Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεός ἦν ὁ λόγος (John 1:1) The standard translation of the incipit of St. John Evangelion is: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word… Read More ›
Episteme
On Genes and Memes
Fact: “Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 850 individuals, of whom at least 22% (without peace prize over 24%) were Jews, although Jews comprise less than 0.2% of the world’s population.” (from this Wikipedia page) Explanation (Norbert Wiener): “He… Read More ›
Wiener on learning & Gödel
This is a marvellous paper by former colleague of Norbert Wiener, N. Levinson. The bibliography of his papers is here. “It is no coincidence that my first childish essay into philosophy,written when I was in high school and not yet… Read More ›
A. Burgess: “Clockwork Condition”. A tale on Skinner and Free Will
The real polemic target of Anthony Burgess in The Clockwork Condition (The New Yorker) (here the Italian translation) was Skinner and behaviorism. It reminds me of some studies of José Delgado, the brilliant physiologist who implanted electrodes in animal brains to… Read More ›
Engineering initial conditions (some words of thanks)
The human civilization stumbled first upon metric geometry (the Greeks), then it invented projective geometry (Italian Renaissance) and finally conquered topology (the XIX century), as the study of continuous transformations. See the master himself, here. The human being, in his/her… Read More ›
Competence without knowledge: a new reading of a page of Solaris
The following is from chapter “The Old Mimoid”, in Solaris by Stanislaw Lem “But you don’t know what I was thinking about! Tell me something. Do you believe in God?” Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction: “What? Who still… Read More ›
One, two, three, four, many
“A squire was determined to shoot a crow which made its nest in the watch-tower of his estate. Repeatedly he had tried to surprise the crow, but in vain; at the approach of man the crow would leave its nest…. Read More ›
Golem xiv: the poverty of Antigone
The best explanation I know about transhumanism, and the poverty of Antigone’s appeal to the ‘unwritten laws of the gods’, is the novel Golem xiv by great Stanislaw Lem. The frame of reference is Princeton molecular biologist Lee Silver’s marvellous… Read More ›
The Grand Design – Roger Sperry
There is a precious little book, which contains some hidden gems. It was written by the late great Nobel prize-winner Rita Levi Montalcini. Its title (“Abbi il coraggio di sapere”) is a bold reminder to the justly famous pamphlet by… Read More ›
Zauberberg, 1929: on Infinity and Kants Einbildungskraft
“We reject the thesis of the categorical finiteness of man, both in the atheistic form of obdurate finiteness which is so alluringly represented today in Germany by the Freiburg philosopher Heidegger, and in the theistic, specifically Lutheran-Protestant form, where it… Read More ›
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