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“Neurophilosophy is the interdisciplinary study of neuroscience and philosophy. Work in this field is often separated into two distinct methods. The first method attempts to solve problems in philosophy of mind with empirical information from the neurosciences. The second method attempts to clarify neuroscientific results using the conceptual rigor and methods of philosophy of science.
Neurophilosophy explores the relevance of neuroscientific data to arguments in philosophy of mind. Prominent philosophers in this field are Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers. Neurophilosophy makes the claim that thought, knowledge, beliefs, and reasoning are functions of the brain and will eventually be explained in terms of neurons, synapses, and the details of human brain structure. This scientific approach contrasts strongly with idealism, and/or the appeal to the existence of a Platonic soul that thinks, feels and desires. Brain based materialist explanations such as the appreciation of color vision typify neurophilosophy, whereas other approaches may involve qualia or sense data being organized by an independent mind.” <wiki>
More on the definition and issues regarding the philosophy of neuroscience.
Interested in more online lectures on neuroscience in general?
Try out Nature’s neuroscience podcast, NeuroPod.
Also, check these out…
Pufendorf lectures: Patricia Churchland <download>
- What is Neurophilosophy?
- A Perspective on Self, Agency, and Free Will
- ‘Inference’ to the Best Decision
- Brain-based Values
“If science is neither cookery, nor angelic virtuosity, then what is it?
Modern societies have tended to take science for granted as a way of knowing, ordering and controlling the world. Everything was subject to science, but science itself largely escaped scrutiny. This situation has changed dramatically in recent years. Historians, sociologists, philosophers and sometimes scientists themselves have begun to ask fundamental questions about how the institution of science is structured and how it knows what it knows. David Cayley talks to some of the leading lights of this new field of study.” <CBC Radio>
Ideas: Weekdays at 9:05 p.m. (9:30 NT) on CBC Radio One (104.5 FM in Montreal)
Broadcast Schedule:
- Episode 1 – November 14 – Simon Schaffer
- Episode 2 – November 21 – Lorraine Daston
- Episode 3 – November 28 – Margaret Lock
- Episode 4 – December 5 – Ian Hacking and Andrew Pickering
- Episode 5 – December 12 – Ulrich Beck and Bruno Latour
Links to their episodes, once they have aired, can be found here.
I also strongly recommend the program Quirks & Quarks on the same station.
Matthieu Ricard: “Habits of happiness” <direct link – TED talks>
Dan Gilbert: “Why are we happy? Why aren’t we happy?“
Charles Leadbeater: The rise of the professional amateur <direct link – TED>
Additional Notes:
‘Software licensing costs set to fall’ – (ZDnet)
‘Sony slashes PS3 development kit cost’ – (Gamespot)
What is InnoTown? <home>
“InnoTown is a truly unusual business conference for people who want to open up to the new opportunities that lie beyond the traditionally tried and tested. The aim of InnoTown is to move people’s minds, both rationally and emotionally; to inspire and enhance creativity and innovation, to help motivate people to think new thoughts and dare to fail – to succeed.
The conference emphasises innovation,vision, inspiration, strategy, creativity, promotion and internationalisation. It creates good relations between people from different countries, trades, environments and professions. This results in stimulating new ideas and the developing, deepening and widening of existing knowledge and values”
InnoTown Promo 2007:
Michael Shermer: “Why people believe strange things.” (direct link – TED)
Additional Notes:
The perceptual cognitive biases that Shermer refers to are know collectively as “pareidolia“, from the Greek para- — beside, with or alongside — and eidolon — image (the diminutive of eidos — image, form, shape). And, as the very informative wiki entry points out, these phenomena are in turn part of a greater nature human tendency: apophenia*.
*Interestingly this is the name of a blog run by danah boyd, a communications researcher whose work I follow. Just thought I’d throw that in.
Also, Shermer briefly mentions the fact that our IQ (ie, the world’s) has been consistently on the rise- apparently we’re getting smarter. The latest issue of Scientific American MIND features an article which addresses this very hopeful trend.
I was initially confused when I came re-discovered this video that I had forgotten to post a long time ago. But after I watched it again (almost 4 years since the video was taped), I realized it might be more interesting to share it now given what’s happened since.
Interesting:
- A new ABI Research study, “Consumer Hybrid Vehicles,” finds that consumer hybrids’ market share in the United States will rise from just 1.25% in 2005 to at least 6% in 2013 (October, 2005).
- Conservative estimates forecast 1 million cars sold per year by the end of this decade, 2% of the 65 M global market
- <more…>
Technology’s Long Tail
Interview: The New Media
Sir Ken Robinson on “Do schools today kill creativity?”:
