And then, there’s Terence McKenna

November 13, 2018

Is synchronicity real? … More And then, there’s Terence McKenna

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Language and Thought: Are they the same?

October 17, 2018

Dr. Steven Pinker asked the question:”What sense, then, can we make of the suggestion that images, numbers, kinship relations, or logic can be represented in the brain without being couched by words?” (Language Instinct, p. 64) He credits Alan Turing as being the man responsible for making the idea of mental representation, which Pinker calls mentalese, scientifically … More Language and Thought: Are they the same?

Can We Think without Words?

October 15, 2018

Are language and thought one and the same? Can we only know reality through the medium of language? Donald Fagen, one of the geniuses behind Steely Dan, in his autobiography Elegant Hipsters, traces entire subcultures spawned by Count Korzybski’s General Semantics. The basic idea of the book is succinctly summarized by Steven Pinker in The Language Instinct: “General … More Can We Think without Words?

Steven Pinker: Friend or foe of the Enlightenment?

October 11, 2018

It pains me to write this. This morning my Google news feed included a  review of Enlightenment Now from the Jacobin magazine denouncing Steven Pinker as a “false friend of the Enlightenment”; and this, just when I thought I could sit back and watch the march of progress from the comfort of my own home.  Dr Frim, … More Steven Pinker: Friend or foe of the Enlightenment?