Dreaming doesn’t have an evolutionary purpose per se. It’s just an emergent property of the piecemeal way our brains have evolved, from the older and more automatic systems out to the newer, learning-enabled systems. I’ve seen it suggested by several different scientists that most animals go about their waking lives in a state similar to [...]
You don’t go to high school biology class to learn particular facts; you go to understand the general framework of evolutionary theory. Rather than contradicting any single fact, Intelligent Design undermines the entire intellectual basis of biology.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
We conventionally place a high value on originality in music. But it’s been my experience that the desire for originality gets in the way of making music that’s actually good. The closer you are to your influences, the more definite and truthful your work is. The key to quality music is to blend together an [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Evolution, Music, Music Business, Politics, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged academia, beach boys, beatles, biz markie, chuck berry, copyright, creative commons, Evolution, hall and oates, led zeppelin, marcus boon, memes, michael jackson, Sampling
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Thursday, November 18, 2010
See the photos We took our first trip off the Kona coast and went to check out the more rugged and rural north coast of the Big Island. A lot of the drive took us up the seemingly endless lava plain that makes up the northwest quarter of the island. It looks a lot like [...]
Life appeared very early in the planet’s history, earlier than you might have naively guessed. But then for billions of years, it existed only as simple single cells floating in the ocean or sitting in cracks in the rocks. Big complex creatures visible to the naked eye didn’t appear until the planet was two-thirds of [...]
Filed in Evolution
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Also tagged birds, emergence, Evolution, fish, mammals, meditation, microbes, reptiles, space, time, wikipedia
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Humans are animals. Our tools are extensions of our bodies into the environment, like beavers and beaver ponds, coral and coral reefs, plants and oxygen. We’re unusual in the extent of our bodies’ impact on our environment, but plenty of other organism shape their environment to suit their needs. Technology is part of our extended [...]
Filed in Evolution, Hardware, Technology
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Also tagged big bang, chemistry, e-waste, Evolution, green, memes, petroleum, Physics, richard dawkins
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Do computers think? Is the brain a computer? We use computers as metaphors for the brain and vice versa. Is the comparison apt? Brains and computers can imitate each other in limited ways. Deep down, how much similarity is there?