http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron text@machinemachine.net http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Athe-ists-Nar-row/126027/ With tongues in cheeks, Rich­ard Daw­kins, Chris­to­pher Hitch­ens, Sam Har­ris, and Dan­iel Dennett are embracing their reputation as the "Four Horsemen." Lampoon­ing the anx­i­eties of evan­geli­cals, these best-sell­ing athe­ists are em­brac­ing their "dan­gerous" sta­tus and dar­ing be­liev­ers to match their for­mi­da­ble philo­soph­i­cal acu­men.

Ac­cord­ing to these sol­diers of rea­son, the time for re­li­gion is over. It clings like a bad gene rep­li­cat­ing in the pop­u­la­tion, but its use­ful­ness is played out. Sam Har­ris's most re­cent book, The Moral Land­scape (Free Press, 2010), is the lat­est in the continuing bat­tle. As an ag­nos­tic, I find much of the… ]]> Mon, 24 Jan 2011 03:58:29 -0700 http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Athe-ists-Nar-row/126027/ http://themindi.blogspot.com/ Now available for free online:

The Mind's I: Fantasies and reflections on self and soul (ISBN 0-553-34584-2) is a 1981 book composed and arranged by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett. It is a collection of essays and creations about the nature of the mind and the self, tied together with commentary by the editors.

This book is an exploration of the human mind and soul, ranging from early philosophical and fictional musings on a subject that could seemingly only be examined in the realm of thought, to works from the 20th… ]]> Mon, 16 Aug 2010 03:30:00 -0700 http://themindi.blogspot.com/ http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/04/believe-it-or-not I think I am very close to concluding that this whole “New Atheism” movement is only a passing fad—not the cultural watershed its purveyors imagine it to be, but simply one of those occasional and inexplicable marketing vogues that inevitably go the way of pet rocks, disco, prime-time soaps, and The Bridges of Madison County. This is not because I necessarily think the current “marketplace of ideas” particularly good at sorting out wise arguments from foolish. But the latest trend in à la mode godlessness, it seems to me, has by now proved itself to be so intellectually and morally… ]]> Sun, 16 May 2010 16:19:00 -0700 http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/04/believe-it-or-not http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/oct/08/atheism-religion-class-science For some reasons it seems to be anathema to say that there might be an intrinsic reason for the correlation between educational level and the rejection of religion: atheism takes training, and is more difficult. We accept that in medicine, physics and mathematics, but, for reasons of political correctness, it is very much considered a faux pas to say the old 19th-century thing: it takes education to develop a worldview based on science. It would be even more outrageous to say that the reasons for choosing atheism over religion might actually be valid, as the so-called new atheists have dared… ]]> Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:14:00 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/oct/08/atheism-religion-class-science http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2009/05/24/how_storytelling_and_cooking_helped_humans_evolve/ A few years ago Tufts philosopher Daniel Dennett opined that the idea of natural selection - proposed 150 years ago in Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" - was "the best idea anybody ever had." The flood of books published this year to celebrate the sesquicentennial would seem to prove Dennett right. The "idea of natural selection" is that changes in any organism's makeup or behavior will persist or not according to whether they make it more or less likely for that organism and its descendants to survive. What kind of changes, and where do they come from? Any… ]]> Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:01:00 -0700 http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2009/05/24/how_storytelling_and_cooking_helped_humans_evolve/