Patrick Julius's Blog, page 4
July 8, 2013
What is cultural authenticity?
JDN 2456482 EDT 10:27.
This past weekend I spent driving around northern Michigan with my boyfriend, visiting his hometown of Petoskey and then going even further north for a pow-wow in Sault Ste Marie. I'm worn out from the packed schedule and long hours of driving, but here I am going to work all the same.
I was struck—and honestly, disappointed—by the way the pow-wow seemed somehow... inauthentic. The mix of modern polyester t-shirts and awkward facsimiles of traditional...
June 26, 2013
Mind over Matter: What was the problem again?
A lot of skeptics and rationalists are very, well, skeptical about the idea of “mind over matter”, the idea that the mind can influence the brain and techniques such as meditation, biofeedback, and visualization can have real somatic effects.
They do so even in the face of documented evidence that mental techniques and psychotherapy can be effective in the treatment of not only depression and anxiety (which seems obvious) but also pain after surgery, migraine, fibromyalgia, prostate cancer, he...
Mind over Matter: What was the problem again?
A lot of skeptics and rationalists are very, well, skeptical about the idea of "mind over matter", the idea that the mind can influence the brain and techniques such as meditation, biofeedback, and visualization can have real somatic effects.
They do so even in the face of documented evidence that mental techniques and psychotherapy can be effective in the treatment of not only depression and anxiety (which seems obvious) but also pain after surgery, migraine, fibromyalgia, prostate cancer, h...
June 19, 2013
Clearly not the best popular book in cognitive economics
JDN 2456462 EDT 14:41.
I must respectfully disagree with the reviewer at Nature; Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini’s Inevitable Illusions is not “the best popular book in this field”. That title lies squarely on the shoulders of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. (His name takes a long time to write, so I shall abbreviate it MPP.)
Inevitable Illusions is decent, satisfactory; and maybe when it was written in 1994 it really was the best popular book available. But some of MPP’s explanations a...
Clearly not the best popular book in cognitive economics
JDN 2456462 EDT 14:41.
I must respectfully disagree with the reviewer at Nature; Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini's Inevitable Illusions is not "the best popular book in this field". That title lies squarely on the shoulders of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. (His name takes a long time to write, so I shall abbreviate it MPP.)
Inevitable Illusions is decent, satisfactory; and maybe when it was written in 1994 it really was the best popular book available. But some of MPP's expla...
June 7, 2013
Jerry Coyne is apparently a logical positivist.
JDN 2456451 EDT 14:00.
This is vaguely embarrassing, since logical positivism is a discredited position that is not at all necessary for scientific realism.
But from this blog post on Why Evolution is True, it’s clear that all the following are believed by Coyne:
Science is based upon verifiable evidence.
Logic, mathematics, and philosophy are not about the external world.
Morality is subjective.
This is pretty much classic logical positivism. Proposition 1, about verifiable evidence, isn’t quite r...
Jerry Coyne is apparently a logical positivist.
JDN 2456451 EDT 14:00.
This is vaguely embarrassing, since logical positivism is a discredited position that is not at all necessary for scientific realism.
But from this blog post on Why Evolution is True, it's clear that all the following are believed by Coyne:
Science is based upon verifiable evidence.
Logic, mathematics, and philosophy are not about the external world.
Morality is subjective.
This is pretty much classic logical positivism. Proposition 1, about verifi...
June 6, 2013
A boring story in a fascinating world
JDN 2456450 EDT 20:40
A review of Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
The bad: The characters are flat and uninteresting, and often die unceremoniously, sometimes before we even get to know them. The plot is linear and centers around a ‘mystery’ that was never that mysterious, and doesn’t even get resolved. The prose is needlessly flowery and often includes long digressions into quasi-poetic forms that are clearly meant to be confusing, often with no good reason to be confusing. The text often re...
A boring story in a fascinating world
JDN 2456450 EDT 20:40
A review of Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
The bad: The characters are flat and uninteresting, and often die unceremoniously, sometimes before we even get to know them. The plot is linear and centers around a 'mystery' that was never that mysterious, and doesn't even get resolved. The prose is needlessly flowery and often includes long digressions into quasi-poetic forms that are clearly meant to be confusing, often with no good reason to be confusing. T...
May 29, 2013
To do a history of science, ask a historian who is also a scientist
JDN 2456442 EDT 15:48.
A review of How Experiments End by Peter Galison
It seems so obvious in hindsight, but most things do. If you want a really good history of science, you need a historian who is also a scientist. Galison fits the bill; he has PhDs in both physics and history. How Experiments End is, as such, the finest history of science I've ever read.
Unlike most historians who write about science, Galison has the proper respect for science. He appreciates how reason and evidence reall...
