4 ms·

The Normal Well-tempered Mind

15 points by jamesbritt 14y ago

stephengillie 14y ago
I like the idea of individual neurons as competing for resources. I wonder how economic supply and demand will be applied. Will marketers start using demographics like "People with a 55% to 80% neuron-approval of using our product instead of the leading competitor"? The "cultural treasures" model seems to be analogous to our physical "treasures", where few families pass down anything because all our treasures are easily replaceable. Also, it seems ripe for a contrast to Sturgeon's Law [1]. I don't understand the part about free will at all, probably because I've never really been interested in philosophy. Any illumination would be appreciated. In watching my friends' Facebook posts, most involving "god", "Jesus", or religion in some way are using it as a simplification of: probability, specific friends and family, high-level abstract concepts, or other parts of reality which are difficulty to process or hard to enumerate. Additionally, a non-real person, such as Mickey Mouse, is guaranteed a certain level of respectability, as he'll never be arrested for driving drunk home from the club. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeons_Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeons_Law
- naner 14y ago
  Some of Dennet's science buddies have set their sights on tackling the apparent lack of evidence for 'free will' and this appears to cause problems with the philosopher in Dennet. There's a (probably biased) summary of Dennet's position on free will at the top: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/free-will-and-free-will http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/free-will-and-free-will If you want to get the gist of Harris's argument, this review might suffice: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/books/review/free-will-by-sam-harris.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/books/review/free-will-by-...
IsaacL 14y ago
This has to be one of the most fascinating articles I've read in a long time.

15 points by jamesbritt 14y ago

I like the idea of individual neurons as competing for resources. I wonder how economic supply and demand will be applied. Will marketers start using demographics like "People with a 55% to 80% neuron-approval of using our product instead of the leading competitor"? The "cultural treasures" model seems to be analogous to our physical "treasures", where few families pass down anything because all our treasures are easily replaceable. Also, it seems ripe for a contrast to Sturgeon's Law [1]. I don't understand the part about free will at all, probably because I've never really been interested in philosophy. Any illumination would be appreciated. In watching my friends' Facebook posts, most involving "god", "Jesus", or religion in some way are using it as a simplification of: probability, specific friends and family, high-level abstract concepts, or other parts of reality which are difficulty to process or hard to enumerate. Additionally, a non-real person, such as Mickey Mouse, is guaranteed a certain level of respectability, as he'll never be arrested for driving drunk home from the club. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeons_Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeons_Law

naner 14y ago
Some of Dennet's science buddies have set their sights on tackling the apparent lack of evidence for 'free will' and this appears to cause problems with the philosopher in Dennet. There's a (probably biased) summary of Dennet's position on free will at the top: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/free-will-and-free-will http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/free-will-and-free-will If you want to get the gist of Harris's argument, this review might suffice: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/books/review/free-will-by-sam-harris.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/books/review/free-will-by-...

IsaacL 14y ago

This has to be one of the most fascinating articles I've read in a long time.