Free Will Reconsidered

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“If people freak at evolution, etc.,” he wrote in an e-mail message, “how much more will they freak if scientists and philosophers tell them they are nothing more than sophisticated meat machines, and is that conclusion now clearly warranted or is it premature?”

-- Dennis Overbye for The New York Times

For those who never tire of the Free Will question, this is a must article.

xXx

Free Will Reconsidered

♠
“If people freak at evolution, etc.,” he wrote in an e-mail message, “how much more will they freak if scientists and philosophers tell them they are nothing more than sophisticated meat machines, and is that conclusion now clearly warranted or is it premature?”

-- Dennis Overbye for The New York Times

For those who never tire of the Free Will question, this is a must article.

xXx

Causality and the Human

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Picking up Mary Shelley after breakfast, Monk smiles over how fitting is the connection to this morning's article on free will. "Frankenstein," after all, is a literary representation of the dehumanizing tendency of over-reductionist, self-annihilating science - the idea that you could just assemble and mesh together a collection of body parts and then zap them with electricity to endue them with vital warmth and life. Life is more than the sum of its parts.

Let it also be noted that philosoophers in that article, such as the materialist Daniel Dennett, also reconcile the special moral experience of the human with the hard reality of determinative causality. Some who are enthusiatically nihilistic can easily go too far with the idea that we are "nothing more than sophisticated meat machines." Even an atheist can marvel over the miraculousness of the emergence of life and human intelligence and feelings.

xXx

Causality and the Human

♠
Picking up Mary Shelley after breakfast, Monk smiles over how fitting is the connection to this morning's article on free will. "Frankenstein," after all, is a literary representation of the dehumanizing tendency of over-reductionist, self-annihilating science - the idea that you could just assemble and mesh together a collection of body parts and then zap them with electricity to endue them with vital warmth and life. Life is more than the sum of its parts.

Let it also be noted that philosoophers in that article, such as the materialist Daniel Dennett, also reconcile the special moral experience of the human with the hard reality of determinative causality. Some who are enthusiatically nihilistic can easily go too far with the idea that we are "nothing more than sophisticated meat machines." Even an atheist can marvel over the miraculousness of the emergence of life and human intelligence and feelings.

xXx

Diaries Online? Wow!

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Butler added: "Once I discovered, like, posting online, it definitely became, 'Why would I write it in a book?' "

-- Tara Bahrampour, "'Dear Diary' Becomes 'Dear World'" in The Washington Post

Here is a cute little article on online journaling. I would have thought this old hat by now, but I suppose it is still news to some. I am only disappointed that they still make it sounds like it is practically exclusively a kid's game. I like to think that the article is outdated in that respect as well.

xXx

Diaries Online? Wow!

♠
Butler added: "Once I discovered, like, posting online, it definitely became, 'Why would I write it in a book?' "

-- Tara Bahrampour, "'Dear Diary' Becomes 'Dear World'" in The Washington Post

Here is a cute little article on online journaling. I would have thought this old hat by now, but I suppose it is still news to some. I am only disappointed that they still make it sounds like it is practically exclusively a kid's game. I like to think that the article is outdated in that respect as well.

xXx