In The New Yorker
We can't know what we don't know; we can just have a good idea of some matters that have got to be cleared up in a way that will add to what we do know. For the earlier millennia of human history, what was known and knowable was set in stone, and philosophers busied themselves with interpreting it. Ever since the Renaissance, however, we have lived with a bang of increased knowledge that bangs louder and more frequently every year, so that now, for most of us, it is just a staticky hum. Most pessimists will tell you that we still haven't learned anything about the real human mysteries, but there's reason to believe that those have only recently begun to be studied in a meaningful way, through neuroscience. Pat and Paul Churchland are philosophers who have devoted their careers to scrutinizing neuroscientific concepts and applying them to life outside the laboratory. Larissa MacFarquhar profiles them in The New Yorker.
I need a drink. My dopamine levels
need lifting.
Read about the Churchlands at Portico.
Comments
you know, i think you should stop redirecting us to portico on longer posts. it makes it hard to comment on things that you start writing about on the blog and then finish up writing about over there. where is there, anyway? Daily blague feels comfortable to me, like a friend's den. Portico somehow feels like the room with the plastic cover on the sofa.
i thought that article was fascinating, and the description of the Churchlands' marriage made me cry (in a good way) because to have a marriage like that is so amazingly lucky, and I feel like Max and I do, and I can't wait to see how much closer and mind-meldy we grow in another thirty years.
Posted by: biscuit | February 9, 2007 07:16 PM