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Sex Differences: Nature Or Nurture? Talking
about gender is much more optimistic than talking about sex. It's the
rags to
riches idea — you can become anything. But I've been very interested to go
back to the original notion of sex, as a biological characteristic, and to ask
if there are there any essential differences between males and females in the
mind. And to understand that if there are psychological differences, what are
the biological mechanisms that give rise to these? Are they genes, are they
hormones? Simon Baron-Cohen - 30 min
Intelligent Design? Intelligent
Design's core scientific principles have been thoroughly dismissed on the
grounds that Darwin's theories can account for complexity, that ID relies on
misunderstandings of evolution and flimsy probability calculations, and that it
proposes no testable explanations. Evan Ratliff - 18 min
Perfection Through Biotechnology
Perfection
has come in for a lot of bad press recently. A torrent of books and articles
has recently appeared, all raising serious ethical questions about the wisdom
and morality of trying to use biomedical knowledge to perfect ourselves or our
offspring. Arthur Caplan and Carl Elliott - 10 min
Near Death Experiences Explained
As I got nearer to the end of the tunnel I seemed
to be surrounded by a wonderful warm glowing light.” GM Woerlee - 12
min
Evolutionary Psychology What
began in the early twentieth century as an assertion that human nature is driven
by “unconscious forces” and “vestigial impulses” has now been
transcended by the deeper pessimism of evolutionary psychology. William Hurlbut - 40 min
Consciousness Success
for our human ancestors must have depended on being able to get inside the minds
of those they lived with, second-guess them, anticipate where they were
going, help them if they needed it, challenge them, or manipulate them. To do
this they had to develop brains that would deliver a story about what it's like
to be another person from the inside. Nicholas Humphrey - 16 min
+ Responses by
various experts - 60 min
Inflation Of The Universe Inflation is
regarded as the most important development in cosmological thinking since the discovery that
the Universe is expanding first suggested that it began in a Big
Bang. John Gribbin - 30 min - not an easy read.
The Purpose Of Dreams Some
scientists take the position that dreaming probably has no function. They
feel that sleep, and within it REM sleep, have biological functions (though
these are not totally established) and that dreaming is simply an epiphenomenon
that is the mental activity that occurs during REM sleep. I do not believe
this is the most fruitful approach to the study of dreaming. Ernest
Hartmann
Bioelectronics
It
is disturbing, but perhaps at least acceptable, for people to face the fact that
they have a large degree of kinship with other forms of life on the planet,
and that their genes might be interchangeable with all of its myriad species. However,
bioelectronics research suggests a kinship between humans and computers that is
perhaps even more troubling.
Steve Mizrach - 11 min
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Epicurus
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
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Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?
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Online Videos Of Philosophical
Lectures - a
really great collection!
Mathemagics
Arthur Benjamin races a
team of calculators to figure out 3-digit squares in his head, performs a
massive mental calculation, and guesses a few birth days. 16 min
New Perspectives On Old Problems Noted scientist Stephen Wolfram shares his perspective of how the unexpected results of simple computer experiments have forced him to consider a whole new way of looking at processes in our
universe. - 90 min - fascinating
Learn
Out Loud Various
Science Podcasts - from many different sources
The
Sci Phi Show - Excellent website with
numerous *.mp3 files
On
Consciousness Four
lectures hosted by the Skeptics Society - 2hr 40min - lecturers Michael
Sherman, Roger Bingham, Christof Koch, Alison Gopnik
The
Expanding Universe - YouTube
Lecture given to Berkeley students - by Professor Richard Muller - in four parts - 40
min (total)
New
Brain Theory Required To date, there hasn't been an overarching theory of how the human brain really works, Jeff Hawkins argues in this compelling talk. That's because we still haven't defined intelligence accurately. But one thing's for sure, he says: The brain isn't like a powerful computer processor. It's more like a memory system that records everything we experience and helps us predict, intelligently, what will happen
next. Jeff Hawkins - 20 min
An
Atheist's Call To Arms The session was titled "The Design of Life," and the TED audience was probably expecting remarks about evolution's role in our history from biologist Richard Dawkins. Instead, he launched into a full-on appeal for atheists to make public their beliefs and to aggressively fight the incursion of religion into politics and
education. Richard Dawkins - 30 min
The Decline Of Violence Violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species' time on
earth. Stephen Pinker - 8 min
The Third Culture Science is the most accurate way of gaining knowledge about anything, whether it is the human spirit, the role of great men and women in history, or the structure of DNA. Humanities scholars and historians who spurn it condemn themselves to second-rate status and produce unreliable
results. John Brockman - 4min
A Sample Of Modern Neuroscience I list here four major accomplishments in neuroscience in the past year that have inspired
me. Eric Kandel - 8 min
Why Are Jews So Brainy? From 1870 to 1950, Jewish representation in literature was four times the number one would expect. In music, five times. In the visual arts, five times. In biology, eight times. In chemistry, six times. In physics, nine times. In mathematics, twelve times. In philosophy, fourteen
times. Charles Murray - 10 min
"We'd Be Better Off Without Religion" Speaking for the
motion at a debate held in Westminster on March 27; Professor Richard Dawkins, Professor
A.C. Grayling and Christopher Hitchens. Speaking against: Rabbi Julia Neuberger, Professor Roger Scruton and Nigel Spivey. The debate was chaired by Joan Bakewell
- two .mp3 podcasts - 30 min each
Exposing Intelligent Design Propaganda "Ken Miller basically rips Intelligent Design apart in a
long exposé of the claims of intelligent design and the tactics that creationists employ to get it shoehorned into the American school
system". 90 min video lecture followed by 30 min question session.
Doubts About String Theory? Doubts About Scientists? Ben
Green talks to Lee Smolin - audio .MP3 - 23 min - from Guardian
science podcasts
Microbiology We have more microbes in our bodies than we have human cells. We fear them as the cause of disease, yet are reliant on them for processes as diverse as water purification, pharmaceuticals, breadmaking and brewing. In the future, we may look to them to save the planet.
In Our Time - Melvyn Bragg - BBC Audio - 40 min
Karl Popper Karl Popper is one of the most significant philosophers of the 20th Century, whose ideas about science and politics robustly challenged the accepted ideas of the day. He strongly resisted the prevailing empiricist consensus that scientists' theories could be proved
true. In Our Time - Melvyn Bragg - BBC Audio - 40 min
Global Warming Hokum? These
people [the IPCC - the International Panel on Climate Change] are openly declaring that they are going to commit scientific misconduct
that will be paid for by the United Nations. If they find an error in the
summary, they won’t fix it. Instead, they will ‘adjust’ the technical
report so that it looks consistent. Melanie Phillips
George Bush's Stem Cell Fiasco When George Bush banned funding he effectively put researchers into quarantine.
Ed Pilkington
The Strangeness Of Science - Video
Lecture By Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins is Oxford University's "Professor for the Public Understanding of
Science" suggests that the true nature of the universe eludes us, because the human mind evolved only to understand the "middle-sized" world we can observe.
Knowledge Is Power - Video Lecture
By David Deutch Legendary physicist David Deutsch
weaves a complex and captivating argument placing the study of physics at the center of our species' survival. (Recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 19:45)
Strange Claims - Video Lecture By
Michael Shermer
Skeptic Magazine founder Michael Shermer takes us on a hilarious romp through the strange claims we humans put forth as truth - from alien encounters to Virgin Mary sightings on pizza
pies,
On Religion - Video Lecture By Dan Dennett
Dan Dennett
responds to the presentation by Pastor Rick Warren, taking issue with claims in his book, The Purpose-Driven Life. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 25:29)
Famous Scientist is 'Embarrassing' The celebrity physicist is an inspiration to many but his grand statements embarrass the institution of
science. Bryan Appleyard
The End of String Theory? It’s hard to land a job in a high-powered department of theoretical physics if you don’t do string theory.
David Lindley - 5 min
Hubble's Ten Best Pictures The
ten best pictures taken by Hubble in its 16 years in orbit.
Global Warming Hokum? The Stern report last week predicted dire economic and social effects of unchecked global warming. In what many will see as a highly controversial polemic, Christopher Monckton disputes the 'facts' of this impending apocalypse and accuses the UN and its scientists of distorting the truth.
6 min
The Goldilocks Enigma Professor Paul Davies' The Goldilocks Enigma tackles fundamental questions about the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it. Scientific breakthroughs, he argues, have brought us to the brink of comprehending the underlying structure of nature or "a final 'theory of
everything'".
Climate Change Deniers Demonised ‘The beauty of science is that no issue is ever “settled”, that no question is beyond being more fully understood, that no conclusion is immune to further experimentation. And yet for the first time in history, the Royal Society is shamelessly using the media to say emphatically: “case closed” on all issues related to climate change.’
Brendan O'Neill - 5 min
The God Delusion In The God Delusion, the scientist Richard Dawkins sets out to attack God "in all his
forms". - with 10-minute video of Jeremy Paxman interviewing Richard
Dawkins.

Evolution Is Losing? Evolution is losing the battle, says Ruse, and it's the fault of Dawkins and Dennett with their aggressive atheism: they are the creationists' best recruiting
sergeants. Madeleine Bunting
Future Science Science will continue to surprise us with what it discovers and creates; then it will astound us by devising new methods to surprises us. At the core of science's self-modification is technology. New tools enable new structures of knowledge and new ways of discovery. The achievement of science is to know new things; the evolution of science is to know them in new ways. What evolves is less the body of what we know and more the nature of our knowing.
Kevin Kelly - 9 min
Undermining Science The
collapse of the notion of scientific expertise, once highly regarded in the
West, is now contrasted to the cultural claims of different groups within
society, whose claims on knowledge are seen as more important than upholding
scientific truth as a vehicle for progress. David Perks
The Most Beautiful Experiments Robert P. Crease, a member of the philosophy department at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the historian at Brookhaven National Laboratory, recently asked physicists to nominate the most beautiful experiment of all
time.
Beware Design Accepting 'intelligent design' in science classrooms would have disastrous
consequences. Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne - 6 min
In Defence Of Common Sense Scientists'
contempt for common sense has two unfortunate implications. One is that
preposterousness, far from being a problem for a theory, is a measure of its
profundity; hence the appeal, perhaps, of dubious propositions like
multiple-personality disorders and multiple-universe theories. The other, even
more insidious implication is that only scientists are really qualified to judge
the work of other scientists. John Horgan - with comments from others - 9
min
Biocomputation Biologist
J. Craig Venter once raced the U.S. government to complete the decoding of the
human genome. Now, after a maverick career studying the code of life, Dr. Venter
has a new goal: life itself. J. Craig Venter, Ray Kurzweil, Rodney Brooks -
40 min
Along with two veteran collaborators, Dr. Venter hopes to become the first
to whip up a made-to-order bacterium. Normally, new life is created via
reproduction, with each generation passing its genes on to the next. But Dr.
Venter aims to bypass that process by manufacturing a complete set of genes, or
genome, of a single-cell bacterium in his laboratory. This man-made genome would
be installed inside a bacterium whose own genes have been removed.
By creating such a life form, Dr. Venter's researchers think they may come
closer to understanding what life is and how scientists can manipulate it for
the benefit of humankind. New artificial species could open avenues for
industrial production of drugs, chemicals or clean energy.
The Glory Of Exploration We
are not born with knowledge of the antipodes, the rings of Saturn, or the
far-flung realm of the galaxies. We are born into a world that is scarcely older
than ourselves and scarcely larger than ourselves. And we are at its center.
Chet Raymo
Good Reasons To Shrink The Size Of The Moon We
all love the large, pale moon that hangs in our nighttime sky. A half-sized blue
and green one will definitely take some getting used to, especially when its
dark side starts lighting up with cities. Still, the prospect of a new world—large
enough to house the entire United States, accessible enough to serve as the
airline hub for an entire solar system, and yet safe enough to survive a
technological collapse—may be too good to pass up. Wil McCarthy - 6 min
Psychic Hotlines Those
corporations were making millions and millions of dollars. They had more than
1,000 psychics working for them. The psychics were paid 15 cents for every
minute they were on the phone, while callers were being charged $3.95 a minute.
Dougall Fraser - 5 min
Are We Alone? Science has helped answer some of the fundamental questions of our existence. Yet, as Paul Davies reminds us, we are still a long way from solving perhaps the most intriguing mystery of all: Are we alone in the
universe? Marianna Krejci-Papa interviews Paul Davies - 7 min
Argument From Improbability Carl
Sagan said: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Dr. Craig
has made the extraordinary claim that certain empirical facts require
supernatural explanations. Vic Stenger
The Theology of the Tsunami Let's get up off our knees, stop cringing before bogeymen and virtual fathers, face reality, and help science to do something constructive about human
suffering. Richard Dawkins - 4 min
More Than Human In
my mind, most of the citizens of the western world are transhumanists. Every
woman who uses a birth control pill is altering her biology in fundamental ways
to get the result she wants. Every person wearing glasses or contact lenses,
everyone who puts a cell phone to their ear, everyone who pops a multi-vitamin,
or drinks a cup of coffee to wake up in the morning or stay awake on a long
drive — they're all transhumanists. We are, as a rule, interested in products
and technologies that expand our capabilities, that give us control over our
world and minds and bodies. Ramez Naam - 25 min
Who Could Have 'Designed' Life? The insistence of "intelligent design" advocates that they are "agnostic regarding the source of design" is a bait-and-switch. They dangle out the groundless possibility of a "designer" who is susceptible of scientific study--in order to hide their real agenda of promoting faith in the
supernatural. Keith Lockitch

Visiting Aliens? I
suspect there is hardly anyone who watches and studies the sky more than I do,
and while I have almost continuously observed the sky for most of my lifetime, I
have yet to see a single object for which there was not a prosaic explanation.
Alan Hale
String Theory I
find myself spending most of my time staring out the window. I see blocks of
equations dancing in my head, and I spend hours trying to fit them together.
These blocks are as familiar to me as the back of my hand, and I spend much of
my waking time turning them inside out in my head. Michio Kaku - 8 min
On Creationism There
is clearly no sensible limit to what the human mind is capable of believing,
against any amount of contrary evidence. Richard Dawkins - 5 min
The End Is Nigh What
are the greatest threats to humans and can we do anything about them? 10
scientists talk about their greatest fears and explain how society could be
affected. 7 min
Escaping Religion For
centuries, you believed what the church taught or you were shunned
(excommunicated? executed?). It was dangerous to challenge dogma. Now the large religions lose countless adherents because people just don’t buy the old party lines.
James Underdown - 5 min
Begging The Question Begging
the question – assuming what needs to be argued for – is often a result of a
careless use of language. Julian Baggini

13 Things That Do Not Make Sense - from
the Placebo Effect to Cold Fusion. - 14 min

Is String Theory Worthless? The
most celebrated theory in modern physics faces increasing attacks from skeptics
who fear it has lured a generation of researchers down an intellectual dead end.
Keay Davidson - 6 min

Are We Alone? Are
we alone? Given the immensity of the Cosmos, a mathematical impossibility. But
should first contact occur today we could be in for a shock. 7 min
Time Travel The
intriguing notion that time might run backwards when the Universe collapses has
run into difficulties. Raymond Laflamme has carried out a new calculation which suggests that the
Universe cannot start out uniform, go through a cycle of expansion and collapse,
and end up in a uniform state. John Gribbin - 30 min - not the
easiest of reads

Tabloid Science Some
scientific journals are abandoning scientific neutrality in favor of policy
stances and headline-grabbing scare stories, favoring style over substance.
Iain Murray - 4 min
Synaesthesia When
Ingrid Carey says she feels colors, she does not mean she sees red, or feels
blue, or is green with envy. She really does feel them.
Cut Out The Bio-Hype A
common and disturbing feature of the ubiquitous bioethical commentaries is the
short shrift—often, complete inattention—given to the feasibility of the
technologies under discussion. ... What is especially disturbing is that,
on occasion, even when the failure of the procedure or technology is known and
clearly documented, commentators have continued to talk on about ethical issues
as though the science will still, somehow, inexorably succeed. Ruth Levy
Guyer and Jonathan Moreno - 10 min
Cloning Embryos The
Luddites have been at it again. This month Ian Wilmut won a licence to clone
embryos for research into motor neurone disease (MND). No sooner had he done so,
the critics were out, denouncing his work as “Frankensteinian”.
