What makes humans human (?)

I know that this isn't a text, but it's so relevant to a few of the recent posts that I thought you might enjoy it as a listening exercise. In this short presentation, quantum physicist David Deutsch touches on global warming, the end of the world, or of human at least, the nature of human beings, physics, scientific theories and how we can reliably and not reliably know things - anything. And at 19 minutes, it isn't long.

Another thing I like about his presentation is the excellent absence of distracting and needless power point slides. Slides are OK if they serve a very definite purpose, but not otherwise. I think they tend to be over used.



And I like the way he begins with a couple of examples arguing that common knowledge, whilst often common, is rarely knowledge. I tend to agree with him that knowledge is something we should value a bit more than we do, which is why censorship, which necessarily makes knowledge of the censored topic impossible, is not a good thing except in those cases where ignorance is, for some very good reason, better than knowledge. And knowledge is something that tends to matter to academics, which is why it's no accident that definition 2.b. for the adjective academic in the OED refers specifically to academic freedom ("academic, a. and n.", 1989): censorship of academic discussion guarantees ignorance, and that is generally not what we want more of. And I can now relax because I've also cited a text source. My response has moved a fair bit from the topic of Deutsch's presentation, but that's not a problem in a response writing. And now it's time to retire.

If you would like to blog a relevant video, please feel welcome; however, a video does not count as your blogging a news article according to our schedule. But you can do it as something extra - I'm unlikely to complain about that, provided you explain its relevance to something here or that we have covered in our class. 

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References

academic, a. and n. (1989) The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. OED Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved September 26, 2011 from http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50001026
(Unfortunately, this requires a subscription to access, but you already have it from day 1 of class.)

Deutsch, D. (2006, September). David Deutsch on our place in the cosmos [live presentation, recorded July 2005]. TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. Retrieved September 25, 2011 from http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_on_our_place_in_the_cosmos.html