PHILOSOPHY AND THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGE OF MAN Wilfrid Sellars Published in Frontiers of Science and Philosophy, edited by Robert Colodny (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1962): 35-78. Reprinted in Science, Perception and Reality (1963). The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term. Knowing one's way around is, to use a current distinction, a form of 'knowing how' as contrasted with 'knowing that'. Now the subject-matter of this knowledge of truths which is presupposed by philosophical 'know-how', falls, in a sense, completely within the scope of the special disciplines. Now the special disciplines know their way around in their subject matters, and each learns to do so in the process of discovering truths about its own subject-matter. The multiplication of sciences and disciplines is a familiar feature of the intellectual scene.
Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes and Moths Ready to Spread Like Wildfire 21st December 2015 By Dr. Joseph Mercola Guest Writer for Wake Up World While countries around the globe are still assessing the risks – and experiencing the environmental backlash – of genetically engineered (GE) plants, biotech companies are moving on to their next targets – insects. The latest science project, courtesy of researchers from the University of California, is mosquitoes genetically engineered to stop the spread of malaria. ‘We Could Unleash Monsters’ The researchers injected Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes with a segment of DNA code that makes them resistant to the parasite that causes malaria. In a recent study, 99.5 percent of the GE mosquitoes’ offspring carried the malaria-blocking genes.[1] If the mutant mosquitoes are released into the wild, thereby mating with wild populations, their modified DNA would pass freely onto their offspring. But at what expense? “What’s scarier? Once ‘Gene Drive’ Technology Is Released, There’s No Going Back As reported by The Washington Post:
Transhumanist Declaration Humanity stands to be profoundly affected by science and technology in the future. We envision the possibility of broadening human potential by overcoming aging, cognitive shortcomings, involuntary suffering, and our confinement to planet Earth.We believe that humanity’s potential is still mostly unrealized. There are possible scenarios that lead to wonderful and exceedingly worthwhile enhanced human conditions.We recognize that humanity faces serious risks, especially from the misuse of new technologies. The Transhumanist Declaration was originally crafted in 1998 by an international group of authors: Doug Baily, Anders Sandberg, Gustavo Alves, Max More, Holger Wagner, Natasha Vita-More, Eugene Leitl, Bernie Staring, David Pearce, Bill Fantegrossi, den Otter, Ralf Fletcher, Kathryn Aegis, Tom Morrow, Alexander Chislenko, Lee Daniel Crocker, Darren Reynolds, Keith Elis, Thom Quinn, Mikhail Sverdlov, Arjen Kamphuis, Shane Spaulding, and Nick Bostrom.
Andy Clark General themes in Clark's work[edit] Clark’s work explores a number of disparate but interrelated themes. Many of these themes run against established wisdom in cognitive processing and representation. According to traditional computational accounts, the function of the mind is understood as the process of creating, storing and updating internal representations of the world, on the basis of which other processes and actions may take place. Representations are updated to correspond with an environment in accordance with the function, goal-state, or desire of the system in question at any given time. Thus, for example, learning a new route through a maze-like building would be mirrored in a change in the representation of that building. The Extended Mind[edit] Clark is perhaps most well known for his defence of the hypothesis of the extended mind. Clark concedes that, in practice, the criterion of "equal efficiency"[citation needed] required by the parity principle is seldom met.
College students sign petition to ban 'White Christmas,' citing racial insensitivity (NaturalNews) "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country." These are the words of President John F. Kennedy, spoken over 50 years ago, in his inaugural address to America. The importance of these words still rings true today, penetrating the dying soul of an entitlement-minded society that is suppressed by political correctness and suffocated by some tyrannical idea of equality. Millions of young people today have lost their way in mind and heart. College students marching for freebies, not freedom The exertion of the human spirit, the power of the human will and the ingenuity of the mind are being stifled, left behind, as millions of college students' march for handouts and freebies. Instead of asking what they can do for their country and their world, this new generation of dependents is too busy being offended and begging for things they think they are entitled to. How absurd! MRCTV.org PowerfulWords.info
H-: Wrestling with Transhumanism Transhumanism for me is like a relationship with an obsessive and very neurotic lover. Knowing it is deeply flawed, I have tried several times to break off my engagement, but each time it manages to creep in through the back door of my mind. In How We Became Posthuman,1 I identified an undergirding assumption that makes possible such predictions as Hans Moravec’s transhumanist fantasy that we will soon be able to upload our consciousness into computers and leave our bodies behind. I argued that this scenario depends on a decontextualized and disembodied construction of information. There are, of course, many versions of transhumanism, and they do not all depend on the assumption I critiqued. How can we extract the valuable questions transhumanism confronts without accepting all the implications of transhumanist claims? As a literary scholar, I consider the locus classicus for re-framing transhumanist questions to be science fiction and speculative fiction, jointly signified by SF.
William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States,[2] James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology".[3][4][5] Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is considered to be one of the greatest figures associated with the philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the founders of the functional psychology. He also developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism. James' work has influenced intellectuals such as Émile Durkheim, W. E. Early life[edit] William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He took up medical studies at The Harvard Medical School in 1864. Career[edit]
Steps toward Global Mind Control 1909. Five years after his release from a primitive "insane asylum," Clifford Beers, formed the U.S. National Committee for Mental Hygiene" and called for a network of mental hygiene societies throughout the world."1 1910. The Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor in New York was funded by the Carnegie Institute, and would receive funding from the Rockefeller Foundation three years later. "The Rockefeller Foundation also will fund Nazi Dr. Ernst Rudin's eugenics research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Brain Research Institute in Berlin. "The responsibility for charting the necessary changes in human behavior rests clearly on the sciences working in that field. 1946.
Is Google Making Us Stupid? - Nicholas Carr Illustration by Guy Billout "Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?” I can feel it, too. I think I know what’s going on. For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. I’m not the only one. Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. Anecdotes alone don’t prove much. It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. Also see: Where does it end?
Human enhancement and the future of work report 07 November 2012 The Human enhancement and the future of work project explored potential enhancements arising from advances in science and engineering that are likely to impact on the future of work. Key messages identified by participants at a workshop in March 2012 included: Enhancement technologies could change how people work. The report of the workshop is a record of the discussion that took place at the event, and does not necessarily reflect the policy of the academies.