Kenan Malik
Nature Vs Man Often
self-proclaimed "ecologists" assume that we can save Nature simply by
removing Man. The most extreme version of "Deep Green" thought
advocates exterminating our species with tailored viruses, in the belief that
Nature is immortal if undisturbed. The bowdlerized version insists that
Mankind is OK as long as we throw away our penicillin, vaccines, and computers,
living as illiterate peasants at the mercy of plague and famine. Bill Walker
- 4 min
Testing Darwin The
aliens of East Lansing are not made of carbon and water. They have no DNA.
Billions of them are quietly colonizing a cluster of 200computers in the
basement of the Plant and Soil Sciences building at Michigan State University.
Carl Zimmer - 12 min
Without Gravity Moss Grows In Spirals Moss
cultivated in space grew into surprising spiral patterns that scientists can't
explain. - a surprisingly interesting article.
What Is Life? No
matter what characteristic we specify to separate living from nonliving matter
on Earth, we can always find an example that blurs or erases this distinction. Some
or all living creatures grow, move, or decay, but so too do objects that we
would never call alive. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Intellectual Treason While
the Abrahamic religions are wary of epistemological relativism out of the fear
of relativising the Word of God revealed in the Bible or the Koran, Brahminical
Hinduism (and Hindu nationalism) thrives on a hierarchical relativism to evade
all challenges to its idealistic metaphysics and mystical ways of knowing.
Rather than accept the naturalistic and empirical theories of modern science as
contradicting the Vedantic philosophy – which they actually do — Hindu
nationalists simply declare modern science to be true only within its limited
materialistic assumptions. They do not reject modern science (who can?) but
‘merely’ treat it as one among the many different paths to the ultimate
truth, which is known only to the Vedic Hinduism. Meera Nanda - 14 min
- not a particularly easy read - concerning the rejection of 'masculine' western
science by Hindus in India.
Global Warming Hoax? The
environmental movement and its well-paid leadership has jumped on the GW
bandwagon because that's where the money is. Jude Wanniski
Beliefs In God I
have long believed that religion will be educated out of humankind eventually.
It may take many centuries, but it seems probable. Guy Harrison
An Autistic Future? Whether
one believes that incidences of autism are on the rise, or that it's the
detection of the condition that's on the increase, one undeniable fact is that
in a relatively short period of time an identifiable autistic community has
emerged. And as with any definable group, it has organized and is starting
to fight for what it believes is right. George Dvorsky - 7 min
Failing War Against Bacteria And Viruses? We
are, to put it bluntly, locked in permanent evolutionary war with the earth's
bacteria and viruses. Robin McKie - 7 min
The Brain's Own Marijuana Research
into natural chemicals that mimic marijuana's effects in the brain could help to
explain--and suggest treatments for--pain, anxiety, eating disorders, phobias
and other conditions Roger Nicoll and Bradley Alger - 10 min - not an
easy read, being somewhat technical
Intelligent Design 99
per cent of ID supporters are fundamentalist Christians who believe in the
literal truth of Genesis, Deep South-style. Terence Kealey
Altering Sensations And Moods Given
sophisticated neural and computer science, a brain jack could tap into the
sensory cortex and feed the brain all the data it currently receives through
sensory inputs. There is nothing in the analog arena that cannot be
converted into digitized or computational form for eventual processing in the
brain. George Dvorsky
Talking To Aliens A
society outfitted with an infrared laser of sufficient power could send the
equivalent of the Encyclopedia Britannica to a million solar system targets in a
day. Seth Shostak
Richard Dawkins Here
are two recent news stories: we’ve found the genes that make people believe in
God and that make women unfaithful. At a stroke, scientists have scuppered
religion and taken the moral sting out of infidelity. Richard
Dawkins groans. Brian Appleyard
Human Animal Hybrids Let's
say you need a new liver. Zanjani would take some of your bone marrow stem
cells, and inject them into a fetal sheep at the proper moment. A few weeks
later the lamb would be born with a liver made up chiefly of your cells. The
lamb would be sacrificed and your new liver installed. Once installed, your
immune system would eliminate the lamb's liver cells, leaving behind a brand new
organ perfectly matched to your body. Ronald Bailey
All About Music And The Brain Collectively,
studies of patients with brain injuries and imaging of healthy individuals have
unexpectedly uncovered no specialized brain "center" for music. Rather
music engages many areas distributed throughout the brain, including those that
are normally involved in other kinds of cognition. Norman Weinberger -
14 min
Musicians may display greater responses to sounds, in part because their
auditory cortex is more extensive. Peter Schneider and his co-workers at the
University of Heidelberg in Germany reported in 2002 that the volume of this
cortex in musicians was 130 percent larger. The percentages of volume increase
were linked to levels of musical training, suggesting that learning music
proportionally increases the number of neurons that process it.
