Categories
Sideblog
Glossary of free-will debate terms
#
How to subscribe to LDS-Herm. An LDS theology and continental philosophy mailing list.
#
Economics and utilitarianism
#
The new Philosopher's Carnival is up.
#
On the Null set
#
The book Shopping for God and Mormonism. Interesting discussion in the comments.
#
FPR on John's account of Christmas is Revelation. I bring up 1 Ne 11 which is tied to Rev 12.
#
FPR on Myth analysis and Mormonism. I tend to take the poststructuralist skepticism although I confess I have a lot of myth-criticism books on my shelf.
#
Against Evolutionary Psychology explanations of women with narrow waists and big hips. EP in my view oversimplifies things and produces "just so" explanations. I honestly can't figure out why they are so popular in the press.
#
Should cousins be banned from marrying? Would anyone want to anymore? For some reason I always think of rural areas where people have lived stably for a long time with little outflow or inflow of populations. Where is that true now?
#
Razib on the follies of economics. I don't know enough to say much beyond noticing that many economic majors have horrible math skills. Not all do of course. But when math is such a big part of modeling it always left me with heavy skepticism towards the profession. Undoubtedly unfairly so since there are many very well versed in math and statistics. I'm also skeptical of the "rational actor" model that is behind so much.
#
... the production of spontaneous facial expressions of emotion is not dependent on observational learning but simultaneously demonstrates a learned component to the social management of expressions... (HT: Gene Expression) Not that surprising all things considered. I suspect most human phenomena ends up being about 50-50 learned vs. wired. But there's still a lot of folks who push the nurture basis way too much.
#
Happiness and those around you. Argues your happiness doesn't depend upon your friends.
#
Reading Burn After Reading. Coen meet Freud.
#
Public vs. Public Morality
#
Vallicella on Eliminative Materialism. Also see his post on what Eliminative Materialism is.
#
Richard refutes Anselm. I think just thinking through all the ways to refute the ontological argument are interesting. It's an excellent problem to think through. I like Kant's existence is not a property approach best. Marion also has a discussion about whether the ontological argument is ontological at all. I'm not sure I agree with Marion (on numerous things) but it is interesting.
#
Far Side reenactments (HT: BCC)
#
What is the Mormon answer to the meaning of life? I always took us as more Nietzschean than Utilitarian. That is I think happiness isn't the meaning of life but merely something we obtain while pursuing it.
#
Nauvoo polygamy. Fantastic discussion that made me reconsider several things. (Although the trolls come in after a while) Also a the earlier post on the same which has some great comments as well.
#
FPR on the Divine Council in Hebrew literature.
#
Brains and spirituality. Or why discovering cognitive units for spirituality should be expected and not be shocking to the religious person.
#
Intuitions of free will. Not at all unexpectedly different people have different intuitions.
#
The Sorites paradox and non-standard arithmetic. Great post. This issue of vagueness is one of my favorite philosophical topics.
#
Volokh makes the case that voters of both parties are ignorant. The scariest thing about our democracy is how elections are rarely decided on the issues.
#
More Entries

Breakthrough in Biofuels

Breakthrough in biofuel. Process turns sawdust into fuel.

Bubble Fusion Misconduct

Misconduct by bubble fusion researcher

The Rational Voter

The Rational Voter. Voters aren’t rational. They are rationalizers. Which always makes one wonder about democracy.

Intelligent Design @ Mormon Organon

The Mormon Organon on ID again. Money quotes. “I know of no member of BYU’s Biology department that thinks ID is a good idea.” “Alan Templeton said, ‘If you want to see how to integrate science and religion, look to BYU, they do it right.’”

Politics of Energy

Even though oil prices are dropping pretty significantly this week I suspect the days of cheap oil are over. While I’m no fan of McCain I think one has to acknowledge he’s really taken the bull by the horns. (See, for instance these posts by Framing Science where even Democratic operatives think McCain [...]

Video Games

An other way video games help you. They’re still largely a big waste of time . . . unlike blogging. (grin)

Americans Highly Scientifically Literate?

Americans among the most scientifically literate? Wow. I’m surprised although this bares out my thesis that European ‘pro-science’ attitudes arise as much out of ignorance as some American ‘anti-science’ ones. (i.e. support of evolution or stem cell research) As ever surveys like this are limited in what they actually measure.

Overplaying the AIDS Genes

Razib on the media overplaying the AIDS gene. Is it just me or is the media completely unable to deal with science reporting? (In general that is. Some outlets like NPR do quite well) Also see his post on evolution and African AIDS.

Dynamic Systems Theory

Splintered Mind on Dynamic Systems Theory or thinking of minds as events and not objects. Sounds roughly like Peirce’s conception of thought as general semiotics and everything ’stable’ as habits.

War Over?

Strategy Page on whether the war is over. Basically agrees with everyone else although it sees this as more a return to status quo. And Bush had portrayed something much more as achievable. (Which was stupid on his part)

Iraq War Over?

Is the Iraq War all but over? A response to embedded journalist Michael Yon’s bold claim. I’m not sure it’s completely over. But I think the point of our responsibility is swiftly coming to an end.

Self-Defense and Heller

Does the Supreme Court’s Heller decision entail a right to self-defense? It’ll be interesting seeing all the lawsuits that will come to the court over the next 10 years due to Heller.

SR & the Block Universe

There were two posts on relativity and the block universe in this week’s carnival. “How SR Thwarts Eternalism” at Soul Physics and “Relativity and the Present” at The Real World. Both tend to go against the view that relativity entails a block universe. For probably the strongest counterview see Peterson and Silberstein [...]

Footnotes

Use MarsEdit for Blogging? Here’s how to automate footnotes. I suspect I’ll be using this here in the days to come combined with iKey.

Latest Philosopher’s Carnival

Latest Philosopher’s Carnival. I’ve not had time to read through this one yet.

« go back — keep looking »

Quote of the Moment
Search

Categories

Sideblog