Alva Noë talks about why we are not our brains

The extended mind is an interesting theory of consciousness and cognition that attempts to reshape the way we look at what it means to be human. Does they mind end at our meaty borders? Can palm-pilots become external modules of the mind? I’m not so sure if there is much about the theory that is explanatorily interesting, but it is fun to think about nonetheless.

Brave police officers take down monster

Yep, a five-year-old’s pet chihuahua:

Two policemen herded Jack onto the family’s front porch and had the dog cornered when it allegedly bit the officer 26 times on both hands and left a tooth embedded in his flesh.

Police then tasered the 2.3kg dog before shooting it three times.
Source

Protect and serve!

GFP reading group

The paper is here; the discussion is over here.
I’ll be in St. Louis for the next few days (I’m pro-dating this post), so I’ll try to add some of my thoughts when I get back. Well, as long as I have any 🙂

Russell on mind and matter

A stone at the top of a hill may start rolling, but it shows no pertinacity in trying to get to the bottom. Any ledge or obstacle will stop it, and it will exhibit no signs of discontent if this happens. It is not attracted by the pleasantness of the valley, as the sheep or cow might be, but propelled by the steepness of the hill at the place where it is. In all this we have characteristic differences between the behaviour of animals and the behaviour of matter as studied by physics.

B. Russell, The Analysis of Mind, p. 14.

I think Russell’s point is important to remember when doing consciousness studies: no matter what your view of ultimate or foundational reality is, there is a prima facie difference between brains that act for reasons and the brute mechanics of dumb matter. This either needs to be explained or explained away, but either way it needs to be accounted for.

Sojourners does it again

These guys really are disgusting. Today’s entry:

Pray that access to child care, Early Head Start, and Head Start will be expanded for low-income families.

How they can whore the Church for their petty (and questionable) political convictions is beyond me. The pretentiousness of the “God’s Politics” people never ceases to amaze me.

Schiff on the Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Peter Schiff
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Newt Gingrich Unedited Interview

Excellent exchange.

Rorty and Davidson

I’ve never been swayed by Rorty’s philosophy; some of it is interesting and much of it is fluff. Still, one ought to read the Mirror of Nature at some point in their philosophical adventure. His partner in discussion is the admirable Donald Davidson, whose Actions, Reasons and Causes is one of the most influential papers in the second half of the 20th century. Unfortunately, their styles are entirely too thick to be very constructive.

“God’s Politics”

I’ve had enough contact with “Jim Wallis and friends” to finally find some motivation to rant. If you don’t know anything about “Sojourners” do a quick look down the topics off to the side or look at Wallis’ spate of political books on Amazon. As a non-partisan myself, you’d think I’d find some common ground with “God is not a Republican” guy. Nuh-uh. This guy is non-partisan like Barney Frank is non-pedophile. But that isn’t the worst of it; he actively spouts limp-wristed bullshit in such a passive-aggressive manner that it’s hard to glean a point from his ramblings. Wallis is an enemy of clarity, and perhaps worse. Peruse some of the topics on his blog:

To Hell with Human Trafficking. There, I Said It.
Wow, how brave of you. Will you take on murder and jaywalking next?

Sotomayor: She Deserves Respect
Oh bother, she doesn’t deserve anything like respect. And since when does the clergy start demanding respect for government officials? That’s always gone well, hasn’t it? What’s worse, though, is that the author doesn’t actually say anything. To summarize the post: Sonia Sotomayor is a judge, and she should get respect; also, Limbaugh and Huckleberry suck.

The Poor Can Lead the Charge
I actually giggled a bit here. The confusion of the bullshitting “non-partisan” hackery only compounds when they attempt to formulate and criticize solutions to real problems that real people face. For example:

The lack of property rights is one of many obstacles facing rural entrepreneurs, who make up most of the world’s poor. They know those obstacles best, but they lack the political presence to advocate for their removal. Giving rural entrepreneurs a larger political presence is not a typical focus for international development or social justice. The drivers of such transformation are membership-based business organizations such as local chambers of commerce — organizations not usually associated with eradicating poverty but that are vital to developing institutions (such as a centralized title registry) that will unlock the great wealth that the poor already have.

No; attempting to empower local governments has never worked as a solution. In fact, once could argue that by increasing the govt.’s ability to stave off outside investments is actually incompatible with property rights. What those people ought to do is throw off the chains of their interest-group-driven representatives and do what they would with their land. Men aren’t entitled to wealth, and a bureaucrat isn’t entitled to make decisions for someone else. Oh, it gets better:

I’m the Older Brother
This actually disgusted me. Here is his opener:

When it comes to President Obama’s stimulus package and its provisions to help those Americans who are having great difficulty paying their home mortgages, I have come to realize that I’m like the older brother in the story of the Prodigal Son.

This isn’t Christian, Tony Campolo; it’s opportunistic, partisan religious-jingoism. Try and wed the Gospel to Obama’s recovery plan all you want. I’m not buying.

Stem Cells cure blindness

I thought this was interesting.

I finally made the leap…

From the horrid Bloglines to Google Reader. Constant bugs and strange coding issues nearly drove me off the cliff of insanity, but after some hours I was able to move my massive library of subscriptions over to the highly-functional Google utility. Good riddance.