Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Thursday, 6 March 2014
Baby must-haves
Several pregnant couples have asked me to name my one must-have item once a baby arrives. And at first I said, ah you don't really have to have anything much, except some boobs and a couple of nappies.
But now I have a better answer. A dishwasher.
If you are expecting a baby, or thinking you might one day have kids, this is my heartfelt advice: Get a dishwasher.
But now I have a better answer. A dishwasher.
If you are expecting a baby, or thinking you might one day have kids, this is my heartfelt advice: Get a dishwasher.
Who remembers playing Myst?
Am I showing my age there?
Well I've decided that being a baby is just like playing Myst V: End of Ages, on a pc, in 2005. With my little brother.
When you start out the controls are really difficult, so you spend ages going in circles and stuff. Once you've got movement figured out you wander around in a pleasant, but basically inert background, until one time you accidentally bump into an object and it moves and this is hugely exciting, so you spend ages figuring out how you did it, and then moving it again and again.
Then you walk round the background again searching for more things you can move (I believe the philosophical term for these is 'affordances'. One day you accidentally hit upon a key combination that performs some action on an object, like picking it up and shitbag, that's a good day. So then you go back round and pick everything up.
It basically goes on like this, you discover new actions and try them out on all the things you can see, every now and again accidentally opening a door or finding a hidden portal.
I hope Orson doesn't just get bored and give up on about level three like I did.
Well I've decided that being a baby is just like playing Myst V: End of Ages, on a pc, in 2005. With my little brother.
When you start out the controls are really difficult, so you spend ages going in circles and stuff. Once you've got movement figured out you wander around in a pleasant, but basically inert background, until one time you accidentally bump into an object and it moves and this is hugely exciting, so you spend ages figuring out how you did it, and then moving it again and again.
Then you walk round the background again searching for more things you can move (I believe the philosophical term for these is 'affordances'. One day you accidentally hit upon a key combination that performs some action on an object, like picking it up and shitbag, that's a good day. So then you go back round and pick everything up.
It basically goes on like this, you discover new actions and try them out on all the things you can see, every now and again accidentally opening a door or finding a hidden portal.
I hope Orson doesn't just get bored and give up on about level three like I did.
Friday, 21 February 2014
And the LSE too!
Congratulations to Jonathan Birch, who is awesome and who will be fighting the good philosophical fight as assistant professor at LSE!
Macquarie is on the up
I'm delighted that Rachael Brown, one of the best young philosophers of biology around, has been appointed lecturer at Macquarie in Sydney.
Monday, 17 February 2014
On posh cowboys, and other subject-specific heros
Peter Godfrey-Smith writes in Theory and Reality that scientists love Karl Popper because they enjoy the image he paints of them as "hard-headed cowboys, out on the range, with a stradivarius tucked into their saddlebags."
I remember well when I was scraping pennies as a grad student by invigilating at undergraduate exams,
Thursday, 30 January 2014
Papers!
Thanks to the inevitable journal processing time, it *looks* like I've been most busy during this maternity leave, with two papers out recently : )
'Origins of Evolutionary Transitions' is my first ever paper in a science journal, which I'm happy about. You can now read it here.
'The Multiple Realizability of Biological Individuals' was a long time coming. I wrote it the summer of 2011 when I was working in Vienna, although the actual ideas were in place two years or more before that. Curiously, its ended up with an August 2013 publication date although I was still fiddling with proofs in November. Anyway, its all worth it in the end to see it find a home at JPhil : ) You can read it here.
'Origins of Evolutionary Transitions' is my first ever paper in a science journal, which I'm happy about. You can now read it here.
'The Multiple Realizability of Biological Individuals' was a long time coming. I wrote it the summer of 2011 when I was working in Vienna, although the actual ideas were in place two years or more before that. Curiously, its ended up with an August 2013 publication date although I was still fiddling with proofs in November. Anyway, its all worth it in the end to see it find a home at JPhil : ) You can read it here.
Wednesday, 29 January 2014
Sunday, 26 January 2014
Territorial demarcation and the meaning of science
Larry Moran of Sandwalk says that Massimo Pigliucci has nothing to tell him and is on a mere quest for respect when he argues here that the new atheists don't have enough time for philosophy. Moran asks "What "intellectual" or "experiential" way of acquiring knowledge does
Pigliucci think will add to the lack of evidence for gods and support of
atheism?"
Isn't this just rationalism versus empricism all over again? It sounds rather like Moran is trying to claim that empiricism is all we need. But many people have shown that no pure empiricist strategy is possible. Quine and Kuhn give the arguments viewed as most conclusive. Empirical evidence, observation, data, whatever you want to call it.....these can never inform us about normative questions such as 'what is rational?' We can only do science with the help of rationalist principles concerning what we OUGHT to believe, what extra-empirical properties a GOOD theory should have, what are good norms of reasoning when we choose which part of a theory to take some evidence as having confirmed, and so on. Science is in the business of hypothesizing counterfactuals - 'what would happen if i were to do this or that...' and to make sense of these, of what it means for something to follow necessarily......there is no way that empirical evidence can ever help us understand necessity, lawfulness.
Lots of philosophy does a bad job of explaining why non-philosophers should care about it, because they spend all their time talking only to other philosophers and developing lots of cliquey jargon. But 'there is no such thing as science without philosophy', as Daniel Dennett once said -' only science whose philosophical assumptions have not been spelled out'.
Isn't this just rationalism versus empricism all over again? It sounds rather like Moran is trying to claim that empiricism is all we need. But many people have shown that no pure empiricist strategy is possible. Quine and Kuhn give the arguments viewed as most conclusive. Empirical evidence, observation, data, whatever you want to call it.....these can never inform us about normative questions such as 'what is rational?' We can only do science with the help of rationalist principles concerning what we OUGHT to believe, what extra-empirical properties a GOOD theory should have, what are good norms of reasoning when we choose which part of a theory to take some evidence as having confirmed, and so on. Science is in the business of hypothesizing counterfactuals - 'what would happen if i were to do this or that...' and to make sense of these, of what it means for something to follow necessarily......there is no way that empirical evidence can ever help us understand necessity, lawfulness.
Lots of philosophy does a bad job of explaining why non-philosophers should care about it, because they spend all their time talking only to other philosophers and developing lots of cliquey jargon. But 'there is no such thing as science without philosophy', as Daniel Dennett once said -' only science whose philosophical assumptions have not been spelled out'.
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
Its hitting the fan time
Its not quite proper back to work time yet, but I'm lecturing from next tuesday. Do any of my smart clothes fit me? Can I string a sentence together? Has motherhood made me a more confident person?
Fortunately Orso has been helping me prepare......
......
Fortunately Orso has been helping me prepare......
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