New realities are imminent: how virtual reality reframes big questions in philosophy.
“(…) Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers considers how VR is reframing and shedding new light on some of philosophy’s most enduring questions about cognition, epistemology and the nature of reality.”
Or, as one of my much smarter colleagues put it (not a quote, just the gist of it): One needs to define the terms reality and simulation first. If the building blocks of our reality are atoms and molecules, of course all what we see or seem could be considered a simulation.
Are you out of your mind?
“(…) People who sincerely say that racial stereotypes are false often continue to behave as if they are true when not paying attention to what they are doing. Such behaviour is usually said to manifest an implicit bias, which conflicts with the person’s explicit beliefs. But the ISA theory offers a simpler explanation. People think that the stereotypes are true but also that it is not acceptable to admit this and therefore say they are false. Moreover, they say this to themselves too, in inner speech, and mistakenly interpret themselves as believing it. They are hypocrites but not conscious hypocrites. Maybe we all are.”
One Month on the World’s Longest Train Ride for $1,000.
“In the late 19th century, some guy thought it would be a good idea to build a train line from Europe across the whole of Asia. This guy was Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and this project became the Trans-Siberian Railway.”
“As the newly integrated world takes shape, access and openness are no longer aspects of a technical specification, they are a moral imperative.”
PasteJacking (via github.com).
“Copy the text below and run it in your terminal for totally not evil things to happen.”
This is bad.
A Lot of Weird Stuff Has Been Happening in the Oceans.
Now You Can Talk to Amazon’s Alexa AI in Your Browser at Echosim.io, an Amazon Echo simulator that you can use in the browser (via futurism.com).
Membership has only two requirements: a love of facial hair and a creative mind.
Celebrating the Lady Beard: The Whiskerinas.
From the “women who code” dept.
Jane Fawcett, British Decoder Who Helped Doom the Bismarck, Dies at 95.
Piefke’s corollary: “The longer you stumble through TEH intarwebs, the more likely you become an online troll.”