space. It…

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Winter 2020 discussion prompts

Winter 2020 discussion prompts

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What is humanity’s situation with respect to surviving long-term with a good quality of life? (Frame the core opportunities and obstacles.) What attributes of our evolved, experientially programmed brains contribute to this situation? (What are the potential leverage points for positive change within our body-brain-mind system?) What courses of research and action (including currently available systems, tools, and practices and current and possible lines of R&D) have the potential to improve our (and the planetary life system’s) near- and long-term…

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The dirty secret of capitalism

The dirty secret of capitalism

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And the way forward. Granted it’s not full-blown collaborative commons but more like a healthy social democracy of the kind Sanders promotes and Scandinavia has. But I think it’s a necessary stepping stone on that road. The blurb: “Rising inequality and growing political instability are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory, says entrepreneur Nick Hanauer. In a visionary talk, he dismantles the mantra that ‘greed is good’ — an idea he describes as not only morally corrosive,…

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The Map and the Territory

The Map and the Territory

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Recent book by Wuppulari and Doria. F___ing Amen man. This would be a good one for discussion. From the Intro by Penrose: “Is there a global map that can simulate every other map under some constraint? […] If two maps cannot be integrated, is this a limitation of our scientific cartography or is it the nature of the underlying territory itself that prevents us from such an attempt? […] It is safer to let the gaps remain as gaps while…

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Bezos projects capitalism into space

Bezos projects capitalism into space

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Yes, space exploration is critical but we need to do it for the right reasons. And Bezos and other futurists want it without awareness or regard for the socio-economic system that has created hell on earth. So dump the earth and take our destruction into space? How about we change our worldview and socio-economic system and do it for the right reasons? And invest most of our time, energy and money into saving this world? “The saying ‘it’s easier to…

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What are numbers, really?

What are numbers, really?

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The nature of math came up in our embodied cognition discussion. Here is a presentation by Dehaene on the topic followed by comments from The Reality Club: George Lakoff, Marc Hauser, Jaron Lanier, Rafael Núñez, Margaret Wertheim, Howard Gardner, Joseph Traub, Steven Pinker, Charles Simonyi. A few brief, edited Lakoff excerpts follow from that discussion. Note that this is a discussion from 1997, so a lot of confirming science has happened since then. ” [Dehaene] has made it clear that…

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Should quantum anomalies make us rethink reality?

Should quantum anomalies make us rethink reality?

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Indeed we should according to this recent Scientific American article. One thing I learned from Dennett in his new book is that according to him the scientific image uncovers an objective, underlying reality, while the manifest image is corrupted by our personal ontology. Not so according to quantum mechanics, which operates on the premise that our scientific results themselves are tied to our perceptions and constructed categories, not “a purely objective world out there.” There is a paradigm shift in…

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