Mind-Body problems

Hardly a new topic, but for me, an invigorating take on the topic arrives with a freely available e-book/web-book Mind-Body Problems by science journalist John Horgan, of Scientific American fame.

From what I’ve seen so far, I think I’ve stumbled into a Welcome rabbit hole… one that involves a science journalist who is far from stuck in materialism and has the authority of The Scientific American behind him

I wrote this to John this morning, after finishing the chapter titled The Cognitive Scientist: Strange Loops All the Way Down and

Hello John,

I’ve just finished reading chapter 2 of Mind Body Problems. I’d stumbled into Hofstadter a number of times. I read the chapter with easy captivation, as the sun rose over Sydney Harbour, near where I live.

There was an immediate appreciation of your writing style. I’m interested in how you reveal so much of yourself in this chapter.

The internet is such a weird critter sometimes. I’m considered some kind of ‘podcast monster’ or ‘content pig’ by people I know. In the Third Book of my life (where there are grandchildren and my own kids ‘round 30), I’ve allowed myself to spend large parts of life in the flow of Interesting Ideas, mostly related to the sciences, human development, reflections on inner dimensions of being and so forth. All of this occurs in the backdrop of a lifetime as an old school computer ‘programmer’ who might have been born to teach English Lit.

My morning blog post will refer to what I’ve learned about your own work. I’m embarrassed to admit, I did not know your name till today. I guess the world is an enormous place.

I wrote to you for a few reasons… It’s become important to me to say Thank You whenever it might apply. I’m playing with the idea of publishing some attempts at writing myself, purely a vocational exercise. I was encouraged by the story of publishing Mind Body Problems too. Thank you for leading more into Strange Loops and encouraging the writing I’d love to pursue.

Sensemaking

For the longest time, I’ve been a bit underwhelmed by conversations about Sensemaking. I’ve been more inclined to refer to David Byrne singing “Girlfriend is Better” with the emphatic line “Stop making Sense! Stop making Sense”

And yes, I think there’s a set of perspectives where sensemaking is not helpful. I’ve been

However, for the Daylight world we live in, a framework might appeal and/or be useful.

In this teaser (which should be a good one for Rebel Wisdom to attract customers ), David Snowden discusses the Cynefin Model - the link here should take you to 11:35, where Snowden spoke the line that made me sit up and take notice.

*Nobody who understands complexity will ever make an absolute statement…because in different contexts, different things work.”

I took the discussion on my daily walk today.

What’s on the radar today?

I’m looking at deploying a self-hosted instance of commentio, which looks like a good candidate for Comments and Commentators in an Un-Platforming context.

The commentio docs would indicate a shared instance in tracking resistance, great design, a flexible business model and a set of ethics that aligns with mine in a promising way.

More later today - or not!