The double look on complex dimension
A very good article on ‘Consciousness Explained’ provides an opportunity to revisit Daniel Dennett’s theory, which was very popular when it was first published. It’s a 35-year-old work marred by numerous shortcomings that make it outdated. Here’s why: Our “illusions” about consciousness Dennett… denounces the idea that consciousness corresponds to a “central organ” in the … Read more
The Problem Physics has rendered matter transparent, to the point of becoming spectral. Atoms have become particles, themselves mere excitations of fields, and fields are nothing but information. The current trend in physics is to define reality in terms of pure information, as you can read on Vlatko Vedral’s very interesting blog. This trend was … Read more
Shriver is labeled an extremist by some critics for her barely dystopian novel about contemporary America, subjected in a decade to a mandatory and debilitating “mental parity.” No sign of superior intelligence is tolerated anymore. The leveling down overturns even the foundations of statistics, since no one with “above-average” abilities exists. Everyone is equal. But … Read more
As a teenager… …I learned about Darwinism like everyone else and accepted it without difficulty. My policy at the time was simple, and hasn’t changed much: if I don’t have a better theory to offer, I adopt the official one. I have to start with a consensual image of reality before even thinking about deconstructing … Read more
The Rainbow of Finance After forty years of listening to people about their economic and medical problems, one thing has become clear to me: our financial inequalities stem primarily from significant differences in how we manage our money. Humanity seems roughly divided into two halves: those who spend less than they earn, and those who … Read more
The idea for this article came to me through contact with another exuberant theorist, An M. Rodriguez, passionate about fundamental physics and great unsolved scientific enigmas in general. He sought my opinion on his self-published works, The Emergence of Self (how causal loops, imprinting, and internal piloting give rise to self-awareness) and The Physics of … Read more
A Two-Faced Future This book is Janus-faced. Its seductive face is the awareness of the climate problem, barely fictionalized and accessible to any reader. Its ugly face is the way to solve it, which is worthless. Why? Robinson is unaware of his initial assumptions and quickly sinks into inconsistencies. How can we predict the future … Read more
Abstract: The Dichotomy is an aporia that Zeno of Elea illustrated with the paradoxes of Achilles, the Arrow and the Stadium. Twenty-five centuries later, the dichotomy seems to be resolved, and in several different ways. This is precisely a problem. These solutions are contradictory to each other, keeping the paradox all its relevance. Zeno wanted … Read more
I have shown in my books the absence of a boundary between non-living and living for the upward look, that of processes. The notion of ‘life’ only makes sense for the downward look. But then this belvedere really does exist! And it needs a way to define itself. Pitfall: how can it define itself alone … Read more
Abstract: After the highly contested match of theories of consciousness that began in 2018, which is marking time, Stratium could reconciles and surpasses them, as a self-organizing theory that seeks to explain the phenomenon in addition to the function. Neurons are elementary feedback loops that process the regularities of sensory signals. They organize themselves into … Read more