Bio-Engineering Insects At least 300 million people contract malaria and nearly three million people die from it every year. Using interbreeding to replace wild populations of malaria-carrying mosquitoes with mosquitoes genetically modified to resist malaria would be a tremendous boon to
humanity. Ronald Bailey
Transhumanism Transhumanists
advocate increased funding for research to radically extend healthy lifespan and
favor the development of medical and technological means to improve memory,
concentration and other human capacities. Nick Bostrom - 4 min
Random Numbers Random
numbers are a precious commodity.
The Brain Seethes With Undiscovered Activity Roughly
80 percent of our cognitive power may be cranking away on tasks completely
unknown to us. 4 min
The Verifier Approach Gordon
Rugg cracked the 400-year-old mystery of the Voynich manuscript. Next up:
everything from Alzheimer's to the origins of the universe. Joseph
D'Agnese - 9 min
Changing The Names Of Organisms A
band of renegade biologists want to change the way scientists name every living organism on the planet.
Bob Holmes - 3 min
The Future? I wanted to
know about the quality of life in the future. I wanted to know about our
political life; the scope of our freedom. I wanted to know what it was going to
be like on a daily basis for my son and my grandson — I wanted to know if
perhaps my son would do better to have no children at all. John Shirley
- 15 min
Blade Runner In our future form, our very
components and essence will be the product not just of our parents, but also of
various scientists, engineers and corporations. George Dvorsky - 5 min
Building New Organisms Building living
organisms from scratch is a tricky business. 3 min
The 'Soul' Either
the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence
that it does. Michael Sherner - 3 min
Virtual Humans At
some point, there will be a merging of AI and the faking of consciousness.
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The Expanding Universe The
cosmos has three possible fates: Big Crunch (eventual collapse), Big Chill
(expansion forever at a steady rate), or Big Crackup (expansion forever at an
accelerating rate). Jim Holt - 23 min
Chinese
Rooms The Chinese Room
argument is intended to show that while suitably programmed computers may appear
to converse in natural language, they are not capable of understanding language,
even in principle.
50 min
What Is Memory?
When we ask
ourselves what we had for breakfast or whom we sat next to at school, we are
tricking our brains into imagining what it would be like if we were just about
to see the same situation again. John McCrone - 12 min
Artificial Wombs
... a
world in which children are created in the laboratory, gestated in some
artificial womb-like environment, and brought “to term” without ever really
being “born.” Christine Rosen - 25 min
Evolution vs Intelligent Design Three
proponents of Intelligent Design present their views of design in the natural
world. Each view is immediately followed by a response from a proponent of
evolution. 24 min
Consciousness There
is no agreement about whether any living creatures have minds apart from
ourselves. Anthony Campbell - 13 min
Are
We Computer Simulations? We might be able to discover clues to the real state of
affairs, planted there by whoever is responsible for the simulation. Anthony
Campbell - 10 min
Technology Really Is Embodied Humanity All objects have extended dimensions, but we normally acknowledge only a fractional part of their true extent because of constraints inherent in our perceptual apparatus and the coercive effects of time. Rather than regarding discernible objects in the world as integral and discrete we must recognise that they, and their repercussions, extend indefinitely through space and
time. ... Yet despite this unity, there are many futurologists, science fiction writers and movie-makers still attached to the idea of technology as an alien predator, a potential impostor with which we are destined to come into
conflict. Robert Peperell - 30 min - not an easy read
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