21
POPSAccording to Popper According to Popper, a science without limits or imperfections or fixable flaws isn't science: it's metaphysics. In this sense, the end goal of science - the construction of a perfect mirror to reality - isn't just unrealistic: it's also unscientific.
30
POPSThe Duplicates Paradox Personal identity is perceived as continuous through time. Yet this perception cannot be instantaneous, and must be based on memory. Given the fact that memories can be forgotten, altered or even fabricated, the question arises as to whether memories are essential for personal identity. Certainly no specific memory seems necessary for identity, but a perception of a continuity of the memory process is often believed to be. Subjective experience involves not just memory, but thoughts, desires, feelings and personality. Even when subjectivity is focused on the "outside world", this focus necessarily has a point of view. Any attempt to describe personal identity impersonally will lose an essential element. A self has both sensation and will.
18
POPSI am a transhumanist, thanks I say, fear not. If you have clearly transhumanist beliefs, like the notion that human enhancement is coming in the next few decades and will be a big deal, then don’t be afraid to call yourself one. As Dr. Wittgenstein, one of my favorite philosophers ever, used to argue, words are just labels we fill with our own content. To think that a word has any inherent meaning aside from its use in language is absurd.
9
POPSQuestioning Consciousness What we should be doing instead is trying to explain just how we have been set up—and why. 1. What exactly is the real-world brain activity that we are engaging with when we say a sensation is like something? 2. Why does this activity have the (tricky) properties it has, such that our experience of it is seemingly something so strangely private, not of this world, and indescribable in common terms? 3. What makes this trick work? How is it done? 4. What is the point? Why was it designed like this? What might have been the evolutionary advantage of our having these marvelous experiences? I believe we can already propose plausible answers to each of these questions—although they are all quite radical. Here they are.
14
POPS Self models There is no such thing as a substantial self (as a distinct ontological entity, which could in principle exist by itself), but only a dynamic, ongoing process creating very specific representational and functional properties. Self-consciousness is a form of physically realized representational content
20
POPSDYNAMIC OPTIMISM Unimaginably vast in scope and complexity, reality cannot be fully recognized at any one time. a worthwhile read
6
POPSDuelity Just go to http://www.duelity.net/ & click "watch". There are three short movies.
27
POPSIntimacy In A Fluid World FM-2030 was a name adopted by the transhumanist philosopher and futurist Fereidoun M. Esfandiary (October 15, 1930–July 8, 2000), who professed "a deep nostalgia for the future."
13
POPSReport on Resistentialism Resistentialism, a sombre, post-atomic philosophy of pagan, despairing nobility, advocates complete withdrawal from Things..;-)
10
POPSWHAT IS LIFE? Life complies with the disciplines of the General System but is differentiated by the Natural Reproductive discipline.
8
POPS'Semantic' website promises to organise your e-life Although only available to only about a 100 testers, Twine has caused a stir among web experts because it is one of the first few commercial ventures to try harnessing the semantic web. Other semantic start-ups include the search engines Powerset and True Knowledge, and a free semantic database service called Freebase.
5
POPSREGARDING A NEW HUMANISM "This convention is responsible—and has been denounced by Buddha and David Hume alike—for committing the fallacy of believing in the mind's existence when the only thing we can be certain of is the existence of mental acts."
6
POPSSciTalks SciTalks collects talks and lectures by scientists on a variety of topics.
20
POPSAsk the Atheist This site was created to provide a resource for people who are curious about atheism and to counter some misunderstandings about this way of looking at the world
Newest Clips
see Newest Clips
3
Latest Pops
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Tags
Print
Save
Turn on live update