I’m a 3QD Philosophy Prize semifinalist 12 Sep 201122 Jun 2018 You no longer can vote for me, but I made the cut for this post on phenomena, so I think you should go read some cool philosophy posts while we wait for the editors to pick six entries to send to Pat Churchland for a final judgement… So, this being the closest thing to any kind of award I have ever received, I must show this badge: Administrative Philosophy
Administrative Marking time… 10 Mar 201221 Jun 2018 It’s been a busy week (and a painful one: I advise my students to avoiding being old if they can and gout is one reason why – right: gout. This past fortnight has been extremely unpleasant). We are in what we can only hope is the final phase of negotiating… Read More
Biology Thermodynamics, and the origin of replicators 14 Mar 2010 Over at Discover, Sean Carroll has a nice post on thermodynamics, free energy and the origins of life. It’s a good intro, but in the course of it he remarks: Obviously there is a lot missing to this story, and much of it is an absence of complete understanding on… Read More
Someone by the name of John Wilkins made a document titled A deflationary account of information in biology openly available on the web. I’ve been out of touch with research and the literature for 15+ years now. Perhaps I wasn’t very good when I was more deeply involved . Nevertheless … I am fascinated by the concept ‘biological Information’. It has been my more or less, on and off preoccupied theme-of-interest for several decades. (Seeking out Lila Gatlin’s work on the information content of DNA is what lead me to finding Wilkins’s manuscript.) Your manuscript holds me speechless sir. Even though I cannot bring myself to read it at the present moment because it is immediately strongly emotive and confusing. …. too much so to be useful for me … Despite all such, I immediately saw that document as touching upon and addressing, many if not all of the pertinent and essential qualities of ‘information’ and it’s relationship to biological process. Notwithstanding my own limited scholarship and dated knowledge … I cannot recall any other author or ‘theoretical biologist’ matching your complete and explicitly targeted engagement. That achievement of recognizing and engaging all that is prominent and appropriate is a sufficient and remarkable achievement, in and of by itself. You have earned my admiration. Thank you
I was over in Europe while this was going on, and am still trying to catch up with the Internet. When I have time (which may be before or after I am dead), I intend to read all 37 nominees for the prize so that I can find out which I would have voted for if I had voted, so that I can tell you, so that you can cast aspersions upon my sanity for my poor taste. Meanwhile I’m also reading the copy of “Lucian: Selected Dialogues” that I bought at the British Library (actually, my bookmark has been sitting patiently at page 74 for some time now). My comment so far is that the poor guy would have been a far better writer if only someone had had the foresight to lend him some Pratchett.