Has Modern Science Killed the Essay?
“Thence it happens that nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known, nor are any people so confident as those who tell us fables, such…
“Thence it happens that nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known, nor are any people so confident as those who tell us fables, such…
The left hemisphere of the brain is pragmatic and utilitarian. It has no emotion but language and logic. It deals with inanimate objects and manipulates them for…
Robert Sapolsky’s, Behave, published in 2017, provides evidence that when it comes to moral and social matters, the dorso lateral prefrontal cortex, the “decider” part of the…
To any software engineers out there pondering this issue, there is no solution to the so-called “alignment problem.” This should be instantly obvious to anyone who spends…
Through technology, humans enhance their natural abilities. Consider simple examples, such as glasses or a telescope: these are technologies designed to enhance our ability to see. A…
“Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist; he cannot live without her but he’s unwilling to be seen with her in public.” —J.B.S. Haldane[1] Charles…
While the scientific revolution produced many benefits, the scientific perspective omits purpose and value, without which life is meaningless. With The Matter With Things, Iain McGilchrist makes…
“Logic is to be conceived […] as the realm [Reich] of pure thought. This realm is truth as it is without veil and absolutely. It can therefore…
Has science evolved into technology? This question deserves unpacking. “Science” here refers to a modern variant of rationalism, the “autonomous” one that Edmund Husserl bashed as a…
Iain McGilchrist comments in The Matter With Things that our moral intuitions often cannot survive extremely fanciful hypothetical situations nor imagining counterfactual imputations of omniscience. Our intuitions…
Iain McGilchrist, in The Matter With Things, notes that one conception of God and the divine is that He created by withdrawing, by making a space. This…
“The Robots exact a tribute—a certain tithe of our humanity—to do commerce with them” Prometheus casts an ambiguous figure among the shades of mythic history. While…
Iain McGilchrist is a philosopher, psychiatrist, and neuroscientist with a key interest in brain lateralization, the division of the brain into right and left hemispheres and the…
This article is a continuation of an interaction with a blogger calling himself Robot Philosopher. RP is a polemicist and likes to pepper his arguments with snide…
Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary, and The Matter With Things, is an expert on brain lateralization – the division between the right and…