Paulo FurtadoPaulo Furtado

Thought Experiment: Build a Supercomputer Replica of the Human Brain

PauloFurtado — Sun, 19 May 2013 22:23:26 +0000

Neuroscientist Henry Markram says he can build a supercomputer replica of the human brain. Now he has $1.3 billion to prove it.

See on www.wired.com

Kurt Vonnegut: Letters, review – Telegraph

PauloFurtado — Sun, 19 May 2013 22:16:03 +0000

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Kurt Vonnegut, whose novels touched a nerve in the Sixties and beyond, called himself a space traveller and believed we were all adrift in our own lives, says Keith Miller.

See on www.telegraph.co.uk

Homage to Orwell

PauloFurtado — Sun, 19 May 2013 22:14:23 +0000

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Paulo Furtado‘s insight:

"Revisiting George Orwell’s classic account of the Spanish Civil War, 75 years on. by Mick Hume"

See on www.spiked-online.com

Words at Play

PauloFurtado — Sun, 19 May 2013 22:04:00 +0000

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“Did you hear about the Oulipian stripper? She delivered a lipogram before vanishing, with an invisible wink. If this joke means nothing to you, then you are—like myself and 99.9 percent of other humans—not a member of the exclusive club of verbal wrestlers, jugglers, and tightrope-walkers who call themselves the OuLiPo, theOuvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or Workshop for Potential Literature.”

See on www.weeklystandard.com

Enlightened monsters | TLS

PauloFurtado — Sun, 19 May 2013 22:02:10 +0000

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Paulo Furtado‘s insight:

"The child may be father to the man, but how did a girl become mother to the monster? We continue to ask that of Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818) before she turned twenty."

See on www.the-tls.co.uk

Paul Bloom: The Case Against Empathy

PauloFurtado — Sun, 19 May 2013 22:00:15 +0000

See on Scoop.it – UtopianDynamics

Empathy research is thriving these days. Several new books enthusiastically champion an increase in empathy as a cure for humanity’s ills. This enthusiasm may be misplaced, however.

See on www.newyorker.com

What’s the point of political philosophy?

PauloFurtado — Sun, 19 May 2013 21:58:20 +0000

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Should we try to make political theory “relevant”?

See on www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

The rationalist way of death

PauloFurtado — Sun, 19 May 2013 21:48:15 +0000

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Given that it has historically been annexed by religion, how should the non-believer mark death? Jonathan Rée dons his weeds and joins the procession. Illustration Jessica Chandler

See on rationalist.org.uk

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos Reboot Confirmed by Fox for 2014

PauloFurtado — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:26:01 +0000

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Fox has confirmed the long-discussed reboot of Carl Sagan’s landmark documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage starring none other than famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. …

See on www.webpronews.com

Steven Poole – On algorithms

PauloFurtado — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:36:40 +0000

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Computers could take some tough choices out of our hands, if we let them. Is there still a place for human judgement?

See on www.aeonmagazine.com