Posted in Evolution, Extended, Philosophy, Science, Technology, ethics
June 26, 2009 at 10:34 am
I wish this study had been done 2 years earlier so I could’ve used it in my dissertation (shut up, Joshua):
Tools are ‘temporary body parts’
The brain represents tools as extensions to the body, according to researchers writing in Current Biology.
The research seems to confirm a century-old hypothesis that the brain models tools as parts of the body.
“There is a great debate in neuroscience about the representation of the body and representation of space,” said Lucilla Cardinali of the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) in France.
“There are a lot of papers about the effects of tool use, but they all focus on space – none investigated the effect on our own body,” she told BBC News.
H/T to a recently-graduated student. Link to BBC article.
Posted in Blurb, Evolution, Philosophy, Science, ethics
June 25, 2009 at 12:46 pm
“As the annual International Whaling Commission meeting stumbles to a close, unable to negotiate a compromise between whaling opponents and people who’ve killed more than 40,000 whales since 1985, scientists say these aquatic mammals are more than mere animals. They might even deserve to be considered people. Not human people, but as occupying a similar range on the spectrum as the great apes, for whom the idea of personhood has moved from preposterous to possible. Chimpanzees, gorillas and bonobos possess self-awareness, feelings and high-level cognitive powers. According to a steadily gathering body of research, so do whales and dolphins. In fact, their capacities could be even more ancient than our own, dating to an evolutionary explosion in brain size that took place millions of years before the last common ancestor of the great apes existed”…. Link to article at Wired Science
Posted in Academic Life, Extended, Philosophy
June 22, 2009 at 11:19 am
Who teaches from Rosenthal’s “The Nature of Mind” and who uses Chalmers’ “Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings” instead? Why do they have to be so similar without either one being complete? Textbook decisions are a royal pain.
Posted in Academic Life, Extended
June 17, 2009 at 11:35 am
Don’t get really sick during a global pandemic while you’re in Hong Kong. I basically hid in my hotel room for 4 days so that they wouldn’t quarantine me and the entire conference AND hotel. I had to skip 2 of my own talks at the second conference because I could barely get out of bed. I have no idea what I had, but it kicked my ass.
I’m home now, but I wouldn’t expect much blogging to occur, since I’m still at the bottom of a mountain of work. Slowly uploading photos from Beijing and Hong Kong to Flickr. I’m reachable in all the usual places.