“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Prévost, Roundtable, Catren: The Matter of Contradiction

Just click the links and the talks will download.

Bertrand Prévost's talk was absolutely fascinating. I've often wondered about sexual selection—I mean it's so very expensive from DNA's point of view. It's totally functionless, really: that's Darwin's point, in the admirably anti-racist Descent of Man. So Prévost was investigating the conditions of possibility for this functionless display. Loved it.

Catren's talk was about quantum theory, a realist interpretation thereof. It was very easy to follow so you should listen along to it.

The roundtable was good in its way—roundatbles often suck. It featured Prévost, Bryant, Srnicek and me.

Prévost

Roundtable

Catren

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