The Thinker | Philo-Sci-Edu-Hist-Tech Investigations

Nerd Notes: A fragment from the notes on “Trust, Authority, and Consent”

Variations like Selective Trust, Perfect Trust, and Damaged Trust are all problematic because they are all qualified versions of an absolute value. Trust determines confidence, and if trust is damaged or imperfect then it lacks confidence; it is a damaged value. To modify the absolute, Trust, is to dilute the term and its consequences. Often,

Trust, Authority, and Consent

Trust, Authority, and Consent: these are components I try to observe in each area of my interest. What mechanisms can improve the trust between learner and educator? Is the authority of a certain on-line news article verifiable? What is the function of consent in reconciling with a certain history? Unsure of the eventual argument, I’m

Objective: Sincerity

What happens to the confidence of empiricism if its motivations are directed not towards knowledge but to commerce? Shouldn’t the sciences be bound to the objective of a non-conditional pursuit of material? That is, the procedure of the scientific method should stalk, simply, the object of knowing, not knowing with certain conditions (knowing to do

Nerd Notes: How the (U.K.) Public Examines Neuroimaging

PLoS One published an article illustrating how experts and non-experts observe the practice of neuroimaging, especially as it is applied outside regulated realms like science and medicine. The authors of “‘Can It Read My Mind?’ What Do the Public and Experts Think of the Current (Mis)Uses of Neuroimaging?’” assembled to “determine the extent of [false

Nerd Notes: Neuromarketing, a Pernicious Practice

In preparation for my longer essay arguing for an ethical compass to supervise applied sciences, I re-read a Fast Company profile on NeuroFocus, a business which specializes in deploying “Neuromarketing” to determine the unconscious impact of certain brand images and advertising techniques on potential consumers. The article is from April 2011, and it was this

Nerd Notes: Science and Ethics Research Reading

I am researching for a new essay arguing that applied sciences, especially Neuroscience, need an ethics board, or, an equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath. More and more, it seems, neuroimaging is applied in ethically-ambiguous contexts, and philosophers and scientists alike should contribute to a series of edicts determining the ethical composition of the scientific method

The Absurd Freedom of Repetition

Everyday, we remove the sheets from our shoulders, pivot our legs to the right or left, adjust our knees so they are congruent with the edge of the bed, and we stamp our bare feet onto the carpeted, wood, or linoleum floor. Everyday. Our waking minutes are laden with redundant behaviors like making our beds,

Nerd Notes: “The Philosophical Absurd”

These notes and ideas come from Chapter II of Steven Hodges’s, The Digital Absurd. This section is incomplete, and more notes will follow from the chapter. In “The Philosophical Absurd,” we begin to see Hodges’s attempt to relate absurdism to certain technologies. He compares wanting to understand the code beneath the user interface as an

Nerd Notes: The Digital Absurd (Introduction)

I randomly retrieved a copy of Steven Hodges’s dissertation, The Digital Absurd. This was presented to the Georgia Tech School of Literature, Communication and Culture. As I am more interested in the absurdist philosophical tradition, and I am preoccupied with the impact of technology on human lifestyle and interaction, this dissertation was important to find.

Living Ghosts

History’s method is to understand certain fixed and inevitable experiences in the past–the advantage being that bones will not argue with you. But the past is running parallel to whatever present moment; and its ability to argue is certain. As a large, professional group, historians seem to begrudge psychoanalysis of any legitimacy in their discipline.

Themes