Every so often, I’ll review my own long-range goals for developing a more complete worldview. The term ‘worldview’ as I use it is first an empirical understanding of this physical universe and then a more complete understanding in light of God’s purposes as best I can understand them given Christian teachings, my own readings of … [Read more…]
See Exploring The Mechanics Of Judgment, Beliefs: Technique Images Brain Activity When We Think Of Others for news on another major effort to understand the physical human being in ‘scientific’ terms. I don’t put scientific in apostrophes because of any intent of misguided irony but only because we should realize that ‘science’ is disciplined intellectual … [Read more…]
In Thomistic thought, the human mind begins to shape itself in response to the immediate environment of that human being. Various perceptual, mental, emotional, and social skills are built to work with that immediate environment. That human being may enter other environments to which he can respond, enriching his mind and even other components of … [Read more…]
“Larvae, the immature forms of many animals, are distinct from adult forms by definition. In many life histories–caterpillars and the trochophore larvae of clams and sea snails are examples–larvae and adults bear no resemblance to each other. Biologist Donald I. Williamson has proposed that larvae are juvenile forms acquired through hybridization–the fusing of two genomes, … [Read more…]
Over the past decade or more, neuroscientists have found strong evidence that we start to act before we’re consciously aware of our own actions. This is a problem to those who believe in free-will in the sense of a power of an autonomous agent. It isn’t much of a problem to one who accepts the … [Read more…]
In the December, 2007 edition of Brain in the News published by the Dana Foundation, there is a reprint of an article from Salon.com: I Feel Your Pain. It seems that specific brain-cells have been found which respond to distress on the part of a nearby creature. True pain is felt. What is empathy? It’s … [Read more…]
The reader might wish to read my earlier posting, A Christian’s view of Einstein’s and Bohr’s debate on the meaning of reality, for some background on this general issue. I follow the philosopher Kurt Hubner (see his book Critique of Scientific Reason) in claiming that Einstein’s position was that things have relationships with other things … [Read more…]
The wavefunction is the vehicle of our understanding of the quantum world. Judged by the robust standards of classical physics it may seem a rather wraith-like entity. But it is certainly the object of quantum mechanical discourse and, for all the peculiarity of its collapse, its subtle essence may be the form that reality has … [Read more…]
[How Brains Make Up Their Minds, Walter J. Freeman, Columbia University Press, 2000] Intentionality in the doctrine of Aquinas does not require consciousness, but it does require acting to create meaning instead of just thinking. This view is shared by the philosophers Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, J.J. Gibson, and the pragmatists. We sniff, move our … [Read more…]
I continue to write about the insights on human nature and the philosophical system explicated in the book: How Brains Make Up Their Minds, Walter J. Freeman, Columbia University Press, 2000. The examples of the athlete and dancer demonstrate what I consider to be the three main properties of intentionality. The first is unity. Our … [Read more…]