Featuring Dylan Casey, Bill Burgess, Casey Fitzpatrick, Ernie Prabhakar, and Evan Gould. Recorded 12/20/13. You can read this 1972 paper here. Philip Warren Anderson argues that the sciences don't form a reductive whole -- that chemistry isn't applied physics and psychology isn't applied biology -- taking early aim at the conceits of the uber-reductionist elementary particle Continue Reading …
Not School Digest Jan 2013: A Bonus Quasisode
Excerpts of discussions about Deleuze & Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, an article on emergence called "More Is Different" by Nobel Prize Winning physicist P.W. Anderson, John Searle's Mind: A Brief Introduction, and Italo Calvino's trippy science fantasy novel Cosmicomics. How does the world fit together, with its different layers of organization, each with its different Continue Reading …
A Discussion of PW Anderson’s “More is Different”
Earlier this month I had the pleasure of discussing P.W. Anderson's famous 1972 article More is Different as part of a PEL Not School study group on emergence with Not Schoolers Bill Burgess, Casey Fitzpatrick, Ernie Prabhakar, and Evan Gould. Anderson argues that the sciences don't form a reductive whole -- that chemistry isn't applied physics and psychology isn't applied Continue Reading …
Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos
[Editor's Note: Here's a post by Getty from our Hume/Smith on ethics episode. Incidentally, Getty will be leading a Not School Reading group on Harry Frankfurt's The Reasons of Love. Go join.] Thomas Nagel, professor of philosophy and law at NYU, is notorious for his heterodox philosophical positions (this was discussed a bit on PEL here). He is a scientific skeptic, Continue Reading …