In the hopes of spreading some of the love for my posts, I’ve upped the recent post and popular post widget size in the sidebar of the blog.
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So, Chia’s blog post on reality got me to jell this post, which is kind of sort of an answer to Chia’s post.

If you ask me what authors had the largest influence on my philosophy, I’d have to answer with three: Carl Sagan (Cosmos, Contact), Robert Anton Wilson (Illuminati Trilogy, Shroedinger’s Cat), and Richard Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Illusions), . At which point, if you’ve read any two of them, you’d be inclined to ask the follow up questions of what am I smoking, and why aren’t I sharing? Carl Sagan and Robert Anton Wilson had a decades long feud, both calling the other out in their books. And both would have almost certainly looked down on the “fuzzy headed new ager” Richard Bach, had either noticed or cared. Reconciling any two of the three would seem, on the surface, to be impossible.

And yet, all three are, in a very real sense, true. The resolution comes when you realize that all three are talking about different realities, with different rules. And that the statements they are making are only true in one reality, and not necessarily true, probably even nonsensical, when applied to a different reality.

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Anyone who has seen “The Matrix” knows that determining what is “real” is a lot trickier than it seems at first:

“The Matrix” demonstrates that our intuitive identification of “real” is easily fooled. Even that conception of “real” where you get people together and see what you can all agree on — called “intersubjective varifiability” — is a faulty and limited definition of “real”. So what out there is “real”, and how do we know? Phrased differently: how do we know what we know? That question is the driving query behind the vast philosophical field of “epistemology”, but that question has some interesting, approachable, and practical insights.
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I’ve been kind of quiet recently, because (as those who follow my Twitter stream know) I’ve moved to Durham. And I’ve got to tell you, I’m loving it. Continue Reading »

Popularity: 2% [?]

Created by Groovy.MN, and really driven (and narrated) by Hamlet d’Arcy.

Hamlet wrote more about this presentation over on his blog.

Popularity: 1% [?]