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MINI ALMANAC
Calendar
Moon phase
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 Bertrand
Russell
One of the most important logicians of the 20th Century, Bertrand
Russell published a large number of books on logic, the theory
of knowledge, and many other topics.
Russell made ground-breaking contributions to the foundations of
mathematics and to the development of contemporary formal logic,
as well as to analytic philosophy.
His book The Problems of Philosophy is one of the most popular works
in Russell's prolific collection of writings, has become core reading
in philosophy.
It is a guide to those problems of philosophy which often mistakenly
lead to its status as too lofty and abstruse for the lay mind. Focusing
on problems he believes will provoke positive and constructive discussion,
Russell concentrates on knowledge rather than metaphysics, steering
the reader through his famous 1910 distinction between "knowledge
by acquaintance and knowledge by description," and introducing important
theories of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Hume, Locke, Plato, and others
to lay the foundation for philosophical inquiry by general readers
and scholars alike.
The Problems of Philosophy
- Online
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 What
is intelligence
?
Intelligence is easy to recognize but hard to define. An operative
test described by Alan Turing in 1950 defines as intelligent
a computer that can be mistaken as human by another human,
during a conversation. But what about intelligence in non-linguistic
agents ?
Towards a pragmatic definition ....more
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Bioetics and the
cloning of Dolly
This century will be the century of genomics, the new branch
of biology that studies genomes. The power unleashed by such
studies is comparable to that created by physics studies in
the early XX century. A revolution is starting, but still
we do not know how to deal with the many ethical problems
created by it. Can we clone humans ? Can we improve them ?
Can we engineer our own evolution ? ...more
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 Bonobo:
The Forgotten
Ape
This remarkable primate with the curious name is challenging
established views on human evolution. The bonobo, least known
of the great apes, is a female-centered, egalitarian species
that has been dubbed the "make-love- not-war" primate by specialists.
In bonobo society, females form alliances to intimidate males,
sexual behavior (in virtually every partner combination) replaces
aggression and serves many social functions, and unrelated
groups mingle instead of fighting. The species's most striking
achievement is not tool use or warfare but sensitivity to
others.
..more
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