David Linden

An new interview with neuroscientist David J. Linden provides some physiological context and grounding for reconsidering and thinking anew about what it means to be human.

From the Point of Inquiry introduction:

Click here for the complete Point of Inquiry introduction and links to the interview and the iTunes subscription page for P.O.I.

David Linden’s The Accidental Mind provides more evidence for the essential role and function of narrativity or, in Linden’s words, the “always-on narrative creation system in the left cortex” in cultural evolution — especially in relation to myth, religion, scientific methodology, and the arts in general.

Taking into account the physiological can only further our understanding of how myths, religions, scientific theories, and aesthetic values have changed and evolved in the past and what directions and forms they might take in the future.

Steven Pinker

from the TED.com introduction:

“Steven Pinker’s books have been like bombs tossed into the eternal nature-versus-nurture debate. Pinker asserts that not only are human minds predisposed to certain kinds of learning, such as language, but that from birth our minds — the patterns in which our brain cells fire — predispose us each to think and behave differently.

His deep studies of language have led him to insights into the way that humans form thoughts and engage our world. He argues that humans have evolved to share a faculty for language, the same way a spider evolved to spin a web. We aren’t born with “blank slates” to be shaped entirely by our parents and environment, he argues in books including The Language Instinct; How the Mind Works; and The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.”

Click here to go to TED.com for more about Steven Pinker.

David Linden’s The Accidental Mind provides more evidence for the essential role and function of narrativity or, in Linden’s words, the “always-on narrative creation system in the left cortex” in cultural evolution — especially in relation to myth, religion, scientific methodology, and the arts in general.

Taking into account the physiological can only further our understanding of how myths, religions, scientific theories, and aesthetic values have changed and evolved in the past and what directions and forms they might take in the future.

Don Quixote and The Narrative Self

Stefán Snaevarr asks, are our identities created by narratives?

Once upon a time a philosopher wrote an article called ‘Don Quixote and The Narrative Self’. He commenced by saying: In this essay, I will discuss the question of whether our selves are constituted by narratives, ie stories. Are we like Don Quixote, whose self was created by his reading of medieval romances: are we Homo quixotienses, the narrative self? Or are we rather like the protagonist of Sartre’s novel Nausea, Antonin Roquentin, whose life did not form any narrative unity? Are we in other words rather Homo roquentinenses?

Click here to read the full article at the Philosophy Now website.

Have you ever heard these radio dramas? Produced by Chicago’s Pacific Garden Mission, they first aired in the 1950’s and continue today. I used to listen to them on Chicago’s WMBI in the 50’s and 60’s. As the Ghostly Talk website puts it, they are “like Dragnet with a Bible at the end instead of a jail cell.” Visit the Unshackled website and give a listen. It is a window into the world of Evangelical Christianity and how it deals with problems more usually addressed today by secular psychotherapy.

If you like simple answers, you will appreciate the message of each episode. And for those of you who, like me, have moved on, you still might find the dramas entertaining, even if you can’t quite accept the message or solution to a given character’s dilemma. One further hook, the stories are true.