Can you post a copy of the Pretentious Dick reading list? I haven't gotten to Kuhn yet. I keep bouncing off GED with a bloody nose and wondering if I should just go around.
Ha ha! You've called my bluff. I had a bit of a back-and-forth on X-twitter about this, and decided that the Pretentious Dick reading list is all the books you might carry around to try and look like an intellectual. Most of them are great books -- if you read them and absorb them, then you *are* an intellectual!
When I started my faculty job, I had a fellowship and was excited to realise I could buy books with it. Now was my chance to beef up my "intellectual" library. I bought Kuhn, Popper's "Logic of scientific discovery", and Goedel Escher Bach. So they must be on my list. (Did you mean GEB, or is GED something else?) Eventually I read Kuhn -- it's short, and once it warms up is fascinating, until he loses it at the end. The others I haven't read. The twitter discussion reminded me that I've also tried and failed to read Ulysses and Infinite Jest, so they must be on the list, too. Not bad for a start.
I can think of lots more to say about this. One day, when I have 10s of 1000s of admiring subscribers, I will write an excruciatingly self-indulgent piece about it.
Yes, I did mean Godel Escher Bach, and yep, Ulysses is right there too sitting next to Gravity's Rainbow. I look forward to that piece when you do write it. "2 truths and 4 dogmas of empiricism" comes to mind in conjunction with the nonfiction you've mentioned, but I don't know how that actually holds up. Thank you for the response!
I've never finished it, but the "horrible British candy drill" section might be the hardest I've ever laughed in my life while trying to read something. I was crying on the book.
Statements like "they measure lots of things, and write lots of papers about those things, under the illusion that these things are relevant to consciousness" might be true if consciousness is some type of magic that needs to be explained.
But claiming that progress in the neuroscience of consciousness is "non-existent" seems unjustified to me -- I don't believe in magic. But I did a PhD on the neuroscience of consciousness.
I don't think consciousness is magic, but as far as I can tell we are still a long way from an explanation of it, or even an agreed-on definition of what it is. That's the picture I got from Hoel's book, but maybe you would disagree? (Or maybe I should read one of the posts on your substack?)
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that you think consciousness is magic.
I've been thinking about this idea a lot lately. It seems that whether one thinks there has been progress or not in the study of consciousness depends on how one defines (or perhaps conceptualises) consciousness. The past 25 years have provided a lot of science on the mechanisms that are required for conscious experience -- e.g. selective attention, learning, prediction, etc. Some think that this is not enough, that if we explain all the mechanisms that are required for consciousness, there will still be something else that needs to be explained. But many (perhaps most) researchers don't agree.
Scientists used to think life was a singular, indivisible "vital force" that animated living beings, but modern biology has revealed that life is not a whole -- it is several molecular processes and systems. Similarly, consciousness may not be an indivisible whole -- it may be several integrated mechanisms.
This is a good point -- whatever vague conception of consciousness people have had for the last century is likely to be replaced by a whole set of other concepts, and in the end we have an entirely different picture. There's surely (I hope!) been lots of progress getting towards that new picture. But it doesn't sound like we have that new picture yet. Maybe we're close, or maybe we're still many decades away. When people ask that frustratingly unscientific-sounding question, "Where does my sense of my inner 'I' come from?", we can't yet say, "Ah, well, you see, what's actually going on is..."
Can you post a copy of the Pretentious Dick reading list? I haven't gotten to Kuhn yet. I keep bouncing off GED with a bloody nose and wondering if I should just go around.
Ha ha! You've called my bluff. I had a bit of a back-and-forth on X-twitter about this, and decided that the Pretentious Dick reading list is all the books you might carry around to try and look like an intellectual. Most of them are great books -- if you read them and absorb them, then you *are* an intellectual!
When I started my faculty job, I had a fellowship and was excited to realise I could buy books with it. Now was my chance to beef up my "intellectual" library. I bought Kuhn, Popper's "Logic of scientific discovery", and Goedel Escher Bach. So they must be on my list. (Did you mean GEB, or is GED something else?) Eventually I read Kuhn -- it's short, and once it warms up is fascinating, until he loses it at the end. The others I haven't read. The twitter discussion reminded me that I've also tried and failed to read Ulysses and Infinite Jest, so they must be on the list, too. Not bad for a start.
I can think of lots more to say about this. One day, when I have 10s of 1000s of admiring subscribers, I will write an excruciatingly self-indulgent piece about it.
Yes, I did mean Godel Escher Bach, and yep, Ulysses is right there too sitting next to Gravity's Rainbow. I look forward to that piece when you do write it. "2 truths and 4 dogmas of empiricism" comes to mind in conjunction with the nonfiction you've mentioned, but I don't know how that actually holds up. Thank you for the response!
Gravity’s Rainbow is a perfect addition to the list. (I’ve never tried it.)
I've never finished it, but the "horrible British candy drill" section might be the hardest I've ever laughed in my life while trying to read something. I was crying on the book.
EDIT: It's just called Two Dogmas of Empiricism by Quine. The two and four must be something else...
Interesting view.
Statements like "they measure lots of things, and write lots of papers about those things, under the illusion that these things are relevant to consciousness" might be true if consciousness is some type of magic that needs to be explained.
But claiming that progress in the neuroscience of consciousness is "non-existent" seems unjustified to me -- I don't believe in magic. But I did a PhD on the neuroscience of consciousness.
I don't think consciousness is magic, but as far as I can tell we are still a long way from an explanation of it, or even an agreed-on definition of what it is. That's the picture I got from Hoel's book, but maybe you would disagree? (Or maybe I should read one of the posts on your substack?)
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that you think consciousness is magic.
I've been thinking about this idea a lot lately. It seems that whether one thinks there has been progress or not in the study of consciousness depends on how one defines (or perhaps conceptualises) consciousness. The past 25 years have provided a lot of science on the mechanisms that are required for conscious experience -- e.g. selective attention, learning, prediction, etc. Some think that this is not enough, that if we explain all the mechanisms that are required for consciousness, there will still be something else that needs to be explained. But many (perhaps most) researchers don't agree.
Scientists used to think life was a singular, indivisible "vital force" that animated living beings, but modern biology has revealed that life is not a whole -- it is several molecular processes and systems. Similarly, consciousness may not be an indivisible whole -- it may be several integrated mechanisms.
This is a good point -- whatever vague conception of consciousness people have had for the last century is likely to be replaced by a whole set of other concepts, and in the end we have an entirely different picture. There's surely (I hope!) been lots of progress getting towards that new picture. But it doesn't sound like we have that new picture yet. Maybe we're close, or maybe we're still many decades away. When people ask that frustratingly unscientific-sounding question, "Where does my sense of my inner 'I' come from?", we can't yet say, "Ah, well, you see, what's actually going on is..."
Again wonderful journey, but thinking about Chapter 11 reference and it’s US reference.