History Imaginaries in Science 13 Sep 202413 Sep 2024 I wrote a thing. I started out skeptical, but ended up convincing myself that “imaginaries” is a good concept. I am annoyed by this. Continue Reading
Philosophy New book on Land Ethics 7 Aug 20247 Aug 2024 A friend and colleague, Roberta L. Millstein, who is emerit at UC Davis, has published a new book: The Land Is Our Community: Aldo Leopold’s Environmental Ethic for the New Millennium, which is available from The University of Chicago Press here. She defends Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic. The publisher’s blurb:… Continue Reading
Logic and philosophy Vale Michael Ghiselin 17 Jun 202424 Jun 2024 Michael Ghiselin, who was the originator of (the modern) view that species are individuals, died on 14 June 2024. He was a very generous person with his time for antipodean philosophers. With his passing, the authors of the SAI thesis, as it is called, are both gone: he and his… Continue Reading
Logic and philosophy A quote from Lewis Carroll 11 Jun 202411 Jun 2024 Well, it’s actually from Charles Dodgson’s The Game of Logic 1887: The world contains many Things (such as “Buns”, “Babies”, “Beetles”, “Battledores”, &c.) ; and the Things possess many Attributes (such as “baked”, “beautiful”, “black”, “broken”, &c: in fact, whatever can be “attributed to”, that is “said to belong to”,… Continue Reading
Biology Aware is finished. Now for something different 14 May 202414 May 2024 So I finished presenting the book Aware on my substack, which will now ferment in my bottom drawer (metaphorically) until it ripens. While that is happening I am preparing to edit some nineteenth century sources for discussions of classification, taxonomy, species, higher and lower taxa, and many other subjects. Does… Continue Reading
Australian stuff A local talk 15 Mar 202415 Mar 2024 HPS book celebration at the University of Melbourne Continue Reading
Book Aware updates 20 Feb 202420 Feb 2024 Oops, I forgot to post links to my latest chapters of Aware on Substack: Desires Morals and Values There are perhaps two chapters and a conclusion to come. Continue Reading
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Aware: Free Will 21 Dec 202330 May 2024 Physics and neurons, basically Are freewill and determinism incompatible? Is there even a conflict?See my Substack for further information Continue Reading
Cognition Aware: Upload 9 Nov 202330 May 2024 But, not bit… Why we will never be saved in computers One of the more common posthumanist themes is that we can download ourselves into a computer matrix of some kind (and indeed that we may even be in a matrix) and live forever (or until the matrix dies). As a thought… Continue Reading