Mar 16
Diana Kwon (Scientific American, March 2018, p 29): … recently, roboticist Angelo Cangelosi of the University of Plymouth in England and Linda B. Smith, a developmental psychologist at Indiana University Bloomington, have demonstrated how crucial the body is for procuring knowledge. “The shape of the [robot’s] body, and the kinds of things it can do, …
Feb 10
Marvel has just released a movie called Black Panther [This was written in 2018 of course], and this has got a lot of people, myself included, very excited because it introduces a whole new genre that invites us to imagine far futures for cultures and races that, at present, appear only as tokens of ‘diversity’ …
May 20
“If we do what it seems we must, in my opinion, it will be in direct violation of the non-interference directive.” — Mr. Spock (on Kirk’s plan to destroy Vaal) My wife just pointed out (Jan. 2024) that the Extremophile Choice message sounds a lot like Star Trek’s “prime directive”, and that this futurist ideal …
May 20
This is from the Extremophile Niche Design page: Given the consistent range of human nature persisting throughout history, it seems unlikely that promoting a wide-spread love of Nature as a prerequisite for saving the Natural world will be enough to get the job done. The good news is that this might not be necessary, for …
May 14
Jennifer Jacquet: Survivor guilt may also exist at a species level. That humans have helped bring on other species’ end times is not an easy feeling to deal with. Small farms on the tattered edges of second- or third-growth forest, where the whippoorwill’s vesper song can still be heard occasionally, are merging into horizon to …
Apr 11
This is the frontispiece from my new book (pdf and epub versions for sale on the Extremophile Publishing page; Kindle version available on Amazon), Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice: If, in understandable frustration over the effort involved, you were to ask me why I think it’s important to learn about something as intuitive as …
