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Monthly Archives: October 2010
David Chalmers on Hard v. Soft Emergence with Regard to Consciousness
David Chalmers discusses hard v. soft emergence and why consciousness falls into the former category:
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Tagged atheism, brain, cognitive science, david chalmers, dualism, emergence, God, materialism, mind, philosophy, qualia
1 Comment
Spectres of Reality or the Reality of Spectres?
Shane McCorristine’s new book on ghosts titled Spectres of the Self: Thinking about Ghosts and Ghost-Seeing in England, 1750-1920 (Cambridge 2010) receives a good review from Jonathan Barnes in The Times of London: What interests McCorristine about these alleged outbreaks of the paranormal is … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheists, books, consciousness, david chalmers, ghosts, God, mind, psychology, spectres, spirit
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The Heart of Dante Alighieri
If you’ve never read Dante Alighieri, the following is written as an enticement for you to consider doing so. A Key Dante Biographical Data Point Dante was born in Florence in 1265, but he did not die there. In fact, … Continue reading
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Tagged beauty, Blake, dante, hell, Keats, life, love, poetry, Sophocles, The Divine Comedy, the inferno
2 Comments
A Good Jerry Brown Ad
I love California. I love Jerry Brown.
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Tagged America, California, economy, green jobs, jerry brown, meg whitman, Politics, yes we can
7 Comments
A God Delusion: Josh Timonen v. Richard Dawkins
One sad aspect of the lawsuit recently filed against Josh Timonen by Richard Dawkins is the way that it has inadvertently played out the atheist script generally: reduce an ontological mystery (a mystery of being) to a mere problem or function for rational … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, delusion, God, josh timonen, love, materialism, psychology, qualia, reductionism, Richard Dawkins
9 Comments
Qualia Defined
Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), admirably explains what philosophers and neuroscientists mean when they talk about qualia:
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Tagged brain, cognition, color, consciousness, love, perception, philosophy, psychology, qualia, self
1 Comment
Agnosticism and Marketing
At Marginal Revolution today, economist Tyler Cowen was asked about whether there are some especially good economic ideas out there that are hard to popularize, and his answer led to a brief digression on complexity and agnosticism: [I]t is hard to popularize … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, economics, green, marketing, memes, money, psychology, rhetoric
1 Comment
Dr. David Jeremiah’s El Cajon, California
This morning I heard on the radio a megachurch pastor by the name of Dr. David Jeremiah say some really wild things (even by fundamentalist standards). A description of what I heard him say in his sermon is here. Anyway, his megachurch is … Continue reading
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Tagged California, Christianity, david jeremiah, el cajon, fundamentalism, Jesus, megachurches, suburbia, towns, UFOs
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A Stomp is Not an Argument: Rand Paul Supporters Tear a Wig off a Woman, Drag Her to the Ground, Then One of The Crowd Stomps on Her Head
Rand Paul supporters show their respect for Western liberal democracy, freedom of expression, and a woman’s right to approach Rand Paul: Message: Total message control. Don’t ever, ever approach Rand Paul. Ever. ——————- UPDATE: Here’s the unedited AP clip of the … Continue reading
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Tagged a gun is not an argument, Ayn Rand, conservatives, freedom of speech, kentucky, liberals, libertarianism, mobs, objectivism, rand paul, wigs, women's rights
8 Comments
The God Conclusion v. The God Delusion: Keith Ward Tries to Tackle Richard Dawkins
Philosopher Keith Ward has probably written the best book attempting to counter the antitheist claims in Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin 2008). Ward’s book is titled Why There Almost Certainly is a God: Doubting Dawkins (Lion 2008), and on page 11 … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, God, Islam, Jesus, Judaism, materialism, matter, mind, philosophy, psychology, religion, Richard Dawkins
3 Comments
For the Trapped Chilean Miners, Maria Campillay Heeded an Inner Call
In the Los Angeles Times last weekend, a worker at Camp Hope was profiled. Her name is Maria Campillay: Maria Campillay? She’s a social worker in the neighboring town of Caldera who took an indefinite and unpaid leave from her government … Continue reading
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Tagged belief, chilean miners, Dante's Inferno, hell, love, Maria Campillay, psychology, solidarity
11 Comments
Adam and Eve and White Racism
When white Evangelicals and fundamentalists show picture books to their children depicting Adam and Eve and all the early humans (such as Noah) as white, it is no different from Afrocentrists teaching their kids that all great Egyptians were black, and … Continue reading
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Tagged africa, afrocentrism, apologetics, God, history, Jesus, John Macarthur, Mesopotamia, psychology, racism, san bushmen
17 Comments
William Dembski: Noah’s Flood May Have Been Global
At Panda’s Thumb Jack Krebs has an interesting post on the famous IDer, William Dembski, and his apparent drift towards belief in young earth creationism, including the idea that Noah’s Flood was a global historical event. Krebs, for example, quotes William Dembski recently … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, evolution, fundamentalism, Genesis, geology, intelligent design, noah's flood, religion, science, william dembski
2 Comments
Total Message Control Solution #1: Just Handcuff Any Journalist Who Asks Questions That You Don’t Want to Answer
Total message control (that is, the Palin model) was on disturbing display on Sunday in Alaska. This from Glenn Greenwald: [P]rivate “guards” working for GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller forcibly detained and handcuffed a journalist as he tried to ask the candidate questions … Continue reading
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Tagged Alaska, authoritarianism, conservatism, free speech, journalism, Politics, rush limbaugh, tea partiers, tony hopfinger
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Once a University Lecturer and Atheist, Father Lazarus El Anthony Talks about Being an Anchorite
Lazarus El Anthony was a university lecturer in literature and philosophy in Australia, an atheist of 40 years and a Marxist. Then his mother died. And he entered the desert. And:
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Tagged anchorites, atheism, atheist, Egypt, God, Jesus, life, mothers, philosophy, psychology, the desert, thoreau
8 Comments
Why Do Super Brainiacs Drink More Alcohol Than the Rest of Us?
It appears that super smart people tend to be bigger consumers of alcohol than average and dull people, and Andrew Sullivan has an armchair theory for why this is the case: It’s what Oakeshott called “the ordeal of consciousness.” When you have … Continue reading
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Tagged alcohol, atheism, Ayn Rand, brains, critical thinking, hypotheses, hypothesis testing, intelligence, IQ, Karl Marx, orson welles, wine
14 Comments
The Source of the Moral Life
Love. A righteous outrage at encountering something ugly and unjust or a response to something beautiful that captures the heart. An epiphany. Like this:
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Tagged atheism, atheist, God, life, love, morality, religion
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Damon Linker Owns the New Atheists
Damon Linker, a contributor to the New Republic, is, to my mind, one of the more insightful writers on religion and irreligion writing in the United States today. In a recent interview with The Economist, Linker offers what I can only describe … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheists, Camus, damon linker, freedom, jerry coyne, new atheism, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Socrates, Voltaire
17 Comments
Prometheus Unbound 