Momentary Language

Traces of a many-hunekered soul

George Johnson is an exemplary science writer -- clear-headed, inquisitive, vivid, enthusiastic, and wide-ranging in his interests. Who better, then, to review a new book by Douglas Hofstadter, who exemplifies all of those traits as well -- and in spades!

Seeing Red

The always eminently readable John Searle has an article, "Minding the Brain," in the latest NYRB -- a review of Nicholas Humphrey's "Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness."

Mind and Body Realization Conference

This weekend, from October 13-15, Lafayette College will be hosting a conference on realization in the philosophy of mind, single-handedly organized by my colleague, Julie Yoo. The line-up includes:

Louise Antony (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
Ronald Endicott (North Carolina State University)
Carl Gillett (Illinois Wesleyan University)
John Heil (Washington University in St. Louis)
Joseph Levine (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
Andrew Melnyk (University of Missouri, Columbia)
Tom Polger (University of Cincinnati)
John Post (Vanderbilt University)
Larry Shapiro (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Sydney Shoemaker (Cornell University)
Gene Witmer (University of Florida, Gainesville)
Julie Yoo (Lafayette College, Easton, PA)

As one can tell from the following description provided, this promises to be an outstanding conference:

This conference explores the concept of realization, arguably the most widely invoked concept used to specify the relationship between the mind and the body. While central to contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of mind, the concept of realization is largely unexplored. Its significance extends far beyond functionalism, the original home of the concept, and with the closely related concept of multiple realizability. It is intimately tied up with a number of problems in metaphysics, which include the possibility of mental causation, supervenience, reduction, the nature of dispositions, and puzzles about constitution.

Here's a link to the Mind and Body Realization Conference website.